Institutions, sustainable land use and consumer welfare: the case of forest and grazing lands in northern Ethiopia

Land is an essential factor of production. Institutions that govern its efficient use determine the sustainability of this essential resource. In Ethiopia all land is publicly owned. Such an institutional setting is said to have resulted in the major degradation of Ethiopia's land resources and dissipation of the resource rent. An alternative to this is assigning a private property institution. In this paper, we examine the consumer welfare effects of a change in the institutional setting on communal forest and grazing lands, using a cross-section data set of 200 households in Northern Ethiopia. Findings suggest that changing the current institutional setting could indeed be welfare reducin

Farm Size and the Share of Irrigated Land in total Landholding: the case of Water-Harvesting Irrigation in Ethiopia

Rain-fall shortage constrains production in small-holder agriculture in developing countries and with ongoing climate change these shortages may increase. Rain-water harvesting are interesting technologies that decrease this risk. Therefore, one would expect an increasing use of these technologies in drought-prone areas. However, data collected in Ethiopia shows that the share of irrigated land in total landholding declines with farm size. This study investigates why the share declines with farm size using panel data collected in 2005 and in 2010. A random-effect tobit model is estimated for the share of irrigated land as a function of variables affecting returns, market prices, source of finance and expectation formation. The findings show farm-specific factors such as credit per hectare, distance to market, ease of selling output, landholding, regional differences, aridity and distance of plots from natural water sources significantly affect the share. Thus, encouraging investment has to consider farm-size, and also geographical, environmental and regional diversity.Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Determinants of Dietary Adequacy Among School Age Children in Guraghe Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Dietary diversity (DD) is a validated proxy indicator of micronutrient adequacy among different age groups including infants, children and women. This study assessed level of dietary adequacy and its associated factors among school age children in Guraghe Zone, Ethiopia. Survey was conducted among 769 children aged 6 to 12 years of with their care givers using multistage sampling method. Data were collected by using structured questionnaire containing the ten food groups for minimum dietary diversity for women and other parts. Adequate dietary diversity was categorized those children who consume at least five food groups. Bivariate and multivariable binary logistic regression with odds ratios (95% CI) was computed. Overall 769 children were included in the study, with a mean age of 8 years. The mean dietary diversity score was 4.9 (±1.42). About 444 (58.3%) had an inadequate dietary diversity. Those children from extended family size had 1.3 times to have inadequate DD level (AOR=1.3). Children from female headed households, did not attend formal education had 1.3 and 1.4 times higher odds of having an inadequate DD level (AOR=1.3 and 1.4). Similarly, children living with uneducated caregiver had six fold more likely to have an adequate DD level (AOR=6.7). The dietary diversity of children in the study area was below average. Household head, caregiver\u27s educational status, occupation of the household head, father/female headed household and family size were found to be associated with DD score. There should be awareness creation through existing Health extension platform and back yard vegetation should be improved

Spinning and tumbling of micron-sized triangles in a micro-channel shear flow

We report on measurements of the angular dynamics of micron-sized equilaterally triangular platelets suspended in a micro-channel shear flow. Our measurements confirm that such particles spin and tumble like a spheroid in a simple shear. Since the triangle has corners we can observe the spinning directly. In general the spinning frequency is different from the tumbling frequency, and the spinning is affected by tumbling. This gives rise to doubly-periodic angular dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, supplementary material, *) these authors contributed equall

Calibrating spectral estimation for the LISA Technology Package with multichannel synthetic noise generation

The scientific objectives of the Lisa Technology Package (LTP) experiment, on board of the LISA Pathfinder mission, demand for an accurate calibration and validation of the data analysis tools in advance of the mission launch. The levels of confidence required on the mission outcomes can be reached only with an intense activity on synthetically generated data. A flexible procedure allowing the generation of cross-correlated stationary noise time series was set-up. Multi-channel time series with the desired cross correlation behavior can be generated once a model for a multichannel cross-spectral matrix is provided. The core of the procedure is the synthesis of a noise coloring multichannel filter through a frequency-by-frequency eigendecomposition of the model cross-spectral matrix and a Z-domain fit. The common problem of initial transients in noise time series is solved with a proper initialization of the filter recursive equations. The noise generator performances were tested in a two dimensional case study of the LTP dynamics along the two principal channels of the sensing interferometer.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review D (http://prd.aps.org/

Medication Reconciliation as a Medication Safety Initiative

Medication errors and their adverse outcomes are the most common cause of patient injuries in hospitals. Medication reconciliation is the safety strategy usually called for, to prevent medication errors that occur at care transitions. This strategy has been adopted as a standard practice in many developed countries. However, in Ethiopia, there were no published studies on medication reconciliation, nor evidence-based interventions aimed to tackle the burden of medication errors. This thesis was a medication safety initiative focusing on medication reconciliation intervention overall, and explored the journey to medication reconciliation service implementation as a medication safety strategy in Ethiopian public hospitals. Given the lack of consistent reports regarding the impact of this strategy, the journey to implementation was guided by synthesise of the evidence supporting the effectiveness of this intervention. The findings of our systematic reviews have shown that medication reconciliation interventions carried out through pharmacist assessment at hospital transitions were found to be an effective strategy for improving clinical outcomes (e.g. adverse drug event-related hospital visits, all-cause readmissions, and emergency department visits), as well as process outcomes, such as the occurrence of medication errors. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis was to implement a pharmacist-led medication reconciliation intervention in resource-limited settings. Implementation of medication reconciliation is not an ultimate end but sustainability is an issue, and this should be corroborated by corresponding changes in attitudes, teamwork, communication, culture and leadership. For this purpose, the thesis employed methods from both safety and implementation sciences for successful implementation of the medication reconciliation program. System approaches to patient safety, such as patient safety culture has been explored, and patients’ experiences of medication-related adverse events have been discussed followed by a theoretically robust evidence-based exploration of the barriers to implementation. Patient safety culture in Ethiopian public hospitals has been found lower than the benchmark studies. Importantly, understaffing followed by problems during handoffs and care transitions and punitive response to error were identified as major safety problems. Particularly, handoffs and care transitions were largely affected by the lack of teamwork across units, punitive response to error reporting and managerial inaction for promoting patient safety. In addition to system factors presumed to affect patient safety, other factors such as individual healthcare professionals, patient, and task factors have been identified as challenges to achieve an optimal patient safety in the Ethiopian public hospitals. Resource limitations (e.g. material deficiencies, poor infrastructure) have been indicated as the greatest barriers for patient safety. Patients expressed a range of perceived experiences related to their medication, and a number of strategies required to improve patient safety practices have been suggested. Changes in practice, processes, structure, and systems were believed to help improve patient safety in the Ethiopian health care system. The results of this thesis have demonstrated that hospital pharmacists were very much enthusiastic for their extended roles and were positive towards the future of the profession; however, there were many factors that likely influenced their behaviour in the clinical practice, and these behavioural determinants were predominantly related to ‘Knowledge’, ‘Skills’, ‘Environmental constraints’, ‘Motivation and goals’, ‘Social influences’, and ‘Social/professional role’. While medication errors were highly prevalent at the time of hospital admission, this thesis has also found that pharmacist-led medication reconciliation was able to minimize medication errors significantly. Thus, implementation of medication reconciliation as a medication safety strategy is feasible, and pharmacists may be regarded as key resource personnel for the safe use of medications at the time of hospital admission. However, the sustainability of this service utilization is highly dependent on other behavioural determinants, such as knowledge and skill, competing priorities, and reimbursement for clinical services

False Aneurysms: Varied Presentations in General Surgery

An aneurysm by definition is a permanent localized arterial dilation with 50 percent or greater increase in size over the normal diameter of the affected artery. Aneurysms have been classified as true or false (pseudo) aneurysms. True aneurysms involve all three layers of the arterial wall (intima, media, & adventitia). A false or pseudo-aneurysm is a collection of blood or hematoma which had leaked from a defect in the wall of an artery to be later variably confined by the surrounding interstitial tissues. The varied presentationsof six patients with false aneurysms admitted and treated on General Surgical wards are presented with the pertinent literature on the subject reviewed along with a review of the records of patients that presented at Gondar University Hospital (GUH) with the diagnosis of false aneurysm over a six years period

China’s rising hydropower demand challenges water sector

Demand for hydropower is increasing, yet the water footprints (WFs) of reservoirs and hydropower, and their contributions to water scarcity, are poorly understood. Here, we calculate reservoir WFs (freshwater that evaporates from reservoirs) and hydropower WFs (the WF of hydroelectricity) in China based on data from 875 representative reservoirs (209 with power plants). In 2010, the reservoir WF totaled 27.9 × 109 m3 (Gm3), or 22% of China’s total water consumption. Ignoring the reservoir WF seriously underestimates human water appropriation. The reservoir WF associated with industrial, domestic and agricultural WFs caused water scarcity in 6 of the 10 major Chinese river basins from 2 to 12 months annually. The hydropower WF was 6.6 Gm3 yr−1 or 3.6 m3 of water to produce a GJ (109 J) of electricity. Hydropower is a water intensive energy carrier. As a response to global climate change, the Chinese government has promoted a further increase in hydropower energy by 70% by 2020 compared to 2012. This energy policy imposes pressure on available freshwater resources and increases water scarcity. The water-energy nexus requires strategic and coordinated implementations of hydropower development among geographical regions, as well as trade-off analysis between rising energy demand and water use sustainability