Lending for rural development projects : infrastructure, community facilities, and affordable housing

Rural development

Enhanced User Interface for Scrubbing Video Segments

When watching video content, users often skip to specific moments within the video, rewatch specific parts, or navigate between sections of interest. Such actions are supported via user interface elements such as a scrubber bar with a scrubber knob that display the progress and current playback position within the video, respectively. This disclosure describes techniques for display of UI components and timed metadata related to the playback of video content. The UI helps viewers find and navigate to specific marked moments or sections of interest within a video. When a user scrubs a video using the scrubber bar or scrubber knob inside the start and end bounds of a segment, the corresponding chapter is highlighted within the scrubber bar by increasing the size and/or contrast of the segment and the knob within the bar. Increasing the size provides a zoomed-in view of the bar that makes it easier for a user to interact with the scrubber bar and knob to find the position of interest as well as to see smaller marker segments contained within a larger chapter segment. In addition, the UI includes annotations that provide relevant information, such as title of the segment, thumbnail and timestamp for the frame at the scrubber knob position, etc

Africa 2060: good news from Africa, April 16, 2010

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Conference Series, As the keystone event of a research program called “Africa 2060,” the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University convened a conference on April 16, 2010 called Africa 2060: Good News from Africa. The program featured more than a dozen expert panelists from Boston University and across the world, and the approximately 100 participants included many African scholars and citizens from the continent who contributed to lively and well-informed discussion. The Pardee Center conference was co-sponsored by Boston University’s Africa Studies Center (ASC), the African Presidential Archives & Research Center (APARC), and the Global Health & Development Center (GHDC).This report provides commentary reflecting upon and information pertaining to the substance of the conference. An introductory overview looks at the major issues discussed at the event, which are placed within the larger literature on Africa’s future. Four short essays prepared by Boston University graduate students provide readers with more specific reflections and highlights of each conference session and the main issues discussed by panelists. The final section presents analyses of key trends and projections related to societal, economic, and governance issues for Africa and a commentary on what this information tells us about the drivers that will determine the continent’s future

Carbon accumulation rates of Holocene peatlands in central–eastern Europe document the driving role of human impact over the past 4000 years

Peatlands are one of the largest terrestrial carbon sinks on the planet, yet little is known about carbon accumulation rates (CARs) of mountainous examples. The long-term variability in the size of the associated carbon sink and its drivers remain largely unconstrained, especially when long-term anthropogenic impact is also considered. Here we present a composite CAR record of nine peatlands from central-eastern Europe (Romania and Serbia) detailing variability in rates of carbon accumulation across the Holocene. We show examples of extremely high long-term rates of carbon accumulation (LORCA >120 g C m− 2 yr− 1), indicating that at times, mountain peatlands constitute an efficient regional carbon sink. By comparing our data to modelled palaeoclimatic indices and to measures of anthropogenic impact we disentangle the drivers of peat carbon accumulation in the area. Variability in early and mid-Holocene CARs is linked to hydroclimatic controls, with high CARs occurring during the early Holocene and lower CARs associated with the transition to cooler and moister mid-Holocene conditions. By contrast, after 4000 years (calibrated) before present (yr BP) the trends in CARs indicate a divergence from hydroclimate proxies, indicating that other processes became the dominant drivers of peat CARs. We suggest that enhanced erosion following tree cover reduction as well as enhanced rates of long-distance atmospheric dust fallout might have played a role as both processes would result in enhanced mineral and nutrient supply to bog surfaces, stimulating peat land productivity. Surprisingly though, for the last 1000 years, reconstructed temperature is significantly correlated with CARs, with rising temperatures linked to higher CARs. We suggest under future climate conditions, predicted to be warmer in the region, peat growth may expand, but that this is entirely dependent upon the scale of human impact directly affecting the sensitive hydrological budget of these peatlands

Impact of indoor residual spraying with pirimiphos-methyl (Actellic 300CS) on entomological indicators of transmission and malaria case burden in Migori County, western Kenya

Indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticides is a major vector control strategy for malaria prevention. We evaluated the impact of a single round of IRS with the organophosphate, pirimiphos-methyl (Actellic 300CS), on entomological and parasitological parameters of malaria in Migori County, western Kenya in 2017, in an area where primary vectors are resistant to pyrethroids but susceptible to the IRS compound. Entomological monitoring was conducted by indoor CDC light trap, pyrethrum spray catches (PSC) and human landing collection (HLC) before and after IRS. The residual effect of the insecticide was assessed monthly by exposing susceptible An. gambiae s.s. Kisumu strain to sprayed surfaces in cone assays and measuring mortality at 24 hours. Malaria case burden data were extracted from laboratory records of four health facilities within the sprayed area and two adjacent unsprayed areas. IRS was associated with reductions in An. funestus numbers in the intervention areas compared to non-intervention areas by 88% with light traps (risk ratio [RR] 0.12, 95% CI 0.07–0.21, p < 0.001) and 93% with PSC collections (RR = 0.07, 0.03–0.17, p < 0.001). The corresponding reductions in the numbers of An. arabiensis collected by PSC were 69% in the intervention compared to the non-intervention areas (RR = 0.31, 0.14–0.68, p = 0.006), but there was no significant difference with light traps (RR = 0.45, 0.21–0.96, p = 0.05). Before IRS, An. funestus accounted for over 80% of Anopheles mosquitoes collected by light trap and PSC in all sites. After IRS, An. arabiensis accounted for 86% of Anopheles collected by PSC and 66% by CDC light trap in the sprayed sites while the proportion in non-intervention sites remained unchanged. No sporozoite infections were detected in intervention areas after IRS and biting rates by An. funestus were reduced to near zero. Anopheles funestus and An. arabiensis were fully susceptible to pirimiphos-methyl and resistant to pyrethroids. The residual effect of Actellic 300CS lasted ten months on mud and concrete walls. Malaria case counts among febrile patients within IRS areas was lower post- compared to pre-IRS by 44%, 65% and 47% in Rongo, Uriri and Nyatike health facilities respectively. A single application of IRS with Actellic 300CS in Migori County provided ten months protection and resulted in the near elimination of the primary malaria vector An. funestus and a corresponding reduction of malaria case count among out-patients. The impact was less on An. arabiensis, most likely due to their exophilic nature

Mutation update and genotype-phenotype correlations of novel and previously described mutations in TPM2 and TPM3 causing congenital myopathies

Mutations affecting skeletal muscle isoforms of the tropomyosin genes may cause nemaline myopathy, cap myopathy, core-rod myopathy, congenital fiber-type disproportion, distal arthrogryposes, and Escobar syndrome. We correlate the clinical picture of these diseases with novel (19) and previously reported (31) mutations of the TPM2 and TPM3 genes. Included are altogether 93 families: 53 with TPM2 mutations and 40 with TPM3 mutations. Thirty distinct pathogenic variants of TPM2 and 20 of TPM3 have been published or listed in the Leiden Open Variant Database (http://www.dmd.nl/). Most are heterozygous changes associated with autosomal-dominant disease. Patients with TPM2 mutations tended to present with milder symptoms than those with TPM3 mutations, DA being present only in the TPM2 group. Previous studies have shown that five of the mutations in TPM2 and one in TPM3 cause increased Ca2+ sensitivity resulting in a hypercontractile molecular phenotype. Patients with hypercontractile phenotype more often had contractures of the limb joints (18/19) and jaw (6/19) than those with nonhypercontractile ones (2/22 and 1/22), whereas patients with the non-hypercontractile molecular phenotype more often (19/22) had axial contractures than the hypercontractile group (7/19). Our in silico predictions show that most mutations affect tropomyosin–actin association or tropomyosin head-to-tail binding