The interaction between non-governmental organisations and marginalized communities to build self-sustaining capacity to transfer, absorb and use building technologies in indigenous housing

Different organisations outside the public and private sectors, such as non governmental organisations (NGOs), are involved in generating, introducing, and promoting capacity building and technology, particularly in marginal areas of less developed countries (Farrington and Biggs, 1990). Non-governmental organizations have become important players in the field of social development, with increased expectations shifting to NGOs as the “Magic bullet” to fix some of the on-going developmental problems of developing countries (Edwards and Fowler, 2002). NGOs use strategies such as capacity building to promote self-reliance. Capacity building is an important strategy for fostering sustainable social, political and economic development. Accordingly, grass root communities are said to be an important section of the community capable of transforming the state and society (Fisher, 1997). Hence, the reason many NGOs work with marginalised communities who have been marginalized by the either the market or deprived of social infrastructure. Previous research to date has tended to focus on NGOs activities in communities. However, little attention has been paid to how such strategies and organisation could fit with the community’s needs, especially in housing which is a major problem in developing countries. This paper proposes that many development initiatives by NGOs to build self-sustaining capacity to transfer, absorb and use building technologies in indigenous housing are hindered by inadequate interaction with the beneficiary communities. This paper gives a synthesis of literature review on the background of NGOs and capacity building as a strategy for self-reliance. The paper offers an in-depth understanding of this phenomenon, which will allow certain questions to be raised regarding the interaction with marginalised communities. This study is important because it adds to existing literature and opens up a whole new debate on NGO/ community interaction. This paper argues that capacity building ought to be incorporated with the needs and culture of the community and special attention paid to participatory process

Structure and spectroscopy of surface defects from scanning force spectroscopy: theoetical predictions

A possibility to study surface defects by combining noncontact scanning force microscopy (SFM) imaging with atomically resolved optical spectroscopy is demonstrated by modeling an impurity Cr3+ ion at the MgO(001) surface with a SFM tip. Using a combination of the atomistic simulation and the ab initio electronic structure calculations, we predict a topographic noncontact SFM image of the defect and show that its optical transitions can be either enhanced or suppressed depending on the tip atomistic structure and its position relative to the defect. These effects should allow identification of certain impurity species through competition between radiative and nonradiative transitions

Electrostatic energy calculation for the interpretation of scanning probe microscopy experiments

We discuss the correct expression for the classical electrostatic energy used while analysing scanning probe microscopy (SPM) experiments if either a conducting tip or a substrate or both are used in the experiment. For this purpose a general system consisting of an arbitrary arrangement of finite metallic conductors at fixed potentials (maintained by external sources) and a distribution of point charges in free space are considered using classical electrostatics. We stress the crucial importance of incorporating into the energy the contribution coming from the external sources (the `battery'). Using the Green function of the Laplace equation, we show in a very general case that the potential energy of point charges which are far away from metals is equally shared by their direct interaction and the polarization interaction due to charge induced in metals by the remote charges (the image interaction). When the charges are located close to the metals, there is an additional negative term in the energy entirely due to image interaction. The exact Hamiltonian of a quantum system interacting classically with polarized metal conductors is derived and its application in the Hartree-Fock and the density functional theories is briefly discussed. As an illustration of the theory, we consider an interaction of several point charges with a metal plane and a spherical tip, based on the set-up of a real SPM experiment. We show the significance of the image interaction for the force imposed on the tip

Nonequilibrium transport through a quantum dot weakly coupled to Luttinger liquids

We study the nonequlibrium transport through a quantum dot weakly coupled to Luttinger liquids (LL). A general current expression is derived by using nonequilibrium Green function method. Then a special case of the dot with only a single energy level is discussed. As a function of the dot's energy level, we find that the current as well as differential conductance is strongly renormalized by the interaction in the LL leads. In comparison with the system with Fermi liquid (FL) leads, the current is suppressed, consistent with the suppression of the electron tunneling density of states of the LL; and the outset of the resonant tunneling is shifted to higher bias voltages. Besides, the linear conductance obtained by Furusaki using master equation can be reproduced from our result.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Late

Modeling electrolyte composition effects on anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer performance

Anion-exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis could allow inexpensive and greener hydrogen production than other alternatives, such as steam methane reforming. To increase performance, hydroxide salts are often added to the water feed, with the tradeoff of corrosivity and complexity. Recently, carbonate salts that are less corrosive have shown promise, but their specific functionality remains unknown. In this paper, we use a mathematical model to compare an AEM electrolyzer with added potassium carbonate to an AEM electrolyzer with added potassium hydroxide. We show that the conductivity of the carbonate-form membrane has little impact on the performance of the device, but that carbonate ions replace hydroxide in the ionomer, which creates a Nernstian voltage difference across the membrane. The replacement of hydroxide anions with carbonate also reduces utilization of the catalyst in the anode, resulting in an additional voltage loss

The prediction of metastable impact electronic spectra (MIES): perfect and defective MgO(001) surfaces by state-of-the-art methods

We re-examine the theory of metastable impact electron spectroscopy (MIES) in its application to insulating surfaces. This suggests a quantitative approach which takes advantage of recent developments in highly efficient many-electron computational techniques. It gives a basis to the interpretation of experimental MIES spectra for perfect and defective surfaces. Our method is based on a static approach to predicting Auger de-excitation (AD) rates of He*(1s2s) projectiles. A key quantity is the surface density of states (DOS) projected on the Is orbital of the He* atom, which is calculated along its trajectory. We use density functional theory within both supercell geometry and embedded cluster models to calculate MIES spectra for the perfect MgO surface and for an MgO surface with different concentrations of adsorbed oxygen atoms. First we calculate the Auger de-excitation rates at various positions of the projectile above the surface. To predict MIES spectra, we integrate over projectile trajectories, with a subsequent weighted averaging with respect to various lateral positions of He* above the MgO surface unit cell. It is important to examine final-state effects for a correct comparison between theory and experiment, especially when there are localised defect states. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Selected papers from the 15th Annual Bio-Ontologies special interest group meeting

© 2013 Soldatova et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Over the 15 years, the Bio-Ontologies SIG at ISMB has provided a forum for discussion of the latest and most innovative research in the bio-ontologies development, its applications to biomedicine and more generally the organisation, presentation and dissemination of knowledge in biomedicine and the life sciences. The seven papers and the commentary selected for this supplement span a wide range of topics including: web-based querying over multiple ontologies, integration of data, annotating patent records, NCBO Web services, ontology developments for probabilistic reasoning and for physiological processes, and analysis of the progress of annotation and structural GO changes

Representation of probabilistic scientific knowledge

This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright © 2013 Soldatova et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.The theory of probability is widely used in biomedical research for data analysis and modelling. In previous work the probabilities of the research hypotheses have been recorded as experimental metadata. The ontology HELO is designed to support probabilistic reasoning, and provides semantic descriptors for reporting on research that involves operations with probabilities. HELO explicitly links research statements such as hypotheses, models, laws, conclusions, etc. to the associated probabilities of these statements being true. HELO enables the explicit semantic representation and accurate recording of probabilities in hypotheses, as well as the inference methods used to generate and update those hypotheses. We demonstrate the utility of HELO on three worked examples: changes in the probability of the hypothesis that sirtuins regulate human life span; changes in the probability of hypotheses about gene functions in the S. cerevisiae aromatic amino acid pathway; and the use of active learning in drug design (quantitative structure activity relation learning), where a strategy for the selection of compounds with the highest probability of improving on the best known compound was used. HELO is open source and available at https://github.com/larisa-soldatova/HELO.This work was partially supported by grant BB/F008228/1 from the UK Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council, from the European Commission under the FP7 Collaborative Programme, UNICELLSYS, KU Leuven GOA/08/008 and ERC Starting Grant 240186

Selected papers from the 16th Annual Bio-Ontologies Special Interest Group Meeting

Copyright @ 2014 Soldatova et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Over the 16 years, the Bio-Ontologies SIG at ISMB has provided a forum for vibrant discussions of the latest and most innovative advances in the research area of bio-ontologies, its applications to biomedicine and more generally in the organisation, sharing and re-use of knowledge in biomedicine and the life sciences. The six papers selected for this supplement span a wide range of topics including: ontology-based data integration, ontology-based annotation of scientific literature, ontology and data model development, representation of scientific results and gene candidate prediction

On the mechanism of trailing vortex wandering

The mechanism of trailing vortex wandering has long been debated and is often attributed to either wind-tunnel effects or an instability. Using particle image velocimetry data obtained in the wake of a NACA0012 airfoil, we remove the effect of wandering from the measured velocity field and, through a triple decomposition, recover the coherent wandering motion. Based on this wandering motion, the most energetic structures are computed using the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and exhibit a helical mode with an azimuthal wavenumber of |m|=1 whose kinetic energy grows monotonically in the downstream direction. To investigate the nature of the vortex wandering, we perform a spatial stability analysis of a matched Batchelor vortex. The primary stability mode is found to be marginally stable and nearly identical in both size and structure to the leading POD mode. The strikingly similar structure, coupled with the measured energy growth, supports the proposition that the vortex wandering is the result of an instability. We conclude that the cause of the wandering is the non-zero radial velocity of the |m|=1 mode on the vortex centreline, which acts to transversely displace the trailing vortex, as observed in experiments. However, the marginal nature of the stability mode prevents a definitive conclusion regarding the specific type of instability