Pool Of Resources Research Articles

Antiretroviral Use for HIV Prevention During Pregnancy: The Need to Strengthen Regulatory and Surveillance Systems in Africa.

HIV-prevention efforts focusing on women of child-bearing potential are needed to end the HIV epidemic in the African region. The use of antiretroviral drugs as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a critical HIV prevention tool. However, safety data on new antiretrovirals during pregnancy are often limited because pregnant people are excluded from drug development studies. Calls from communities, healthcare professionals, and regulators to improve the information supporting decision-making around the use of medical products during pregnancy have been increasing. Post-marketing safety surveillance is an essential tool for detecting adverse outcomes and evaluating real-world, longer-term effects of drugs. Detecting and evaluating uncommon pregnancy outcomes requires large sample sizes, highlighting the benefits of and need for safety surveillance. Surveillance systems vary widely across Africa, and the need for enhanced surveillance of PrEP use during pregnancy highlights the limitations of current regulatory and surveillance systems. Challenges include weak regulation and insufficient resources. Pooling of resources and regulatory harmonization could address resource challenges. The African Medicines Agency, as a specialized agency of the African Union, has the potential to improve African medical product regulation, including post-marketing safety surveillance. This can strengthen regulation and ensure that market authorization holders meet their responsibility to invest in post-marketing surveillance systems, such as pregnancy registries. At the same time, independent post-marketing studies are needed to ensure generation of essential safety data. The Forum for Collaborative Research has initiated a project to facilitate interactions between regulators in Africa, the USA, and Europe, as well as other stakeholders, and to work toward consensus on safety data generation from PrEP during pregnancy before and after marketing authorization.

Social‐Ecological Dynamics of Sustainable Small‐Scale Fisheries Management in the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest Region, Bangladesh

ABSTRACTWe employed a social‐ecological systems (SES) framework to investigate the interplay of social and ecological factors influencing the sustainable management of common pool resources, the Sundarbans mangrove forest region in Bangladesh as a case study. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses, we identified positive and negative correlations between dimensions of the SES. Four positive and two negative correlations between dimensions of social systems and ecological systems highlighted the interconnectedness of dimensions in the SES framework. Our study only considered spatial variation across the four SES dimensions, which revealed distinct management practices within the region. Our findings underscored the importance of tailored management strategies to address specific SES dimensions. Enhanced stakeholder participation and institutional frameworks could bolster governance systems and actor capacity, while interventions targeting ecosystem health and species populations may improve sustainable resource systems and resource unit capacity. Our findings provide insights for policymakers and practitioners who seek to promote the sustainability of small‐scale fisheries within SES contexts.

Enhancing peer assessment with artificial intelligence

This paper surveys research and practice on enhancing peer assessment with artificial intelligence. Its objectives are to give the structure of the theoretical framework underpinning the study, synopsize a scoping review of the literature that illustrates this structure, and provide a case study which further illustrates this structure. The theoretical framework has six areas: (i) Assigning Peer Assessors, (ii) Enhancing Individual Reviews, (iii) Deriving Peer Grades/Feedback, (iv) Analyzing Student Feedback, (v) Facilitating Instructor Oversight and (vi) Peer Assessment Systems. The vast majority of the 79 papers in the review found that artificial intelligence improved peer assessment. However, the focus of many papers was on diversity in grades and feedback, fuzzy logic and the analysis of feedback with a view to equalizing its quality. Relatively few papers focused on automated assignment, automated assessment, calibration, teamwork effectiveness and automated feedback and these merit further research. This picture suggests AI is making inroads into peer assessment, but there is still a considerable way to go, particularly in the under-researched areas. The paper incorporates a case study of the RIPPLE peer-assessment tool, which harnesses student wisdom, insights from the learning sciences and AI to enable time-constrained educators to immerse their students in deep and personalized learning experiences that effectively prepare them to serve as assessors. Once trained, they use a comprehensive rubric to vet learning resources submitted by other students. They thereby create pools of high-quality learning resources which can be used to recommend personalized content to students. RIPPLE engages students in a trio of intertwined activities: creation, review and personalized practice, generating many resource types. AI-driven real-time feedback is given but students are counseled to assess whether it is accurate. Affordances and challenges for researchers and practitioners were identified.

Resource Segmentation: A New Dimension of the Segmentation Hypothesis in Drought Adaptive Strategies and Its Links to Tree Growth Performance.

The segmentation hypothesis, a framework for understanding plant drought adaptive strategy, has long been based on hydraulic resistance and vulnerability. Storage of water and carbohydrate resources is another critical function and shapes plant drought adaption and fitness together with hydraulic efficiency and vulnerability. However, patterns and implications of the interdependency of stored water and carbohydrate resources in the context of the segmentation hypothesis are poorly understood. We measured resource pools (relative water content [RWC] soluble sugar [SS] and starch [S]) and anatomical features of leaves and supporting twigs for 36 trees in a subtropical population during the dry season when the Budyko's aridity index was 0.362. For each tree, we rank-transformed the RWC (RWCrank), SS (SSrank), and S (Srank) and characterised the resource segmentation within organs using Ln(RWCrank/SSrank) and Ln(RWCrank/Srank). We also assessed the resource segmentation between organs using the difference in resource pools between leaves and twigs (RWCleaf-twig, SSleaf-twig, and Sleaf-twig). Resource segmentation was much more effective than the organ-level resource pool alone in predicting intraspecific variation of tree growth rates. Fast-growing individuals were mainly characterised by lower leaf Ln(RWCrank/SSrank), higher twig Ln(RWCrank/SSrank), and lower SSleaf-twig. The resource segmentation strategy of fast-growing individuals was associated with anatomical attributes that facilitate phloem SS loading and unloading and thus water supply upstream. Our results highlight that resource segmentation is an important dimension of plant drought adaptive strategies and enables better prediction of tree growth vigour than resource pool attributes individually.

Can abatement efforts in a common pool resource promote overexploitation of the resource?

Abstract We examine a common pool resource (CPR) where appropriations deteriorate the quality of the resource and, thus, its impact on the exploitation of the CPR. We focus on two settings: (i) firms use the CPR without abatement efforts, and (ii) abatement is allowed. We provide comparisons between these two settings and identify socially optimal appropriation levels. We find that (i) higher quality of the CPR could induce firms to overuse the resource, and (ii) first-period appropriations with abatement decrease in the regeneration rate. However, abatement induces an overuse of the resource when the quality of the CPR improves.

Orthopedic Resident Intern Foundations: A Cross-Institutional, Month-Long Skills Training Boot Camp for PGY-1 Residents.

Orthopedic residents are tasked with rapidly acquiring clinical and surgical skills, especially during their PGY-1 year. However, resource constraints and other factors frequently cause skills training to fall short of established guidelines. We aimed to design and evaluate a cross-institutional, month-long curriculum aimed at pooling resources to optimize training. The O.R.I.F. (Orthopaedic Resident Intern Foundations) Boot Camp was created to teach foundational residency skills and knowledge through daily didactic and simulation-based training covering 6 domains: orthopedic knowledge, orthopedic skills, nonorthopedic clinical knowledge (e.g. radiology), day-to-day hospital tasks, academic research, and social aspects of medicine. Content was based on ACGME milestones and core competencies. The program ran 8 hours each weekday throughout November 2022 and 2023. Before and after the curriculum, participants were administered a 65-question orthopedic knowledge assessment and self-reported competency surveys. Additionally, graduates from the O.R.I.F. 2022 class and a cohort of peer residents from nonparticipating institutions were administered a follow-up survey 1 year after Boot Camp. Comparative testing was performed using Wilcoxon signed-rank analysis (α = 0.05). The curriculum was hosted at a Level 1 urban trauma center. Over the study period 40 residents from the Chicagoland institutions participated in Bootcamp: 25 PGY-1 residents from 5 programs in 2022 and15 residents from 3 programs in 2023. Orthopedic assessment scores increased from 45.7 (SD = 8.3) precurriculum to 60.1 (SD = 7.6) postcurriculum (p < 0.001). Additionally, self-rated competence increased in 5/6 domains-all except the social aspects of medicine. One year after O.R.I.F. 2022, a higher proportion of graduates reporting that skills training provided good or very good preparation for intern year and allowed them to network with peers at other institutions compared to non-Boot Camp residents. The O.R.I.F. Boot Camp improves PGY-1 clinical knowledge and skills in a resource-efficient model while also providing an environment that cultivates cross-institutional camaraderie.

A Novel Scheme for QoS-Aware Resource Pooling and Uncoordinated Allocation in Grant-Free NOMA

A Novel Scheme for QoS-Aware Resource Pooling and Uncoordinated Allocation in Grant-Free NOMA

Insurance and Extraction Incentives in a Common Pool Resource: Evidence from Groundwater Use in the High Plains

Insurance and Extraction Incentives in a Common Pool Resource: Evidence from Groundwater Use in the High Plains

Assessing the Attitude of Entrepreneurs towards Agri-Business in Tamil Nadu Using a Standardized Measurement Scale

This study examines the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards agribusiness, focusing on how various factors influence their entrepreneurial ventures in the agricultural sector. The study employs a robust methodology, using Thurstone and Chave's scaling technique to construct and validate an attitude scale. Results indicate that the majority of entrepreneurs (51.33%) exhibit a moderately favorable attitude towards agribusiness, with a notable proportion 28.67% showing a highly favorable disposition. This favorable attitude is attributed to factors such as opportunity identification, resource pooling and resilience, despite the inherent risks and seasonal fluctuations viz., weather conditions, supply and demand etc., associated with agribusiness.

Islands of data: cultivating an open data landscape for sustainable development in the Caribbean.

The widespread digitization of information, advances in data processing and the emergence of internet-connected devices have led to a proliferation of data, often loosely referred to as big data. With this digital transformation, offering open data - that is, data freely available for modification and reuse - has emerged as a key strategy for encouraging transparency and innovation. Data reuse holds particular importance in the small island developing states of the Caribbean, which have a limited resource pool from which to tackle the landscape of social priorities. Efforts made towards data-sharing must consider privacy, security and the ethical use of information, and the tension between data as a social good and data for commercial gain can be a determinant of data-sharing decisions. A multidisciplinary approach is needed to realize the potential of data-sharing. In this article, we describe techniques (or pathways) for growing the Caribbean's stock of open data, classifying these into four types. Initiative pathways are techniques to broaden the range of data producers that share data. Infrastructure pathways deal with the practicalities of making data publicly available. Governance pathways are regulations and frameworks that guide data producers, including in meeting their legal data obligations. Training and communication pathways are efforts to raise awareness and knowledge about the benefits and practices of data-sharing. Data-sharing can offer a cost-effective evidence base for the Caribbean's continuing digital transformation. Sustainable sharing is key, and it must include robust technical infrastructure and governance, and ongoing communication.

Interventions to enhance corporate sector engagement in tuberculosis response in Africa: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionTuberculosis (TB) is a significant public health crisis in Africa. TB control programmes implemented by various state and non-state actors in different African countries over the years have recorded significant...

Evolutionary dynamics in spatial public goods games with environmental feedbacks.

Collective actions aimed at achieving goals such as resource sustainability and environmental protection often face conflicting interests between individuals and groups. These social dilemmas can be modeled using public goods games and collective risk dilemmas. However, in reality, multiple generations share a common pool of resources, leading to high costs for today's overexploitation that impacts future generations' welfare. This delayed effect creates a multigenerational conflict. To address this, we develop a coupled social-ecological coevolutionary model by establishing a relationship between individual payoffs and regional environmental quality. Our goal is to study how cooperative behaviors spread in a public goods game with environmental feedback and to identify the factors influencing this spread. We achieve this by examining the mechanisms behind certain phases and phase transitions, monitoring the spatial distribution of strategies, and assessing the environmental quality of all regions. Our findings reveal some counterintuitive results. For instance, despite cooperators' ability to enhance the environment, the overall level of cooperation in the system sometimes decreases. This is linked to cooperative clusters being invaded by defectors within the clusters' cracks. Additionally, the destructive power of defection and the cost of cooperation have more complex effects on the system.

Different Paths Lead to the Same Success: Examining Design Principles in Grassland Collective Governance in China

Collective action remains a fundamental approach to governing common pool resources, and Ostrom’s design principles (DPs) have been widely used for analyzing such governance. However, grasslands, as typical common pool resources, have received limited attention within this framework in China. Based on the village-level survey data in Yushu, Qinghai, we utilized DPs as fuzzy sets to discern nuances among cases and identify necessary and sufficient conditions for successful collective governance using the fsQCA method. Our findings are as follows: (i) Diverse combinations of institutional rules can lead to favorable collective governance outcomes. Achieving good outcomes requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses rules, rule enforcement, and rule-making arenas. (ii) Congruence with local conditions (DP2) emerges as a pivotal and foundational condition in collective grassland governance. Therefore, it is crucial to formulate strategic governance rules that adapt to local realities and capitalize on regional advantages to ensure long-term success. (iii) The establishment of ecological husbandry cooperatives is in line with local realities and can help achieve high grassland governance performance. The improvement in ecological, economic, and social benefits brought about by cooperatives constitutes a crucial factor for promoting herders’ active involvement in the collective management of grasslands.

Microbial diversity analysis and isolation of thermoresistant lactic acid bacteria in pasteurized milk

Pasteurization is a common method for dairy products, typically heating at 72 °C for 15 s or 63 °C for 30 min. The 17 samples of commercial pasteurized milk were divided into three groups according to the shelf life: group A (1–5 days), group B (6–10 days) and group C (11–15 days), and the diversity composition of microbial communities in the samples was analyzed. Among all groups, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes were the dominant bacterial phyla. The lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were mostly Streptococcus, Weissella and Lactobacillus, and there were high proportions of Streptococcus thermophilus in group A, Weissella paramesenteroides in group B, and Lactobacillus plantarum in group C. Furthermore, a strain of Enterococcus faecium SFM2 was isolated from the A2 sample, which showed better temperature tolerance compared to the E. faecium SFM1 of oral origin. After treatment at 50 °C for 2 h, the survival rates of E. faecium SFM1 and SFM2 were 28.20 ± 0.04% and 82.58 ± 0.01%, respectively. This study investigated the diversity of microorganisms in pasteurized milk, providing effective information for analyzing the potential microbiota of commercial pasteurized milk. Meanwhile, it provided new ideas for expanding the resource pool of thermoresistant LAB.

Rethinking postcolonial sociology

Gregor McLennan sees my book as inaugurating a new phase of “multiplex” postcolonial sociology. This approach moves away from sweeping generalizations about Eurocentrism, Manicheaism, complicity, and pervasive coloniality in “Western” sociology. It pays closer attention to sociology’s internal heterogeneity and is less distrustful of scientific norms such as validity, objectivity, evidence, autonomy, scientific neutrality, and explanation. More specifically, my approach relies (1) on the idea of “context” from the classic sociology of knowledge and intellectual history; (2) on the concept of “field” from Bourdieu; (3) on methods of “close reading” and textual interpretation from literary criticism; and (4) on the “historians’ craft” (Bloch) of using the most extensive available archive of published and unpublished sources. I argue that we can evaluate historical thinkers in their contexts, assessing the constraints and spaces of possibility they faced, and then examine their intellectual choices, the moves they make in the social scientific game. This approach aligns more closely with the ideas of the founders of postcolonial theory, who were more interested in texts that “brush up unstintingly against historical constraints” rather than those that are “inertly of their time” (Edward Said). McLennan agrees that postcolonial sociology is indebted to European Enlightenment traditions; I focus on its roots in the sociology of knowledge and sociological historicism. The article then responds to McLennan’s main “probes.” The first concerns the methodological problem of “labeling investigations as ʽsociologyʼ and specific people as ʽsociologistsʼ”, and the limits of field theory. The second concerns my “outline of a theory of colonial sociological practice,” which tries to understand the dilemmas facing sociologists in colonial situations and the historians who study them. The third probe addresses the question of the scientific exploitation of empire. The sociologists I emphasize did not approach the colonized as a pool of resources to be extracted and exploited but worked across the colonial boundary line to generate knowledge. Although the book focuses on the mid-20th century, I return in my comments to Durkheim, upon whose shoulders so much of the later work was standing. The key is that Durkheim was also a theorist of empire and colonialism and politically an anticolonialist. He described colonies as anomic spaces and rejected biological concepts and hierarchical notions of civilization. He rejected universalistic values while advocating a system of states governed by historically specific morality and law rather than violence. Finally, Durkheim reversed the “imperial gaze,” directing it back at Europe.

Rabies control program in Colombia: A One Health assessment

Introduction: In Colombia, despite the notable decrease in rabies cases, the primary prevention of the disease remains a challenge, particularly in rural areas where non-vaccinated infected cats are the main transmitters to humans. The objective of this study was to evaluate the level of implementation of One Health in the rabies program in Colombia, through a validated methodology of thirteen criteria. Methods: Structured surveys directed at stakeholders from official sectors such as agriculture, health, environment, private sector and academia were carried out. The results were categorized into high (66%-100%), moderate (34%-65%), and low (0%-33%) scores. Results: The findings highlight the need for more integrated management plans, improved training and workforce awareness on ´One Health´soft skills and enhanced wildlife epidemiological surveillance. Discussion: Overall, these results underscore the importance of greater transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary planning and collaboration, as well as better pooling of resources (human, financial, technical platforms and knowledge) in the rabies program.

Relative Resources in Couples and Their Childbearing Behavior in the United States

A growing body of research indicates significant variation in the fertility-education relationship by partner education across high income countries. However, little is known on the education-fertility-couple nexus in the US context. The present study fills this gap. It investigates linkages between married couples’ relative socio-economic resources and their first and second birth transitions in the United States, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and a competing risk approach to model birth transitions and union dissolutions competing with first and second births independently. The study presents four findings. First, homogamous tertiary educated couples have the highest first and second birth rate, net of fertility preferences, indicating the relevance of resource pooling for family formation. Second, low-resource hypogamous and hypergamous couples have lower birth rates than most other pairings, underscoring that linkages between heterogamy and family formation may vary by the absolute level of the partners’ resources. Third, family income mediates first birth rate differences between homogamous highly educated couples and most other pairings. Lower first birth rates of hypogamous large distance couples, compared with homogamous tertiary educated couples, however, appear in part rooted in higher union dissolution rates. Fourth and finally, the higher second birth rate of homogamous highly educated couples was not mediated by any of the tested socio-economic mechanisms. More research is needed to investigate the mechanisms underlying this birth rate pattern found throughout high income societies. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Changes in Educational Homogamy and Its Consequences”.

Ohio's Regional Manufacturing Workforce Partnerships: Governing a Common Pool Resource

Ohio's manufacturing industry sector partnerships (ISP) are economic development and workforce development efforts that rely on community development inputs. The authors posit that graduates of regional, sector-led, industry-specific workforce training programs constitute a common pool resource, as described by Elinor Ostrom, because while hiring graduates is rival, it is not excludable. This creates a workforce version of the tragedy of the commons because these programs often have experiential learning components in workplaces and require funding support, mentoring, and the long-term commitment of company leaders to a partnership. The training programs will flounder if participating employers do not earn a return on their resource expenditures. The output of the partnership program is trained workers, while its primary outcome is the production of goods and services. The economic mobility of the recipients of ISP training is a by-product, or secondary outcome, of the partnership's activities

Punching above their weight? Examining player development pathways in Belgian football: a retrospective analysis

PurposeBelgium has consistently produced world-class footballers, outperforming many larger football associations despite having a smaller talent pool and fewer resources. This paper aims to (1) examine the development pathways of Belgian professional players over the past decade and (2) quantify the role of opportunities in European leagues outside the “Big 5” for a comparative analysis of different player development systems. By exploring how Belgian players progress through various leagues and systems, this study seeks to identify strategic insights that can inform the development practices of both Belgian football and other European nations with similar constraints.Design/methodology/approachData on player performance were collected over ten seasons (2013/14 to 2022/23) from 15 European leagues, including the “Big 5” (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) and ten other prominent leagues (Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Switzerland and Turkey). The variables collected included player name, nationality, team, league, season, appearances, minutes played, age and position. For Belgian players in the sample, the youth academies they attended were also noted.FindingsBelgian players have achieved significant success, particularly in terms of transitioning into the “Big 5” leagues. However, the number of “home-grown” players making appearances and gaining minutes in the Belgian league is relatively low (ranking 13th of the 15 leagues studied). In contrast, Belgian players rank third in terms of total minutes played in the “Big 5” leagues, behind Portuguese and Dutch players. Anderlecht was the most successful Belgian club in developing professional players, and other key contributors were clubs with consistent Champions League participation.Originality/valueWhile substantial research exists on player development in the “Big 5” European leagues, comparatively little attention has been given to other significant European leagues. This paper addresses that gap by examining the role of smaller leagues in developing young talent, despite their limited resources and reduced access to Europe's elite competitions. The findings highlight the need for policy reforms and strategic improvements at both the national and European levels to enhance player development pathways.

LBTMA: An integrated P4-enabled framework for optimized traffic management in SD-IoT networks

This research introduces LBTMA, a novel framework for effective traffic management in Internet of Things (IoT) networks employing software-defined networking (SDN). LBTMA comprises three modules: P4-enabled Stateful Traffic Monitoring (P4-STM), P4-enabled Distributed Load Balancing (P4-DLBS), and P4-enabled Distributed Packet Aggregation and Disaggregation (P4-DPADS). Operating entirely within the data plane, the three modules collaboratively address the challenges of managing high communication traffic from IoT devices. P4-STM utilizes state tables for flow monitoring and anonymization, while introducing a novel multi-controller communication scheme (MCCS) that separates routine data from critical alerts through two dedicated channels. MCCS demonstrated a 25% improvement in throughput and a 51% decrease in latency compared to single controller architecture. P4-DLBS features Enhanced Weighted Round Robin (P4-EWRR) load balancing algorithm, which leverages P4′s distributed decision-making capabilities and inter-switch coordination for enhanced scalability and reduced controller burden. P4-EWRR continuously adjusts server weights based on real-time factors (e.g., queue length, server resource pool, CPU utilization) to ensure efficient resource allocation. In testing, P4-EWRR achieved an average response time of 15 ms and an average packet drop rate of 2%. P4-DPADS employs a hierarchical data plane to efficiently handle high volumes of small IoT packets. It demonstrated an average disaggregation accuracy of 98%, communication overhead reduction rate of 70%, and an impressive average aggregation ratio of 95%. Additionally, P4-DPADS contributes to a 25% reduction in latency and a 40% increase in throughput. The LBTMA framework's modularity and P4 programmability provide flexible, scalable, and efficient traffic management in IoT networks.