“Religion is Religion; My Life is My Life”: Religious Influences on Family Planning Decisions in Kapchorwa District, Uganda

This report seeks to understand the influence that religion has on family planning decisions in Kapchorwa District, in eastern Uganda. Increased uptake of family planning has significant impliations for sustainability and development in Uganda as a whole. As a district with a high unmet need for faily planning, Kapchorwa serves as an important case study. Because over 99% of Uganda’s population reports a religious affiliation, and because literature on family planning claims conservative spirituality as a major cause of low uptake, religion is a natural lens through which to study family planning perceptions and utilization. Through focus groups and key informant interviews, the study analyzes the responses of 47 inhabitants of Kapchorwa and one religious leader living in Kampala. Findings show that individuals face barriers to family planning access, particularly a lack of accurate information about contraception, the spread of persistent and widely-held myths, and the disapproval of important religious institutions. Despite these obstacles, participants prioritize the spacing and limiting of children over the teachings of any religion. Significantly, religious leaders frequently acknowledge the necessity of family planning for Kapchorwa’s development, and advise against the teachings of their churches in private. Recommendations include involving willing religious institutions in basic sexual health education, and encouraging religious leaders to speak their private beliefs about family planning in more public settings

Perceptions of oral cholera vaccine and reasons for full, partial and non-acceptance during a humanitarian crisis in South Sudan

: Oral cholera vaccination (OCV) campaigns were conducted from February to April 2014 among internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the midst of a humanitarian crisis in Juba, South Sudan. IDPs were predominantly members of the Nuer ethnic group who had taken refuge in United Nations bases following the eruption of violence in December 2013. The OCV campaigns, which were conducted by United Nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the request of the Ministry of Health, reached an estimated 85-96% of the target population. As no previous studies on OCV acceptance have been conducted in the context of an on-going humanitarian crisis, semi-structured interviews were completed with 49 IDPs in the months after the campaigns to better understand perceptions of cholera and reasons for full, partial or non-acceptance of the OCV. Heightened fears of disease and political danger contributed to camp residents' perception of cholera as a serious illness and increased trust in United Nations and NGOs providing the vaccine to IDPs. Reasons for partial and non-acceptance of the vaccination included lack of time and fear of side effects, similar to reasons found in OCV campaigns in non-crisis settings. In addition, distrust in national institutions in a context of fears of ethnic persecution was an important reason for hesitancy and refusal. Other reasons included fear of taking the vaccine alongside other medication or with alcohol. The findings highlight the importance of considering the target populations' perceptions of institutions in the delivery of OCV interventions in humanitarian contexts. They also suggest a need for better communication about the vaccine, its side effects and interactions with other substances.<br/

Polymorphic Fractional Capabilities

Abstract. The capability calculus is a framework for statically reason-ing about program resources such as deallocatable memory regions. Frac-tional capabilities, originally proposed by Boyland for checking the deter-minism of parallel reads in multi-thread programs, extend the capability calculus by extending the capabilities to range over the rational numbers. Fractional capabilities have since found numerous applications, includ-ing race detection, buer bound inference, security analyses, and sep-aration logic. However, previous work on fractional capability systems either lacked polymorphism or lacked an ecient inference procedure. Automated inference is important for the application of the calculus to static analysis. This paper addresses the issue by presenting a polymor-phic fractional capability calculus that allows polynomial-time inference via a reduction to rational linear programming.

Puhdas imperatiivinen uniikkityypitetty ohjelmointikieli

Ohjelmoinnissa puhdas funktio ei vaikuta ohjelman tilaan muuten kuin palauttamalla paluuarvon, joka riippuu ainoastaan annetuista parametreista. Jotkut ohjelmointikielet sallivat lähtökohtaisesti vain puhtaiden funktioiden kirjoittamisen. Nämä kielet ovat yleensä tyyliltään 'funktionaalisia', eli ne suosivat funktion toteutuksen esittämistä yhtenä lausekkeena tavanomaisemman 'imperatiivisen' lausejonon sijaan. Tutkielmassa esitellään uusi ohjelmointikieli Uniic, joka on tyyliltään imperatiivinen, mutta sallii vain puhtaiden funktioiden kirjoittamisen. Uniic käännetään puhtaasti funktionaaliselle kohdekielelle, mikä estää suunnittelemasta kieleen epäpuhtaita ominaisuuksia. Kääntäjästä on toteutettu prototyyppi. Funktionaalisessa kohdekielessä on Clean-kieleen perustuva uniikkityypitysjärjestelmä. Uniikkityypitys mahdollistaa epäpuhtaiden operaatioiden turvallisen mallintamisen rajoittamalla uniikiksi merkityt arvot yhteen käyttökertaan. Uniicin lähdekielessä on rakenne nimeltä lainaus, jolla ohjelmoija voi näennäisesti käyttää uniikkia arvoa monta kertaa. Lainaus on toteutettu siten, ettei kohdekielen uniikkityypitysjärjestelmää tarvitse muuttaa. Uniicin imperatiiviset piirteet sekä lainaus mahdollistavat koodin kirjoittamisen imperatiivisella tyylillä monessa tilanteessa, jossa olemassa olevat puhtaat kielet pakottavat funktionaaliseen tyyliin. Yritykset laajentaa Uniicia kielen puhtautta menettämättä auttavat hahmottamaan funktionaalisen ja imperatiivisen ohjelmoinnin eroavaisuuksia ja toisaalta myös potentiaalisia samankaltaisuuksia