A qualitative enquiry into the appropriation of mobile telephony at the bottom of the pyramid

Purpose: The paper aims to analyse Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) customers’ (e.g. Bangladeshi farmers) use and appropriation of mobile telephony and to critically identify a suitable research strategy for such investigation.

Design/methodology/approach: Concentrated ethnographic immersion was combined with both methodological and investigator triangulation during a four-month period of fieldwork conducted in Bangladeshi villages to obtain more robust findings. Concentrated immersion was required to achieve relatively speedier engagement owing to the difficulty in engaging with respondents on a long-term basis.

Findings: The farmers’ use of mobile telephony went beyond the initial adoption, as they appropriated it through social and institutional support, inventive means and/or changes in their own lifestyle. The paper argues that technology appropriation, being a result of the mutual shaping of technology, human skills and abilities and macro-environmental factors, enables users to achieve desired outcomes which may not always be the ones envisaged by the original designers.

Research limitations/implications: The paper contributes to two major areas: first, it identifies technology appropriation as an important and emerging concept in international marketing research; second, it suggests a concentrated form of ethnographic engagement for studying technology appropriation in a developing country context.

Practical implications: A good understanding of the dynamic interplay between users’ skills and abilities, social contexts and technological artefacts/applications is required in order for businesses to serve BoP customers profitably.

Originality/value: The paper presents a dynamic model of technology appropriation based on findings collected through a pragmatic approach by combining concentrated ethnographic immersion with methodological and investigator triangulation

An Update on Sedimentary Pigments in Victoria Land Lakes (East Antarctica)

Antarctic ice-free areas contain lakes and ponds that have interesting limnological features and are of wide global significance as early warning indicators of climatic and environmental change. However, most linmological and paleolimnological studies in continental Antarctica are limited to certain regions. There are several ice-free areas in Victoria Land that have not yet been studied well. There is therefore a need to extend limnological studies in space and time to understand how different geological and climatic features affect the composition and biological activity of freshwater communities. With the aim of contributing to a better limnological characterization of Victoria Land, this paper reports data on sedimentary pigments (used to identify the main algal taxa) obtained through a methodology that is more sensitive and selective than that of previous studies. Analyses were extended to 48 water bodies in ice-free areas with differing lithology, latitude, and altitude, and with different morphometry and physical, chemical, and biological characteristics in order to identify environmental factors affecting the distribution and composition of freshwater autotrophic communities. A wider knowledge of lakes in a limnologically important region of Antarctica was obtained. Cyanophyta was found to be the most important algal group, followed by Chlorophyta and Bacillariophyta, whereas latitude and altitude are the main factors affecting pigment distribution.

A qualitative study of psychological, social and behavioral barriers to appropriate food portion size control

Background: Given the worldwide prevalence of overweight and obesity, there is a clear need for meaningful practical healthy eating advice - not only in relation to food choice, but also on appropriate food portion sizes. As the majority of portion size research to date has been overwhelmingly quantitative in design, there is a clear need to qualitatively explore consumers’ views in order to fully understand how food portion size decisions are made. Using qualitative methodology this present study aimed to explore consumers’ views about factors influencing their portion size selection and consumption and to identify barriers to appropriate portion size control.

Methods: Ten focus groups with four to nine participants in each were formed with a total of 66 persons (aged 19–64 years) living on the island of Ireland. The semi-structured discussions elicited participants’ perceptions of suggested serving size guidance and explored the influence of personal, social and environmental factors on their food portion size consumption. Audiotapes of the discussions were professionally transcribed verbatim, loaded into NVivo 9, and analysed using an inductive thematic analysis procedure.
Results: The rich descriptive data derived from participants highlight that unhealthy portion size behaviors emanate from various psychological, social and behavioral factors. These bypass reflective and deliberative control, and converge to constitute significant barriers to healthy portion size control. Seven significant barriers to healthy portion size control were apparent: (1) lack of clarity and irrelevance of suggested serving size guidance; (2) guiltless eating; (3) lack of self-control over food cues; (4) distracted eating; (5) social pressures; (6) emotional eating rewards;
and (7) quantification habits ingrained from childhood.

Conclusions: Portion size control strategies should empower consumers to overcome these effects so that the consumption of appropriate food portion sizes becomes automatic and habitual.
Keywords: Food portion size, Barriers, Obesity, Consumers, Qualitative study. © 2013 Spence et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Causal Models of Clinically Significant Behaviors in Angelman, Cornelia de Lange, Prader-Willi and Smith-Magenis Syndromes

The operant learning theory account of behaviors of clinical significance in people with intellectual disability (ID) has dominated the field for nearly 50 years. However, in the last two decades, there has been a substantial increase in published research that describes the behavioral phenotypes of genetic disorders and shows that behaviors such as self-injury and aggression are more common in some syndromes than might be expected given group characteristics. These cross-syndrome differences in prevalence warrant explanation, not least because this observation challenges an exclusively operant learning theory account. To explore this possible conflict between theoretical account and empirical observation, we describe the genetic cause and physical, social, cognitive and behavioral phenotypes of four disorders associated with ID (Angleman, Cornelia de Lange, Prader-Willi and Smith-Magenis syndromes) and focus on the behaviors of clinical significance in each syndrome. For each syndrome we then describe a model of the interactions between physical characteristics, cognitive and motivational endophenotypes and environmental factors (including operant reinforcement) to account for the resultant behavioral phenotype. In each syndrome it is possible to identify pathways from gene to physical phenotype to cognitive or motivational endophenotype to behavior to environment and back to behavior. We identify the implications of these models for responsive and early intervention and the challenges for research in this area. We identify a pressing need for meaningful dialog between different disciplines to construct better informed models that can incorporate all relevant and robust empirical evidence.

Identifying solutions to increase participation in physical activity interventions within a socio-economically disadvantaged community: a qualitative study

Background: There is an urgent need to increase population levels of physical activity, particularly amongst those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. Multiple factors influence physical activity behaviour but the generalisability of current evidence to such ‘hard-to-reach’ population subgroups is limited by difficulties in recruiting them into studies. Also, rigorous qualitative studies of lay perceptions and perceptions of community leaders about public health efforts to increase physical activity are sparse. We sought to explore, within a socio-economically disadvantaged community, residents’ and community leaders’ perceptions of physical activity (PA) interventions and issues regarding their implementation, in order to improve understanding of needs, expectations, and social/environmental factors relevant to future interventions.

Methods: Within an ongoing regeneration project (Connswater Community Greenway), in a socio-economically disadvantaged community in Belfast, we collaborated with a Community Development Agency to purposively sample leaders from public- and voluntary-sector community groups and residents. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 leaders. Residents (n=113), of both genders and a range of ages (14 to 86 years) participated in focus groups (n=14) in local facilities. Interviews and focus groups were recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a thematic framework.

Results: Three main themes were identified: awareness of PA interventions; factors contributing to intervention effectiveness; and barriers to participation in PA interventions. Participants reported awareness only of interventions in which they were involved directly, highlighting a need for better communications, both inter- and intra-sectoral, and with residents. Meaningful engagement of residents in planning/organisation, tailoring to local context, supporting volunteers, providing relevant resources and an ‘exit strategy’ were perceived as important factors related to intervention effectiveness. Negative attitudes such as apathy, disappointing experiences, information with no perceived personal relevance and limited access to facilities were barriers to people participating in interventions.

Conclusions: These findings illustrate the complexity of influences on a community’s participation in PA interventions and support a social-ecological approach to promoting PA. They highlight the need for cross-sector working, effective information exchange, involving residents in bottom-up planning and providing adequate financial and social support. An in-depth understanding of a target population’s perspectives is of key importance in translating PA behaviour change theories into practice.

Adolescents' views about a proposed rewards intervention to promote healthy food choice in secondary school canteens

Using rewards may be an effective method to positively influence adolescent eating behaviour, but evidence regarding this approach is limited. The aim of this study was to explore young adolescent views about a proposed reward intervention associated with food choice in school canteens. Focus groups were held in 10 schools located in lower socioeconomic areas within Northern Ireland and involved 90 pupils aged 11-12 years (54 girls, 36 boys). Our findings indicated a high degree of acceptability for a reward scheme but there was major diversity in the type of rewards valued by pupils, largely defined by geographical area and socio-cultural differences. Pupils from rural areas tended to emphasize group-based and longer-term rewards, whereas pupils from urban-city schools tended to suggest individualistic and immediate rewards. The major factors influencing food choice were food price, value for money, taste and visual appearance. Pupils felt that factors outside of their control, such as being assigned to the second lunch sitting placed considerable constraints on their food choice. This research not only indicated a high degree of acceptability for a rewards-based intervention but also highlighted a number of socio-cultural and environmental factors that should be considered by researchers when developing such an intervention.

Theoretical investigation of the use of a moving vehicle to identify bridge dynamic parameters

Pavements and bridges are subject to a continuous degradation due to traffic aggressiveness, ageing and environmental factors. A rational transport policy requires the monitoring of this transport infrastructure in order to provide adequate maintenance and guarantee the required levels of transport service and safety. This paper investigates the use of an instrumented vehicle fitted with accelerometers on its axles to monitor the dynamics of bridges. A simplified quarter carbridge interaction model is used in theoretical simulations and the natural frequency of the bridge is extracted from the spectra of the vehicle accelerations. The accuracy is better at lower speeds and for smooth road profiles. The structural damping of the bridge was also monitored for smooth and rough road profiles. The magnitude of peaks in the power spectral density of the vehicle accelerations decreased with increasing bridge damping and this decrease was easier to detect the smoother the road profile.

Neolithic settlement at the woodland’s edge: palynological data and timber architecture in Orkney, Scotland

It has often been assumed that the islands of Orkney were essentially treeless throughout much of the Holocene, with any ‘scrub’ woodland having been destroyed by Neolithic farming communities by around 3500 cal. BC. This apparently open, hyper-oceanic environment would presumably have provided quite marginal conditions for human settlement, yet Neolithic communities flourished and the islands contain some of the most spectacular remains of this period in north-west Europe. The study of new Orcadian pollen sequences, in conjunction with the synthesis of existing data, indicates that the timing of woodland decline was not synchronous across the archipelago, beginning in the Mesolithic, and that in some areas woodland persisted into the Bronze Age. There is also evidence to suggest that woodland communities in Orkney were more diverse, and therefore that a wider range of resources was available to Neolithic people, than has previously been assumed. Recent archaeological investigations have revealed evidence for timber buildings at early Neolithic settlement sites, suggesting that the predominance of stone architecture in Neolithic Orkney may not have been due to a lack of timber as has been supposed. Rather than simply reflecting adaptation to resource constraints, the reasons behind the shift from timber to stone construction are more complex and encompass social, cultural and environmental factors.

Mutational Analysis of the Rhodopsin Gene in Sector Retinitis Pigmentosa

Background: To determine the role of rhodopsin (RHO) gene mutations in patients with sector retinitis pigmentosa (RP) from Northern Ireland.

Design: A case series of sector RP in a tertiary ocular genetics clinic.

Participants: Four patients with sector RP were recruited from the Royal Victoria Hospital (Belfast, Northern Ireland) and Altnagelvin Hospital (Londonderry, Northern Ireland) following informed consent.

Methods: The diagnosis of sector RP was based on clinical examination, International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV) standard electrophysiology, and visual field analysis. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leucocytes and the coding regions and adjacent flanking intronic sequences of the RHO gene were polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified and cycle sequenced.

Main Outcome Measure: Rhodopsin mutational status.

Results: A heterozygous missense mutation in RHO (c.173C > T) resulting in a non-conservative substitution of threonine to methionine (p. Thr58Met) was identified in one patient and was absent from 360 control individuals. This non-conservative substitution (p.Thr58Met) replaces a highly evolutionary conserved polar hydrophilic threonine residue with a non-polar hydrophobic methionine residue at position 58 near the cytoplasmic border of helix A of RHO.

Conclusions: The study identified a RHO gene mutation (p.Thr58Met) not previously reported in RP in a patient with sector RP. These findings outline the phenotypic variability associated with RHO mutations. It has been proposed that the regional effects of RHO mutations are likely to result from interplay between mutant alleles and other genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors.

Does wave exposure determine the interactive effects of losing key grazers and ecosystem engineers?

The consequences of biodiversity loss in the face of environmental change remain difficult to predict, given the complexity of interactions among species and the context-dependency of their functional roles within ecosystems. Predictions may be enhanced by studies testing how the interactive effects of species loss from different functional groups vary with important environmental drivers. On rocky shores, limpets and barnacles are recognised as key grazers and ecosystem engineers, respectively. Despite the large body of research examining the combined effects of limpet and barnacle removal, it is unclear how their relative importance varies according to wave exposure, which is a dominant force structuring intertidal communities. We tested the responses of algal communities to the removal of limpets and barnacles on three sheltered and three wave-exposed rocky shores on the north coast of Ireland. Limpet removal resulted in a relative increase in microalgal biomass on a single sheltered shore only, but led to the enhanced accumulation of ephemeral macroalgae on two sheltered shores and one exposed shore. On average, independently of wave exposure or shore, ephemeral macroalgae increased in response to limpet removal, but only when barnacles were removed. On two sheltered shores and one exposed shore, however, barnacles facilitated the establishment of fucoid macroalgae following limpet removal. Therefore, at the scale of this study, variability among individual shores was more important than wave exposure per se in determining the effect of limpet removal and its interaction with that of barnacles. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the interactive effects of losing key species from different functional groups may not vary predictably according to dominant environmental factors.

European Recommendations for Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies: A Joined Effort of EUROCAT and EUROPLAN Projects to Facilitate Inclusion of This Topic in the National Rare Disease Plans

Congenital anomalies (CA) are the paradigm example of rare diseases liable to primary prevention actions due to the multifactorial etiology of many of them, involving a number of environmental factors together with genetic predispositions. Yet despite the preventive potential, lack of attention to an integrated preventive strategy has led to the prevalence of CA remaining relatively stable in recent decades. The 2 European projects, EUROCAT and EUROPLAN, have joined efforts to provide the first science-based and comprehensive set of recommendations for the primary prevention of CA in the European Union. The resulting EUROCAT-EUROPLAN 'Recommendations on Policies to Be Considered for the Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies in National Plans and Strategies on Rare Diseases' were issued in 2012 and endorsed by EUCERD (European Union Committee of Experts on Rare Diseases) in 2013. The recommendations exploit interdisciplinary expertise encompassing drugs, diet, lifestyles, maternal health status, and the environment. The recommendations include evidence-based actions aimed at reducing risk factors and at increasing protective factors and behaviors at both individual and population level. Moreover, consideration is given to topics specifically related to CA (e.g. folate status, teratogens) as well as of broad public health impact (e.g. obesity, smoking) which call for specific attention to their relevance in the pre- and periconceptional period. The recommendations, reported entirely in this paper, are a comprehensive tool to implement primary prevention into national policies on rare diseases in Europe.

Geographical differences in first acquisition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis

RATIONALE: Risk of infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis (CF) may be associated with environmental factors.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether residential location is associated with risk of first acquisition of P. aeruginosa.

METHODS: We performed bronchoalveolar lavage and upper airway cultures in children newly diagnosed with CF to identify infection with P. aeruginosa during infancy and early childhood. Children were assessed according to their residence in a regional or metropolitan area. Multilocus sequence typing was used to determine P. aeruginosa genotype. An environmental questionnaire was also administered.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: A total of 105 of 120 (87.5%) infants diagnosed with CF were included in this study. Diagnosis in 65 infants (61.9%) followed newborn screening at mean age of 4.6 weeks. Sixty subjects (57.1%) were homozygous ΔF508, and 47 (44.8%) were female. Fifty-five (52.3%) infants were regional, of whom 26 (47.3%), compared with 9 of 50 (18.0%) metropolitan children, acquired infection with P. aeruginosa (odds ratio, 4.084; 95% confidence interval, 1.55-11.30). Age at acquisition was similar (regional: median, 2.31 yr; range, 0.27-5.96 yr; metropolitan: median, 3.10 yr, range, 0.89-3.70 yr). Strain typing identified P. aeruginosa genotypes often encountered in different ecological settings and little evidence of cross-infection. Ninety questionnaires (85.7%) were completed. Those who acquired P. aeruginosa were more likely to be living in a household that used water sprinkler systems (P = 0.032), but no differences were identified to explain increased risk of acquisition of P. aeruginosa in regional children.

CONCLUSIONS: Geographical difference in residence of children with CF was associated with increased risk of first acquisition of P. aeruginosa, usually with strains associated with the environment rather than with cross-infection.

Replication of the association of GLT6D1 with aggressive periodontitis in a Sudanese population

BACKGROUND: Susceptibility to aggressive periodontitis (AgP) is influenced by genetic as well as environmental factors. Studies linking gene variants to AgP have been mainly centred in developed countries with limited data from Africa.
AIM: To investigate whether previously reported candidate gene associations with AgP could be replicated in a population from Sudan.


METHODS: The investigation was a case-control design. Cases with AgP (n = 132) and controls (n = 136) were identified from patients attending the Periodontal Department in Khartoum Dental Hospital. Genotyping was performed using the Sequenom MassARRAY iPLEX platform. Analysis focused on gene variants with a minor allele frequency (MAF) > 25% in the Sudanese subjects that had previously been reported to be associated with AgP.


RESULTS: One candidate gene rs1537415 (GLT6D1) was significantly associated with AgP, OR = 1.50 (95% CI 1.04-2.17), p = 0.0295 (increasing to p = 0.09 after correction for multiple testing). The association strengthened to OR = 1.56 (95% CI 1.15-2.16), p = 0.0042 when the controls were supplemented with data from the Hap map for the Yoruba in Ibadan (n = 147) and remained significant (p = 0.013) after correction for multiple testing.


CONCLUSION: The study independently replicated the finding that rs1537415, a variant in glycosyl transferase gene GLT6D1, is associated with AgP and provided the first report of genetic associations with AgP in a Sudanese population.

The extended phenotype of Scots pine Pinus sylvestris structures the understorey assemblage

Heritable variation in plant secondary compounds in dominant species has been hypothesised to effect ecosystem function and the structure of associated assemblages of plants, microbes and animals. The functioning of this extended phenotype in relation to the understorey vegetation composition was tested within a boreal forest system dominated by Pinus sylvestris which contains a range of monoterpenes, the composition of which is largely under genetic control. A variance partitioning approach was adopted to identify the relative importance of tree chemistry, environment, spatial location and tree architecture in controlling the distribution of species in the ground flora under individual trees. The monoterpene composition of the pine needles appeared to contribute significantly to controlling understorey vegetation composition, but was less important than environmental factors, though similar to spatial factors. Thus there appears to be a link between variation in the chemical composition of the single, dominant tree species within this system and the pattern of occurrence and abundance in other species at the same trophic level.

Are Alaskan trees found in locally more favourable sites in marginal areas?

Aim Species generally become rarer and more patchily distributed as the margins of their ranges are approached. We predicted that in such marginal sites, tree species would tend to occur where some key environmental factors are at particularly favourable levels, compensating in part for the low overall suitability of marginal sites.

Location The article considers the spatial distributions of trees in Southeast Alaska (the Alaskan 'panhandle').

Methods We quantified range marginality using spatial distributions of eight tree species across more than one thousand surveyed sites in Southeast Alaska. For each species we derived a site core/margin index using a three-dimensional trend surface generated from logistic regression on site coordinates. For each species, the relationships between the environmental factors slope, aspect and site marginality were then compared for occupied and unoccupied sets of sites.

Results We found that site slope is important for more Alaskan tree species than aspect. Three out of eight had a significant core/margin by occupied/unoccupied interaction, tending to be present in significantly shallower-sloped (more favourable) sites in the marginal areas than the simple core/margin trend predicted. For site aspect, one species had a significant interaction, selecting potentially more favourable northerly aspects in marginal areas. A finer-scale analysis based on the same data came to the same overall conclusions.

Conclusions There is evidence that several tree species in Alaska tend to occur in especially favourable sites in marginal areas. In these marginal areas, these species amplify habitat preferences shown in core areas.