'What's your name?' A case study

We all know and appreciate the benefits of social interaction and peer support. Being in an environment with our peers and people who have similar abilities and needs as ourselves is reassuring and confidence building. We only have to look at the recent explosion in social networking on the internet to see that it is something which people value. As well as using these networks to communicate with existing friends it is also possible to join interest specific groups and meet people this way. Even though people met through these groups are often strangers, the shared interest/ ability means it seems safe to communicate with them. It is often daunting to be in a new social and work environment until we are able to establish a common interest with people, and then this allows us to relax. Social networks and peer support are obviously equally important to people with disabilities and interacting with people with similar disabilities or - as presented in this paper, similar aids - can be extremely important. Communication aid users may feel isolated or frustrated by a lack of peers or role models since it can be difficult to establish this peer environment if you are a minority group. Previous work has illustrated the benefits of both social networks and role models (Musselwhite 2005, Blackstone 2005, Clarke 2005). There has also been development of functions such as the ability to tell jokes (O’Mara and Waller 1999, 2003) or partake in small talk (Cantine) with a communication aid - so enhancing a person’s ability to interact in a more natural conversation. This paper describes an initiative which has organised communication mornings within Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley to give students using communication aids an opportunity to meet other users and interact in a real environment

Access to Water in the Slums of the Developing World

The text and data in this publication may be reproduced as long as the source is cited. Reproductions for commercial purposes are forbiddenThe discussion reveals the failure of public policies as well as markets to provide satisfactory solutions to the problems of access to a safe, affordable and continuous water supply. In many countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, access to safe water through household connections declined in the 1990s. Achievements in access rates in many Asian and African economies are the due to widespread use of public water points such as public standpipes and kiosks. These sources are important, but doubtless the quality of access to water with these facilities is unsatisfactory since they involve greater effort by households, involving queuing, carrying water and lacking continuous access. A substantial proportion of urban dwellers in developing countries, especially in unplanned settlements, rely on a wide range of small-scale providers whose services are vital in the absence of alternatives. Their services, however, are often inferior to those provided by the formal network. Invariably, the water charges of alternative sources are higher than those for supply from the public network.Final Published versio

Speech Driven Environmental Control System (SPECS) From Specification to Prototype

The SPECS project is designing a new speech driven environmental control to include use by people with dysathric speech. The project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research and is developing the device with a large UK assistive technology company. The aim is that the device will be designed in a user-centric way. The initial stage of the project involved performing detailed qualitative interviews of people currently using speech-driven environmental control systems and a focus group of professionals which discussed current speech-driven environmental control systems and ‘blue sky’ ideas. Data from these were rigorously analysed using a framework approach [1]. This enabled full specification of the proposed new device and the results of this stage have recently been published [2]. This paper will present the process undertaken to go from specification to prototype testing, how user involvement has been incorporated and will discuss the key findings to date. At the time of RAATE 2009 we will be nearing completion of the prototype testing

Users' Perceptions of Environmental Control Systems

This paper presents users' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of environmental control systems, the data having been collected as part of a project developing a new speech-driven environmental control system. The first stage of this project collected data from existing users of speech-driven environmental control systems and provided information for the specification for the new device. A secondary analysis of this data revealed perceptions about environmental control systems in general and the results are presented here. Independence and control emerged as a key aspect of environmental control systems. In addition it was possible to identify other themes around topics such as perceptions of service delivery and provision. It can be easy for a non disabled person to overlook the importance of being able to independently change the television channel or make a phone call and this data reinforces the importance of this to people who use environmental control systems

Access to Water in the Slums of the Developing World

According to the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 924 million people lived in slums in 2001. Population growth in these settlements is much greater than in other urban areas. The estimates suggest that this figure may rise to 1.5 billion by 2020 (Payne, 2005). This rapid increase is expected despite ?slum upgrading? efforts that have been taking place for decades, though inconsistently and with disruptions over time. There is a prolific literature on informal settlement areas, but research on access to essential services such as water and sanitation (WS) in these areas is very limited. Most studies consider issues of access in connection to urban poverty, an approach that often reduces the discussion to the income and expenditure constraints faced by households. Examining access to WS in the slums spurs an appreciation of the multidimensional nature of the problem, including income poverty, infrastructural limitations, asset ownership and housing quality. Moreover, developments in the slums concern every aspect of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This paper examines the conditions of access to water in the slums of the developing world. It has three goals. The first is to identify the objective and policy-related challenges that hinder progress in the provision of safe, affordable, continuous and easy access to water in countries where there is a sizeable slum population. The second is to explore the existing systems of provision in informal settlements and to discuss the weaknesses and strengths of each. The third is to make policy recommendations. Though the discussion on access to sanitation is limited, this is not to deny the importance of that issue. Besides, water and sanitation services are often intrinsically linked and therefore are provided together by network utilities. The discussion reveals the failure of public policies as well as markets to provide satisfactory solutions to the problems of access to a safe, affordable and continuous water supply. In many countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, access to safe water through household connections declined in the 1990s. Achievements in access rates in many Asian and African economies are the due to widespread use of public water points such as public standpipes and kiosks. These sources are important, but doubtless the quality of access to water with these facilities is unsatisfactory since they involve greater effort by households, involving queuing, carrying water and lacking continuous access. A substantial proportion of urban dwellers in developing countries, especially in unplanned settlements, rely on a wide range of small-scale providers whose services are vital in the absence of alternatives. Their services, however, are often inferior to those provided by the formal network. Invariably, the water charges of alternative sources are higher than those for supply from the public network. Section 2 provides a general discussion of informal settlements and outlines the growth of slum development and trends in access to water supply since 1990. Section 3 examines changing public policies towards squatter settlements and the challenges such settlements pose. Section 4 presents the problems associated with the existing market-based water supply arrangements in countries where a sizeable proportion of the urban population resides in informal settlement areas. We then argue for the need to pursue a more proactive public policy on the basis of a discussion that highlights the limitations of private sector ventures. The paper concludes with a number of policy recommendations.Access to Water in the Slums of the Developing World

Reforming Without Resourcing: The Case of the Urban Water Supply in Zambia

I. Introduction Public water supply systems have increasingly been subject to commercialisation or corporatisation in the developing world. This method is sometimes used as a surrogate for privatisation in circumstances where existing systems of provision are unattractive for multinational water companies. By reforming the public sector in the image of independent and self-sufficient private enterprises, the chief aim of commercialisation is to improve the efficiency of operations often associated with the private sector. (...)Reforming Without Resourcing: The Case of the Urban Water Supply in Zambia

Speech-driven environmental control systems - a qualitative analysis of users' perceptions

Purpose. To explore users' experiences and perceptions of speech-driven environmental control systems (SPECS) as part of a larger project aiming to develop a new SPECS. The motivation for this part of the project was to add to the evidence base for the use of SPECS and to determine the key design specifications for a new speech-driven system from a user's perspective. Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 users of SPECS from around the United Kingdom. These interviews were transcribed and analysed using a qualitative method based on framework analysis. Results. Reliability is the main influence on the use of SPECS. All the participants gave examples of occasions when their speech-driven system was unreliable; in some instances, this unreliability was reported as not being a problem (e.g., for changing television channels); however, it was perceived as a problem for more safety critical functions (e.g., opening a door). Reliability was cited by participants as the reason for using a switch-operated system as back up. Benefits of speech-driven systems focused on speech operation enabling access when other methods were not possible; quicker operation and better aesthetic considerations. Overall, there was a perception of increased independence from the use of speech-driven environmental control. Conclusions. In general, speech was considered a useful method of operating environmental controls by the participants interviewed; however, their perceptions regarding reliability often influenced their decision to have backup or alternative systems for certain functions

Rescuing Nietzsche from constitutivism

Constitutivist theories in ethics seek to derive and justify normative ethical claims via facts about constitutive features of agency. In Agency and the Foundations of Ethics: Nietzschean Constitutivism, Paul Katsafanas uses Nietzsche to elucidate a version of the position he believes avoids worries besetting its competitors. This paper argues that Nietzschean constitutivism falters in many of the same places: it may remain vulnerable to ‘schmagency’ objections; it faces problems giving an account of the weights of reasons that adequately explains why we have more reason to perform some actions than others; and it is unable to generate normativity from constitutive aims. These doubts have wider import than Nietzschean constitutivism alone, though: they give good reason to think that such difficulties arise from the very structure of constitutivist approaches

Ebolavirus is evolving but not changing: No evidence for functional change in EBOV from 1976 to the 2014 outbreak

The 2014 epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) has had a devastating impact in West Africa. Sequencing of ebolavirus (EBOV) from infected individuals has revealed extensive genetic variation, leading to speculation that the virus may be adapting to humans, accounting for the scale of the 2014 outbreak. We computationally analyze the variation associated with all EVD outbreaks, and find none of the amino acid replacements lead to identifiable functional changes. These changes have minimal effect on protein structure, being neither stabilizing nor destabilizing, are not found in regions of the proteins associated with known functions and tend to cluster in poorly constrained regions of proteins, specifically intrinsically disordered regions. We find no evidence that the difference between the current and previous outbreaks is due to evolutionary changes associated with transmission to humans. Instead, epidemiological factors are likely to be responsible for the unprecedented spread of EVD