University College London: Library DDA works PPG15 justification. Conservation strategy report.

Introduction: This report has been prepared for the Estates and Facilities Division of University College London (UCL). UCL needs to make alterations to the Wilkins building to improve access to the library (on its upper floors) by the end of the year in order to comply with the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). In December 2003 Alan Baxter & Associates produced draft Management Guidelines for UCL which identified what is significant about the UCL buildings and to help streamline the process of gaining future listed building consents. This report is based on these Management Guidelines but includes information from the recent opening-up works. The Wilkins Building is Grade I listed. The new access proposals involve removing a staircase, one of which was inserted by TL Donaldson in 1849-51, and installing a lift (along with a new staircase) to provide access for the mobility impaired to the library. This report has been written to accompany an application for listed building consent, and to demonstrate that the alterations are required by the DDA, and are justifiable in terms of the criteria set out in PPG15. Although the proposed works affect only one part of the building, it is important to see them in the wider context of the building. This document begins by outlining the history of the Wilkins building as a whole, from its construction in 1827-9, through various modifications (notably by Donaldson), its reconstruction and restoration by A E Richardson following war damage, to its present day form (Sections 2 and 3). Section 4 also looks at the building as a whole, defining what elements of it contribute most particularly to the ‘outstanding’ architectural and historic importance given by its Grade I listing. These wider sections allow the current proposals to be assessed both for their impact on and the access benefits that they will bring to the building as a whole. Section 5 therefore focuses on the proposals to provide Disability Access to the library, describing and justifying them according to the criteria of PPG15, showing how they achieve an acceptable balance between the legitimate access requirements of those with disabilities and the special architectural and historic importance of the building

Does Indonesia have a"low-pay"civil service?

Government officials and polcy analysts maintain that Indonesia's civil servants are poorly paid and have been for decades. This conclusion is supported by anecdotal evidence and casual empiricism. The authors systematically analyze the realtionship between government and private compensation levels using data from two large household surveys carried out by Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics: the 1998 Sakernas and 1999 Susenas. The results suggest that government workers with a high school education or less, representing three-quarters of the civil service, earn a pay premium over their private sector counterparts. Civil servants with more than a high school education earn less than they would in the private sector but, on average, the premium is far smaller than commonly is alleged and is in keeping with public/private differentials in other countries. These results prove robust to varying econometric specifications and cast doubt on low pay as an explanation for government corruption.Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,National Governance,Knowledge Economy,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,NationalGovernance,Knowledge Economy,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Parliamentary Government

Applications of transcranial direct current stimulation for understanding brain function

In recent years there has been an exponential rise in the number of studies employing transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a means of gaining a systems-level understanding of the cortical substrates underlying behaviour. These advances have allowed inferences to be made regarding the neural operations that shape perception, cognition, and action. Here we summarise how tDCS works, and show how research using this technique is expanding our understanding of the neural basis of cognitive and motor training. We also explain how oscillatory tDCS can elucidate the role of fluctuations in neural activity, in both frequency and phase, in perception, learning, and memory. Finally, we highlight some key methodological issues for tDCS and suggest how these can be addressed

Improved multitasking following prefrontal tDCS

We have a limited capacity for mapping sensory information onto motor responses. This processing bottleneck is thought to be a key factor in determining our ability to make two decisions simultaneously - i.e., to multitask ( Pashler, 1984, 1994; Welford, 1952). Previous functional imaging research ( Dux, Ivanoff, Asplund, & Marois, 2006; Dux etal., 2009) has localised this bottleneck to the posterior lateral prefrontal cortex (pLPFC) of the left hemisphere. Currently, however, it is unknown whether this region is causally involved in multitasking performance. We investigated the role of the left pLPFC in multitasking using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The behavioural paradigm included single- and dual-task trials, each requiring a speeded discrimination of visual stimuli alone, auditory stimuli alone, or both visual and auditory stimuli. Reaction times for single- and dual-task trials were compared before, immediately after, and 20min after anodal stimulation (excitatory), cathodal stimulation (inhibitory), or sham stimulation. The cost of responding to the two tasks (i.e., the reduction in performance for dual- vs single-task trials) was significantly reduced by cathodal stimulation, but not by anodal or sham stimulation. Overall, the results provide direct evidence that the left pLPFC is a key neural locus of the central bottleneck that limits an individual's ability to make two simple decisions simultaneously

Anthropogenic land subsidence in the Perth Basin: Challenges for its retrospective geodetic detection

Recent-past subsidence of parts of the Perth Basin has most probably been caused by increased groundwater extraction for domestic and agricultural use. However, no dedicated geodetic monitoring programs were established when the increased extraction began in around 2000, thus setting a challenge to retrospectively quantify and map the subsidence. Differential levelling is likely to be less effective as only a few repeat traverses cover the areas thought to be subsiding. Repeat gravimetry is totally ineffective because of microseismic vibrations propagating through the Perth Basin. Repeat episodic GPS (Global Positioning System) is also likely to be less effective because of the few station occupations over several days or weeks and the inherent weakness of GPS for height determination. However, from a continuously operating GPS receiver at Gnangara and nearby artesian monitoring boreholes, we show that the rate of land subsidence has slowed from about -6 mm/yr to about -2 mm/yr since the reduction of groundwater extraction from the Yarragadee Aquifer in around 2005. A promising technique is InSAR (interferometric synthetic aperture radar) because it can map large areas, but the lack of historical radar imagery over the period of increased subsidence is a hindrance

Disrupting prefrontal cortex prevents performance gains from sensory-motor training

Humans show large and reliable performance impairments when required to make more than one simple decision simultaneously. Such multitasking costs are thought to largely reflect capacity limits in response selection (Welford, 1952; Pashler, 1984, 1994), the information processing stage at which sensory input is mapped to a motor response. Neuroimaging has implicated the left posterior lateral prefrontal cortex (pLPFC) as a key neural substrate of response selection (Dux et al., 2006, 2009; Ivanoff et al., 2009). For example, activity in left pLPFC tracks improvements in response selection efficiency typically observed following training (Dux et al., 2009). To date, however, there has been no causal evidence that pLPFC contributes directly to sensory-motor training effects, or the operations through which training occurs. Moreover, the left hemisphere lateralization of this operation remains controversial (Jiang and Kanwisher, 2003; Sigman and Dehaene, 2008; Verbruggen et al., 2010). We used anodal (excitatory), cathodal (inhibitory), and sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to left and right pLPFC and measured participants' performance on high and low response selection load tasks after different amounts of training. Both anodal and cathodal stimulation of the left pLPFC disrupted training effects for the high load condition relative to sham. No disruption was found for the low load and right pLPFC stimulation conditions. The findings implicate the left pLPFC in both response selection and training effects. They also suggest that training improves response selection efficiency by fine-tuning activity in pLPFC relating to sensory-motor translations

Human resources for health at the district level in Indonesia: the smoke and mirrors of decentralization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2001 Indonesia embarked on a rapid decentralization of government finances and functions to district governments. One of the results is that government has less information about its most valuable resource, the people who provide the services. The objective of the work reported here is to determine the stock of human resources for health in 15 districts, their service status and primary place of work. It also assesses the effect of decentralization on management of human resources and the implications for the future.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We enumerated all health care providers (doctors, nurses and midwives), including information on their employment status and primary place of work, in each of 15 districts in Java. Data were collected by three teams, one for each province.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Provider density (number of doctors, nurses and midwives/1000 population) was low by international standards – 11 out of 15 districts had provider densities less than 1.0. Approximately half of all three professional groups were permanent public servants. Contractual employment was also important for both nurses and midwives. The private sector as the primary source of employment is most important for doctors (37% overall) and increasingly so for midwives (10%). For those employed in the public sector, two-thirds of doctors and nurses work in health centres, while most midwives are located at village-level health facilities.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In the health system established after Independence, the facilities established were staffed through a period of obligatory service for all new graduates in medicine, nursing and midwifery. The last elements of that staffing system ended in 2007 and the government has not been able to replace it. The private sector is expanding and, despite the fact that it will be of increasing importance in the coming decades, government information about providers in private practice is decreasing. Despite the promise of decentralization to increase sectoral "decision space" at the district level, the central government now has control over essentially all public sector health staff at the district level, marking a return to the situation of 20 years ago. At the same time, Indonesia has changed dramatically. The challenge now is to envision a new health system that takes account of these changes. Envisioning the new system is a crucial first step for development of a human resources policy which, in turn, will require more information about health care providers, public and private, and increased capacity for human resource planning.</p

A mediation approach to understanding socio-economic inequalities in maternal health-seeking behaviours in Egypt.

BACKGROUND: The levels and origins of socio-economic inequalities in health-seeking behaviours in Egypt are poorly understood. This paper assesses the levels of health-seeking behaviours related to maternal care (antenatal care [ANC] and facility delivery) and their accumulation during pregnancy and childbirth. Secondly, it explores the mechanisms underlying the association between socio-economic position (SEP) and maternal health-seeking behaviours. Thirdly, it examines the effectiveness of targeting of free public ANC and delivery care. METHODS: Data from the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey were used to capture two latent constructs of SEP: individual socio-cultural capital and household-level economic capital. These variables were entered into an adjusted mediation model, predicting twelve dimensions of maternal health-seeking; including any ANC, private ANC, first ANC visit in first trimester, regular ANC (four or more visits during pregnancy), facility delivery, and private delivery. ANC and delivery care costs were examined separately by provider type (public or private). RESULTS: While 74.2% of women with a birth in the 5-year recall period obtained any ANC and 72.4% delivered in a facility, only 48.8% obtained the complete maternal care package (timely and regular facility-based ANC as well as facility delivery) for their most recent live birth. Both socio-cultural capital and economic capital were independently positively associated with receiving any ANC and delivering in a facility. The strongest direct effect of socio-cultural capital was seen in models predicting private provider use of both ANC and delivery. Despite substantial proportions of women using public providers reporting receipt of free care (ANC: 38%, delivery: 24%), this free-of-charge public care was not effectively targeted to women with lowest economic resources. CONCLUSIONS: Socio-cultural capital is the primary mechanism leading to inequalities in maternal health-seeking in Egypt. Future studies should therefore examine the objective and perceived quality of care from different types of providers. Improvements in the targeting of free public care could help reduce the existing SEP-based inequalities in maternal care coverage in the short term

The limits of instrumentalism: Informal work and gendered cycles of food insecurity in Mozambique

The instrumentalist literature suggests that women can help achieve household food security if they have access to productive resources but do not become overburdened as a result. This paper seeks to assess the relevance of this literature by exploring the gendered cycles of food insecurity in the context of women’s informal labour in northern Mozambique. It considers the relation between women and food security as embedded in the broader socio-economic setting, and finds that the interaction of different forms of deprivation, such as lack of secure employment and conflicting labour demands, generates food insecurity

Gender-Related Differences in the Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and their Correlates in Urban Tanzania.

\ud Urban areas in Africa suffer a serious problem with dual burden of infectious diseases and emerging chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and diabetes which pose a serious threat to population health and health care resources. However in East Africa, there is limited literature in this research area. The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors and their correlates among adults in Temeke, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Results of this study will help inform future research and potential preventive and therapeutic interventions against such chronic diseases. The study design was a cross sectional epidemiological study. A total of 209 participants aged between 44 and 66 years were included in the study. A structured questionnaire was used to evaluate socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics. Blood samples were collected and analyzed to measure lipid profile and fasting glucose levels. Cardiovascular risk factors were defined using World Health Organization criteria. The age-adjusted prevalence of obesity (BMI > or = 30) was 13% and 35%, among men and women (p = 0.0003), respectively. The prevalence of abdominal obesity was 11% and 58% (p < 0.0001), and high WHR (men: >0.9, women: >0.85) was 51% and 73% (p = 0.002) for men and women respectively. Women had 4.3 times greater odds of obesity (95% CI: 1.9-10.1), 14.2-fold increased odds for abdominal adiposity (95% CI: 5.8-34.6), and 2.8 times greater odds of high waist-hip-ratio (95% CI: 1.4-5.7), compared to men. Women had more than three-fold greater odds of having metabolic syndrome (p = 0.001) compared to male counterparts, including abdominal obesity, low HDL-cholesterol, and high fasting blood glucose components. In contrast, female participants had 50% lower odds of having hypertension, compared to men (95%CI: 0.3-1.0). Among men, BMI and waist circumference were significantly correlated with blood pressure, triglycerides, total, LDL-, and HDL-cholesterol (BMI only), and fasting glucose; in contrast, only blood pressure was positively associated with BMI and waist circumference in women. The prevalence of CVD risk factors was high in this population, particularly among women. Health promotion, primary prevention, and health screening strategies are needed to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Tanzania.\u