DRAFT Report:Community Systems Strengthening Toward a Research Agenda

Communities have a long history of acting to preserve and promote the health of their members. Public health researchers, programmers, and funders are increasingly recognizing that community involvement is essential to improving health, especially among populations that are disproportionately affected by HIV. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, together with civil society organizations and other development partners, created the Community Systems Strengthening (CSS) Framework to help Global Fund applicants frame, define, and quantify efforts to strengthen community contributions engagement (Global Fund 2011). Although the use of a CSS approach in health programming implementation shows promise, it lacks a theoretical framework to guide collaborations with communities. Additionally, it suffers from a paucity of program designs and evaluation practices, an incomplete evidence-based rationale for investing in CSS, and imprecise definitions (e.g., what is meant by “community” and “CSS”).The purpose of this paper is to highlight promising areas for future research related to CSS. Toward this objective, we propose to lay a foundation for a CSS research agenda by using theories and approaches relevant to CSS, reinforced with evidence from projects that employ similar approaches

Examination of the Relationship between In-Store Environmental Factors and Fruit and Vegetable Purchasing among Hispanics.

Retail food environments have received attention for their influence on dietary behaviors and for their nutrition intervention potential. To improve diet-related behaviors, such as fruit and vegetable (FV) purchasing, it is important to examine its relationship with in-store environmental characteristics. This study used baseline data from the "El Valor de Nuestra Salud" study to examine how in-store environmental characteristics, such as product availability, placement and promotion, were associated with FV purchasing among Hispanic customers in San Diego County. Mixed linear regression models indicated that greater availability of fresh FVs was associated with a $0.36 increase in FV purchasing (p = 0.01). Placement variables, specifically each additional square foot of display space dedicated to FVs (p = 0.01) and each additional fresh FV display (p = 0.01), were associated with a$0.02 increase and $0.29 decrease, respectively, in FV purchasing. Introducing FV promotions in the final model was not related to FV purchasing. Exploratory analyses indicated that men reported spending$3.69 fewer dollars on FVs compared to women, controlling for covariates (p = 0.02). These results can help inform interventions targeting in-store environmental characteristics to encourage FV purchasing among Hispanics

El servidor público y la limitación del principio de aplicación directa de los derechos fundamentales: Sentencia No. 344-16-SEP-CC, de la Corte Constitucional

Con la Constitución del Ecuador del 2008, el ejercicio de derechos se constituye en una condición-fin del estado ecuatoriano, poniendo en corriente una serie de normas que canalicen los derechos y garantías de los ciudadanos, pese a ello en el servicio público el funcionario observa y está conminado a dar fiel cumplimiento al marco normativo que rigen su relación laboral, así como el que rige sus actividades de prestación de servicios. En este sentido se propone una visión amplia de la limitación que el servidor público tendría ante la aplicación directa de los derechos constitucionales, dispuesta en el artículo 426 de la constitución, ante una actividad administrativa regida por otras normas que no promueven el ejercicio directo, oportuno y eficaz de derechos, tal como se evidencia en la sentencia de la Corte Constitucional 344-16-SEP-CC del 2016

A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Perceptions of Interprofessional Education in Medical Students

Background and Objectives: With the recent paradigm shift in medicine away from traditional hierarchies and patient-physician dyads, there is increased interest in training students to work interprofessionally. A primary focus for improving collaboration in health care is increasing exposure to formalized interprofessional education (IPE) across health professions during training. This study focuses on the effect of formal and informal curricula on medical student attitudes toward IPE. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of all undergraduate medical students was conducted using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS). Results: Throughout all years of medical school, students agreed with the importance of interprofessional education. Fourth-year medical students had higher total RIPLS scores (64.29 versus 61.0; p=0.007), as well as higher scores on multiple individual RIPLS questions than first-year students. Conclusions: Medical students become more enthusiastic about IPE as their training progresses. Both formal and informal educational opportunities contribute to this effect

Bayesian online learning for energy-aware resource orchestration in virtualized RANs

Proceedings of: IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, 10-13 May 2021, Vancouver, BC, Canada.Radio Access Network Virtualization (vRAN) will spearhead the quest towards supple radio stacks that adapt to heterogeneous infrastructure: from energy-constrained platforms deploying cells-on-wheels (e.g., drones) or battery-powered cells to green edge clouds. We perform an in-depth experimental analysis of the energy consumption of virtualized Base Stations (vBSs) and render two conclusions: (i) characterizing performance and power consumption is intricate as it depends on human behavior such as network load or user mobility; and (ii) there are many control policies and some of them have non-linear and monotonic relations with power and throughput. Driven by our experimental insights, we argue that machine learning holds the key for vBS control. We formulate two problems and two algorithms: (i) BP-vRAN, which uses Bayesian online learning to balance performance and energy consumption, and (ii) SBP-vRAN, which augments our Bayesian optimization approach with safe controls that maximize performance while respecting hard power constraints. We show that our approaches are data-efficient and have provably performance, which is paramount for carrier-grade vRANs. We demonstrate the convergence and flexibility of our approach and assess its performance using an experimental prototype.This work was supported by the European Commission through Grant No. 856709 (5Growth) and Grant No. 101017109 (DAEMON); and by SFI through Grant No. SFI 17/CDA/4760

Orchestrating energy-efficient vRANs: Bayesian learning and experimental results

Virtualized base stations (vBS) can be implemented in diverse commodity platforms and are expected to bring unprecedented operational flexibility and cost efficiency to the next generation of cellular networks. However, their widespread adoption is hampered by their complex configuration options that affect in a non-traditional fashion both their performance and their power consumption requirements. Following an in-depth experimental analysis in a bespoke testbed, we characterize the vBS power cost profile and reveal previously unknown couplings between their various control knobs. Motivated by these findings, we develop a Bayesian learning framework for the orchestration of vBSs and design two novel algorithms: (i) BP-vRAN, which employs online learning to balance the vBS performance and energy consumption, and (ii) SBP-vRAN, which augments our optimization approach with safe controls that maximize performance while respecting hard power constraints. We show that our approaches are data-efficient, i.e., converge an order of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art Deep Reinforcement Learning methods, and achieve optimal performance. We demonstrate the efficacy of these solutions in an experimental prototype using real traffic traces.This work has been supported by the European Commission through Grant No. 101017109 (DAEMON project), and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya

A Review of Eviction Protections in Dallas, Texas

The Institute for Urban Policy Research partnered with the Texas Tenants Union to better understand the impact of eviction remediation programs on the plight of tenants in the City of Dallas. In Dallas, roughly three of every five households rent their home; programs aimed at preventing eviction are pertinent to most of Dallas's population (U. S. Census Bureau, 2020). Financial impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic threatened many households in Dallas and the early days of the pandemic saw multiple policy and procedure interventions, including court closures and the CARES Act. Dallas City Council was among the first localities to act, pass an eviction ordinance to protect renters from losing their homes.In this study, we pursue a mixed-methods approach, embracing both qualitative and quantitative research tools. Working with Dallas County, whose Justice of the Peace courts are the courts of original jurisdictions for evictions in Texas, we secured case filing data for January through June of 2019 and 2020. This data was used to perform a series of regression analyses comparing the volume of evictions in Dallas and surrounding cities. Next, we randomly sampled cases filed in one Dallas County Justice of the Peace court, including portions of Dallas and surrounding communities. We conducted a systematic record review of the entire case file for each of the randomly sampled cases. Finally, we engaged a purposive sample of local government and non-profit leaders, as well as affected tenants, in a focus group setting to understand their experiences with eviction in Dallas.While the quantitative results do suggest some impact of these policy responses, the findings are not encouraging. First, the milieu of policies enacted offered no universal protection to any broad segment of renting households. Second, many of those protected by these policies did not know their status, and efforts to educate them were not universally deployed. Finally, even when protected tenants were aware of their protection, their attempts to assert their rights were met by a system often confused on how to respect them

Vacuolar and plasma membrane stripping and autophagic elimination of Toxoplasma gondii in primed effector macrophages

Apicomplexan protozoan pathogens avoid destruction and establish a replicative niche within host cells by forming a nonfusogenic parasitophorous vacuole (PV). Here we present evidence for lysosome-mediated degradation of Toxoplasma gondii after invasion of macrophages activated in vivo. Pathogen elimination was dependent on the interferon γ inducible-p47 GTPase, IGTP, required PI3K activity, and was preceded by PV membrane indentation, vesiculation, disruption, and, surprisingly, stripping of the parasite plasma membrane. Denuded parasites were enveloped in autophagosome-like vacuoles, which ultimately fused with lysosomes. These observations outline a series of mechanisms used by effector cells to redirect the fate of a classically nonfusogenic intracellular pathogen toward a path of immune elimination

A New Era of RNA Personalized Vaccines for Cancer and Cancer-Causing Infectious Diseases

RNA vaccines for cancer and cancer-causing infectious agents are recognized as new therapeutics and are perceived as potential alternatives to conventional vaccines. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, and infections (certain viruses, bacteria, and parasites) are linked to about 15–20% of cancers. Since the last decade, developments in genomics methodologies have provided a valuable tool to analyze the specific mutations, fusions, and translocations of the driver genes in specific cancer tissues. The landscape of the mutations identified by genome sequencing and data analysis can be a vital route to personalized medicine. This chapter will discuss the present state of mRNA vaccine development and ongoing clinical trials in oncology