1,720,982 research outputs found

    Towards the malaria end game : economics and financing of malaria elimination

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    In the past fifteen years, the world has made substantial progress towards reducing malaria mortality and morbidity. Malaria incidence and deaths have declined by more than half in some cases. However, external funding has declined particularly for malaria eliminating countries, which are low burden and middle income. Failure to maintain resources for malaria elimination has the potential to reverse the gains made. The aim of PhD was to examine the economic evidence for malaria elimination and generate results relevant to policy for continued investment for malaria elimination. Specifically, the PhD estimated the costs for elimination and prevention of re-introduction and developed national and regional investment cases in Sri Lanka and the Asia Pacific region. It tracked and interpreted trends in development assistance and government financing and assessed the implications of changing financing policies on malaria elimination targets. This body of work provides strong evidence on the uncertainty about the future availability of financing for malaria elimination. It also demonstrates that malaria elimination is a worthwhile investment providing robust health and economic returns at the national and regional level. A concerted effort is needed to use the generated evidence to build an advocacy strategy to ensure that financing for malaria elimination is maintained until the end game. Anything less will undermine decades of investment and the unprecedented gains achieved towards achieving a global public good - a world free of malaria

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

    Stabilizing supply of artemisinin and artemisinin-based combination therapy in an era of wide-spread scale-up

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    Abstract The global demand for artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) has grown sharply since its recommendation by the World Health Organization in 2002. However, a combination of financing and programmatic uncertainties, limited suppliers of finished products, information opacity across the different tiers in the supply chain, and widespread fluctuations in raw material prices have together contributed to a market fraught with demand and supply uncertainties and price volatility. Various short-term solutions have been deployed to alleviate supply shortages caused by these challenges; however, new mechanisms are required to build resilience into the supply chain. This review concludes that a mix of strategies is required to stabilize the artemisinin and ACT market. First, better and more effective pooling of demand and supply risks and better contracting to allow risk sharing among the stakeholders are needed. Physical and financial buffer stocks will enable better matching of demand and supply in the short and medium term. Secondly, physical buffers will allow stable supplies when there are procurement and supply management challenges while financial buffer funds will address issues around funding disruptions. Finally, in the medium to long term, significant investments in country level system strengthening will be required to minimize national level demand uncertainties. In addition a voluntary standard for extractors to ensure appropriate purchasing and sales practices as well as minimum quality and ethical standards could help stabilize the artemisinin market in the long term.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112439/1/12936_2012_Article_2625.pd

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

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    We 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

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    We 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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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

    An Investment Case for the Scale-up and Use of Insecticide-Treated Nets Halfway into the SDG Targets

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    Abstract This article examines a policy of scaling up LLINs by 10 percentage points from 2020 levels with a 90% cap in the 29 highest-burden countries in Africa along with social and behavioral change (SBC) and information education and communication (IEC) campaigns to increase the use and effectiveness of LLINs. The incremental cost of this scenario compared to a baseline of maintaining malaria interventions at 2020 levels has a present-day (2023) value of 5.7 billion US2021discountedat8 2021 discounted at 8% over the period 2023–2030 (undiscounted starting at US 416 million in 2023 increasing to US1.4billionin2030).Thisinvestmentwillprevent1.07billionclinicalcasesandsave1,337,069lives.WithstandardizedCopenhagenConsensusCenterassumptions,themortalitybenefittranslatestoapresentvalueofUS 1.4 billion in 2030). This investment will prevent 1.07 billion clinical cases and save 1,337,069 lives. With standardized Copenhagen Consensus Center assumptions, the mortality benefit translates to a present value of US 225.9 billion. The direct economic gain is also substantial: the incremental scenarios lead to US7.7billioninreducedhealthsystemexpenditurefromthereducedtreatmentofcases,areductioninthecostofdeliveringmalariacontrolactivities,andreducedhouseholdoutofpocketexpensesformalariatreatment.TheproductivitygainsfromavertedemployeeandcaretakerabsenteeismandpresenteeismaddbenefitswithapresentvalueofUS 7.7 billion in reduced health system expenditure from the reduced treatment of cases, a reduction in the cost of delivering malaria control activities, and reduced household out-of-pocket expenses for malaria treatment. The productivity gains from averted employee and caretaker absenteeism and presenteeism add benefits with a present value of US 41.7 billion. Each dollar spent on the incremental scenario delivers US$ 48 in social and economic benefits
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