Performance-based building and innovation: Balancing client and industry needs

One reason for the interest in performance-based building is that it is commonly advocated as a powerful way of enhancing innovation performance by articulating building performance outcomes, and by offering relevant procurement actors the discretion to innovate to meet these performance requirements more effectively and/or efficiently. The paper argues that the current approach to performance-based building assumes that relevant actors have the capacity, ability and motivation to innovate from a business perspective. It is proposed that the prevailing conceptualization of PBB is too restrictive and should be broadened explicitly to accommodate the required business logic that must be in place before actors will innovate. The relevant performance-based building and innovation literature is synthesized to support the assertion. The paper concludes with an innovation-focused definition of performance-based building

Hopefulness predicts resilience after hereditary colorectal cancer genetic testing: a prospective outcome trajectories study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background -</p> <p>Genetic testing for hereditary colorectal cancer (HCRC) had significant psychological consequences for test recipients. This prospective longitudinal study investigated the factors that predict psychological resilience in adults undergoing genetic testing for HCRC.</p> <p>Methods -</p> <p>A longitudinal study was carried out from April 2003 to August 2006 on Hong Kong Chinese HCRC family members who were recruited and offered genetic testing by the Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry to determine psychological outcomes after genetic testing. Self-completed questionnaires were administered immediately before (pre-disclosure baseline) and 2 weeks, 4 months and 1 year after result disclosure. Using validated psychological inventories, the cognitive style of hope was measured at baseline, and the psychological distress of depression and anxiety was measured at all time points.</p> <p>Results -</p> <p>Of the 76 participating subjects, 71 individuals (43 men and 28 women; mean age 38.9 ± 9.2 years) from nine FAP and 24 HNPCC families completed the study, including 39 mutated gene carriers. Four patterns of outcome trajectories were created using established norms for the specified outcome measures of depression and anxiety. These included chronic dysfunction (13% and 8.7%), recovery (0% and 4.3%), delayed dysfunction (13% and 15.9%) and resilience (76.8% and 66.7%). Two logistic regression analyses were conducted using hope at baseline to predict resilience, with depression and anxiety employed as outcome indicators. Because of the small number of participants, the chronic dysfunction and delayed dysfunction groups were combined into a non-resilient group for comparison with the resilient group in all subsequent analysis. Because of low frequencies, participants exhibiting a recovery trajectory (n = 3 for anxiety and n = 0 for depression) were excluded from further analysis. Both regression equations were significant. Baseline hope was a significant predictor of a resilience outcome trajectory for depression (<it>B </it>= -0.24, <it>p </it>< 0.01 for depression); and anxiety (<it>B </it>= -0.11, <it>p </it>= 0.05 for anxiety).</p> <p>Conclusions -</p> <p>The current findings suggest that hopefulness may predict resilience after HCRC genetic testing in Hong Kong Chinese. Interventions to increase the level of hope may be beneficial to the psychological adjustment of CRC genetic testing recipients.</p

Dentifrices, mouthwashes, and remineralization/caries arrestment strategies

While our knowledge of the dental caries process and its prevention has greatly advanced over the past fifty years, it is fair to state that the management of this disease at the level of the individual patient remains largely empirical. Recommendations for fluoride use by patients at different levels of caries risk are mainly based on the adage that more is better. There is a general understanding that the fluoride compound, concentration, frequency of use, duration of exposure, and method of delivery can influence fluoride efficacy. Two important factors are (1) the initial interaction of relatively high concentrations of fluoride with the tooth surface and plaque during application and (2) the retention of fluoride in oral fluids after application

Design of price incentives for adjunct policy goals in formula funding for hospitals and health services

Background. Hospital policy involves multiple objectives: efficiency of service delivery, pursuit of high quality care, promoting access. Funding policy based on hospital casemix has traditionally been considered to be only about promoting efficiency. Discussion. Formula-based funding policy can be (and has been) used to pursue a range of policy objectives, not only efficiency. These are termed 'adjunct' goals. Strategies to incorporate adjunct goals into funding design must, implicitly or explicitly, address key decision choices outlined in this paper. Summary. Policy must be clear and explicit about the behaviour to be rewarded; incentives must be designed so that all facilities with an opportunity to improve have an opportunity to benefit; the reward structure is stable and meaningful; and the funder monitors performance and gaming

A road map for designing and implementing a biological monitoring program

Designing and implementing natural resource monitoring is a challenging endeavor undertaken by many agencies, NGOs, and citizen groups worldwide. Yet many monitoring programs fail to deliver useful information for a variety of administrative (staffing, documentation, and funding) or technical (sampling design and data analysis) reasons. Programs risk failure if they lack a clear motivating problem or question, explicit objectives linked to this problem or question, and a comprehensive conceptual model of the system under study. Designers must consider what “success” looks like from a resource management perspective, how desired outcomes translate to appropriate attributes to monitor, and how they will be measured. All such efforts should be filtered through the question “Why is this important?” Failing to address these considerations will produce a program that fails to deliver the desired information. We addressed these issues through creation of a “road map” for designing and implementing a monitoring program, synthesizing multiple aspects of a monitoring program into a single, overarching framework. The road map emphasizes linkages among core decisions to ensure alignment of all components, from problem framing through technical details of data collection and analysis, to program administration. Following this framework will help avoid common pitfalls, keep projects on track and budgets realistic, and aid in program evaluations. The road map has proved useful for monitoring by individuals and teams, those planning new monitoring, and those reviewing existing monitoring and for staff with a wide range of technical and scientific skills

Self-Reported Wisdom and Happiness: An Empirical Investigation

Possible tensions between wisdom and happiness have been extensively debated in philosophy. Some regard wisdom as the 'supreme part of happiness', whereas other think that a more accurate and wiser view on reality might reduce happiness. Analyzing a Dutch internet survey of 7037 respondents, we discovered that wisdom and happiness were modestly positively related. Wisdom, measured with the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS), explained 9.2% of the variation in hedonic happiness. The correlation with the reflective dimension of wisdom was the strongest. In addition, wisdom was more important for happiness among adults with only an elementary education. Our results suggest that happiness and wisdom do not conflict

Responses of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to long-term inorganic and organic nutrient addition in a lowland tropical forest

Improved understanding of the nutritional ecology of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi is important in understanding how tropical forests maintain high productivity on low-fertility soils. Relatively little is known about how AM fungi will respond to changes in nutrient inputs in tropical forests, which hampers our ability to assess how forest productivity will be influenced by anthropogenic change. Here we assessed the influence of long-term inorganic and organic nutrient additions and nutrient depletion on AM fungi, using two adjacent experiments in a lowland tropical forest in Panama. We characterised AM fungal communities in soil and roots using 454-pyrosequencing, and quantified AM fungal abundance using microscopy and a lipid biomarker. Phosphorus and nitrogen addition reduced the abundance of AM fungi to a similar extent, but affected community composition in different ways. Nutrient depletion (removal of leaf litter) had a pronounced effect on AM fungal community composition, affecting nearly as many OTUs as phosphorus addition. The addition of nutrients in organic form (leaf litter) had little effect on any AM fungal parameter. Soil AM fungal communities responded more strongly to changes in nutrient availability than communities in roots. This suggests that the 'dual niches' of AM fungi in soil versus roots are structured to different degrees by abiotic environmental filters, and biotic filters imposed by the plant host. Our findings indicate that AM fungal communities are fine-tuned to nutrient regimes, and support future studies aiming to link AM fungal community dynamics with ecosystem function

CropPol: a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination

This is the final version. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record The original dataset (v1.1.0) of the CropPol database can be accessed from the ECOLOGY repository. Main upgrades of these datasets will be versioned and deposited in Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5546600)Data availability. V.C. Computer programs and data-processing algorithms: The algorithms used in deriving, processing, or transforming data can be accessed in the DataS1.zip file and the Zenodo repository (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5546600). V.D. Archiving: The data is archived for long-term storage and access in Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5546600)Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), Northern America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (40), 2011-15 (88), and 2016-20 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non-commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY-NC-SA). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.OBServ Projec