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Why do some Lao mothers have good practices during pregnancy? A qualitative positive deviance study
No full textObjectives: Optimal antenatal care (ANC) visits help improve health outcomes and decrease perinatal mortality but they are often not optimal in low and middle-income countries (e.g., few mothers attend the recommended four or more ANC visits). The aim of this study was to identify determinants that influenced mothers who did make sufficient visits for ANC in rural Lao in order to inform the design of more effective interventions to change the behavior of mothers who do not make such visits.
Materials and Methods: A qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with mothers who made four or more ANC visits during their last pregnancy in rural Lao. Manual analysis was used for open and thematic coding of the interview data.
Results: All mothers reported taking special care of themselves during pregnancy. They perceived the clear benefits of ANC visits regarding reassuring them of their health and reducing the risk of negative events. Family members, particularly husbands, played a key role in making decisions to seek more ANC when they were aware of its benefits. In addition, friends and neighbors were an important source of information for mothers. The quality of ANC provision and the provision of incentives such as an information booklet, along with soap and mosquito net were directly influencing factors in increasing ANC visits.
Conclusions: In general, feeling a need for taking special care during pregnancy was a common factor among pregnant women who did use ANC in rural Laos. Accordingly, improving the quality of ANC and increasing appreciation in communities regarding the need for good ANC are strongly recommended to increase attendance by all mothers
It's the algorithm, stupid
No full textThe UK’s coronavirus underperformance compared to Asia is one stark example of a bigger problem; a national operating system missing vital 2020s system updates. We need to re-programme UK education for the cross-disciplinary algorithm economy
Immunological tolerance: scanning a barren landscape for signs of sustained growth
No full textThe immune system is finely poised to respond to the challenge of infection but occasionally lacks discernment, mounting inappropriate responses to agents that pose no threat, thereby driving pathologies as diverse as autoimmune disease, allergy and allograft rejection. Although our understanding of how immunological tolerance is established and maintained and the circumstances that lead to its failure has improved substantially over the past 20 years, translation of these principles into effective treatments has proven unexpectedly difficult to achieve. Here we explore how the underlying principles of antigen recognition have inspired novel approaches to the induction of tolerance and review progress made in their use to pacify an aggravated immune system. While many challenges undoubtedly remain, for those dedicated to commercialising the opportunities that biologicals and cell therapies have begun to provide, the rewards are likely to be substantial
"A Greek Temple: A new web application on the architecture of the ancient greek temples". The Acropolis Restoration News, YSMA, Issue 17-18
No full textThe Twelve Olympian Gods: Game cards for the Gods of Olympus
No full textΟι καρτέλες αυτές εικονίζουν έργα της αρχαίας και νεότερης τέχνης με παραστάσεις των θεών, σε γλυπτά, σε αγγεία, σε νομίσματα, καθώς επίσης φυτά και ζώα αφιερωμένα στους θεούς. Ο μαθητής πρέπει να αναγνωρίσει ποιος θεός εικονίζεται σε κάθε έργο, να απαντήσει στις ερωτήσεις που υπάρχουν στο πίσω μέρος κάθε καρτέλας, καθώς επίσης να συσχετίσει τους θεούς με τα αφιερωμένα σε αυτούς ζώα και φυτά.Shown on these cards are works of ancient and modern art, illustrating gods, in sculpture, on vases, coins. Included also are plants and animals sacred to the gods. The students are to recognize which divinity is shown in each work, to answer the questions on the back of each card and to connect the gods with their sacred animals and plants
Tenofovir for prevention of mother to child transmission of hepatitis B in migrant women in a resource-limited setting on the Thailand-Myanmar border: a commentary on challenges of implementation
No full textBACKGROUND:The aim of this manuscript is to highlight challenges in the implementation of maternal tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (tenofovir) for prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in resource limited setting. Current preventive strategies in resource-limited settings fail mainly due to prohibitive costs of hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) and a high proportion of homebirths, meaning both HBIG and hepatitis B birth dose vaccine are not given. A new strategy for PMTCT without the necessity of HBIG, could be daily tenofovir commenced early in gestation. Implementation challenges to early tenofovir for PMTCT can provide insight to elimination strategies of HBV as the burden of disease is high in resource-limited settings. METHODS:Challenges encountered during implementation of a study of tenofovir for PMTCT before 20 weeks gestation in rural and resource-limited areas on the Thailand-Myanmar border were identified informally from trial study logbooks and formally from comments from patients and staff at monthly visits. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02995005. MAIN BODY:During implementation 171 pregnant women were hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive by point of-care test over 19 months (May-2018 until Dec-2019). In this resource-limited setting where historically no clinic has provided tenofovir for PMTCT of HBV, information provided by staff resulted in a high uptake of study screening (95.5% (84/88) when offered to pregnant women. False positive point-of-care rapid tests hinder a test and treat policy for HBV and development of improved rapid tests that include HBeAg and/or HBV DNA would increase efficiency. Integrated care of HBV to antenatal care, transport assistance and local agreements to facilitate access, could increase healthcare at this critical stage of the life course. As safe storage of medication in households in resource-limited setting may not be ideal, interactive counseling about this must be a routine part of care. CONCLUSION:Despite challenges, results from the study to date suggest tenofovir can be offered to HBV-infected women in resource-limited settings before 20 weeks gestation with a high uptake of screening, high drug accountability and follow-up, with provision of transportation support. This commentary has highlighted practical implementation issues with suggestions for strategies that support the objective of PMTCT and the World Health Organization goal of HBV elimination by 2030
Towards autonomous inspection of concrete deterioration in sewers with legged robots
No full textThe regular inspection of sewer systems is essential to assess the level of degradation and to plan maintenance work. Currently, human inspectors must walk through sewers and use their sense of touch to inspect the roughness of the floor and check for cracks. The sense of touch is used since the floor is often covered by (waste) water and biofilm, which renders visual inspection very challenging. In this paper, we demonstrate a robotic inspection system which evaluates concrete deterioration using tactile interaction. We deployed the quadruped robot ANYmal in the sewers of Zurich and commanded it using shared autonomy for several such missions. The inspection itself is realized via a well-defined scratching motion using one of the limbs on the sewer floor. Inertial and force/torque sensors embedded within specially designed feet captured the resulting vibrations. A pretrained support vector machine (SVM) is evaluated to assess the state of the concrete. The results of the classification are then displayed in a three-dimensional map recorded by the robot for easy visualization and assessment. To train the SVM we recorded 625 samples with ground truth labels provided by professional sewer inspectors. We make this data set publicly available. We achieved deterioration level estimates within three classes of more than 92% accuracy. During the four deployment missions, we covered a total distance of 300 m and acquired 130 inspection samples
Rewarding the good and punishing the bad: the role of karma and afterlife beliefs in shaping moral norms
No full textMoralizing religions encourage people to anticipate supernatural punishments for violating moral norms, even in anonymous interactions. This is thought to be one way large-scale societies have solved cooperative dilemmas. Previous research has overwhelmingly focused on the effects of moralizing gods, and has yet to thoroughly examine other religious moralizing systems, such as karma, to which more than a billion people subscribe worldwide. In two pre-registered studies conducted with Chinese Singaporeans, we compared the moralizing effects of karma and afterlife beliefs of Buddhists, Taoists, Christians, and the non-religious. In Study 1 (N = 582), we found that Buddhists and Taoists (karmic religions) judge individual actions as having greater consequences in this life and the next, compared to Christians. Pointing to the specific role of karma beliefs in these judgements, these effects were replicated in comparisons of participants from the non-karmic religions/groups (Christian and non-religious) who did or did not endorse karma belief. Study 2 (N = 830) exploited religious syncretism in this population by reminding participants about either moral afterlife beliefs (reincarnation or heaven/hell), ancestor veneration beliefs, or neither, before assessing norms of generosity in a series of hypothetical dictator games. When reminded of their ancestor veneration beliefs, Buddhists and Taoists (but not Christians) endorsed parochial prosocial norms, expressing willingness to give more to their family and religious group than did those in the control condition. Moral afterlife beliefs increased generosity to strangers for all groups. Taken together, these results provide evidence that different religious beliefs can foster and maintain different prosocial and cooperative norms
Teaching to listen, question, and ponder: an investigation into promoting an enquiring atmosphere in a mathematics classroom
No full textThis study reports on a classroom-based intervention that lasted eight lessons with the particular focus of exploring whether and how specific activities, strategies, and questions may promote an enquiring atmosphere in a mathematics classroom, i.e., a classroom environment in which students feel safe to investigate new mathematical ideas in order to produce, share, and test their conjectures in search for a proof. Although many researchers agree on the central role that conjectures and proofs should play in all students’ mathematical experiences, many students find it difficult to engage with conjecturing and proving. In this paper we argue that the classroom atmosphere has a crucial influence in helping students to overcome these difficulties and we focus our investigation on an English secondary mathematics classroom taught by the first author. Students’ responses to questionnaires, prompts, tasks, and interview questions were analysed in order to evaluate the impact of the intervention. The analysis suggests that specific activities, strategies, and questions can be used by teachers to facilitate an enquiring classroom atmosphere. However, for these to be effective, the teacher needs to explicitly teach students how to listen, question, and ponder in order to give students the tools to formulate conjectures and proofs
Key Research Findings
No full textProject Calibrate is a 3-year project (from 2018-2020) jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Gatsby Foundation, and the Royal Society (Grant number: 209659/Z/17/Z, Principal Investigator: Professor Sibel Erduran). The project is based at the University of Oxford and involves a research collaboration with AQA. The aim of the project is to broaden the idea of “practical science” at Key Stage 4 level in England so that pupils gain a better understanding of the wide variety of methods scientists use while conducting investigations. The enclosed report is a summary of the project's key research findings