Catalog of Approaches to Impact Measurement: Assessing Social Impact in Private Ventures

To inform action impact investors could take to measure impact in a coordinated manner, The Rockefeller Foundation commissioned the study of impact assessment approaches presented here.It is natural to hope to find a single, turnkey solution that can address all measurement needs. In this study we conducted a survey of impact investors and complemented it with seven years of experience in the field of impact investing to discover what these investors want from impact measurement, and conducted in-depth interviews with over twenty entities that have developed and implemented approaches to measuring impact. Our survey of existing approaches was thorough but surely is not comprehensive; however the approaches are a good representation of the current state of play. What we found is that there is not one single measurement answer. Instead the answer depends on what solution is most appropriate for a particular investor's "impact profile" defined as the investor's level of risk tolerance and desired financial return, the particular sector in which the investor operates, geography, and credibility level of information about impact that the investor requires

Double Bottom Line Progress Report: Assessing Social Impact in Double Bottom Line Ventures, Methods Catalog

Outlines methods for social entrepreneurs and their investors to define, measure and communicate social impact and return in early-stage ventures

Double Bottom Line Project Report: Assessing Social Impact in Double Bottom Line Ventures

This tool expresses costs and social impacts of an investment in monetary terms. Quantification is achieved according to one or more of three measures: NPV (the aggregate value of all costs, revenues and social impacts discounted), benefit-cost ratio (the discounted value of revenues and positive impacts divided by discounted value of costs and negative impacts) and internal rate of return (the net value of revenues plus impacts expressed as an annual percentage return on the total costs of the investment)

Reading flexibility and its effect on comprehension in students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Reading flexibility exercises were conducted over a six-week period with a fourth grade student with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to determine whether they would increase reading flexibility as well as comprehension. Cartwright’s (2010) reading flexibility assessment and exercises along with the Qualitative Reading Inventory-5 (QRI; Leslie & Caldwell, 2011) word lists and passages were administered. To ensure the intervention was “autism friendly,” assessments and exercises were altered so that visuals were used and activities were predictable. Based upon assessments administered, the participant made gains in both reading flexibility and reading comprehension skills. Further research must be conducted with a larger sample to determine whether this is an effective intervention for other students with ASD

Ingesting glucose during resistance training blunt accumulation of protein expression MuRF1 in vastus lateralis in healthy trained adults..

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ingesting liquid glucose during resistance exercise on protein expression of muscle RING finger 1 (MuRF1) on healthy trained adults after 5 training sessions. Method: Thirteen healthy trained participants performed six sessions of heavy-load resistance training with ingestion of glucose or placebo in this within subject randomized clinical trial. The subjects concluded a three-week intervention, consistent of familiarization phase the first week, and two weeks of resistance exercise. The participants legs were randomized in either glucose (GLU) or placebo (PLA), ingested during or after training session. Blood samples and biopsies were taken before and after intervention. The outcome measures were protein expression on MuRF1, nutrition status, muscle strength, training volume and glucose levels in blood. All data is analyzed in R Studio. Results: Intake of glucose during resistance training led to a 26% [-0.4, -0.6] lower accumulation of protein expression MuRF1 in GLU compared to PLA (48% [0.03, 0.07] increase in post). The intervention led to an increase on total volume (PLA: 19% [0.1, 0.25], GLU: 18% [0.08, 0.24]. There was a time effect on isometric test (PLA: 8% [0.007, 0.16], GLU: 4% [-0.03, 0.12] on test 2, isokinetic 60sek (PLA: -18% [-0.25, -0.10], GLU: 9% [-0.16, -0.01] with significant difference between condition (p=0.03), and isokinetic 240sek (PLA -7% [-0.14, -0.01], GLU -5.5% [-0.1, 0.009]) on test 3. There was no difference between condition on restitution effect on isometric and isokinetic tests, but a time effect on isokinetic 60sek after 23 hours training session (p=0.02) Conclusion: Ingesting glucose supplement during resistance training decreases protein content of MuRF1 in skeletal muscl

The pulse of affirmation. An exploration of the oppressed and revolutionary body of Gilles Deleuze

In this paper I will address the body as analyzed in the work of Gilles Deleuze and in his collaborations with Félix Guattari. I will attempt to explore the body as a decisive point of reference with regard to the human condition. I state that the body has been undermined as active and reflecting. As a result of neglecting the body in this regard, anxiety may arise, an experience of lack and oppression. Deleuze and Guattari argue against the structuralist and dualistic paradigm, and they search for a dissolving of the subject in favor of a pure becoming of multiplicities and intensities. Thus identities and the question of essence are abandoned, and our bodies are considered revolutionary becomings capable of liberating, and actively affirming life. I argue that the body has a privileged access to the experience of becoming, due to its own internal knowledge of mortality. This vulnerability is also what makes us capable of experiencing the affirmative powers of life. The challenges raised because of the structuralist and dualist paradigm concern the body's conditions as it often seems to oppress the body's own needs. Deleuze and Guattari pose analyses that show complex relations concerning what triggers different movements and becomings toward a variety of assemblages in the social and political sphere. I examine in particular Deleuzes´reading of the artist Francis Bacon, with regard to the bodily conditions relating to confronting the violent and ruthless aspects of life, by including and affirming these aspects. I also use Friedrich Nietzsche's work on the body as culturally and socially constituted in order to shed light on the human tendency towards experiences of guilt and lack. Deleuze and Guattari's body without organs is considered to constitute itself as either a full, empty or cancerous body. This paper attempts to bring to light the deleuzian possibility of a more healthy body constituted as full, when it is freed from suppressing conditions; a body that accepts its continuous loss and the inevitable risk of life, at the same time as it is affirmative and continuously becoming a new.Master i FilosofiMAHF-FILOFILO35

Natural Variation in the Oxytocin Receptor Gene and Rearing Interact to Influence Reproductive and Nonreproductive Social Behavior and Receptor binding

Individual variation in social behavior offers an opportunity to explore gene-by-environment interactions that could contribute to adaptative or atypical behavioral profiles (e.g., autism spectrum disorders). Outbred, socially monogamous prairie voles provide an excellent model to experimentally explore how natural variations in rearing and genetic diversity interact to shape reproductive and nonreproductive social behavior. In this study, we manipulated rearing (biparental versus dam-only), genotyped the intronic NT213739 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the oxytocin receptor gene (Oxtr), and then assessed how each factor and their interaction related to reciprocal interactions and partner preference in male and female adult prairie voles. We found that C/T subjects reared biparentally formed more robust partner preferences than T/T subjects. In general, dam-only reared animals huddled less with a conspecific in reproductive and nonreproductive contexts, but the effect of rearing was more pronounced in T/T animals. In line with previous literature, C/T animals exhibited higher densities of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) in the striatum (caudoputamen, nucleus accumbens) compared to T/T subjects. There was also a gene-by-rearing interaction in the striatum and insula of females: In the insula, T/T females expressed varying OXTR densities depending on rearing. Overall, this study demonstrates that significant differences in adult reproductive and nonreproductive social behavior and OXTR density can arise due to natural differences in Oxtr, experimental manipulations of rearing, and their interaction

Can municipality-based post-discharge follow-up visits including a general practitioner reduce early readmission among the fragile elderly (65+ years old)?::a randomized controlled trial

Objective. To evaluate how municipality-based post-discharge follow-up visits including a general practitioner and municipal nurse affect early readmission among high-risk older people discharged from a hospital department of internal medicine. Design and setting. Centrally randomized single-centre pragmatic controlled trial comparing intervention and usual care with investigator-blinded outcome assessment. Intervention. The intervention was home visits with a general practitioner and municipal nurse within seven days of discharge focusing on medication, rehabilitation plan, functional level, and need for further health care initiatives. The visit was concluded by planning one or two further visits. Controls received standard health care services. Patients. People aged 65 + years discharged from Holbæk University Hospital, Denmark, in 2012 considered at high risk of readmission. Main outcome measures. The primary outcome was readmission within 30 days. Secondary outcomes at 30 and 180 days included readmission, primary health care, and municipal services. Outcomes were register-based and analysis used the intention-to-treat principle. Results. A total of 270 and 261 patients were randomized to intervention and control groups, respectively. The groups were similar in baseline characteristics. In all 149 planned discharge follow-up visits were carried out (55%). Within 30 days, 24% of the intervention group and 23% of the control group were readmitted (p = 0.93). No significant differences were found for any other secondary outcomes except that the intervention group received more municipal nursing services. Conclusion. This municipality-based follow-up intervention was only feasible in half the planned visits. The intervention as delivered had no effect on readmission or subsequent use of primary or secondary health care services

Trivial gain of downscaling in future projections of higher trophic levels in the Nordic and Barents Seas

Downscaling physical forcing from global climate models is both time consuming and labor demanding and can delay or limit the physical forcing available for regional marine ecosystem modelers. Earlier studies have shown that downscaled physics is necessary for capturing the dynamics of primary production and lower trophic levels; however, it is not clear how higher trophic levels respond to the coarse resolution physics of global models. Here, we apply the Nordic and Barents Seas Atlantis ecosystem model (NoBa) to study the consequences of using physical forcing from global climate models versus using that from regional models. The study is therefore (i) a comparison between a regional model and its driving global model to investigate the extent to which a global climate model can be used for regional ecosystem predictions and (ii) a study of the impact of future climate change in the Nordic and Barents Seas. We found that few higher trophic level species were affected by using forcing from a global versus a regional model, and there was a general agreement in future biomass trends and distribution patterns. However, the slight difference in temperature between the models dramatically impacted Northeast Arctic cod (Gadus morhua), which highlights how species projection uncertainty could arise from poor physical representation of the physical forcing, in addition to uncertainty in the ecosystem model parameterization.publishedVersio

Role of ABO Secretor Status in Mucosal Innate Immunity and H. pylori Infection

The fucosylated ABH antigens, which constitute the molecular basis for the ABO blood group system, are also expressed in salivary secretions and gastrointestinal epithelia in individuals of positive secretor status; however, the biological function of the ABO blood group system is unknown. Gastric mucosa biopsies of 41 Rhesus monkeys originating from Southern Asia were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. A majority of these animals were found to be of blood group B and weak-secretor phenotype (i.e., expressing both Lewis a and Lewis b antigens), which are also common in South Asian human populations. A selected group of ten monkeys was inoculated with Helicobacter pylori and studied for changes in gastric mucosal glycosylation during a 10-month period. We observed a loss in mucosal fucosylation and concurrent induction and time-dependent dynamics in gastric mucosal sialylation (carbohydrate marker of inflammation), which affect H. pylori adhesion targets and thus modulate host–bacterial interactions. Of particular relevance, gastric mucosal density of H. pylori, gastritis, and sialylation were all higher in secretor individuals compared to weak-secretors, the latter being apparently “protected.” These results demonstrate that the secretor status plays an intrinsic role in resistance to H. pylori infection and suggest that the fucosylated secretor ABH antigens constitute interactive members of the human and primate mucosal innate immune system