The Business Guide to the Low Carbon Economy: California

Outlines California's climate change policy and offers a detailed framework for calculating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and purchasing offsets. Includes focus areas for each sector, reference lists, and profiles of successful strategies

Connected Women: How Mobile Can Support Women's Economic and Social Empowerment

This report explores how mobile services provided by Vodafone and the Vodafone Foundation are enabling women to seize new opportunities and improve their lives. Accenture Sustainability Services were commissioned to conduct research on the services and to assess their potential social and economic impact if they were widely available across Vodafone's markets by 2020. It showcases the projects and the work of those involved and also poses the question -- what would the benefit to women and to society at large be if projects such as these were taken to scale and achieved an industrialscale of growth? This reflects the Foundation's commitment not solely to the development of pilots but rather the Trustees' ambition to see projects which lead to transformational change. In order to understand this more deeply, the Report looks at the benefits for women and society and providessome financial modelling for how the engagement of commercial players could achieve industrial, sustainable growth in these areas. Accenture has provided the modelling and, given the public benefit and understanding which the report seeks to generate, these are shared openly for all in the mobile industry to understand and share. It is the Trustees' hope that the collaboration with Oxford University and Accenture in the delivery of this Report will stimulate not only the expansion of existing charitable programmes but will also seed other philanthropic, social enterprise or commercial initiatives

Handbuch methodischer Grundfragen zur Masterplan-Erstellung - Kommunale Masterpläne für 100 % Klimaschutz

Masterplan-Kommunen sind die Vorreiter unter den Klimaschutzkommunen und müssen über das bisher in der Breite bereits Begonnene hinausgehen. Sie stehen vor großen strukturellen und finanziellen Herausforderungen, aber auch vor großen Chancen. Die Chancen ergeben sich insbesondere für ein verbessertes und lebenswerteres Umfeld in der Kommune und damit auch für eine gesteigerte Lebensqualität. Die Einbindung aller Akteure in der Kommune, innerhalb und außerhalb der Verwaltung, ist ein wichtiger Baustein auf dem Weg zum Ziel „Null Emissionen“. Vor allem die Einbindung der Wirtschaft vor Ort und der Bürgerinnen und Bürger ist essenziell, wenn eine Transformation angestoßen und umgesetzt werden soll. Das Handbuch unterstützt die Masterplan-Kommunen mit der vorliegenden methodischen Herangehensweise auf ihrem Weg

Guidance for health care worker surveys in humanitarian contexts in LMICs

Developed by the Social Sciences Analysis Cell (CASS) and the Research Roadmap to support those working with communities and healthcare workers in humanitarian and emergency contexts This document has been developed for response actors working in humanitarian contexts who seek rapid approaches to gathering evidence about the experience of healthcare workers, and the communities of which they are a part. Understanding healthcare worker experience is critical to inform and guide humanitarian programming and effective strategies to promote IPC, identify psychosocial support needs. This evidence also informs humanitarian programming that interacts with HCWs and facilities such as nutrition, health reinforcement, communication, SGBV and gender. In low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), healthcare workers (HCW) are often faced with limited resources, equipment, performance support and even formal training to provide the life-saving work expected of them. In humanitarian contexts1 , where human resources are also scarce, HCWs may comprise formally trained doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, allied health professionals etc. as well as community members who perform formal health worker related duties with little or no trainingi . These HCWs frequently work in contexts of multiple public health crises, including COVID-19. Their work will be affected by availability of resources (limited supplies, materials), behaviour and emotion (fear), flows of (mis)information (e.g. understanding of expected infection prevention and control (IPC) measures) or services (healthcare policies, services and use). Multiple factors can therefore impact patients, HCWs and their families, not only in terms of risk of exposure to COVID-19, but secondary health, socio-economic and psycho-social risks, as well as constraints that interrupt or hinder healthcare provision such as physical distancing practices. The development and dissemination of training and guidance for HCWs is important for any new infectious disease outbreak. Equally, evaluation of their appropriateness and utility, their impacts on HCW performance and behaviour, and their effectiveness (perceived or measured against programmatic outcome indicators) is important to adapt and improve the appropriateness and effectiveness of resources for HCWs. We recommend HCW surveys are included as a critical component of research associated to humanitarian programming for communities and community health outcomes

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018):a position statement of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and update of the MISEV2014 guidelines

The last decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications describing physiological and pathological functions of extracellular vesicles (EVs), a collective term covering various subtypes of cell-released, membranous structures, called exosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, ectosomes, oncosomes, apoptotic bodies, and many other names. However, specific issues arise when working with these entities, whose size and amount often make them difficult to obtain as relatively pure preparations, and to characterize properly. The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) proposed Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles (“MISEV”) guidelines for the field in 2014. We now update these “MISEV2014” guidelines based on evolution of the collective knowledge in the last four years. An important point to consider is that ascribing a specific function to EVs in general, or to subtypes of EVs, requires reporting of specific information beyond mere description of function in a crude, potentially contaminated, and heterogeneous preparation. For example, claims that exosomes are endowed with exquisite and specific activities remain difficult to support experimentally, given our still limited knowledge of their specific molecular machineries of biogenesis and release, as compared with other biophysically similar EVs. The MISEV2018 guidelines include tables and outlines of suggested protocols and steps to follow to document specific EV-associated functional activities. Finally, a checklist is provided with summaries of key points

Driver reactions on ecological feedback via different HMI modalities

Nowadays there already exists a large amount of driving-related information displayed in the dashboard and thus additional information concerning ecological driving might enlarge the workload of the driver further. This raises the question whether the presentation of additional ecologic information via the haptic channel is more efficient and comfortable for the driver compared to a visual presentation. Previous studies proved the impact of driver feedback systems on the reduction of fuel consumption. However, most of the studies only dealt with visual displays. Thus in the present study a visual, a haptic, and a visual-haptic interface were designed for an acceleration and a gear shift advice system. Subsequently their impact on the acceleration and the gear shift behavior of the driver as well as their subjective acceptance were compared. Results showed that especially the combination of the visual and haptic modality led to the fastest reaction times and smallest deviations from the optimal acceleration and gear shift behavior. However, concerning the acceptance participants preferred the visual display

Requirements and motivators for private and commercial drivers: Deliverable 6.1.

The Validation and Evaluation sub-project of the eCoMove project groups a number of complementary activities including the core tasks to validate the functionality of the eCoMove system and applications, and to evaluate if the aimed reduction of 20% overall energy consumption can be achieved. Besides technical requirements a validation process also has to consider non-technical requirements of potential users of the eCoMove system which were in the focus of research for this deliverable

Encouraging environmentally friendly driving through driver assistance: The EcoMove Project.

A questionnaire study was conducted in order to identify relevant driver motives and assistance options for environmentally-friendly driving. Eighteen participants rated items belonging to the three factors time, environment, and consumption, and subsequently evaluated three types of driver assistance systems. Results concerning the motives showed that older drivers (above the age of 65) focused significantly less on the time motive, whereas high annual mileage drivers tended to focus more on the time motive compared to low annual mileage drivers. Small vehicle drivers emphasized more on the environment motive compared to middle-class/van drivers. In terms of the driver assistance options for eco-friendly driving, a display of the current consumption rate through colorcoding received the highest number of first place rankings in the category intelligent vehicle information systems. A function that automatically shuts off the engine after a certain stopping time, as well as optimal gear choice and time to shift, were ranked high in the category intelligent advanced driver assistance systems. In the category intelligent navigation systems, a traffic- and situational adaptive navigation system was ranked the highest most often. Assessment of drivers’ preferences additionally showed that most participants preferred the assistance functions to provide visual information as opposed to direct intervention. The results concerning the driver groups and their underlying driving motives as well as the preference statements will be used to inform the design and development of assistance functions for promoting eco-driving within the European eCo Move project

Identification and analysis of motives for eco-friendly driving within the eco-move project

During the last year eco-friendly driving and the development of new driver assistance systems that support eco-friendly driving are increasingly becoming important. One main objective of research in this area is finding ways of motivating drivers to behave ecologically beneficially in a sustainable way and identifying how these motives can be generated, for example, through in-vehicle assistance or information systems. One aim of the following study was to develop a matrix of the most important eco-friendly driving motives, moderating and influencing factors (e.g. trip purpose, annual mileage). Another objective was analysis of the influence of different driver characteristics on relevant motives and to deduce first hints for development of applications for generating these motives. The results of the questionnaire study demonstrate that three main motives ‘time’, ‘environment/consumption’ and ‘possibilities to change’ are selectively important and distinctive for various driver groups. The results therefore imply that different strategies and applications or systems might be necessary to change the driver behaviour and to convince them that the ‘eco-system’ will be beneficial for them. Furthermore, the results describe ideas of what kind of assistance or information systems the drivers would prefer as a support system. This information can help in the design of future eco-driving support systems