Low-income Groups and Behaviour Change Interventions: A review of intervention content and effectiveness

This is the second paper in a series, Kicking Bad Habits, on how people can be encouraged to adopt healthy behaviour. Looking at interventions targeted specifically at low-income groups, this paper asks which interventions are effective in getting people to quit smoking, eat healthily and exercise. It reveals that the most frequently used techniques are providing information and encouraging people to set goals, which can be particularly effective at changing behaviour in disadvantaged groups.

Attrition in the Swiss Household Panel: Is change associated with later drop-out?

This study examines the importance of change in characteristics and circumstances of households and household members for contact and cooperation patterns. The literature suggests that there might be an underrepresentation of change in panel studies, because respondents facing more changes would be more likely to drop out. We approach this problem by analysing whether previous changes are predictive of later attrition or temporary drop-out, using eleven waves of the Swiss Household Panel (1999-2009). Our analyses support previous findings to some extent. Changes in household composition, employment status and social involvement as well as moving are associated mainly with attrition and less with temporary drop-out. These changes affect obtaining cooperation rather than obtaining contact, and tend to increase attrition.

Review of Ireland's International Education Strategy 2013 - consultation Paper

Investing in Global Relationships: Ireland’s International Education Strategy 2010 – 2015 was published in September 2010. Significant progress has been made in implementing this strategy, to complement and support the work undertaken at institutional level: - A strong national brand is now in place: Education in Ireland, managed by Enterprise Ireland. - There is much closer alignment between education and immigration policies. - A new Government of Ireland Scholarship has been established, managed by the Higher Education Authority. - An International Education Marketing Fund has been developed which allows institutions to collaborate in Enterprise Ireland- led national marketing initiatives. - Promotional efforts are taking place in the priority markets of the USA, Brazil, China, India, SE Asia and the Gulf. Ministers have visited each of the priority markets in the last two years. - Ireland is participating at national level in major international scholarship schemes such as Science Without Borders (Brazil) and the King Abdullah Scholarship Programme (Saudi Arabia). - Statutory provision is now in place for an international education mark and code of practice, which will be rolled out in 2014 by Qualifications and Quality Assurance Ireland (QQI). - International student numbers have risen in priority sectors: 14% growth in the English language sector and 9% growth in higher education since 2010. - Ireland’s international education offering has also diversified, including with increasingly significant levels of cross- border provision. However, global demand for education continues to change rapidly. There continues to be a massive expansion in demand for education around the world, particularly in emerging markets with growing middle classes.

The effects of temperature change on the infection rate of Biomphalaria glabrata with Schistosoma mansoni

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of temperature on the development of Schistosoma mansoni infections in Biomphalaria glabrata. The snails were infected at 15, 20, and 30ºC, and the cercarial release was analyzed after 30 and 60 days post-infection. Our results showed that a decrease in the temperature has a substantial influence on the development of S. mansoni infection in B. glabrata, with significant differences (p < 0.05) between 15 and 30ºC. These data could provide a better understanding of the epidemiological aspects of schistosomiasis.

Struggles for meaning and struggles for control: the diffusion of bandwagon technology in two institutional environments

In this thesis, I examine the diffusion process for a complex medical technology, the PET scanner, in two different health care systems, one of which is more market-oriented (Switzerland) and the other more centrally managed by a public agency (Quebec). The research draws on institutional and socio-political theories of the diffusion of innovations to examine how institutional contexts affect processes of diffusion. I find that diffusion proceeds more rapidly in Switzerland than in Quebec, but that processes in both jurisdictions are characterized by intense struggles among providers and between providers and public agencies. I show that the institutional environment influences these processes by determining the patterns of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to strategically control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources or institutional logics on which actors may legitimately draw in their struggles to give meaning to the technology in line with their interests and values. This thesis illustrates how institutional structures and meanings manifest themselves in the context of specific decisions within an organizational field, and reveals the ways in which governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests that are legitimized by dominant institutional logics. It is argued that this form of contestation and readjustment at the margins constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined.

Does the mechanical work in running change during the VO2 slow component?

PURPOSE: The origin of the slow component is not fully understood. The mechanical hypothesis is one of the potential factors, because an increase in external mechanical work with fatigue was previously reported for a constant velocity run. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a change in mechanical work could occur during the development of the VO2 slow component under the effect of fatigue. METHODS: Twelve regional-level competitive runners performed a square-wave transition, corresponding to 95% of the speed associated with peak VO2 obtained during an incremental test. The VO2 response was fit with a classical model including two exponential functions. A specific treadmill with three-dimensional force transducers was used to measure the ground reaction force. Kinetic work (W(kin)), potential work (W(pot)), external work (W(ext)), and an index of internal work (W(int)) per unit of distance were quantified continuously. RESULTS: During the slow component of VO2, a significant increase in W (P< 0.01), no change in W, and a significant decrease in W and W index (P< 0.05, P< 0.001, respectively) were observed. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the slow component of VO2 did not result partly from a change in mechanical work under the effect of fatigue. Nevertheless, the decrease in stride frequency (P< 0.001) and contact time (P< 0.001) suggested an alternative mechanical explanation. The slow component during running may be due to the cost of generating force or to alterations in the storage and recoil of elastic energy, and not to the external mechanical work.

The Institutional Foundations of Regulatory Capitalism: The Diffusion of Independent Regulatory Agencies in Western Europe

This article studies the diffusion of the main institutional feature of regulatory capitalism, namely, independent regulatory agencies. While only a few such authorities existed in Europe in the early 1980s, by the end of the twentieth century they had spread impressively across countries and sectors. The analysis finds that three classes of factors (bottom-up, top-down, and horizontal) explain this trend. First, the establishment of independent regulatory agencies was an attempt to improve credible commitment capacity when liberalizing and privatizing utilities and to alleviate the political uncertainty problem, namely, the risk to a government that its policies will be changed when it loses power. Second, Europeanization favored the creation of independent regulators. Third, individual decisions were interdependent, as governments were influenced by the decisions of others in an emulation process where the symbolic properties of independent regulators mattered more than the functions they performed.