Exploring the effectiveness of a rapid participatory method in mapping the role of agricultural biodiversity in local food systems to identify potential entry points to improve peoples' capabilities to be nutrition secure

Vietnam has improved its food security situation at the price of losing traditional varieties adapted to local tastes and conditions due to increased production and use of high-yield crop varieties (mainly large scale mono-cropping). Decreased diversity of foods is a growing issue, and the existence of malnutrition in regions where staple crop production and food availability are sufficient highlights the necessity for a multidisciplinary approach to design interventions that target the four dimensions of food security - availability, access, stability and utilisation, of a diverse group of locally available nutritious foods. This paper demonstrates the use of the Four Cell Approach to participatory research to rapidly identify trends in a) species and food usage in a landscape and b) the dynamics of the food system which may contribute to, or be leveraged to improve, peoples' capabilities to be nutrition secure. In the case of Son La Province, Vietnam, explored in this paper, it is possible to conclude a positive relationship between increased production diversity and dietary diversity, and highlight the importance of markets for diffusion of diverse foods. Diversification of species production and consumption has a positive effect on resilience during the off-season, and diversification of coping mechanisms utilised by communities can build resilience for future shocks. Food-based approaches that promote diversified production and consumption of locally available nutritious foods that local people value, while ensuring access to markets, have the potential to improve capabilities of local people to provide nutritious foods for themselves and their communities while improving resilience to be food and nutrition secure at all time

Evaluating LANDSAT-4 MSS and TM data

Interband line pixel misregistrations were determined for the four MSS bands of the Mistassini, Ontario scene and multitemporal registration of LANDSAT-4 products were tested for two different geocoded scenes. Line and pixel misregistrations are tabulated as determined by the manual ground control points and the digital band to band correlation techniques. A method was developed for determining the spectral information content of TM images for forestry applications

Fluorescent Excitation of Spectral Lines in Planetary Nebulae

Fluorescent excitation of spectral lines is demonstrated as a function of temperature-luminosity and the distance of the emitting region from the central stars of planetary nebulae. The electron densities and temperatures are determined, and the method is exemplified through a detailed analysis of spectral observations of a high excitation PN, NGC 6741, observed by Hyung and Aller(1997). Fluorescence should also be important in the determination of element abundances. It is suggested that the method could be generally applied to determine or constrain the luminosity and the region of spectral emission in other intensively radiative sources such as novae, supernovae, and active galactic nuclei.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (fig.4 in color), ApJ (in press

An Electroweak Weizsacker-Williams Method

The Weizsacker-Williams method is a semiclassical approximation scheme used to analyze a wide variety of electromagnetic interactions. It can greatly simplify calculations that would otherwise be impractical or impossible to carry out using the standard route of the Feynman rules. With a few reasonable assumptions, the scope of the method was generalized so as to accommodate weak, as well as the usual electromagnetic, interactions. The results are shown to be in excellent agreement, in the high energy limit of interest, with other methods, and the generalized scheme is shown to still work in regimes of analysis where those methods break down.Comment: PhD thesis, 239 pages, 36 figures, LaTe

Boundedness, compactness and Schatten-class membership of weighted composition operators

The boundedness and compactness of weighted composition operators on the Hardy space ${\mathcal H}^2$ of the unit disc is analysed. Particular reference is made to the case when the self-map of the disc is an inner function. Schatten-class membership is also considered; as a result, stronger forms of the two main results of a recent paper of Gunatillake are derived. Finally, weighted composition operators on weighted Bergman spaces $\mathcal{A}^2 \alpha(\mathbb{D})$ are considered, and the results of Harper and Smith, linking their properties to those of Carleson embeddings, are extended to this situation.Comment: 12 page

Patient/Family Education for Newly Diagnosed Pediatric Oncology Patients

There is a paucity of data to support evidence-based practices in the provision of patient/family education in the context of a new childhood cancer diagnosis. Since the majority of children with cancer are treated on pediatric oncology clinical trials, lack of effective patient/family education has the potential to negatively affect both patient and clinical trial outcomes. The Children’s Oncology Group Nursing Discipline convened an interprofessional expert panel from within and beyond pediatric oncology to review available and emerging evidence and develop expert consensus recommendations regarding harmonization of patient/family education practices for newly diagnosed pediatric oncology patients across institutions. Five broad principles, with associated recommendations, were identified by the panel, including recognition that (1) in pediatric oncology, patient/family education is family-centered; (2) a diagnosis of childhood cancer is overwhelming and the family needs time to process the diagnosis and develop a plan for managing ongoing life demands before they can successfully learn to care for the child; (3) patient/family education should be an interprofessional endeavor with 3 key areas of focus: (a) diagnosis/treatment, (b) psychosocial coping, and (c) care of the child; (4) patient/family education should occur across the continuum of care; and (5) a supportive environment is necessary to optimize learning. Dissemination and implementation of these recommendations will set the stage for future studies that aim to develop evidence to inform best practices, and ultimately to establish the standard of care for effective patient/family education in pediatric oncology

Family systems and mental health issues: A resilience approach

In many cases the consumers of mental health information and support are the families of mental health sufferers. The aim of the project was to understand resilience in people who live with or support a family member with a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness. Participants were 15 carers (one male, 14 female). Semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analysed using content analysis. Eight recurring themes emerged which indicated the challenges the carers faced and provided indications of the positive and negative personal, family and social factors that impacted on their lives. These themes were \u27Getting to CLAN WA\u27, \u27Accessing help including CLAN WA\u27, \u27Impact of living with a person who has a mental illness or problematic behaviour\u27, \u27Family and cultural issues\u27, \u27Communication within the family\u27,\u27Coping strategies and evidence of resilience\u27, \u27Social support\u27 and \u27Notion of sacrifice\u27. There is still considerable work to do in supporting people who live with or support a family member in these circumstances. The findings demonstrate that individuals living with adversity can do more than just survive the proces

Floods and health in Gambella region, Ethiopia: a qualitative assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of coping mechanisms

BACKGROUND: Floods are the most frequent and devastating type of natural disaster worldwide, causing unprecedented deaths, diseases, and destruction of property and crops. Flooding has a greater impact in developing countries due to lack of sufficient disaster management structures and a lack of economic resources. OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted with the aim of contributing to the knowledge base of development strategies that reduce flood-related health risks in developing countries. The study focused particularly on assessing the flood risks and health-related issues in the Gambella region of Ethiopia; with the intent of producing relevant information to assist with the improvements in the efficacy of the current flood coping strategies in the region. METHODS: Data were gathered through interviews with 14 officers from different government and non-governmental organizations and a questionnaire survey given to 35 flood victims in Itang woreda. A qualitative approach was applied and the data were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: It was found that flooding is a common problem in Gambella region. The findings also indicate that the flood frequency and magnitude has increased rapidly during the last decade. The increase in floods was driven mainly by climate change and changes in land use, specifically deforestation. The reported main impacts of flooding on human health in Gambella region were deaths, injuries, and diseases such as malaria and diarrhea. Another notable consequence of flooding was crop destruction and subsequent malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: Three weaknesses that were identified in the current coping strategies for flood-related health impacts in Gambella region were a lack of flood-specific policy, absence of risk assessment, and weak institutional capacity. This study recommends new policy approaches that will increase the effectiveness of the current flood coping strategies to sustainably address the impact of flooding on human health

Evidence-based paramedic models of care to reduce unnecessary emergency department attendance – feasibility and safety

Background: As demand for Emergency Department (ED) services continues to exceed increases explained by population growth, strategies to reduce ED presentations are being explored. The concept of ambulance paramedics providing an alternative model of care to the current default ‘see and transport to ED’ has intuitive appeal and has been implemented in several locations around the world. The premise is that for certain noncritical ill patients, the Extended Care Paramedic (ECP) can either ‘see and treat’ or ‘see and refer’ to another primary or community care practitioner, rather than transport to hospital. However, there has been little rigorous investigation of which types of patients can be safely identified and managed in the community, or the impact of ECPs on ED attendance.Methods/Design: St John Ambulance Western Australia paramedics will indicate on the electronic patient care record (e-PCR) of patients attended in the Perth metropolitan area if they consider them to be suitable to be managed in the community. ‘Follow-up’ will examine these patients using ED data to determine the patient’s disposition from the ED. A clinical panel will then develop a protocol to identify those patients who can be safely managed in the community. Paramedics will then assess patients against the derived ECP protocols and identify those deemed suitable to ‘see and treat’ or ‘see and refer’. The ED disposition (and other clinical outcomes) of these ‘ECP protocol identified’ patients will enable us to assess whether it would have been appropriate to manage these patients in the community. We will also ‘track’ re-presentations to EDs within seven days of the initial presentation. This is a ‘virtual experiment’ with no direct involvement of patients or changes in clinical practice. A systems modelling approach will be used to assess the likely impact on ED crowding.Discussion: To date the efficacy, cost-effectiveness and safety of alternative community-based models of emergency care have not been rigorously investigated. This study will inform the development of ECP protocols through the identification of types of patient presentation that can be considered both safe and appropriate for paramedics to manage in the community

Measurement of the Branching Fraction for B- --> D0 K*-

We present a measurement of the branching fraction for the decay B- --> D0 K*- using a sample of approximately 86 million BBbar pairs collected by the BaBar detector from e+e- collisions near the Y(4S) resonance. The D0 is detected through its decays to K- pi+, K- pi+ pi0 and K- pi+ pi- pi+, and the K*- through its decay to K0S pi-. We measure the branching fraction to be B.F.(B- --> D0 K*-)= (6.3 +/- 0.7(stat.) +/- 0.5(syst.)) x 10^{-4}.Comment: 7 pages, 1 postscript figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communications