159 research outputs found
Brokering between heads and hearts: an analysis of designing for social change
This paper describes a fluid and responsive design process identified among certain practitioners involved in solving social problems or inspiring social change. Their practice is both user-centred and participative in its approach and addresses the shortcomings of many top-down initiatives. These people work tactically to weave together policy knowledge, funding opportunities, local initiative and ideas for improving social and environmental conditions, acting as connectors, activists and facilitators in different contexts at different times. Although their activities are recognisably related to more conventional designing practices, the materials they use in finding solutions are unusual in that they may include the beneficiaries themselves and other features of the social structure in which they are effecting change. We present an ethnographic study of practices in designing that focuses on social initiatives rather than the tangible products or systems that might support them. We explore the how design practices map to the process of winning local people's commitment to projects with a social flavour. To situate the discussion in a political context we draw on de Certeauâs distinction between strategic and tactical behaviour and look at how our informants occupy a space as mediators between groups with power and a sense of agency and those without.
Keywords:
Social Change; Ethnographic Action Research; Discourse Analysis; Designing In The Wild</p
Love, sexual rights and young people: learning from our peer educators how to be a youth centred organisation
International Planned Parenthood Federations's A+ programme to realising youth sexual rights was highly ambitious and complex in its approach and both its geographical and programmatic reach. Working in diverse cultural and political contexts and encountering deep-rooted attitudes and beliefs were challenges that were often overcome through innovation by young people themselves. The participatory design of this wide-reaching assessment has produced a rich analysis of what works and what does not, along with innovative examples of youth-led and youth-centred initiatives around the world that can be shared with others.
It also gives clear evidence of how putting young people firmly at the centre of youth programmes can improve communication, participation, empowerment, rights, health and education. The assessment also offers a socio-ecological model to build commitment to youth programming in organisations and communities. It places young people at the centre of the process, and gives due attention to the local context to help organisations become genuinely youth-centred.
These findings will inspire IPPF and, we hope, others to move forward on a journey of organisational development. The ultimate vision is young peopleâs increased confidence, empowerment and autonomy in decision making, in an environment that is supportive of realising their rights. We hope that renewed commitment to youth led programming and continued sharing of learning will help us achieve this vision
Learning from our peer educators: a guide for integrating and reflecting participatory youth research in the A+ assessment country case studies
This guide is a tool that can be used by Member Associations and other organizations to plan and implement future participatory research and/or programme assessments with young people. It covers the case-study component of the A+ programme global assessment and covers the methodology, agenda, approaches and exercises that the assessment team members used during four country visits. It covers face-toface interaction and research with different stakeholders at country level, The focus during the case-study visits was on capturing youth perspectives and generating Member Association support and initial capacity for using a participatory evaluation approach, involving youth-led research, analysis and discussion
Chromosome location of genes affecting polyphenol oxidase activity in seeds of common and durum wheat
The impact of viral mutations on recognition by SARS-CoV-2 specific TÂ cells.
We identify amino acid variants within dominant SARS-CoV-2 TÂ cell epitopes by interrogating global sequence data. Several variants within nucleocapsid and ORF3a epitopes have arisen independently in multiple lineages and result in loss of recognition by epitope-specific TÂ cells assessed by IFN-Îł and cytotoxic killing assays. Complete loss of TÂ cell responsiveness was seen due to Q213K in the Aâ01:01-restricted CD8+ ORF3a epitope FTSDYYQLY207-215; due to P13L, P13S, and P13T in the Bâ27:05-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope QRNAPRITF9-17; and due to T362I and P365S in the Aâ03:01/Aâ11:01-restricted CD8+ nucleocapsid epitope KTFPPTEPK361-369. CD8+ TÂ cell lines unable to recognize variant epitopes have diverse TÂ cell receptor repertoires. These data demonstrate the potential for TÂ cell evasion and highlight the need for ongoing surveillance for variants capable of escaping TÂ cell as well as humoral immunity.This work is supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC); Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences(CAMS) Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS), China; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, and UK Researchand Innovation (UKRI)/NIHR through the UK Coro-navirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC). Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 samples and collation of data wasundertaken by the COG-UK CONSORTIUM. COG-UK is supported by funding from the Medical ResearchCouncil (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI),the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR),and Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute. T.I.d.S. is supported by a Well-come Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship (110058/Z/15/Z). L.T. is supported by the Wellcome Trust(grant number 205228/Z/16/Z) and by theUniversity of Liverpool Centre for Excellence in Infectious DiseaseResearch (CEIDR). S.D. is funded by an NIHR GlobalResearch Professorship (NIHR300791). L.T. and S.C.M.are also supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Medical Countermeasures Initiative contract75F40120C00085 and the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) inEmerging and Zoonotic Infections (NIHR200907) at University of Liverpool inpartnership with Public HealthEngland (PHE), in collaboration with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford.L.T. is based at the University of Liverpool. M.D.P. is funded by the NIHR Sheffield Biomedical ResearchCentre (BRC â IS-BRC-1215-20017). ISARIC4C is supported by the MRC (grant no MC_PC_19059). J.C.K.is a Wellcome Investigator (WT204969/Z/16/Z) and supported by NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centreand CIFMS. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or MRC
Earth history and the passerine superradiation.
Avian diversification has been influenced by global climate change, plate tectonic movements, and mass extinction events. However, the impact of these factors on the diversification of the hyperdiverse perching birds (passerines) is unclear because family level relationships are unresolved and the timing of splitting events among lineages is uncertain. We analyzed DNA data from 4,060 nuclear loci and 137 passerine families using concatenation and coalescent approaches to infer a comprehensive phylogenetic hypothesis that clarifies relationships among all passerine families. Then, we calibrated this phylogeny using 13 fossils to examine the effects of different events in Earth history on the timing and rate of passerine diversification. Our analyses reconcile passerine diversification with the fossil and geological records; suggest that passerines originated on the Australian landmass âŒ47 Ma; and show that subsequent dispersal and diversification of passerines was affected by a number of climatological and geological events, such as Oligocene glaciation and inundation of the New Zealand landmass. Although passerine diversification rates fluctuated throughout the Cenozoic, we find no link between the rate of passerine diversification and Cenozoic global temperature, and our analyses show that the increases in passerine diversification rate we observe are disconnected from the colonization of new continents. Taken together, these results suggest more complex mechanisms than temperature change or ecological opportunity have controlled macroscale patterns of passerine speciation
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Invasive mammal eradication on islands results in substantial conservation gains
More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically for their global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of biodiversity compared with mainlands, much of which is highly threatened with extinction. Indeed, island species make up nearly two-thirds of recent extinctions. Islands therefore are critical targets of conservation. We used an extensive literature and database review paired with expert interviews to estimate the global benefits of an increasingly used conservation action to stem biodiversity loss: eradication of invasive mammals on islands. We found 236 native terrestrial insular faunal species (596 populations) that benefitted through positive demographic and/or distributional responses from 251 eradications of invasive mammals on 181 islands. Seven native species (eight populations) were negatively impacted by invasive mammal eradication. Four threatened species had their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List extinction-risk categories reduced as a direct result of invasive mammal eradication, and no species moved to a higher extinction-risk category. We predict that 107 highly threatened birds, mammals, and reptiles on the IUCN Red Listâ6% of all these highly threatened speciesâlikely have benefitted from invasive mammal eradications on islands. Because monitoring of eradication outcomes is sporadic and limited, the impacts of global eradications are likely greater than we report here. Our results highlight the importance of invasive mammal eradication on islands for protecting the world's most imperiled fauna.This is the publisherâs final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences and can be found at: http://www.pnas.org/Keywords: island, restoration, invasive species, conservation, eradicationKeywords: island, restoration, invasive species, conservation, eradicatio
Recurrent SARS-CoV-2 mutations in immunodeficient patients
Long-term severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in immunodeficient patients are an important source of variation for the virus but are understudied. Many case studies have been published which describe one or a small number of long-term infected individuals but no study has combined these sequences into a cohesive dataset. This work aims to rectify this and study the genomics of this patient group through a combination of literature searches as well as identifying new case series directly from the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) dataset. The spike gene receptor-binding domain and N-terminal domain (NTD) were identified as mutation hotspots. Numerous mutations associated with variants of concern were observed to emerge recurrently. Additionally a mutation in the envelope gene, T30I was determined to be the second most frequent recurrently occurring mutation arising in persistent infections. A high proportion of recurrent mutations in immunodeficient individuals are associated with ACE2 affinity, immune escape, or viral packaging optimisation.There is an apparent selective pressure for mutations that aid cellâcell transmission within the host or persistence which are often different from mutations that aid inter-host transmission, although the fact that multiple recurrent de novo mutations are considered defining for variants of concern strongly indicates that this potential source of novel variants should not be discounted. © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press
Strong isolation by distance argues for separate population management of endangered blue duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos)
Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England.
The evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021
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