1,720,960 research outputs found
In search of the missing data. The case of maternal and child health data in Malawi
No full textHealth reform initiatives in most developing countries include introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Conventio nally, it is thought that the introduction of ICTs will also help to modernize traditiona l work practices around data is collection, processing and reporting. However, this is not necessarily the case in a setting where there is a duality of modern and traditiona l practices. The traditional practices are deeply embedded in the cultural, economic and social life of people, something which ‘computerization’ fails to overcome. The dilemma is that although a high percentage of preg nant women still utilise the traditional health sector for delivery and child care, most of this data is not collected and entered in the official health information systems (HIS). In Malawi, as in most sub-Saharan Africa in general, the majority of people (about 80%) reside in rural areas, with limited abilities to access or afford the modern health services, forcing them to rely on traditional health services. Despite this de mographic reality, most reform initiatives involving ICTs tend to focus on the health facilities (“modern” health sector) and not on the rural community (traditional health sector) whic h is majority of the population. In this thesis, I explore the challenges in rea lizing good data quality for HIS in this context. Socio-cultural conditions, governance issues, vari ous policies, and political realities, are all seen to (adversely) influence the quality of data, and this thesis explores the nature of these influences. The research also addresses wheth er the current HIS implementation, one that excludes those using traditional services, can pr ovide solutions to strengthening HIS data quality and support health impr ovement interventions. Empirical ly, I use case studies from Malawi, focusing on maternal and child-health-related data. An interpretive approach using qualitative methods was adopted in the study in or der to uncover the depth and breadth of the practices that leads to generation of maternal and child health data in both modern and traditional health sectors. Data was collected over a two-year period from June 2008 to July 2010. Theoretically, concepts from the community of practice (CoP) theory are used to establish an understanding of practices across the traditional and modern sectors of the Malawi health system, the flow of data, and nature of li nks within these networks. The thesis draws contributions to the information systems field, specifically HIS, and to the health domain. Theoretically, the study extends the CoP theory with weak link concept. Practices, knowledge, and data are shared acro ss the organization through CoPs linkages, and these links needs to be strengthened. If any of the links is weak, knowledge, practices, and data are not shared consistently and some data may be lost. Practical contributions include the following recommendations: i) From a political perspective, the formulation and implementation of policy decisions should be gu ided by consensual processes, involving participants from health sector at all levels, and not rely on the use of top-down approaches. ii) governance mechanisms needs to utilize existing structures and enhance existing practices to capture data - such as having a village chief record the data when community members reports a birth and/or death in their community. iii) There is need to introduce policies that enhance strong collaboration be tween modern and traditional health sectors, allowing births taking place out of modern health sector to be recorded in a health passport by a chief. iv) Knowledge and practices generated in the traditiona l sector need to be taken on board to assist in capturing data generated in that sector . Community health workers known as health surveillance assistants (HSAs) should act as knowledge brokers, and should be given hardbound note books for capturing data instead of loose forms. In areas where there is coverage, HSAs and chiefs should be given mobile phones for sharing data
Computers, culture and music: the history of the recording industry in Malawi
No full textThis paper traces the history of the music recording industry in Malawi which had no indigenous recording industry until the formation of the Nzeru Record Company (NRC) in 1968. Prior to that, recordings were made, first by mobile recording studios, followed by the Federal Broadcasting Studios in Lusaka and then at the national Radio Malawi (later Malawi Broadcasting Corporation) studios. Between the demise of NRC, in 1972, and 1989 musicians again largely depended on the MBC for recording facilities, a fact that, given the censorship of the one party era, helped to shape the music and its lyrical content. In the early 1980s, there was a conjunction between the IMF-inspired privatisation imperatives and the independent mission-owned Baptist Media Centre and other studios beginning to rent out their studios. The
establishment of the Copyright Act of 1988 and the liberalisation of the political economy in the early 1990s were crucial to the establishment of a recording industry enabling entrepreneurs to form their own studios. The advent of multiparty rule in 1994 (which had itself been facilitated by the political use of information technologies, like fax machines, PC based internet and publishing to subvert the one party state censorship) further liberated the
recording environment, although distribution remained a preserve of shopkeepers. Despite this, producers and musicians found themselves hamstrung by the limited lack of alternative cassette and compact disc presses and distribution channels. Influenced by regional recording industries in South, East and West Africa, as well as socio-political events, musicians and
entrepreneurs turned to computer-based digital recording studios towards the end of the 1990's and small independent music studios mushroomed in towns like Blantyre, Balaka and Lilongwe as well as trading centres like Lunzu. This paper further briefly looks at the effects of this use of computer recording on the quality, quantity and nature, in terms of the rhythm, syncopation and quality of music produced as well as the historical legacy
Chicken and Egg: e-democracy as a Driver for e-governance in Malawi?
No full textNo abstract available
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
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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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