38 research outputs found
Poverty, inequality, and social policy in transition economies
No full textIn examining what happens to poverty and income inequality during the early period of transition to a market economy, the author covers the period up to 1993. His analysis includes almost all transition economies that were not affected by wars, blockades, or embargoes. (In economies so affected, the intrinsic issues of transition are overshadowed by more basic issues of war or quasi-war economy and survival). The two key issues of social policy in transition economies are pension reform and better targeting of social assistance. Pensions represent 70 to 80 percent of cash social expenditures. No reduction of current levels of social spending (which is unsustainable) can be envisaged without pension reform. Better targeting of social assistance is needed because many universally or enterprise-provided benefits have been terminated, poverty has increased, and social programs lack funding. If poverty is on the rise and money is scarce, better targeting is the only option.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Services&Transfers to Poor,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor,Rural Poverty Reduction,Health Monitoring&Evaluation
Effect of combination antiretroviral therapy on cytomegalovirus retinitis
No full textPurpose: To study the various changes in the course of cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis following combination antiretroviral treatment. Methods: Combination antiretroviral treatment was given to 12 patients with active CMV retinitis following which all anti-CMV medications were discontinued once the CD4 cell counts were> 100/mm3 for 3 months. Results: The median CD4 cell count increased from 36.5/mm3 (range, 3-74/mm3) at baseline to 175.5/mm3 (range, 97-410/mm3) at 3 months. No patient had reactivation of CMV retinitis or developed extraocular CMV infection during median follow-up of 16.7 months. In one patient with peripheral active CMV retinitis, the retinitis resolved completely and remained so throughout the follow-up period without specific anti-CMV treatment. Five (41.7%) patients had immune recovery vitritis. Conclusion: Patients receiving combination antiretroviral treatment following treatment for CMV retinitis have better control of CMV retinitis but immune recovery vitritis is a common sequelae. Reactivation of CMV retinitis is common in patients who discontinue combination antiretroviral treatmen
Analysis of Package Inserts Available in the Indian Market
No full textMedicine has advanced, necessitating access to accurate drug information. Package inserts (PIs) are crucial sources, approved by authorities, providing essential and updated drug details. Package inserts significantly impact patient compliance and drug effectiveness in chronic therapy. This study examines Indian market PIs, evaluating information quality and accessibility to improve medication safety. A prospective observational cross-sectional study was carried out. A total of 300 package inserts were collected from various pharmacies situated across different sites in Ahmedabad. Package inserts were scored out of 21 based on assessment criteria, expressed as percentages, and analysed descriptively. A total of 300 package inserts were analysed, among them 130 were tablets, 81 were injections, 17 were capsules, 15 were eye drops and the rest includes syrup, ear drops, nasal drops, suppositories, powder, ointment, gel, cream, lotion and suspension. 209 PIs were single drug preparations while 91 were fixed dose combinations. More than 90% of the score was achieved by 37 PIs. 96 PIs had scored between range 81% to 90%, while 86 PIs had scored between 71% to 80%. Only 6 PIs had scored below 50%. Most commonly missing information was the average duration of treatment (83% of PIs), excipients (93% of PIs), and shelf life (81% of PIs). The finding of this study revealed that, although only 2% of PIs had scored below 50%, some crucial information was lacking from a major number of PIs. Regular review and collaboration among stakeholders ensure updated, reliable and comprehensive information, benefiting patient care and healthcare delivery. Keywords: Drug information, Package insert, Indian marke
Knowledge, attitude and behavioural survey regarding oral hygiene practices amongst rural and urban population of Ahmedabad City, Gujarat: A comparative study
No full textIntroduction: It is thought that oral hygiene can be influenced by socioeconomic status to some extent. People with higher socioeconomic status often have better access to resources and opportunities, which can impact their oral hygiene practices and overall dental health. Hence, this study assessed knowledge, attitude and behaviour regarding oral health amongst the adult population in urban and rural populations of Ahmedabad city. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out amongst the urban and rural segments of Ahmedabad district. The zones of the district and participants were selected by systematic random sampling method. The participants in the Ahmedabad district were selected, and those 204 who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were considered. A validated questionnaire was designed in our study so as to satisfy the quality, attain the objective of our study and make the study effective. Results: About 70.42% of the rural population and 77.30% of the urban population has good knowledge, while only 36.1% of the rural population and 47.16% of the urban population had a positive attitude towards oral hygiene practices. 61.27% of the rural population and 64.81% of the urban population showed positive behaviour. The absence of correlation was identified between knowledge-attitude and attitude-behaviour. Conclusion: It has been found that a massive number of the urban population possess a higher level of knowledge and attitude towards oral health than the rural population. No linear positive correlation was seen in knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards oral health
Web Experience in Mobile Networks: Lessons from Two Million Page Visits
No full textMeasuring and characterizing web page performance is a challenging task.
When it comes to the mobile world, the highly varying technology characteristics coupled with the opaque network configuration make it even more difficult.
Aiming at reproducibility, we present a large scale measurements study of web page performance collected in eleven commercial mobile networks spanning four countries.
We build a dataset of nearly two million web browsing sessions to we shed light on the impact of different web protocols, browsers, and mobile technologies on the web performance.
We find that the impact of mobile broadband access is sizeable.
For example, the median page load time using mobile broadband increases by a third compared to wired access.
Mobility clearly stresses the system, with handover causing the most evident performance penalties.
Contrariwise, our measurements show that the adoption of HTTP/2 and QUIC has practically negligible impact.
Our work highlights the importance of large-scale measurements.
Even with our controlled setup, the complexity of the mobile web ecosystem is challenging to untangle.
For this, we are releasing the dataset as open data for validation and further research.
We also release together with the datasets we collected the scripts we use to produce the analysis we present in the paper. Please use plot_all.sh script to generate the plots in the paper, using the separate scripts from the "scripts" archive.
Should you use any of these resources, please also make an attribution using the following reference (provided here in bibtex format):
@inproceedings{rajiullah2019web,
title={{Web Experience in Mobile Networks: Lessons from Two Million Page Visits}},
author={Rajiullah, Mohammad and Lutu, Andra and Khatouni, Ali Safari and Fida, Mah-Rukh and Mellia, Marco and Brunstrom, Anna and Alay, Ozgu and Alfredsson, Stefan and Mancuso, Vincenzo},
booktitle={The World Wide Web Conference},
pages={1532--1543},
year={2019},
organization={ACM},
address = {San Francisco, CA, USA},
keywords = {Web Experience, HTTP2, QUIC, TCP, Mobile Broadband, Measurements}
}</pre
Physiochemical Analysis of Treated Industrial Effluent Collected from Ahmedabad Mega Pipeline
No full textAn educational interventional study to compare the effectiveness of Small Group Discussion versus Role Play as a teaching learning method in the subject of Pharmacology
No full textBACKGROUND: Teaching-learning methods include lectures, discussions, and small group activities. Small group discussions and role-plays enhance adult learning by promoting participation, reflection, communication, and teamwork. These methods improve knowledge retention and prepare students for real-life scenarios and professional challenges through experiential, interactive learning. Aim of the study was to compare the effectiveness of Small Group Discussion (SGD) vs Role play as a teaching learning (T/L) method among Phase II medical students.
METHODS. Out of 140 Phase II MBBS students, 88 participated in the pharmacology schedule and were included in the study. After randomization, 42 students (Group A) underwent SGD, and 46 (Group B) participated in Role Play. Both groups completed pre- and post-tests, prescription writing, reflection, and a perception questionnaire.
RESULTS. The primary objective of evaluating the effectiveness of SGD vs Role play as T/L method was performed by comparing the mean scores of post-tests and written prescriptions. Mean Score of post-test was 6.53±1.40 and 6.11±1.33 of Group A & B, respectively (p\u3e0.05). Mean score of prescriptions was 6.80±1.44 and 5.08±1.30 for Group A and Group B, respectively (p
CONCLUSION. Role play is effective for learning communication skills. SGD is better for understanding the clinical aspects of the topic. Both the methods hold their own importance as a teaching learning method
Demo: Experimentation in controlled and operational LTE settings with FLEX-MONROE
No full textThis demo paper presents FLEX-MONROE, a platform that facilitates better understanding of current LTE Mobile Broadband (MBB) networks and enables performance improvements by allowing experimentation with controllable LTE parameters. The platform enables investigating impact of low-level network parameter tweaks in LTE infrastructure on the application performance. We argue that FLEX-MONROE is crucial to provide guidelines on improving application performance both in the current and future MBB networks. © 2017 Copyright held by the owner/author(s)
