Sources Of Variability In Global Equity Returns

This study examines basically major geographical sources of global returns and risks. The focus is on the relevance of global, regional and national allocation policies. Additionally, the significance of value-growth allocation policy is also analyzed. The empirical analysis covers major developed equity markets, and it is conducted within the framework of the international capital asset pricing model. Our findings show that although the global systematic risk is getting to be a fundamental determinant of global equity returns and risks, country and, particularly, region selection are still important. Global and regional risk together can explain at least two-thirds of the total variability of equity returns in the majority of developed markets. However, the results of this study indicate a trivial effect for the value-growth allocation policy

Determinants of under-five mortality in Gilgel Gibe Field Research Center, Southwest Ethiopia

Background: In developing countries like Ethiopia where there is no vital events registration system and laboratory diagnosis is lacking, causes of death in under-five children and its determinants could not be well known. The objective of this study was to investigate causes of death and its determinants in under-five children in Gilgel Gibe Field Research Center. Methods: A case-control study was conducted from December 12 to 27, 2005. Cases of under-five children who died between August 27, 2004 and September 22, 2005 and controls of alive children with the same age (+/-2 months) as cases were identified by a survey as the study population. Data were collected by trained enumerators using structured questionnaire adopted from World Health Organization (WHO). Causes of death were determined using the expert algorithm based on verbal autopsy data. Results: Neonatal and infant mortality rates were respectively 38 and 76.4 per 1000 live births. The two most common causes of death during neonatal period were prematurity (26.4%) and pneumonia (22.6%). Whereas the top causes of death in post-neonatal period were pneumonia (42%), malaria (37%) and acute diarrheal diseases (30%). Maternal education, practice and perception of mothers on the severity of illness and benefits of modern treatment were found to be independent predictor of child survival. Conclusion: Neonatal causes, pneumonia, malaria and diarrheal diseases were the major killers of under-five children in Ethiopia. In this study, practice of mothers and perceived benefits on the modern treatment are identified as the key predictors of child survival which are amenable to future intervention.The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 21 (2) 2007: pp. 117-12

Childhood limb fracture at Tikur Anbessa Specialised Hospital (TASH), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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One WASH national program (OWNP) Ethiopia: a SWAp with a comprehensive management structure

The Government of Ethiopia’s (GoE) One WASH National Programme, launched in September 2013 is a comprehensive 7 years programme (2013-2020). It operationalizes agreements between 4 sector ministries; Water, Health, Education and Finance, with a total budget of USD $2.4bill. The Program is the GoE’s main instrument for achieving the goals set out in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), with targets for access to safe water supply at 98%, 100% for rural and urban areas, respectively. The targets for sanitation and hygiene set out in the Universal Access Plan (UAP) are that all Ethiopians will have access to basic sanitation, while 77% of the population practice hand washing at critical times, and 80% of communities in the country declared open defecation free (ODF). The SWAp in Ethiopia aspires to be the most comprehensive WASH SWAp ever, with a unified planning, budgeting and monitoring system

Enhancing first year chemistry student’s participation in practical chemistry course

In this study, enhancing student’s participation in practical analytical chemistry course at Haramaya University with various reasons was conducted. The data were collected from I year chemistry undergraduate students of class size 56 of which 23 were females and 33 were males. The class was arranged in to two groups for laboratory class and the experiment was conducted once per week in analytical laboratory. The research used mainly three kinds of data collection techniques namely questionnaire and laboratory report and demonstration result to gather the required qualitative and quantitative data for improving the participation of first year chemistry students. From the result, it was found that students were interested towards the practical analytical courses on the basis of condition such as, necessity of the chemistry with life, their participation in the laboratory, getting experience from the laboratory and performing the experiment in group. The results of the study support the notion that, students were more interested to a group work rather than individual work since they share idea, read their manual before coming to laboratory which contributed to their own participation in learning practical chemistry courses. The research has also shown that student’s activity through experimental demonstration in group increases student’s participations in the laboratory effectively by achieving better results than using laboratory report writing methods. The findings also revealed that some of the causes of students’ negative attitudes towards learning practical Chemistry were mainly due to problems in preparing a flow chart for the experiments by themselves and lack of exposure to well-equipped laboratory for conducting demonstrations. In view of the findings and conclusions drawn in the study, Chemistry laboratories should be adequately equipped to ensure a smooth running of the practical classes and students should be encouraged to participate on practical chemistry courses and appropriate motivation should be given so that they will develop positive attitude towards the practical sessions

Consumer drivers and barriers of WASH products use in rural Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the coverage of basic WASH facilities is very low. In response, government of Ethiopia and its development partners have been using sanitation marketing to promote and sell WASH products. Qualitative in-depth interview with households, supply chain actors, and stakeholders were conducted in four regions of Ethiopia to learn about current product use behaviours. The result showed presence of any latrine was related to greater awareness about importance to health. Financial constraints, unavailability of construction materials were major barriers to possession of latrines. Word of mouth was the dominant source of information on WASH products, with health extension workers being a respected source. The major challenges of supply chain actors at district level were finance, inadequate working space, and lack of business development skills. Lack of regular WASH products supply system at community level and lack of profound awareness about health benefit were the priority constrains to access latrines

Inclusive Higher Education and Employment: A Secondary Analysis of Program Components

Through secondary analyses of quantitative data obtained from the Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (TPSID) National Coordinating Center database from the first cohort (2010-2015) of model demonstration sites in Florida, this study examined components of the postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual disabilities that are correlated with employment upon program exit. This study adds to the emergent knowledge base on inclusive higher education by identifying the programmatic components of the postsecondary education programs for students with intellectual disability most correlated with successful transition from college to employment. This information can be used to inform program development and refinement to foster employment upon exit, a worthy outcome that leads to greater quality of life. The academic access program component of inclusive coursework was found to have the strongest correlation with the post-school outcome of paid, competitive employment upon exit. This program component aligns with the established predictors of post-school success for students with disabilities (Mazzotti et al., 2016) and employment for people with intellectual disabilities (Southward & Kyzar, 2017). Areas of agreement are discussed as well as implications for a number of stakeholders

Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome among Working Adults in Ethiopia

Objective. To evaluate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and Adult Treatment Panel (ATP) III criteria among working East African adults. Design. This cross-sectional study of 1,935 individuals (1,171 men and 764 women) was conducted among working adults in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study was conducted in accordance with the STEPwise approach of the World Health Organization. Results. According to ATP III and IDF definitions, the overall prevalence of MetS was 12.5% and 17.9%, respectively. Using ATP III criteria, the prevalence of MetS was 10.0% in men and 16.2% in women. Application of the IDF criteria resulted in a MetS prevalence of 14.0% in men and 24.0% in women. The most common MetS components among women were reduced high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) (23.2%) and abdominal obesity (19.6%); whilst reduced HDL-C concentrations (23.4%) and high blood pressure (21.8%) were most common among men. Conclusion. MetS and its individual components are prevalent among an apparently healthy working population in Ethiopia. These findings indicate the need for evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention programs; and more robust efforts directed towards the screening, diagnosis and management of MetS and its components among Ethiopian adults

An ensemble learning framework for anomaly detection in building energy consumption

During building operation, a significant amount of energy is wasted due to equipment and human-related faults. To reduce waste, today\u27s smart buildings monitor energy usage with the aim of identifying abnormal consumption behaviour and notifying the building manager to implement appropriate energy-saving procedures. To this end, this research proposes a new pattern-based anomaly classifier, the collective contextual anomaly detection using sliding window (CCAD-SW) framework. The CCAD-SW framework identifies anomalous consumption patterns using overlapping sliding windows. To enhance the anomaly detection capacity of the CCAD-SW, this research also proposes the ensemble anomaly detection (EAD) framework. The EAD is a generic framework that combines several anomaly detection classifiers using majority voting. To ensure diversity of anomaly classifiers, the EAD is implemented by combining pattern-based (e.g., CCAD-SW) and prediction-based anomaly classifiers. The research was evaluated using real-world data provided by Powersmiths, located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Results show that the EAD framework improved the sensitivity of the CCAD-SW by 3.6% and reduced false alarm rate by 2.7%

Post-exposure prophylaxis for SIV revisited: Animal model for HIV prevention

BACKGROUND: A 4-week, uninterrupted treatment with 9-(2-phosphonyl-methoxypropyly)adenine (PMPA, commonly called tenofovir) completely prevents simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV(mne)) infection in cynomolgus macaques if treatment begins within 24 hours after SIV(mne )inoculation, but is less effective if treatment is delayed or duration of treatment is shortened. Critical factors for efficacy include timing and duration of treatment, potency of antiretroviral drug and a contribution from antiviral immune responses. Therefore, we evaluated the impact of one or more treatment interruptions plus SIV(mne )re-exposures on efficacy of PMPA treatment to prevent SIV(mne )infection in cynomolgus macaques. We also evaluated whether macaques with pre-existing SIV immune responses show increased efficacy of treatment. Eight PMPA-treated, virus-negative and seronegative macaques, and five PMPA-treated, virus-negative but weakly or strongly seropositive macaques were re-inoculated with SIV(mne )and treated with PMPA starting 24 hr post inoculation. Thereafter, they received either a 5-week treatment involving one interruption plus one SIV(mne )challenge or a 10-week treatment involving six interruptions plus six SIV(mne )challenges early during treatment. Parameters measured were plasma SIV RNA, SIV-antibody response, CD4+ T lymphocyte subsets and in vivo CD8+ cell-suppression of virus infection. RESULTS: All seronegative macaques developed persistent antibody response beginning 4 to 8 weeks after stopping PMPA-treatment in absence of viremia in a majority of macaques and coinciding with onset of intermittent viremia in other macaques. In contrast, all weakly or strongly seropositive macaques showed immediate increase in titers (> 1600) of SIV antibodies, even before the end of PMPA-treatment, and in absence of detectable viremia. However, in vivo CD8+ -cell depletion revealed CD8 cell-suppression of viremia and persistence of virus in the macaques as long as 2 years after PMPA-treatment, even in aviremic macaques. Unlike untreated macaques, a treated macaque controlled viral replication and blocked CD4+ T cell depletion when challenged with a heterologus chimeric SIV/HIV-1 virus called SHIV(89.6P.) CONCLUSION: A single interruption plus one SIV(mne )challenge was as sufficient as six interruptions plus six SIV(mne )challenges in reducing efficacy of PMPA, but results in long-term persistence of virus infection suppressed by CD8+ cells. Efficacy of PMPA treatment was highest in macaques with pre-existing SIV immune responses