1,721,176 research outputs found
Bayesian spatio-temporal modeling of malaria risk in Rwanda
No full textEvery year, 435,000 people worldwide die from Malaria, mainly in Africa and Asia. However, malaria is a curable and preventable disease. Most countries are developing malaria elimination plans to meet sustainable development goal three, target 3.3, which includes ending the epidemic of malaria by 2030. Rwanda, through the malaria strategic plan 2012-2018 set a target to reduce malaria incidence by 42% from 2012 to 2018. Assessing the health policy and taking a decision using the incidence rate approach is becoming more challenging. We are proposing suitable statistical methods that handle spatial structure and uncertainty on the relative risk that is relevant to National Malaria Control Program. We used a spatio-temporal model to estimate the excess probability for decision making at a small area on evaluating reduction of incidence. SIR and BYM models were developed using routine data from Health facilities for the period from 2012 to 2018 in Rwanda. The fitted model was used to generate relative risk (RR) estimates comparing the risk with the malaria risk in 2012, and to assess the probability of attaining the set target goal per area. The results showed an overall increase in malaria in 2013 to 2018 as compared to 2012. Ofall sectors in Rwanda, 47.36% failed to meet targeted reduction in incidence from 2012 to 2018. Our approach of using excess probability method to evaluate attainment of target or identifying threshold is a relevant statistical method, which will enable the Rwandan Government to sustain malaria control and monitor the effectiveness of targeted interventions.The authors are grateful to Rwanda Biomedical Center, Malaria and other Parasitic Diseases division, for collaboration and discussion on Rwanda’s Malaria’s strategic plan evaluation approaches. We are grateful for Rwanda malaria resource materials shared by Dr. Aimable Mbituyumuremyi, Malaria Division manager and technical support provided by Mr. Hamza Ndabateze, HMIS officer, to extract data from Rwanda health information system (HMIS).Semakula, M (corresponding author), Hasselt Univ, I BioStat, Hasselt, Belgium ; Univ Rwanda, Coll Business & Econ, Ctr Excellence Data Sci, Biostat, Kigali, Rwanda.
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Mapping species richness using opportunistic samples: a case study on ground-floor bryophyte species richness in the Belgian province of Limburg
No full textIn species richness studies, citizen-science surveys where participants make individual decisions regarding sampling strategies provide a cost-effective approach to collect a large amount of data. However, it is unclear to what extent the bias inherent to opportunistically collected samples may invalidate our inferences. Here, we compare spatial predictions of forest ground-floor bryophyte species richness in Limburg (Belgium), based on crowd- and expert-sourced data, where the latter are collected by adhering to a rigorous geographical randomisation and data collection protocol. We develop a log-Gaussian Cox process model to analyse the opportunistic sampling process of the crowd-sourced data and assess its sampling bias. We then fit two geostatistical Poisson models to both data-sets and compare the parameter estimates and species richness predictions. We find that the citizens had a higher propensity for locations that were close to their homes and environmentally more valuable. The estimated effects of ecological predictors and spatial species richness predictions differ strongly between the two geostatistical models. Unknown inconsistencies in the sampling process, such as unreported observer's effort, and the lack of a hypothesis-driven study protocol can lead to the occurrence of multiple sources of sampling bias, making it difficult, if not impossible, to provide reliable inferences.sponsorship: The Belgian Nature and Forest Agency (ANB), the Institute for Nature and Forest Research (INBO), and the Umbrella for Nature Research in Limburg (LIKONA) are gratefully acknowledged for providing the data used in this study and commenting on our results. In particular, we thank the following persons for their support and insights: Cecile Nagels (LIKONA), Luc Crevecoeur (LIKONA), Wouter Van Landuyt (INBO), Dirk De Beer (INBO), and Martine Waterinckx (ANB). The largest part of this study has been conducted when Thomas Neyens was funded as a postdoctoral researcher by the Flemish Research Foundation (12S7217N). (Flemish Research Foundation|12S7217N)status: Publishe
Identity+Innovation: how to give hope and opportunities to forgot suburbs. A comparative study between EU and China.
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Recover and Cohousing: looking for environmental and social sustainability. The intervention modalities for dismissed shopping centers, manufacturing and residential buildings
No full textNowadays, in the architectural debate, the issues related to the topics of renewal and regeneration are dominant. The requests of the new living needs and the innovate kinds of communities are spreading in the common consciousness. Several examples of cohousing, realized in a great part of the western world, can be considered as proof of this phenomenon. Those two topics can well match together for different reasons: not only for convenience and actuality of the proposals, but in particular for architectural and spatial reasons. There are residential buildings that, even if can be reused with low impact works, could well fit with the new cohabitation and socialization necessities. Those cases run because some functional zones, before marginally to the residential and nowadays no more used, can be recovered as shared spaces, changing the internal distribution and the connections between private dwellings. Furthermore dismissed shopping centers, manufacturing and small factories can be
transformed not only through real estate operations that change them into lofts or speculative goods. With more attention and sensibility, cohousing projects can bring to a different way of reusing spaces that become the core for the organization of the programs. With this process, different solutions can be founded, allowing more flexibility of design and more possibility of integration between the units and functions that arrange the
cohousing. Supporting the research topics and this thesis, we studied some samples and strategy schemes useful for the actions and guidelines that allow to spread the idea of a good combination between cohousing and recover of all the existing heritage. The interaction through collective living and existing buildings recovering allow to collect all the different benefits of those two actions, reaching a total sustainability: both environmental and social
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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