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Over the past two decades, in response to a growing awareness of the impacts of humanitarian crises on mental health and psychosocial well-being, leading UN agencies and international aid organisations have developed a comprehensive framework for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS). In more recent years, aid workers have further begun to consider religious life as a central factor in mental health and psychosocial well-being, viewing "faith" as an important, but often neglected, component of empowering and "locally appropriate" MHPSS. However, the attempt to deliver "faith-sensitive" MHPSS across the highly pluralistic settings of international humanitarian intervention has entailed protracted ethical and practical challenges. In this article, we argue that these challenges may be usefully understood in terms of three areas of concern: the lack of evidence on effective interventions; the risk of reproducing problematic power dynamics between MHPSS providers and receivers; and the challenge of articulating a cross-culturally relevant paradigm of "faith-sensitivity" comprehensible across a wide range of religiously diverse settings. This article contributes to these challenges by drawing on the field of professional spiritual care to suggest areas of potential contribution and interdisciplinary dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the construction sector's contribution to the climate crisis and exacerbation of social inequalities, we explore sustainable alternatives in building construction, informed by the illustrative case study of the Polycare construction system. First, through a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, we show that the ecological footprint of circularity-oriented buildings based on polymer concrete is significantly lower than that of conventional cement concrete buildings. Despite the drawbacks of polymer concrete, its high-performance properties and the possibility to integrate secondary materials in its recipe can result in a reduced carbon footprint. When coupled with design-embedded modularity that facilitates circular processes (e.g., the disassembly and reuse of building components), buildings similar to those in the case study demonstrate potential for transitioning towards comprehensive sustainable building practices. Further, we discuss how this sustainability potential could be enhanced, drawing from interviews with Polycare's stakeholders and key literature findings. In this direction, we provide a set of proposals anchored in the argument that threefold "circularity, localisation, and openness" is vital for sustainable and affordable alternatives, with openness being a crucial element for fostering innovation, adaptability, and scalability in building processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The purpose of this study is to report the surgical experience and outcomes with pre-operative localisation of non-palpable breast lesions using the RFID tag system. Methods: The cohort for this prospective study included patients over the age of 18 with biopsy proven, non-palpable indeterminate lesions, DCIS or breast cancer requiring pre-operative localisation before surgical excision between September 2020 and July 2022. Results: A total of 312 RFID tags were placed in 299 consecutive patients. Indications for localisation included non-palpable invasive cancer in 255 (85.3%) patients, in situ disease in 38 (12.7%) and indeterminate lesions requiring surgical excision in 6 (2.0%). Both in situ and invasive lesions had a median size of 13 mm (range 4–100 mm) on pre-operative imaging. The RFID tags were in situ for a median time of 21 days before surgery (range 0–233 days). Of the 213 tags, 292 (93.6%) were introduced using ultrasound (USS) guidance and stereotactically in 20 (6.4%). In 3 (1.0%) cases the RFID tag was either not satisfactorily deployed at the intended target or retrieved intra-operatively. Following discussion of post-operative histology by the multi-disciplinary team, further surgery for close or involved margins was for 26 (8.7%) patients. Conclusion: The Hologic RFID tag system can be used for accurate pre-operative localisation of non-palpable masses as well as diffuse abnormalities such as mammographic distortions and calcifications. It has advantages of flexibility for scheduling image-guided insertion independently of scheduled operating lists and can be placed to localise lesions prior to initiating neoadjuvant systemic treatment.

Abstract Background Forced displacement is a crucial determinant of poor health. With 31 people displaced every minute worldwide, this is an important global issue. Addressing this, the Participation Revolution workstream from the World Humanitarian Summit’s Localisation commitments has gained traction in attempting to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. Simultaneously, digital health initiatives have become increasingly ubiquitous tools in crises to deliver humanitarian assistance and address health burdens. Objective This scoping review explores how the localisation agenda’s commitment to participation has been adopted within digital health interventions used by displaced people in low-and-middle-income countries. Methods This review adopted the Arksey and O’Malley approach and searched five academic databases and three online literature repositories with a Population, Concept and Context inclusion criteria. Data were synthesised and analysed through a critical power lens from the perspective of displaced people in low-and-middle-income-countries. Results 27 papers demonstrated that a heterogeneous group of health issues were addressed through various digital health initiatives, principally through the use of mobile phones. The focus of the literature lay largely within technical connectivity and feasibility assessments, leaving a gap in understanding potential health implications. The varied conceptualisation of the localisation phenomenon has implications for the future of participatory humanitarian action: Authorship of reviewed literature primarily descended from high-income countries exposing global power dynamics leading the narrative. However, power was not a central theme in the literature: Whilst authors acknowledged the benefit of local involvement, participatory activities were largely limited to informing content adaptations and functional modifications within pre-determined projects and objectives. Conclusion With over 100 million people displaced globally, effective initiatives that meaningfully address health needs without perpetuating harmful inequalities are an essential contribution to the humanitarian arena. The gap in health outcomes evidence, the limited constructions of health, and the varying and nuanced digital divide factors are all indicators of unequal power in the digital health sphere. More needs to be done to address these gaps meaningfully, and more meaningful participation could be a crucial undertaking to achieve this. Registration The study protocol was registered before the study (10.17605/OSF.IO/9D25R) at https://osf.io/9d25r .

Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) has gained importance as a modality for humanitarian disaster response during the last decade. Research has documented its benefits and listed challenges for implementation. Simultaneously, humanitarian organisations have committed to the localisation agenda to better serve people affected by disasters through local actors. These two ongoing transformations in the humanitarian sector may support or challenge each other. The authors use Kenya as a case study to analyse how CVA influences the localisation agenda in the humanitarian sector. Semi-structured key informant interviews were conducted with national and international organisations to gain insights on how the international organisations and their local implementing partners view and experience the mutual support or potential tensions between CVA implementations and the localisation agenda. The analysis is based on seven dimensions of localisation applied to CVA in Kenya based on existing frameworks. The findings indicate that CVA can support the localisation agenda if properly managed. It provides smaller organisations an opportunity to get involved without expensive structures. International organisations need to redefine their role and withdraw from direct implementation and be willing to give up power. The local organisations benefit from forming national networks that give them a voice within the humanitarian system. These transformations rely on personal leadership and on capacity development focusing on coordination, collaboration and organisational strengthening beyond the technical skills needed for implementation. Contribution: This study identifies how CVA and the localisation agenda affect each other in Kenya. This contributes to the understanding of the future development of the humanitarian sector.

Social science contributes to social development when theory and research topic are linked to its social context. However, in practice most social scientists in South Korea tend to explain their social issues and problems through mainstream theoretical perspectives that were primarily developed in the West. This study investigates how much social science research is localized in four selected social science disciplines (sociology, political science, public administration, and education) in South Korea. The study analyzes articles published in one representative domestic journal in each discipline to assess the localization of knowledge production during the last three decades (1988–2017). It was found that the local knowledge-base of Korean social science research is relatively weak though it has been continuously increasing during the last three decades. It was also found that knowledge production in social sciences is reliant on Western theory even though the research topics are locally embedded. In addition, the findings revealed that there are noticeable differences between the applied fields (public administration and education) and the pure fields (sociology and political science). Applied fields of public administration and education are more locally embedded than pure fields of sociology and political science. This study proposes that social science research in South Korea should draw more on indigenous knowledge and be less reliant on Western theory in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dysfunction of the Eustachian tube (ET) can lead to negative pressure within the middle ear, which, in turn, causes various pathological changes. Multiple testing methods for ET function have been devised, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Knowing the characteristics of each ET function test and the unique characteristics of ET dysfunction (ETD) in children are prerequisites for choosing the optimal assessment method. For a comprehensive diagnosis, assessment should also include the localisation of any sites of obstruction. This review aims to summarise the methods of evaluating ET function and locating sites of ET lesions. Methods: Articles evaluating ET function, localising lesions in the ET, and ETD in children were collected from the PubMed database. We selected only relevant English publications. Results: ETD in children has different characteristics to those in adults. The appropriate tests for assessing ET function depend on the specific conditions of the individual patient. Valsalva computed tomography can provide information on the soft and bony anatomy of the ET to facilitate identification of lesion sites. Conclusion: An accurate diagnosis should be based on a combined analysis of objective and subjective results, with interpretation made in conjunction with clinical history and physical examination. A comprehensive assessment should include lesion localisation. When assessing ETD in children, it is important to take into account the characteristics of this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous social work is gaining significance in the social work profession to respond to Indigenous voices. However, there is still ambiguity on how Indigenous social work is conceptualised, and this ambiguity has resulted in reluctance in the social work profession to accept Indigenous perspectives and knowledge in education and practice. To clear this ambiguity, this article examines Indigenous social work as a concept and explores its diverse discourses work through a critical review of 40 articles. The review analyses four lines of thoughts that emerged on how Indigenous social work is conceptualised across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past two decades, international development agencies have supported establishing and developing Local Peace Committees (LPCs) in conflict-affected countries. These committees typically have two objectives. First, to serve as a local conflict resolution and decision-making mechanism in conflict arbitration at the community level. Second, to empower groups traditionally excluded from decision-making, such as minorities, marginalised youth, housewives, and female religious leaders. Although these two goals might facilitate preventing and countering violent and hateful extremism (PVHE), such a purpose was different from the specific objectives of the Local Peace Committees. Based on more than 30 interviews with members of Peace Committees, UN, local and international NGOs and secondary data, including data gathered through independent evaluations of programmes supported by the organisations the authors work for, the first section of this analysis evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of LPCs in Nigeria, Somalia and Mali, and their role in PVHE. In the second section of this article, the authors assess trends and make recommendations on ways to strengthen LPCs to increase their ability to contribute to PVHE over the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa is one of the countries that contributed significantly to the development of the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the 2030 Agenda) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate poverty, protect the environment and work towards peace and prosperity. In its commitment to contribute to the 17 SDGs, the country has, together with the United Nations, finalised the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for 2020-2025 under the new guidelines released in 2019. Domestically, the country recognises the importance of local government, as the sphere closest to the people, in administering government duties, making it a potentially significant role player in localising the implementation of the SDGs. The question that frames the contention of this paper is whether South Africa has administrative provisions for local government to meet its SDG targets. The paper is largely informed by a qualitative methodology that adopts a discourse analysis approach. Theory building and a critical scholarship review of journal articles, official government documents and books are methodological ways of obtaining data. The realist epistemology of the study undertaken presumes that some of the SDGs are embodied in the basic local government functions. However, this research found that South Africa has no lucid mandate for municipalities to implement its SDG obligations. It therefore recommends ways as to how municipalities can strategically localise and drive the SDG agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between auditory deprivation and sound lateralisation. This study consisted of a control group (6 female, 4 male) and four study groups (17 female, 19 male) classified according to the participant's speech discrimination scores (Group 1, above 80%; Group 2, 60–80%; Group 3, 40-60%; and Group 4, below 40%). The lateralisation acuity of the participants was evaluated in a sound-booth room using two loudspeakers. First, the sounds were given equally from both loudspeakers. Later, the point where participants noticed the sound asymmetry between the two speakers was investigated for 250–8000 Hz. There was no significant difference in lateralisation thresholds of the participants between groups 1 and group 2 compared to the control group while there was in groups 3 and 4 (p < 0.001). In addition, only the difference between group 4 and the control group was statistically significant (p < 0.05) in the effect of the mental state on test performance. Pearson's correlation test results showed a medium correlation between the mental test and lateralisation thresholds with speech stimuli and at all frequencies (min-max:44.6 − 51.3%). A strong correlation was observed between the auditory discrimination scores and lateralisation thresholds at all frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When training machine learning models with practical applications, a quality ground truth dataset is critical. Unlike in classification problems, there is currently no effective method for determining a single ground truth value or landmark from a set of annotations in regression problems. We propose a novel method for deriving ground truth labels in regression problems that considers the performance and precision of individual annotators when identifying each label separately. In contrast to the commonly accepted method of computing the global mean, our method does not assume each annotator to be equally capable of completing the specified task, but rather ensures that higher-performing annotators have a greater contribution to the final result. The ground truth selection method described within this paper provides a means of improving the quality of input data for machine learning model development by removing lower-quality labels. In this study, we objectively demonstrate the improved performance by applying the method to a simulated dataset where a canonical ground truth position can be known, as well as to a sample of data collected from crowd-sourced labels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, the international aid system has failed to translate its commitments to "conflict sensitivity" into action. Instead, this article suggests that conflict sensitivity risks becoming a box-ticking exercise – one that perpetuates rather than challenges the fundamental flaws in the aid system. It argues that by focusing on technical support to address problems at the programme level has obscured systemic inequalities and incentives that prevent aid from responding to conflict more effectively. For conflict sensitivity to play a role in shaping an effective and equitable aid system, it must focus on the aid system at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2016 Habitat III conference, the global urban policy framework based on the New Urban Agenda and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDG11) has been adopted in an increasing number of countries worldwide. Through a comparative methodological approach, the paper analyses the making process of the Ecuadorian National Urban Agenda and the Bolivian National Urban Policy from the perspective of the involved international agents, to reflect upon the role of the time dimension in the localisation of global urban policy and its relationship with the policy transfer space. In doing so, the analysis sheds light on the role played by sequence and timing in influencing the outcomes of the localisation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a great demand for vision-based robotics solutions that can operate using Global Positioning Systems (GPS), but are also robust against GPS signal loss and gyroscope failure. This paper investigates the estimation and tracking control in application to a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in six degrees of freedom (6 DoF). A full state observer for the estimation of VTOL-UAV motion parameters (attitude, angular velocity, position, and linear velocity) is proposed on the Lie Group of S E 2 (3) × R 3 = S O (3) × R 9 with almost globally exponentially stable closed-loop error signals. Thereafter, a full state observer-based controller for the VTOL-UAV motion parameters is proposed on the Lie Group with a guaranteed almost global exponential stability. The proposed approach produces good results without the need for angular and linear velocity measurements (without a gyroscope and GPS signals) utilising only a set of known landmarks obtained by a vision-aided unit (monocular or stereo camera). The equivalent quaternion representation on S 3 × R 9 is provided in the Appendix. The observer-based controller is presented in a continuous form while its discrete version is tested using a VTOL-UAV simulation that incorporates large initial error and uncertain measurements. The proposed observer is additionally tested experimentally on a real-world UAV flight dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are ongoing calls in the humanitarian and development sectors to localise aid, make it more participatory and involve communities. A common response to these calls by INGOs and national governments is to work with local actors to jointly deliver local, community-based, participatory aid. However, this setup tends to be hierarchical, with external actors taking the lead on project design and local actors on implementation. As a result, key outcomes envisioned for localisation and participation in aid often do not materialise. This paper explores the role legitimacy work plays in maintaining this unhelpful status quo. To this end, it provides a qualitative case study analysis of an aid project in Ethiopia (2016–2020) that was initiated by two INGOs and built on government structures designed to facilitate mass volunteering at community level: the Women's Development Army. The paper argues that externally driven localisation is often organised around project models that are shaped by two contradictory paradigms: one centring resilience and one centring surveillance. As a result, local aid workers and civil servants are faced with incompatible legitimacy requirements in their work. This paper uses a paradox perspective as a theoretical lens to explore how these local actors navigate these conflicting needs. It finds that they use impression management, especially visuals and performances, to sidestep the contradictions. This imagery conceals the disconnects between project strategy, implementation and the reality on the ground. As a side effect, it renders the problems with the externally driven approach invisible and legitimises the hierarchical status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring safe and continuous autonomous navigation in long-term mobile robot applications is still challenging. To ensure a reliable representation of the current environment without the need for periodic remapping, updating the map is recommended. However, in the case of incorrect robot pose estimation, updating the map can lead to errors that prevent the robot's localisation and jeopardise map accuracy. In this paper, we propose a safe Lidar-based occupancy grid map-updating algorithm for dynamic environments, taking into account uncertainties in the estimation of the robot's pose. The proposed approach allows for robust long-term operations, as it can recover the robot's pose, even when it gets lost, to continue the map update process, providing a coherent map. Moreover, the approach is also robust to temporary changes in the map due to the presence of dynamic obstacles such as humans and other robots. Results highlighting map quality, localisation performance, and pose recovery, both in simulation and experiments, are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In literary translation, cultural adaptation or transplantation is a method that offers the readers of the target-text linguistical and cultural ease in their interaction with the text. Still, it could also prevent them from absorbing foreign cultural elements. (Re)translation could change the status of a text in that it could offer fresh perspectives that have never been offered before. In this study, we will analyse two Romanian (re)translations of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Naming of Cats", focusing on the translation of proper names and on the differences in register and style that arise from different translation choices, to argue in favour of the idea that the transplantation of cultural elements can be just as valuable for the readers as preserving the foreign elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective is to locate and provide a unique identifier for each mouse in a cluttered home-cage environment through time, as a precursor to automated behaviour recognition for biological research. This is a very challenging problem due to (i) the lack of distinguishing visual features for each mouse, and (ii) the close confines of the scene with constant occlusion, making standard visual tracking approaches unusable. However, a coarse estimate of each mouse’s location is available from a unique RFID implant, so there is the potential to optimally combine information from (weak) tracking with coarse information on identity. To achieve our objective, we make the following key contributions: (a) the formulation of the object identification problem as an assignment problem (solved using Integer Linear Programming), (b) a novel probabilistic model of the affinity between tracklets and RFID data, and (c) a curated dataset with per-frame BB and regularly spaced ground-truth annotations for evaluating the models. The latter is a crucial part of the model, as it provides a principled probabilistic treatment of object detections given coarse localisation. Our approach achieves 77% accuracy on this animal identification problem, and is able to reject spurious detections when the animals are hidden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Many neurosurgical planning tasks rely on identifying points of interest in volumetric images. Often, these points require significant expertise to identify correctly as, in some cases, they are not visible but instead inferred by the clinician. This leads to a high degree of variability between annotators selecting these points. In particular, errors of type are when the experts fundamentally select different points rather than the same point with some inaccuracy. This complicates research as their mean may not reflect any of the experts' intentions nor the ground truth. Methods: We present a regularised Bayesian model for measuring errors of type in pointing tasks. This model is reference-free; in that it does not require a priori knowledge of the ground truth point but instead works on the basis of the level of consensus between multiple annotators. We apply this model to simulated data and clinical data from transcranial magnetic stimulation for chronic pain. Results: Our model estimates the probabilities of selecting the correct point in the range of 82.6 - 88.6% with uncertainties in the range of 2.8 - 4.0%. This agrees with the literature where ground truth points are known. The uncertainty has not previously been explored in the literature and gives an indication of the dataset's strength. Conclusions: Our reference-free Bayesian framework easily models errors of type in pointing tasks. It allows for clinical studies to be performed with a limited number of annotators where the ground truth is not immediately known, which can be applied widely for better understanding human errors in neurosurgical planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Criterio Libre is the property of Revista Criterio Libre and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Quality education is an often-heard term that has no single meaning. In this paper, we use the metaphor of mat weaving to structure an exploration of various elements that inform quality education. A warp of literature-derived threads is woven with the weft of practitioners' ideas of quality education to form the mat. These local perspectives were gifted through tok stori, a Melanesian oral form, through a session held at the OCIES 2022 Conference at the Fiji National University. The session brought together frontline educators from diverse Pacific settings to explore the dynamics of quality across contexts 'from the ground up', a seldom investigated direction. The woven discussion includes explorations of tensions between colonial pasts and the present and points to hopeful expectations about the not-yet-here. The resultant mat balances prevalent notions of quality that flow from distant places into Pacific settings with locally derived positional understandings and, in so doing, offers contextual flesh and currency to some of the key concepts valued by regional initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Wide local excision is a common procedure in the treatment of breast cancer. Wire-guided localisation (WGL) has been the gold standard for many years; however, several issues have been identified with this technique, and therefore, wire-free techniques have been developed. This scoping review synthesises the available literature comparing wire-guided localisation with the wire-free techniques used in breast-conserving cancer surgery. Materials and Methods: Multiple databases including Pubmed and MEDLINE were used to search articles between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2022. Terms included "breast neoplasms", "margins of excision", and "reoperation". In total, 34/256 papers were selected for review. Comparisons were made between positive margins and re-excision rates of WGL with wire-free techniques including SAVI SCOUT, Magseed, ROLL, and RSL. Pooled p-values were calculated using chi-square testing to determine statistical significance. Results: Pooled analysis demonstrated statistically significant reductions in positive margins and re-excision rates when SAVI SCOUT, RSL, and ROLL were compared with WGL. When SAVI SCOUT was compared to WGL, there were fewer re-excisions {(8.6% vs. 18.8%; p = 0.0001) and positive margins (10.6% vs. 15.0%; p = 0.0105)}, respectively. This was also the case in the ROLL and RSL groups. When compared to WGL; lower re-excision rates and positive margins were noted {(12.6% vs. 20.8%; p = 0.0007), (17.0% vs. 22.9%; p = 0.0268)} for ROLL and for RSL, respectively {(6.8% vs. 14.9%),(12.36% vs. 21.4%) (p = 0.0001)}. Magseed localisation demonstrated lower rates of re-excision than WGL (13.44% vs. 15.42%; p = 0.0534), but the results were not statistically significant. Conclusions: SAVI SCOUT, Magseed, ROLL, and RSL techniques were reviewed. Pooled analysis indicates wire-free techniques, specifically SAVI SCOUT, ROLL, and RSL, provide statistically significant reductions in re-excision rates and positive margin rates compared to WGL. However, additional studies and systematic analysis are required to ascertain superiority between techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Galatasaray Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of GALATASARAY UNIVERSITESI HUKUK FAKULTESI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mental health is an increasing concern around the world, but there is a substantial gap in terms of access to quality mental healthcare between Western and non-Western countries. To help close this gap and improve the delivery of mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS), the UN’s 2016 Grand Bargain declared a new approach of prioritising the localisation of these services. This paper examines the effects of the Grand Bargain on the localisation of mental health and psychosocial support services in non-Western countries, as a means to decolonise mental health. An outcome evaluation to measure the amount of funding received by local and national agencies that provide MHPSS services in less economically developed countries was carried out. All data were gathered from the UN Financing Track System (FTS), and looked at financial contributions over time in six humanitarian sectors: health; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); gender-based violence; nutrition; protection and shelter. The results show that only 3% of international donors’ MHPSS-related humanitarian funding is received by local and national agencies between 2017 and 2021. Most of the localised MHPSS-related funding is driven by country-based pooled funds, with Middle Eastern countries as the primary beneficiaries, and localised MHPSS funding predominantly went to the health, WASH and protection sectors. This study found that limited localisation of MHPSS services in less economically developed countries, and a limited focus on community capacity building through associated humanitarian sectors. Based on this study, it is recommended that humanitarians should advocate for increased localisation and culturally competent practices in the MHPSS space.

Abstract Background Evidence suggests a vicious cycle between rice cultivation and malaria control in Rwanda. Rice fields offer an attractive breeding ground for malaria vectors, which increases the disease burden in rice farming communities, and, consequently, reduces productivity in the rice sector. Community-based larval source management in rice fields is propagated as a sustainable solution to break this cycle. A sense of agency and ownership of malaria control interventions, as well as the mobilization of resources at the local level, are often considered preconditions for success. However, an evidence gap exists regarding the interaction between the agentive and financial dimension of local sustainability. Methods We conduct a larviciding pilot involving three groups; one group where rice farmers sprayed their fields under expert supervision, one group where rice farmers organised the larviciding campaign themselves, and a (non-sprayed) control group. We test whether the difference in agency between the intervention groups affects farmers’ willingness-to-pay for a larviciding campaign. Willingness-to-pay is elicited in a contingent valuation exercise, more specifically a bidding game, and is assessed both before and after the pilot (n = 288). Difference-in-difference estimates are computed, using a propensity score matching technique. Supplementary data were collected in a survey and two focus group discussions for triangulation. Results The high-agency (self-organised) group significantly outperforms the low-agency (expert-supervised) group in terms of maintaining its willingness to contribute financially. However, higher willingness-to-pay in the high-agency group does not appear to be driven by a stronger sense of ownership per se. The supplementary data indicate high levels of ownership in both treatment groups compared to the control group. A tentative explanation lies in diverging perceptions concerning the effectiveness of the pilot. Conclusions The study supports the idea that community-led organization of larval source management can prove instrumental in mobilizing finance for malaria control in low-income settings where rice production interferes with the fight against malaria. However, the causality is complex. Feelings of ownership do not appear the main driver of willingness-to-pay, at least not directly, which opens up the possibility of initiating community-driven malaria control interventions that promote the agentive and financial dimension of local sustainability simultaneously.

This editorial addresses social infrastructure in relation to urban planning and localisation, drawing together the themes in this thematic issue on “Localizing Social Infrastructures: Welfare, Equity, and Community.” Having contextualised social infrastructure, we present each of the 12 contributions by theme: (a) the social consequences of the localisation of social infrastructure for individuals, (b) the preconditions for localising social infrastructure in the urban landscape, and (c) the social consequences for the long-term social sustainability of the wider community. We conclude with the openings for future research, such as the need to continue researching localisation (for example, the ways localisations of social infrastructure support, maintain, or hinder inclusion and community-building, and which benefits would come out of using localisation as a strategic planning tool); second, funding (the funding of non-commercial social infrastructure and who would take on the responsibility); and third, situated knowledge (the knowledge needed by planners, architects, social service officials, decision makers, and the like to address and safeguard the importance of social infrastructure in urban development and regeneration processes).