1,150 research outputs found
Child mortality in rural Malawi: HIV closes the survival gap between the socio-economic strata
No full textAs HIV-related deaths increase in a population the usual association between low socioeconomic status and child mortality may change, particularly as death rates from other causes decline.METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: As part of a demographic surveillance system in northern Malawi in 2002-6, covering a population of 32,000, information was collected on socio-economic status of the households. Deaths were classified as HIV/AIDS-related or not by verbal autopsy. Poisson regression models were used to assess the association of socio-economic indicators with all-cause mortality, AIDS-mortality and non-AIDS mortality among children. There were 195 deaths in infants, 109 in children aged 1-4 years, and 38 in children aged 5-15. All-cause child mortality in infants and 1-4 year olds was similar in households with higher and lower socio-economic status. In infants 13% of deaths were attributed to AIDS, and there were no clear trends with socio-economic status for AIDS or non-AIDS causes. For 1-4 year olds 27% of deaths were attributed to AIDS. AIDS mortality was higher among those with better built houses, and lowest in those with income from farming and fishing, whereas non-AIDS mortality was higher in those with worse built houses, lowest in those with income from employment, and decreased with increasing household assets.CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: In this population, since HIV infection among adults was initially more common among the less poor, childhood mortality patterns have changed. The usual gap in survival between the poor and the less poor has been lost, but because the less poor have been disproportionately affected by HIV, rather than because of relative improvement in the survival of the poorest
Letters from J. Thompson to Charles E. Mix and J. B. Floyd, 1857
No full textEnclosed a copy of a letter addressed by the Department of the Interior to the Secretary of War upon the subject of office letter of the 26th ultimo relative to furnishing a small detachment of soldiers for the use of the Indians Service in California
Ascertainment of childhood vaccination histories in northern Malawi.
No full textOBJECTIVE: To assess factors related to recorded vaccine uptake, which may confound the evaluation of vaccine impact. METHODS: Analysis of documented vaccination histories of children under 5 years and demographic and socio-economic characteristics collected by a demographic surveillance system in Karonga District, Malawi. Associations between deviations from the standard vaccination schedule and characteristics that are likely to be associated with increased mortality were determined by multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Approximately 78% of children aged 6-23 months had a vaccination document, declining to <50% by 5 years of age. Living closer to an under-5 clinic, having a better educated father, and both parents being alive were associated with having a vaccination document. For a small percentage of children, vaccination records were incomplete and/or faulty. Vaccination uptake was high overall, but delayed among children living further from the nearest under-5 clinic or from poorer socio-economic backgrounds. Approximately 9% of children had received their last dose of DPT with or after measles vaccine. These children were from relatively less educated parents, and were more likely to have been born outside the health services. CONCLUSIONS: Though overall coverage in this community was high and variation in coverage according to child or parental characteristics small, there was strong evidence of more timely coverage among children from better socio-economic conditions and among those who lived closer to health facilities. These factors are likely to be strong confounders in the association of vaccinations with mortality, and may offer an alternative explanation for the non-specific mortality impact of vaccines described by other studies
Autobiography of a pioneer : being an account of the personal experiences of the author from 1867 to 1916 /
No full text"Adventures with buffalo, cattle and outlaws" -- Howes, U.S.IANA, S 560.Mode of access: Internet
Letter from J. Thompson to J. W. Denver with letters from S. Cooper and John B. Floyd, 1857
No full textTransmits copies of letter and enclosures from Secretary of War containing the views of that Department relative to the application for a small detachment of soldiers for the use of the Indian service in California
Environmental Risk and Averting Behavior: Predictive Validity of Revealed and Stated Preference Data
No full textWe conduct predictive validity tests using revealed and stated behavior data from a panel survey of North Carolina coastal households. The application is to hurricane evacuation behavior. Data was initially collected after Hurricane Bonnie led to hurricane evacuations in North Carolina in 1998. Respondents were asked for their behavioral intentions if a hurricane threatened the North Carolina coast during the 1999 hurricane season. Following Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd in 1999, a follow-up survey was conducted to see if respondents behaved as they intended. A jointly estimated revealed and stated behavior model indicates that the hypothetical and real evacuation behavior is based on the same choice process. Using predictions from this model with a hypothetical bias correction we find that it predicts actual evacuation behavior with small forecast error. These results suggest that stated behavior data has some degree of predictive validity.
Population differences in immune responses to Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccination in infancy.
No full textBacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination induces a marked increase in the interferon (IFN)-gamma response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis purified protein derivative (Mtb PPD) in UK adolescents, but not in Malawian adolescents. We hypothesized that Mtb PPD-induced IFN-gamma after BCG vaccination would be similar in infants from these 2 countries. Infants were vaccinated with BCG during the first 3-13 weeks of life. Three months after BCG vaccination, 51 (100%) of 51 UK infants had an IFN-gamma response to Mtb PPD, compared to 41 (53%) of 78 of Malawian infants, in whom responses varied according to their season of birth. We conclude that population differences in immune responses after BCG vaccination are observed among infants, as well as among young adults
The effect of antiretroviral therapy provision on all-cause, AIDS and non-AIDS mortality at the population level--a comparative analysis of data from four settings in Southern and East Africa.
No full textOBJECTIVE: To provide a broad and up-to-date picture of the effect of antiretroviral therapy (ART) provision on population-level mortality in Southern and East Africa. METHODS: Data on all-cause, AIDS and non-AIDS mortality among 15-59 year olds were analysed from demographic surveillance sites (DSS) in Karonga (Malawi), Kisesa (Tanzania), Masaka (Uganda) and the Africa Centre (South Africa), using Poisson regression. Trends over time from up to 5 years prior to ART roll-out, to 4-6 years afterwards, are presented, overall and by age and sex. For Masaka and Kisesa, trends are analysed separately for HIV-negative and HIV-positive individuals. For Karonga and the Africa Centre, trends in AIDS and non-AIDS mortality are analysed using verbal autopsy data. RESULTS: For all-cause mortality, overall rate ratios (RRs) comparing the period 2-6 years following ART roll-out with the pre-ART period were 0.58 (5.9 vs. 10.2 deaths per 1000 person-years) in Karonga, 0.79 (7.2 vs. 9.1 deaths per 1000 person-years) in Kisesa, 0.61 (6.7 compared with 11.0 deaths per 1000 person-years) in Masaka and 0.79 (14.8 compared with 18.6 deaths per 1000 person-years) in the Africa Centre DSS. The mortality decline was seen only in HIV-positive individuals/AIDS mortality, with no decline in HIV-negative individuals/non-AIDS mortality. Less difference was seen in Kisesa where ART uptake was lower. CONCLUSIONS: Falls in all-cause mortality are consistent with ART uptake. The largest falls occurred where ART provision has been decentralised or available locally, suggesting that this is important
Influences of biological structural features on the acoustic nonlinearity parameter B/A
No full textThe influences of structural factors of biological media on the acoustic nonlinearity parameter B/A were studied at tissue, cellular and molecular levels, using both the thermodynamic method and the finite amplitude method. Experiments were designed to measure the B/A changes by altering structural factors of media physically and biochemically, while keeping chemical compositions unchanged. Evidences were found to support significant structural dependences of the B/A at all three levels. Further analysis suggests that about 26% of dry weight contribution to the total B/A, the B/A value with water contribution subtracted, is due to cell-cell adhesive force in liver tissues, 20% to the hepatocyte cellular structure, and 15% to the molecular structure of protein. No significant B/A changes were observed between the in vivo and in vitro B/A values in cat livers and during the digestion of protein. In addition, it is found that B/A exhibits an unusually large value near the phase transition regions of liposomes, suggesting the effect of relaxational processes on the B/A value. Finally, implications of the above findings are discussed in the light of the previous studies on the compositional dependence of B/A, and a possible rationale by which the B/A depends on both the chemical composition and structural factors is suggested.Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:34:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Growth strategies and small business owners: a Structurationist investigation of Strategy-as-Practice in small enterprises
No full textThe purpose of this research study is to investigate how the strategising of growth-oriented Small Business Owners (SBOs) influences the strategy in their businesses.
This thesis describes a ‘Strategy-as-Practice’ (S-as-P) investigation of ten Small Business Owners (SBOs) in Northeast England. Each SBO participated in a confidential ‘one-to-one’ strategy workshop with the author. The workshop format required each SBO to create a strategy map during the videoed session. The research design was intended to be minimally intrusive for members of the small businesses community.
The theoretical underpinning in this interpretive study was informed by Structuration Theory (ST). The video data were analysed with CAQDAS software. A template analysis approach was used based upon the symbiotic relationship of agency and structure proposed by ST. Cross-cutting themes were sought across the case companies.
The author found that the methodology attracted participation by growth-oriented SBOs. At the meso-level growth-oriented SBOs can be characterised as “strategically aware”, even if their strategy has remained unchanged for a considerable time. This strategic awareness is a manifestation of strategising praxes within the business. SBOs that are not actively changing strategy tend to articulate aspects of their business model which are visible in the firm, the others find difficulty in expressing their strategy in words. The “one-to-one” strategy workshop format used in this study facilitates the articulation of tacit knowledge and hence aids such discussion.
This research was focused upon SBOs that had a history of organic-growth, and had been relatively unscathed by the 2008 Banking Crisis aftermath. The participation group were all based in the North East of England.
This study contributes to existing S-as-P knowledge by extending the contextual boundary beyond large organisations into the small business domain. The author contrasts, and compares, the S-as-P findings in this study with the extant field that has almost exclusively been devoted to larger scale enterprise. The videoed “one-to-one” strategy workshop design is a methodological contribution that has proven efficacious in both recruiting and studying SBOs with the minimum of intervention disruption for these busy people. The author creates a synthesised model of small business strategising based on findings from this study that may assist future researchers to better engage and understand the strategising of SBOs
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