Evidence to improve maternal and newborn health in Ethiopia, North East Nigeria and Uttar Pradesh, India

IDEAS aims to improve the health and survival of mothers and babies through generating evidence to inform policy and practice. IDEAS uses measurement, learning and evaluation to find out what works, why and how in maternal and newborn health. IDEAS is funded between 2010 and 2015 by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. One research question is"Do enhanced interactions lead to increased coverage of interventions?

Can the UNAIDS 90-90-90 target be achieved? A systematic analysis of national HIV treatment cascades

Background In 2014, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) and partners set the ‘90-90-90 targets’; aiming to diagnose 90% of all HIV positive people, provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 90% of those diagnosed and achieve viral suppression for 90% of those treated, by 2020. This results in 81% of all HIV positive people on treatment and 73% of all HIV positive people achieving viral suppression. We aimed to analyse how effective national HIV treatment programmes are at meeting these targets, using HIV care continuums or cascades. Methods We searched for HIV treatment cascades for 196 countries in published papers, conference presentations, UNAIDS databases and national reports. Cascades were constructed using reliable, generalisable, recent data from national, cross-sectional and longitudinal study cohorts. Data were collected for four stages; total HIV positive people, diagnosed, on treatment and virally suppressed. The cascades were categorised as complete (four stages) or partial (3 stages), and analysed for ‘break points’ defined as a drop >10% in coverage between consecutive 90-90-90 targets. Results 69 country cascades were analysed (32 complete, 37 partial). Diagnosis (target one—90%) ranged from 87% (the Netherlands) to 11% (Yemen). Treatment coverage (target two—81% on ART) ranged from 71% (Switzerland) to 3% (Afghanistan). Viral suppression (target three—73% virally suppressed) was between 68% (Switzerland) and 7% (China). Conclusions No country analysed met the 90-90-90 targets. Diagnosis was the greatest break point globally, but the most frequent key break point for individual countries was providing ART to those diagnosed. Large disparities were identified between countries. Without commitment to standardised reporting methodologies, international comparisons are complex

Accuracy assessment of global and local atrophy measurement techniques with realistic simulated longitudinal data

The main goal of this work was to assess the accuracy of several well-known methods which provide global (BSI and SIENA) or local (Jacobian integration) estimates of longitudinal atrophy in brain structures using Magnetic Resonance images. For that purpose, we have generated realistic simulated images which mimic the patterns of change obtained from a cohort of 19 real controls and 27 probable Alzheimer's disease patients. SIENA and BSI results correlate very well with gold standard data (BSI mean absolute error < 0.29%; SIENA < 0.44%). Jacobian integration was guided by both fluid and FFD-based registration techniques and resulting deformation fields and associated Jacobians were compared, region by region, with gold standard ones. The FFD registration technique provided more satisfactory results than the fluid one. Mean absolute error differences between volume changes given by the FFD-based technique and the gold standard were: sulcal CSF < 2.49%; lateral ventricles < 2.25%; brain < 0.36%; hippocampi < 1.42%

Cladding strategies for building-integrated photovoltaics

Photovoltaic cladding on the surfaces of commercial buildings has the potential for considerable reductions in carbon emissions due to embedded renewable power generation displacing conventional power utilization. In this paper, a model is described for the optimization of photovoltaic cladding densities on commercial building surfaces. The model uses a modified form of the ‘fill factor’ method for photovoltaic power supply coupled to new regression-based procedures for power demand estimation. An optimization is included based on a defined ‘mean index of satisfaction’ for matched power supply and demand (i.e., zero power exportation to the grid). The mean index of satisfaction directly translates to the reduction in carbon emission that might be expected over conventional power use. On clear days throughout the year, reductions of conventional power use of at least 60% can be achieved with an optimum cladding pattern targeted to lighting and small power load demands

Topological Interactions in Warped Extra Dimensions

Topological interactions will be generated in theories with compact extra dimensions where fermionic chiral zero modes have different localizations. This is the case in many warped extra dimension models where the right-handed top quark is typically localized away from the left-handed one. Using deconstruction techniques, we study the topological interactions in these models. These interactions appear as trilinear and quadrilinear gauge boson couplings in low energy effective theories with three or more sites, as well as in the continuum limit. We derive the form of these interactions for various cases, including examples of Abelian, non-Abelian and product gauge groups of phenomenological interest. The topological interactions provide a window into the more fundamental aspects of these theories and could result in unique signatures at the Large Hadron Collider, some of which we explore.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables; modifications in the KK parity discussion, final version at JHE

Intervention vigilance in conservation: lessons from the medical profession

A key responsibility of conservators is to understand the efficacy and 'safety' of the materials and methods used in conservation interventions. Material science and testing, whether in situ or on mock-ups, can support the conservator but cannot capture the remarkable diversity of real-world situations. As such, unforeseen positive and negative short-and long-term outcomes are inevitable. This paper draws upon the experience of vigilance reporting systems used in the field of medicine and proposes a system of vigilance for conservation materials and methods. Such a systematic process harnesses the observations and experiences of conservators to expand collective understanding of conservation interventions in an efficient and timely manner. Furthermore, the professional, organisational, and cultural prerequisites for successful vigilance reporting structures are discussed

Room temperature plasmon laser by total internal reflection

Plasmon lasers create and sustain intense and coherent optical fields below light's diffraction limit with the unique ability to drastically enhance light-matter interactions bringing fundamentally new capabilities to bio-sensing, data storage, photolithography and optical communications. However, these important applications require room temperature operation, which remains a major hurdle. Here, we report a room temperature semiconductor plasmon laser with both strong cavity feedback and optical confinement to 1/20th of the wavelength. The strong feedback arises from total internal reflection of surface plasmons, while the confinement enhances the spontaneous emission rate by up to 20 times.Comment: 8 Page, 2 Figure

The moral muteness of managers: an Anglo-American phenomenon? German and British managers and their moral reasoning about environmental sustainability in business

Several studies in the Anglo-American context have indicated that managers present themselves as morally neutral employees who act only in the best interest of the company by employing objective skills. The reluctance of managers to use moral arguments in business is further accentuated in the now common argument presented as a neutral fact that the company must always prioritise shareholder value. These and other commercial aims are seen as an objective reality in business, whilst questions about sustainability, environmental problems or fair trade are seen as emotional or moral ones; a phenomenon described as ‘moral muteness’. This research explores whether this ‘moral muteness’ is an Anglo-American phenomenon and/or whether managers in other countries - in this case Germany - might express themselves in a different way. The focus is on moral arguments around environmental sustainability and the implications of this study for cross-cultural management. This article is based on a qualitative, comparative cross-cultural study of British and German managers in the Food Retail and Energy Sectors. In line with the studies mentioned above, British managers placed a strong emphasis on their moral neutrality. In contrast, German managers tended to use moral arguments when discussing corporate greening, often giving such arguments more weight than financial arguments. Overall, the study suggests that the ‘moral muteness’ of managers is a British phenomenon and quite distinct from the German approach. The article ends in a short exploration of how this understanding can help managers better manage people, organisations and change across cultures

Rate pressure product

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73724/1/j.1365-2044.1980.tb05005.x.pd

Using interpretative phenomenological analysis to inform physiotherapy practice: An introduction with reference to the lived experience of cerebellar ataxia

The attached file is a pre-published version of the full and final paper which can be found at the link below.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Qualitative research methods that focus on the lived experience of people with health conditions are relatively underutilised in physiotherapy research. This article aims to introduce interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a research methodology oriented toward exploring and understanding the experience of a particular phenomenon (e.g., living with spinal cord injury or chronic pain, or being the carer of someone with a particular health condition). Researchers using IPA try to find out how people make sense of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them. The findings from IPA research are highly nuanced and offer a fine grained understanding that can be used to contextualise existing quantitative research, to inform understanding of novel or underresearched topics or, in their own right, to provoke a reappraisal of what is considered known about a specified phenomenon. We advocate IPA as a useful and accessible approach to qualitative research that can be used in the clinical setting to inform physiotherapy practice and the development of services from the perspective of individuals with particular health conditions.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund