The Power of Primary Schools to Change and Sustain Handwashing with Soap among Children: The Cases of Vietnam and Peru

World Bank Water and Sanitation Program's Global Scaling up Handwashing Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is an effort to expand handwashing among women and children by using innovative promotional approaches. This working paper provides case studies of the project in Vietnam and Peru. Both used entertainment education and teacher capacity building, but as a result of differences in government and education contexts, as well as child-focused research that revealed important cultural differences, programs varied substantially among the two locations. In both cases, the primary school setting was found to be an effective site for improving handwashing

Creek College

Creek College is a project bridging art and environmental conservation. We offer a range of art classes and experiences in exchange for activities that aid in the restoration of watersheds suffering from environmental degradation.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/creek_college/1000/thumbnail.jp

Effects of stoichiometric doping in superconducting Bi-O-S compounds.

Newly discovered Bi-O-S compounds remain an enigma in attempts to understand their electronic properties. A recent study of Bi4O4S3 has shown it to be a mixture of two phases, Bi2OS2 and Bi3O2S3, the latter being superconducting (Phelan et al 2013 J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135 5372-4). Using density functional theory, we explore the electronic structure of both the phases and the effect of the introduction of extra BiS2 bilayers. Our results demonstrate that the S2 layers dope the bismuth-sulphur bands and this causes metallisation. The bands at the Fermi level are of clear two-dimensional character. One band manifold is confined to the two adjacent, square-lattice bismuth-sulphur planes, a second manifold is confined to the square lattice of sulphur dimers. We show that the introduction of extra BiS2 bilayers does not influence the electronic structure. Finally, we also show that spin-orbit coupling does not have any significant effect on the states close to the Fermi level at the energy scale considered

On the effect of cosmological inflow on turbulence and instability in galactic discs

We analyse the evolution of turbulence and gravitational instability of a galactic disc in a quasi-steady state governed by cosmological inflow. We focus on the possibility that the coupling between the in-streaming gas and the disc is maximal, e.g., via dense clumps, and ask whether the streams could be the driver of turbulence in an unstable disc with a Toomre parameter Q~1. Our fiducial model assumes an efficiency of ~0.5 per dynamical time for the decay of turbulence energy, and ~0.02 for each of the processes that deplete the disc gas, i.e., star formation, outflow, and inflow within the disc into a central bulge. In this case, the in-streaming drives a ratio of turbulent to rotation velocity sigma/V~0.2-0.3, which at z~2 induces an instability with Q~1, both as observed. However, in conflict with observations, this model predicts that sigma/V remains constant with time, independent of the cosmological accretion rate, because mass and turbulence have the same external source. Such strongly coupled cosmological inflow tends to stabilize the disc at low z, with Q ~ a few, which may be consistent with observations. The instability could instead be maintained for longer, with a properly declining sigma/V, if it is self-regulated to oscillations about Q~1 by a duty cycle for disc depletion. However, the 'off' phases of this duty cycle become long at low z, which may be hard to reconcile with observations. Alternatively, the coupling between the in-streaming gas and the disc may weaken in time, reflecting an evolving nature of the accretion. If, instead, that coupling is weak at all times, the likely energy source for self-regulated stirring up of the turbulence is the inflow within the disc down the potential gradient (studied in a companion paper).Comment: 14 pages, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Minor changes to match accepted versio

A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published article can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierPublic institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the businessmodel of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable

NaIrO3 - A pentavalent post-perovskite

Sodium iridium(V) oxide, NaIrO3, was synthesized by a high pressure solid state method and recovered to ambient conditions. It is found to be isostructural with CaIrO3, the much-studied structural analogue of the high-pressure post-perovskite phase of MgSiO3. Among the oxide post-perovskites, NaIrO3 is the first example with a pentavalent cation. The structure consists of layers of corner- and edge-sharing IrO6 octahedra separated by layers of NaO8 bicapped trigonal prisms. NaIrO3 shows no magnetic ordering and resistivity measurements show non-metallic behavior. The crystal structure, electrical and magnetic properties are discussed and compared to known post-perovskites and pentavalent perovskite metal oxides.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Journal of Solid State Chemistr

Are Dwarf Galaxies Dominated by Dark Matter?

Mass models for a sample of 18 late-type dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies show that in almost all cases the contribution of the stellar disks to the rotation curves can be scaled to explain most of the observed rotation curves out to two or three disk scale lengths. The concept of a maximum disk, therefore, appears to work as well for these late-type dwarf galaxies as it does for spiral galaxies. Some of the mass-to-light ratios required in our maximum disk fits are high, however, up to about 15 in the R-band, with the highest values occurring in galaxies with the lowest surface brightnesses. Equally well-fitting mass models can be obtained with much lower mass-to-light ratios. Regardless of the actual contribution of the stellar disk, the fact that the maximum disk can explain the inner parts of the observed rotation curves highlights the similarity in shapes of the rotation curve of the stellar disk and the observed rotation curve. This similarity implies that the distribution of the total mass density is closely coupled to that of the luminous mass density in the inner parts of late-type dwarf galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

The effects of nitroxyl (HNO) on soluble guanylate cyclase activity: interactions at ferrous heme and cysteine thiols

It has been previously proposed that nitric oxide (NO) is the only biologically relevant nitrogen oxide capable of activating the enzyme soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC). However, recent reports implicate HNO as another possible activator of sGC. Herein, we examine the affect of HNO donors on the activity of purified bovine lung sGC and find that, indeed, HNO is capable of activating this enzyme. Like NO, HNO activation appears to occur via interaction with the regulatory ferrous heme on sGC. Somewhat unexpectedly, HNO does not activate the ferric form of the enzyme. Finally, HNO-mediated cysteine thiol modification appears to also affect enzyme activity leading to inhibition. Thus, sGC activity can be regulated by HNO via interactions at both the regulatory heme and cysteine thiols

Lower leg compartment syndrome following prolonged orthopedic surgery in the lithotomy position -A case report-

Surgical procedures necessitating the prolonged use of the lithotomy position can be associated with neuromuscular dysfunction. Compartment syndrome of the lower leg is a grave complication which, if unrecognized, can lead to either permanent neuromuscular dysfunction or limb loss. We report a case of compartment syndrome of lower leg that occurred in male patient aged 20 years after 380 minutes arthroscopic surgery in the lithotomy position

Electronic and magnetic properties of superconducting LnLnO1−x_{1−x}Fx_xBiS2_2 (LnLn = La, Ce, Pr, and Nd) from first principles

A density functional theory study of the BiS2 superconductors containing rare-earths: LnO1-x F x BiS2 (Ln  =  La, Ce, Pr, and Nd) is presented. We find that CeO0.5F0.5BiS2 has competing ferromagnetic and weak antiferromagnetic tendencies, the first one corresponding to experimental results. We show that PrO0.5F0.5BiS2 has a strong tendency for magnetic order, which can be ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic depending on subtle differences in 4f orbital occupations. We demonstrate that NdO0.5F0.5BiS2 has a stable magnetic ground state with weak tendency to order. Finally, we show that the change of rare earth does not affect the Fermi surface, and predict that CeOBiS2 should display a pressure induced phase transition to a metallic, if not superconducting, phase under pressure.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from IOP Science via http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0953-8984/28/34/34550