A new SIR model with mobility.

In this paper, a mobility-based SIR model is built to understand the spread of the pandemic. A traditional SIR model used in epidemiology describes the transition of particles among states, such as susceptible, infected, and recovered states. However, the traditional model has no movement of particles. There are many variations of SIR models when it comes to the factor of mobility, the majority of studies use mobility intensity or population density as a measure of mobility. In this paper, a new dynamical SIR model, including the spatial motion of three-type particles, is constructed and the long-time behavior of the first and second moments of this dynamical system are studied. The intermittency and Lyapunov exponents are derived and analyzed as well

Typhoon Yolanda: How Resilience Masks the Voices of the Vulnerable

Typhoon Yolanda (internationally known as Typhoon Haiyan) tore through the Philippines in November of 2013. This paper aims to demonstrate how in the face of disasters such as Typhoon Yolanda, the label of “resilience” is harmful to the vulnerable populations of the Philippines and masks the voices and ideas of the communities within it. Due to the frequency of typhoons in the Philippines, the Filipino people have been labeled as resilient in the face of natural disaster. The word resounded through coverage of the disaster, present in reports and speeches from not only the government of the Philippines, but also international governments, and non-governmental organizations. Specifically looking into the cases of a fishing village in Concepcion, Iloilo, the Mamanwa Indigenous Peoples in (supply locale), and Guiuan and other Waray-speaking women near the point of the typhoon’s landfall, this paper will demonstrate how the label of “resilience” minimizes and masks their stories and struggles during times of disaster and will present alternate concepts which the communities that faced the typhoon use in its place

The Marketplace of Boston: Macrobotanical Remains from Faneuil Hall

Residents of Boston in the eighteenth century utilized a wide range of botanical materials in their daily lives, navigating complex urban marketing systems and utilizing their own individual ingenuity to procure botanical resources. The one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three botanical remains recovered from a community midden underneath the present-day Faneuil Hall represents a diverse collection of taxa which encodes information not only about the localized dietary practices of colonial urban residents, but also helps to illuminate the more subtle ramifications of Boston\u27s participation in the Atlantic economy on the lives of its residents. These botanical remains represent taxa from a variety of sources; many could have been cultivated in home gardens, while others may have been gathered from the wild, brought to Boston from outlying farms, or imported and sold by merchants with strong connections to the trans-Atlantic commodities trade. Understanding the sources of these botanical materials allows us to reconstruct the numerous ways in which Boston\u27s patchwork marketing system was provisioned, while at the same time clarifying the historical record of botanical use within Boston\u27s urban center

Crowdsourcing citizen feedback on district development in Ghana using interactive voice response surveys

This practice paper describes research carried out by VOTO Mobile, a Ghanaian tech company and social enterprise, and CDD-Ghana, a non-profit organisation focusing on good governance. VOTO Mobile uses an interactive voice response (IVR) survey tool in its work, while CDD-Ghana has engaged with the United Nations Children’s Fund to develop the District League Table (DLT), a tool for measuring and highlighting discrepancies in local government service delivery in different sectors. Their research set out to examine: whether VOTO Mobile’s IVR methodology would be suitable for gathering data for future editions of the DLT; how far the DLT reflected the priorities of Ghanaian citizens; and how IVR could be adapted to maximise the response rate of rural women. The practice paper presents the findings and implications of the research, as well as reflecting on the challenges facing a tech provider and a civil society organisation in working together to develop tools for citizen engagement in local government monitoring.DFIDUSAIDSIDAOmidyar Networ

Lessons from Yowzit’s practitioner research and learning process

Making All Voices Count’s Research, Evidence and Learning component provides grants and mentoring support for real-time research, applied by tech for transparency and accountability practitioners, for project learning and improved practice. Practice papers document these grantees’ learning processes. Yowzit is a South African social enterprise that manages rating and review platforms for citizens to share their views on the quality of services provided by public and private entities. Through an innovation grant from Making All Voices Count, it developed ‘Yowzit for Governance’, a website with information on 41,102 public entities that members of the public could review. To understand the factors that drive interaction with such platforms, Yowzit conducted research about the users of this e-governance platform, with the aim of better understanding their experiences of offline engagement with public entities, their expectations of public entities, and their expectations of this platform. The research also aimed to encourage public entities to act upon citizen feedback, and to increase the overall usage of these platforms

Making coordination a catalyst for the Open Government Partnership in South Africa

Open Democracy Advice Centre, a South African civil society organisation working on transparency and accountability, has been heavily involved in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) since its inception. Through this work, it saw that poor interdepartmental coordination was hindering the South African government’s ability to implement its ambitious commitments to revitalise the public service, promote transparency, and use technology to strengthen governance. Making All Voices Count gave ODAC a practitioner research and learning grant to see what could be learned about how interventions like the OGP can enhance the potential for interdepartmental coordination. Using a conversational format, this Practice Paper discusses both the research findings, and the broader context for open governance reform in South Africa.DFIDUSAIDSIDAOmidyar Networ

It matters who produces data: reflections on two citizen-generated data initiatives

Development Initiatives (DI) and Development Research and Training (DRT) received a Making All Voices Count practitioner research and learning grant to examine the purpose, use and users of citizen-generated data in two case studies. One case study examined how citizen-generated data on the quality of schools and schooling was channelled to the Ministry of Education in Kenya. The other looked at the work of community resource trackers in five communities in Uganda and their role in providing unsolicited feedback to local government actors and other development partners. By reflecting on and contextualising the findings of the practitioner research, this Practice Paper looks at the evolution of the open data movement in Kenya and Uganda, and the growth of citizen-generated data initiatives; the advantages and disadvantages of formal feedback structures and the importance of barazas as spaces for accountability; the need for demonstrating the value of participating in social accountability mechanisms to citizens and the challenges of scaling up citizen-generated data initiatives.DFIDUSAIDSidaOmidyar Networ

Survival and senescence of human young red cells in vitro.

Background: A number of experimental investigations in vivo suggest that in humans a decrease of circulating erythrocyte number ensues whenever erythropoietin (EPO) plasma level decreases. Since the process seems to selectively eliminate young red cells (neocytes), it has been named neocytolysis. The experimental models in vivo have revealed and documented multiple forms of neocytolysis but have not fully elucidated the specificity of the target red cells and the relation with EPO level changes. In an attempt to better characterize the neocytolytic process, we have undertaken an in vitro investigation on age-ranked human red cells. Methods: By centrifugation on Percoll density gradient we separated the red cells population into three subsets, neocytes, middle-aged and old. Then we comparatively investigated the kinetics of survival of the subsets cultured under different conditions: with medium alone, with 10% autologous plasma, with EPO, alone or in combination with autologous monocytes. Results: Neocytes showed a viability and a survival rate lower than the other red cells when cultured in medium or with 10% plasma. EPO at physiological doses increased their survival rate, but not that of the other subsets. This effect was enhanced by co-culture with monocytes. Conclusion: Likely neocytes are more sensitive than the other RBCs subsets to presence or absence of survival signals, such as EPO or plasma or monocytes derived factors. These observations could provide an insight into the link between the decrease in EPO plasma level and the reduction of circulating red cells mass and account for the specificity of neocytes clearance