Suchergebnisse

Objective: To evaluate the effects of financial incentives on physical activity (PA). Data Sources: MEDLINE, Embase, 7 other databases, and 2 trial registries until July 17, 2019. Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria: Randomized controlled trials with adults aged ≥18 years assessing the effect of financial incentives on PA. Any comparator was eligible provided the only difference between groups was the incentive strategy. Data Extraction: Two independent reviewers extracted data and assessed study quality. Of 5765 records identified, 57 records (51 unique trials; n = 17 773 participants) were included. Data Synthesis: Random-effects models pooling data for each of the 5 PA domains. Results: Financial incentives increase leisure time PA (gym or class attendance; standardized mean difference [95% CI], 0.46 [0.28-0.63], n = 5057) and walking behavior (steps walked; 0.25 [0.13-0.36], n = 3254). No change in total minutes of PA (0.52 [−0.09 to 1.12], n = 968), kilocalories expended (0.19 [−0.06 to 0.44], n = 247), or the proportion of participants meeting PA guidelines (risk ratio [95% CI] 1.53 [0.53-4.44], n = 650) postintervention was observed. After intervention has ceased, incentives sustain a slight increase in leisure time PA (0.10 [0.02-0.18], n = 2678) and walking behavior (0.11 [0.00-0.22], n = 2425). Conclusions: Incentives probably improve leisure time PA and walking at intervention end, and small improvements may be sustained over time once incentives have ceased. They lead to little or no difference in kilocalories expended or minutes of PA. It is uncertain whether incentives change the likelihood of meeting PA guidelines because the certainty of the evidence is low.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revolutionized the field of gene mapping. As the GWAS field matures, it is becoming clear that for many complex traits, a proportion of the missing heritability is attributable to common variants of individually small effect. Detecting these small effects individually can be difficult, and statistical power would be increased if relevant variants could be grouped together for testing. Here, we propose a VEGAS2Pathway approach that aggregates association strength of individual markers into pre-specified biological pathways. It accounts for gene size and linkage disequilibrium between markers using simulations from the multivariate normal distribution. Pathway size is taken into account via a resampling approach. Importantly, since the approach only requires summary data, the method can easily be applied in all GWASs, including meta-analysis, singleton-based, family-based, and DNA-pooling-based designs. This approach is implemented in a user-friendly web page https://vegas2.qimrberghofer.edu.au and a command line tool. The web implementation uses gene-sets from the gene ontology (GO), curated gene-sets from MSigDB (containing canonical pathways and gene-sets from BIOCARTA, REACTOME, KEGG databases), PANTHER, and pathway commons databases, enabling analysis of a wide range of complex traits. We applied this method on a colorectal cancer GWAS meta-analysis data set (10,934 cases, 12,328 controls) from the Genetics and Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer Consortium (GECCO). We report statistically significant enrichment of association signal for the 'BMP signaling' and 'muscle cell differentiation' pathways, suggesting a possible role for these pathways onto the risk of colorectal cancer.

A call from the EU for the set-up of European Reference Networks (ERNs) is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2016. ERNs are intended to improve the care for patients with low prevalent or rare diseases throughout the EU by, among other things, facilitating the pooling and exchange of experience and knowledge and the development of protocols and guidelines. In the past, for example where costly orphan drugs have been concerned, industry has played an important role in facilitating consensus meetings and publication of guidelines. The ERNs should provide a unique opportunity for healthcare professionals and patients to lead these activities in an independent way. However, currently costs for networking activities are not to be covered by EU funds and alternative sources of funding are being explored. There is growing concern that any involvement of the industry in the funding of ERNs and their core activities may create a risk of undue influence. To date, the European Commission has not been explicit in how industry will be engaged in ERNs. We believe that public funding and a conflict of interest policy are needed at the level of the ERNs, Centers of Expertise (CEs), healthcare professionals and patient organizations with the aim of maintaining scientific integrity and independence. Specific attention is needed where it concerns the development of clinical practice guidelines. A proposal for a conflict of interest policy is presented, which may support the development of a framework to facilitate collaboration, safeguard professional integrity and to establish and maintain public acceptability and trust among patients, their organizations and the general public.

This review focuses on the role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change. It does so under the belief that climate impacts will affect disadvantaged social groups more disproportionately, and that local institutions centrally influence how different social groups gain access to and are able to use assets and resources. It suggests that adaptation to climate change is inevitably local and that institutions influence adaptation and climate vulnerability in three critical ways: a) they structure impacts and vulnerability, b) they mediate between individual and collective responses to climate impacts and thereby shape outcomes of adaptation, and c) they act as the means of delivery of external resources to facilitate adaptation, and thus govern access to such resources. In focusing on local institutions, the review fills two glaring gaps in the existing understanding about institutions and climate change: the lack of middle-range theories of adaptation practices to help frame policy debates, and the absence of comparative empirical studies of adaptation to support policy interventions. To contribute to middle-range theoretical knowledge about climate change the review develops a conceptual framework to understand and classify the adaptation practices of the rural poor, view the institutional structuring of adaptation, and examine the types of external support interventions that local institutions inevitably channel. The review proposes a focus on different forms of mobility, storage, diversification, communal pooling, and market exchange in rural settings as the basic mechanisms through which households address riskiness of livelihoods. Using the familiar typology of public, private, and civil society institutions the review proposes an institutional linkages framework that highlights the role of institutional partnerships in facilitating adaptation and drawing from social network analysis it presents a conceptual toolkit to analyze institutional partnerships and their impacts on resource access of vulnerable social groups. In examining the role of institutions in channeling financial, information and technological, leadership, and policy interventions into rural areas, the review highlights that institutions are critical leverage points through which to determine the direction and magnitude of flows of resources to different social groups.

AI for Blockchain -- A General Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection Framework with Self-Attention Graph Pooling -- The Best of Both Worlds: Integrating Semantic Features with Expert Features for Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection -- A LSTM and GRU-based hybrid model in the Cryptocurrency price prediction -- Smart Contract Code Clone Detection Based on Pre-Training Techniques -- MF-Net: Encrypted Malicious Traffic Detection Based on MultiFlow Temporal Features -- Blockchain Applications -- When Supply Chain Security Meets Blockchain: Applications and Challenges -- ePoW: Energy-efficient Blockchain Consensus Algorithm for Decentralize Federated Learning System in Resource constrained Drone Swarm -- Applications of Consortium Blockchain in Power Grid Security: A Systematic Review -- Blockchain and OR based data sharing solution for Internet of Things -- Rearranging Inv Message in the Bitcoin to Construct Covert Channels -- Long-term Blockchain Transactions Spanning Multiplicity of Smart Contract Methods -- Market Derivative Risks and Regulation of Virtual Currency Trading Using "PaoFen" Platforms -- Research on Regulation Oriented Decentralized Oracle Machine -- Obric: Oblivious Keyword Search in Hyperledger Fabric Platform -- Blockchain Architecture and Optimization -- A distributed, penetrative and all-dimensional supervision architecture for consortium blockchain -- SC-Chain: a multi-modal collaborative storage system for medical resource -- Congestion Control with Receiver-aided Network Status Awareness in RDMA Transmission -- VPBFT: Improved PBFT consensus algorithm based on VRF and PageRank algorithm -- Consensusless Blockchain: A Promising High-Performance Blockchain without Consensus -- Protocols and Consensus -- Ouroboros Taktikos: Regularizing Proof-of-Stake via Dynamic Difficulty -- Petrichor: An Efficient Consensus Protocol Leveraging DAG and Sharding for Asynchronous BFT -- A Kind of Optimization Method for Committee and Reward Mechanism -- MagpieBFT: An Efficient Asynchronous BFT Protocol for Blockchain -- A Hierarchical Blockchain Framework with Selectable Consensus Scope for Data Sharing in Internet of Vehicles -- An Improved PBFT Consensus Algorithm for Supply Chain Finance. .

Some jurisdictions in the eastern United States have reduced harvest of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) because of perceived declines in recruitment and population size over the last decade. Although the restoration of American black bears (Ursus americanus) and the colonization of coyotes (Canis latrans) have increased fawn predation in some areas, limited information exists on how temporally dynamic resources and weather influence fawn survival. Therefore, we evaluated fawn survival probability, cause specific mortality, and if factors such as oak (Quercus spp.) mast abundance, winter severity, precipitation, and landscape composition influenced mortality risk on Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia, USA, from 2008 to 2019. We tracked 248 fawns outfitted with very high frequency radio-collars and predation was the leading cause of mortality (n = 42; 45%). We estimated survival to 133 days and survival pooling all years (2008-2019) was 0.50 (95% CI = 0.42-0.60). Increased annual red oak (Quercus spp.) mast abundance from the previous fall reduced mortality hazard for fawns. The longevity of our study revealed a link between fawn survival and a specific maternal resource (red oak mast) only available during gestation. Our results highlight the importance of oak mast in eastern deciduous forests and, more broadly, overwinter maternal condition on white-tailed deer recruitment. ; Marine Corps Base Quantico; Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources; Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University ; Published version ; We are grateful to Marine Corps Base Quantico for funding the field research and for support from the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

This study was carried out to assess individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) for UZIMAX, a novel plant-based biopesticide developed for malaria vector control. The biopesticide is estimated to kill up to 100% of Anopheles larvae within 48 h of application and poses no risks to human health and the environment. However, scaling-up of its adoption requires clear evidence of its acceptance by individuals in malaria-prone areas. We conducted Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) revealed preference auctions with 204 participants to determine their willingness to pay (WTP) for community-based application of the biopesticide to control malaria vectors. Nearly all participants were willing to pay at the lowest bid price of the biopesticide, and the majority of them expressed great interest in pooling resources to facilitate biopesticide application. Household per capita income and building capacity of households through training significantly increased WTP. These findings imply high adoption potential of the technology and the need to devise inclusive policy tools, especially those that enhance collective action, resource mobilization and capacity building to empower both men and women and stimulate investment in eco-friendly technologies for malaria prevention. Financial and labor resource mechanisms managed by the community could potentially spur adoption of the biopesticides, and in turn, generate health, environmental and economic benefits to households in malaria-prone communities. ; The Biovision Foundation Switzerland. The article processing charge (APC) was funded by ICIPE core funding from the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Kenyan Government. ; http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability ; am2021 ; UP Centre for Sustainable Malaria Control (UP CSMC)

Canary Islands: ONR grants N00014-16-1-2973 and N00014-16-1-3017, and the Spanish Central Government Plan Nacional DeepCom CTM2017-88686-P. PLT was supported by ONR grant N00014-18-1-2062 and PLT and MJ acknowledge the support of the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) in the completion of this study. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. FV and fieldwork at the Azores were supported by ONR grants N00014-15-1-2341 and N00014-17-1-2715 and by the Dutch Research Council (award number 016.Veni.181.086). NAS, PA and JA were funded for writing this paper by Ramon y Cajal, Agustín de Bethencourt and FPU grants from the Spanish Ministry and Cabildo de Tenerife, respectively. ; Fear of predation can induce profound changes in the behaviour and physiology of prey species even if predator encounters are infrequent. For echolocating toothed whales, the use of sound to forage exposes them to detection by eavesdropping predators, but while some species exploit social defences or produce cryptic acoustic signals, deep-diving beaked whales, well known for mass-strandings induced by navy sonar, seem enigmatically defenceless against their main predator, killer whales. Here we test the hypothesis that the stereotyped group diving and vocal behaviour of beaked whales has benefits for abatement of predation risk and thus could have been driven by fear of predation over evolutionary time. Biologging data from 14 Blainville's and 12 Cuvier's beaked whales show that group members have an extreme synchronicity, overlapping vocal foraging time by 98% despite hunting individually, thereby reducing group temporal availability for acoustic detection by killer whales to <25%. Groups also perform a coordinated silent ascent in an unpredictable direction, covering a mean of 1 km horizontal distance from their last vocal position. This tactic sacrifices 35% of foraging time but reduces by an order of magnitude the risk of interception by killer whales. These predator abatement behaviours have likely served beaked whales over millions of years, but may become maladaptive by playing a role in mass strandings induced by man-made predator-like sonar sounds. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

AbstractWe examine a range of six African microfinance institutions with a view to assessing and if possible enhancing their poverty impact. The impact of microfinance loans is variable between institutions, with a tendency in particular for savings services to be taken up by people well below the poverty line, especially in South Africa and Kenya.However, many benefits to the poor from microfinance programmes, in Africa at least, are likely to come via an indirect route, via 'wider impacts' or 'spin‐offs', rather than by through direct impacts on borrowers. We examine, here, three of these indirect routes:


(i) Microcredit to the nonpoor can reduce poverty by sucking very poor people into the labour market as employees of microfinance clients. This mechanism is important in three of our survey countries in particular (South Africa, Uganda and Kenya);


(ii) Microcredit, whether or not the proximate recipient is poor, often enhances human capital through increased expenditures on education and related improvements in health, which may then extend to poor individuals through intrahousehold and inter‐generational effects.


(iii) Microcredit, whether or not the proximate recipient is poor, often improves the household's risk management capacity through the enhancement of social capital, partly achieved by deliberate training and capacity‐building efforts and partly through fungibility of loan proceeds into the building up of social networks. This in turn may lead to 'poverty externalities' through the extension of credit groups to include poor people, and through the stabilisation of village income, which reduces the vulnerability of the poorest to risk. In all of our case studies, many male and female beneficiaries are members of farmer groups and/or business associations; they share information on markets, prices and technology and cut costs by pooling resources for transporting goods to and from markets and by sharing storage facilities; often borrowers invest in this form of social capital, on which drawings can be made by poor people outside the borrower population, using the proceeds of their loan.

We examine, in a non‐rigorous way, the magnitude of these 'wider impacts', and in a concluding section examine how they may be developed and expanded by means of institutional and policy initiatives. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Financial institutions have implemented fund transfer pricing in response to demands from regulatory bodies to better manage their risk and as part of their cash-pooling strategies. For banks, implementing a fund transfer price causes a redistribution of income between the various bank branches depending upon the determined transfer price and the volume of resources demanded or offered by each branch. In this context, this study's objective is to examine the effect of the potential implementation of fund transfer pricing on the performance of Brazilian bank branches. This study examines and runs a linear regression of 21 years of monthly banking statistics (2000-2020), lists the most relevant factors contributing to interbranch transfer volume, and demonstrates how an interbranch transfer volume analysis determines the fund transfer price effect in the performance of bank branches. Contrary to the expectations of prior studies, the total volume of interbranch transfers between Brazilian bank branches for the period examined is not zero, which means that, on average, bank branches generate resources that are allocated to other parts of the bank that are not bank branches. This study finds evidence that branches short of funds may be financing their income with resources from branches with excess funds and that implementing funds transfer pricing does not have a null effect in Brazilian bank branches. On average, the branches' incomes increase. While implementing a price for the transfer of funds leads to an increase in the bank branches' average income, it is not necessarily the case that a greater number of bank branches will register an increase in their income. This evidence is important because it demonstrates that a bank's strategy regarding the supply or demand of interbranch resources should inform decisions on whether or not to implement a fund transfer pricing policy.

A public-private partnership (PPP), a long-term pooling of public and private partners' resources, sharing risks, responsibilities, and results, is a successful tool employed in many countries to develop public infrastructure. The article argues that PPP is the optimal cooperation between the state and private sectors to solve social and economic problems. Even though PPP as the phenomenon of the modern economy appeared not too long ago, it had objective prerequisites, including the prior forms of cooperation between the state and individuals. The study of these prerequisites reveals the development patterns of PPP development, including its effectiveness, that allows politicians to harness them to develop an optimal state policy in the area. The article provides a comparative analysis of the PPP abroad to assess the intermediate results of the PPP development in Russia. In many countries (Canada, France, and Great Britain), a PPP as an economic model for developing the infrastructure complex has proved its viability and significantly contributes to social and economic development. It is essential that in addition to direct economic effects, a publicprivate partnership might result in indirect influence, including a positive impact on institutional development. Public-private partnership in Russia has not yet found wide application for improving the infrastructure complex. Therefore, it does not have enough impact on economic development. Despite the large volume of research on PPP, there are few comparative studies of PPP development in countries at different levels of socio-economic development. Relying on the conducted study of PPP in Russia and the leading foreign countries, the strategic model of PPP proposed by the author as well as broader foreign experience in PPP, the article provides recommendations aimed at better utilization of the opportunities provided by fostering of this form of cooperation between the state and individuals and increasing its role in the economic development of Russia.

International audience ; This paper explores the individual and collective facets of anethnographic example of community water management in Morocco, with critical reference to E. Ostrom's economic concept of 'commons' and Dardot and Laval's political one of 'common'. Self-managed, more than one hundred years old, and strictly related to the village's patrilineal organization, this so-called traditional system encompasses different logics in practice. The technical side relies on a pooling of resources allowing the risk to be spread between all participants, while the oral enunciation of the right to water is used as a reminder, and as a support the patrilineal self-representation of the group, which includes strong power relations. Yet the practical use of irrigation water is particularly individual and reveals patterns of solidarity that are not strictly parental. This case is thus a good example of an institutional 'commons' type resource-management but at the same time of an activity and a discourse 'in common'. Both of them having distinctive and complementary functions. ; Cet article explore les dimensions individuelle et collective d'un exemple ethnographique de gestion communautaire de la ressource hydrique au Maroc, en le confrontant de manière critique aux notions de bien commun (Ostrom) et de commun (Dardot et Laval). Le système autogéré de récolte et de partage de l'eau, vieux de plus d'un siècle, est étroitement lié à l'organisation sociale patrilinéaire et segmentaire du village, mais plusieurs niveaux se distinguent en pratique : le fonctionnement technique repose sur une mise en commun précédant toute redistribution qui répartit les risques entre tous; l'énonciation du droit de l'eau sert de support à la mémoire et à la représentation patrilinéaire du groupe par lui-même, non exempt de rapports de force, tandis que la pratique est particulièrement individuelle et révèle d'autres types de solidarités. Cet exemple relève ainsi d'une gestion de type «bien commun» (en tant qu'institution), mais aussi ...

International audience ; This paper explores the individual and collective facets of anethnographic example of community water management in Morocco, with critical reference to E. Ostrom's economic concept of 'commons' and Dardot and Laval's political one of 'common'. Self-managed, more than one hundred years old, and strictly related to the village's patrilineal organization, this so-called traditional system encompasses different logics in practice. The technical side relies on a pooling of resources allowing the risk to be spread between all participants, while the oral enunciation of the right to water is used as a reminder, and as a support the patrilineal self-representation of the group, which includes strong power relations. Yet the practical use of irrigation water is particularly individual and reveals patterns of solidarity that are not strictly parental. This case is thus a good example of an institutional 'commons' type resource-management but at the same time of an activity and a discourse 'in common'. Both of them having distinctive and complementary functions. ; Cet article explore les dimensions individuelle et collective d'un exemple ethnographique de gestion communautaire de la ressource hydrique au Maroc, en le confrontant de manière critique aux notions de bien commun (Ostrom) et de commun (Dardot et Laval). Le système autogéré de récolte et de partage de l'eau, vieux de plus d'un siècle, est étroitement lié à l'organisation sociale patrilinéaire et segmentaire du village, mais plusieurs niveaux se distinguent en pratique : le fonctionnement technique repose sur une mise en commun précédant toute redistribution qui répartit les risques entre tous; l'énonciation du droit de l'eau sert de support à la mémoire et à la représentation patrilinéaire du groupe par lui-même, non exempt de rapports de force, tandis que la pratique est particulièrement individuelle et révèle d'autres types de solidarités. Cet exemple relève ainsi d'une gestion de type «bien commun» (en tant qu'institution), mais aussi ...

International audience ; This paper explores the individual and collective facets of anethnographic example of community water management in Morocco, with critical reference to E. Ostrom's economic concept of 'commons' and Dardot and Laval's political one of 'common'. Self-managed, more than one hundred years old, and strictly related to the village's patrilineal organization, this so-called traditional system encompasses different logics in practice. The technical side relies on a pooling of resources allowing the risk to be spread between all participants, while the oral enunciation of the right to water is used as a reminder, and as a support the patrilineal self-representation of the group, which includes strong power relations. Yet the practical use of irrigation water is particularly individual and reveals patterns of solidarity that are not strictly parental. This case is thus a good example of an institutional 'commons' type resource-management but at the same time of an activity and a discourse 'in common'. Both of them having distinctive and complementary functions. ; Cet article explore les dimensions individuelle et collective d'un exemple ethnographique de gestion communautaire de la ressource hydrique au Maroc, en le confrontant de manière critique aux notions de bien commun (Ostrom) et de commun (Dardot et Laval). Le système autogéré de récolte et de partage de l'eau, vieux de plus d'un siècle, est étroitement lié à l'organisation sociale patrilinéaire et segmentaire du village, mais plusieurs niveaux se distinguent en pratique : le fonctionnement technique repose sur une mise en commun précédant toute redistribution qui répartit les risques entre tous; l'énonciation du droit de l'eau sert de support à la mémoire et à la représentation patrilinéaire du groupe par lui-même, non exempt de rapports de force, tandis que la pratique est particulièrement individuelle et révèle d'autres types de solidarités. Cet exemple relève ainsi d'une gestion de type «bien commun» (en tant qu'institution), mais aussi ...

International audience ; This paper explores the individual and collective facets of anethnographic example of community water management in Morocco, with critical reference to E. Ostrom's economic concept of 'commons' and Dardot and Laval's political one of 'common'. Self-managed, more than one hundred years old, and strictly related to the village's patrilineal organization, this so-called traditional system encompasses different logics in practice. The technical side relies on a pooling of resources allowing the risk to be spread between all participants, while the oral enunciation of the right to water is used as a reminder, and as a support the patrilineal self-representation of the group, which includes strong power relations. Yet the practical use of irrigation water is particularly individual and reveals patterns of solidarity that are not strictly parental. This case is thus a good example of an institutional 'commons' type resource-management but at the same time of an activity and a discourse 'in common'. Both of them having distinctive and complementary functions. ; Cet article explore les dimensions individuelle et collective d'un exemple ethnographique de gestion communautaire de la ressource hydrique au Maroc, en le confrontant de manière critique aux notions de bien commun (Ostrom) et de commun (Dardot et Laval). Le système autogéré de récolte et de partage de l'eau, vieux de plus d'un siècle, est étroitement lié à l'organisation sociale patrilinéaire et segmentaire du village, mais plusieurs niveaux se distinguent en pratique : le fonctionnement technique repose sur une mise en commun précédant toute redistribution qui répartit les risques entre tous; l'énonciation du droit de l'eau sert de support à la mémoire et à la représentation patrilinéaire du groupe par lui-même, non exempt de rapports de force, tandis que la pratique est particulièrement individuelle et révèle d'autres types de solidarités. Cet exemple relève ainsi d'une gestion de type «bien commun» (en tant qu'institution), mais aussi ...