Independent Evaluation of the Water and Sanitation Hibah Program Indonesia

This evaluation assess the effectiveness of Indonesia's Water and Sanitation Hibah Program pilot and identifies lessons for applying this mechanism more broadly. The program, which operates by paying an agreed amount for verified household water or sanitation service connections installed by local water and sanitation utilities, takes advantage of excess capacity of water companies to bypass the need for infrastructure investment. It was evaluated through a document review, key informant interviews, a key stakeholder workshop, field work, and a beneficiary survey, along with quantitative data from existing sources

Evaluation of the personal health budget pilot programme

1. The personal health budget initiative is a key aspect of personalisation across health care services in England. Its aim is to improve patient outcomes, by placing patients at the centre of decisions about their care. Giving people greater choice and control, with patients working alongside health service professionals to develop and execute a care plan, given a known budget, is intended to encourage more responsiveness of the health and care system. 2. The personal health budget programme was launched by the Department of Health in 2009 after the publication of the 2008 Next Stage Review. An independent evaluation was commissioned alongside the pilot programme with the aim of identifying whether personal health budgets ensured better health and care outcomes when compared to conventional service delivery and, if so, the best way for personal health budgets to be implemented

Wireless energy behaviour monitoring (Wi-be) for office buildings

This paper presents a study on reduction of energy consumption in buildings through behaviour change informed by wireless monitoring systems for energy, environmental conditions and people positions. A key part to the Wi-Be system is the ability to accurately attribute energy usage behaviour to individuals, so they can be targeted with specific feedback tailored to their preferences. The use of wireless technologies for indoor positioning was investigated to ascertain the difficulties in deployment and potential benefits. The research to date has demonstrated the effectiveness of highly disaggregated personal-level data for developing insights into people’s energy behaviour and identifying significant energy saving opportunities (up to 77% in specific areas). Behavioural research addressed social issues such as privacy, which could affect the deployment of the system. Radio-frequency research into less intrusive technologies indicates that received-signal-strength-indicator-based systems should be able to detect the presence of a human body, though further work would be needed in both social and engineering areas

Data-driven normalization strategies for high-throughput quantitative RT-PCR

Background: High-throughput real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is a widely used technique in experiments where expression patterns of genes are to be profiled. Current stage technology allows the acquisition of profiles for a moderate number of genes (50 to a few thousand), and this number continues to grow. The use of appropriate normalization algorithms for qPCR-based data is therefore a highly important aspect of the data preprocessing pipeline

What motivates the masses: understanding why people contribute to conservation citizen science projects

Participation in conservation citizen science projects is growing rapidly and approaches to project design are diversifying. There has been a recent shift towards projects characterised by contributors collecting data in isolation and submitting findings online, with little training or opportunities for direct social interaction with other citizen scientists. While research is emerging on developing citizen science projects by optimising technological modalities, little consideration has been given to understanding what motivates individuals to voluntarily contribute data. Here, we use the Volunteer Functions Inventory, combined with open-ended questions, to demonstrate that the two strongest motivations underpinning participation, for both individuals who contribute data systematically (regularly; n=177) and opportunistically (ad hoc basis; n=218), are ‘Values’ and ‘Understanding’. People take part in such projects because they have an intrinsic value for the environment and want to support research efforts (representing ‘Values’), as well as wanting to learn and gain knowledge (signifying ‘Understanding’). Unlike more traditional citizen science projects that involve specific training and considerable time investments, contributors to these newer types of project are not motivated by the potential to develop their career or opportunities for social interaction. The person36 level characteristics of contributors considered in this study did not reliably forecast levels of motivation, suggesting that predicting high levels of motivation is inherently more complex than is often speculated. We recommend avenues for future research that may further enhance our understanding of contributor motivations and the characteristics that may underpin levels of motivation

Critical residues involved in Toll-like receptor 4 activation by cationic lipid nanocarriers are not located at the lipopolysaccharide-binding interface.

DiC14-amidine is a cationic lipid that was originally designed as a lipid nanocarrier for nucleic acid transport, and turned out to be a Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) agonist as well. We found that while E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a TLR4 agonist in all species, diC14-amidine nanoliposomes are full agonists for human, mouse and cat receptors but weak horse agonists. Taking advantage of this unusual species specificity, we used chimeric constructs based on the human and horse sequences and identified two regions in the human TLR4 that modulate the agonist activity of diC14-amidine. Interestingly, these regions lie outside the known LPS-binding domain. Competition experiments also support our hypothesis that diC14-amidine interacts primarily with TLR4 hydrophobic crevices located at the edges of the TLR4/TLR4* dimerization interface. We have characterized potential binding modes using molecular docking analysis and suggest that diC14-amidine nanoliposomes activate TLR4 by facilitating its dimerization in a process that is myeloid differentiation 2 (MD-2)-dependent and cluster of differentiation 14 (CD14)-independent. Our data suggest that TLR4 may be activated through binding at different anchoring points, expanding the repertoire of TLR4 ligands to non-MD-2-binding lipids.C.L. is a IEF Marie Curie Action Research Fellow (TLR4-CAT PIEF-GA-2012-326481) and would like to thank the Wiener-Anspach Foundation for financial support. K.L.I. was supported by a HBLB Veterinary Research Training scholarship. This work was supported by program grant support from the Wellcome Trust and the MRC to N.J.G and C.E.B.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00018-015-1915-

Short message service (SMS) reminders improve treatment attendance in alcohol dependence, but are less effective for patients high in impulsivity

Background and aims: Poor attendance increases the likelihood of relapse in alcohol dependence treatment. Evidence for improved attendance rates following introduction of short message service (SMS) appointment reminders is available in other health care domains. Patients high in impulsivity, characterized by a lack of planning, may particularly benefit from reminders. The study investigated the impact of SMS reminders on outpatient treatment attendance for alcohol dependence, and whether effects were moderated by impulsivity. Design: Prospective natural history study, with historical case control. Alcohol-dependent outpatients attending treatment received SMS appointment reminders (n = 102). These were compared to a historical control group (n = 91) treated prior to the introduction of SMS (totalling 1149 scheduled sessions). Setting: A metropolitan university hospital alcohol and drug outpatient clinic. Participants: 193 alcohol-dependent patients participated in a 12-week cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) program with a treatment goal of abstinence. Measurements: Trait impulsivity, severity of dependence, psychological distress at baseline. Attendance at each scheduled session. Findings: SMS reminders significantly increased probability of session attendance (0.90 versus 0.84, p =.02). The effect was qualified by a significant SMS x Impulsivity interaction whereby reminders became less effective with increasing patient impulsivity (p =.003). Conclusions: SMS appointment reminders improve treatment attendance for alcohol-dependent outpatients. More impulsive patients benefited less from reminders, suggesting their non-attendance may be related more to motivational factors