Development cooperation for health: reviewing a dynamic concept in a complex global aid environment

The 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Busan, South Korea in November 2011 again promised an opportunity for a "new consensus on development cooperation" to emerge. This paper reviews the recent evolution of the concept of coordination for development assistance in health as the basis from which to understand current discourses. The paper reviews peer-reviewed scientific literature and relevant 'grey' literature, revisiting landmark publications and influential authors, examining the transitions in the conceptualisation of coordination, and the related changes in development assistance. Four distinct transitions in the understanding, orientation and application of coordination have been identified: coordination within the sector, involving geographical zoning, sub-sector specialisation, donor consortia, project co-financing, sector aid, harmonisation of procedures, ear-marked budgetary support, donor agency reform and inter-agency intelligence gathering; sector-wide coordination, expressed particularly through the Sector-Wide Approach; coordination across sectors at national level, expressed in the evolution of Poverty Strategy Reduction Papers and the national monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals; and, most recently, global-level coordination, embodied in the Paris Principles, and the emergence of agencies such as the International Health Partnerships Plus. The transitions are largely but not strictly chronological, and each draws on earlier elements, in ways that are redefined in the new context. With the increasing complexity of both the territory of global health and its governance, and increasing stakeholders and networks, current imaginings of coordination are again being challenged. The High Level Forum in Busan may have been successful in recognising a much more complex landscape for development than previously conceived, but the challenges to coordination remain

Panel 4 (Session A): OEM, Simulation, & Training Support

A mainstream function of NTAS is to serve as a quasi-trade show for collegiate and flight academy providers, updating them each year on the latest in equipment and training support; often focusing on time-critical support; as we did most recently on ADS-B Out implementation in 2015. Panelists are asked to present new aircraft features & capabilities, progress on ADS-B update for both new and retrofit application from NTAS 2015, new & novel equipment and administrative applications, and training support for ADS-B in academic, tablet, computer, and simulation delivery

Antimicrobial agents for the treatment of enteric fever chronic carriage: A systematic review

Background Chronic carriage of S. Typhi or S. Paratyphi is an important source of enteric fever transmission. Existing guidance and treatment options for this condition are limited. This systematic review aims to assess the evidence concerning the efficacy of different antimicrobials in treating enteric fever chronic carriage. Methods We searched major bibliographic databases using relevant keywords between 1946 and September 2021. We included all interventional studies that included patients with confirmed enteric fever chronic carriage and deployed an antimicrobial that remains in clinical practice today. Case reports and case series of under 10 patients were excluded. Two reviewers screened abstracts, selected articles for final inclusion and quality-assessed the included studies for risk of bias. Extracted data was analysed, with pooling of data and eradication rates for each antimicrobial calculated. As only one randomised controlled trial was identified, no meta-analysis was performed. Results Of the 593 papers identified by the initial search, a total of eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the systematic review. Evidence was identified for the use of fluoroquinolones and amoxicillin/ampicillin in the treatment for enteric fever chronic carriage. Fluoroquinolones were superior to amoxicillin/ampicillin with 92% of patients achieving eradication after one antimicrobial course compared to 68% (p = 0.02). The quality of included studies was poor, and all were carried out before 1990. Conclusion This review identified fluoroquinolones and amoxicillin/ampicillin as treatment options for enteric fever chronic carriage, with fluoroquinolones the more effective option. However, this evidence pre-dates rises in antimicrobial resistance in enteric fever and therefore the significance of these findings to today’s practice is unclear. Further research is needed to investigate whether these antimicrobials remain appropriate treatment options or whether alternative interventions are more effective

Quasi-periodic Propagating Signals in the Solar Corona: The Signature of Magnetoacoustic Waves or High-Velocity Upflows?

Since the discovery of quasi-periodic propagating oscillations with periods of order three to ten minutes in coronal loops with TRACE and EIT (later with EUVI and EIS), they have been almost universally interpreted as evidence for propagating slow-mode magnetoacoustic (MA) waves in the low-beta coronal environment. We show that this interpretation is not unique. We focus instead on the ubiquitous faint upflows, associated with blue asymmetries of spectral line profiles in footpoint regions of coronal loops, and as faint disturbances propagating along coronal loops in EUV/XR imaging timeseries. The two scenarios are difficult to differentiate using only imaging data, but careful analysis of spectral line profiles indicates that faint upflows are likely responsible for some of the observed quasi-periodic oscillatory signals in the corona. We show that EIS measurements of intensity and velocity oscillations in coronal lines (previously interpreted as direct evidence for propagating waves) are actually accompanied by significant oscillations in the line width that are driven by a quasi-periodically varying component of emission in the blue wing of the line. The faint blue-shifted emission component quasi-periodically modulates the peak intensity and line-centroid of a single Gaussian fit to the profile with the same small amplitudes (respectively a few percent of background intensity, and a few km/s) used to infer the presence of MA waves. Our results indicate that a significant fraction of the quasi-periodicities observed with coronal imagers and spectrographs, previously interpreted as propagating MA waves, are caused by these upflows. The different physical cause for coronal oscillations would significantly impact the prospects of successful coronal seismology using propagating disturbances in coronal loops.Comment: To appear Astrophysical Journal. 14 pages, 13 color figures, 4 movies. High resolution figures and online supporting movies are available at http://tinyurl.com/29s7c4

Numerical simulations with a first order BSSN formulation of Einstein's field equations

We present a new fully first order strongly hyperbolic representation of the BSSN formulation of Einstein's equations with optional constraint damping terms. We describe the characteristic fields of the system, discuss its hyperbolicity properties, and present two numerical implementations and simulations: one using finite differences, adaptive mesh refinement and in particular binary black holes, and another one using the discontinuous Galerkin method in spherical symmetry. The results of this paper constitute a first step in an effort to combine the robustness of BSSN evolutions with very high accuracy numerical techniques, such as spectral collocation multi-domain or discontinuous Galerkin methods.Comment: To appear in Physical Review

Preserving the palaeoenvironmental record in Drylands: Bioturbation and its significance for luminescence-derived chronologies

Luminescence (OSL) dating has revolutionised the understanding of Late Pleistocene dryland activity. However, one of the key assumptions for this sort of palaeoenvironmental work is that sedimentary sequences have been preserved intact, enabling their use as proxy indicators of past changes. This relies on stabilisation or burial soon after deposition and a mechanism to prevent any subsequent re-mobilisation. As well as a dating technique OSL, especially at the single grain level, can be used to gain an insight into post-depositional processes that may distort or invalidate the palaeoenvironmental record of geological sediment sequences. This paper explores the possible impact of bioturbation (the movement of sediment by flora and fauna) on luminescence derived chronologies from Quaternary sedimentary deposits in Texas and Florida (USA) which have both independent radiocarbon chronologies and archaeological evidence. These sites clearly illustrate the ability of bioturbation to rejuvenate ancient weathered sandy bedrock and/or to alter depositional stratigraphies through the processes of exhumation and sub-surface mixing of sediment. The use of multiple OSL replicate measurements is advocated as a strategy for checking for bioturbated sediment. Where significant OSL heterogeneity is found, caution should be taken with the derived OSL ages and further measurements at the single grain level are recommended. Observations from the linear dunes of the Kalahari show them to have no bedding structure and to have OSL heterogeneity similar to that shown from the bioturbated Texan and Florida sites. The Kalahari linear dunes could have therefore undergone hitherto undetected post-depositional sediment disturbance which would have implications for the established OSL chronology for the region

Missouri Representative Farms Financial Projections

This document presents an estimate of financial risk on individual Missouri representative farms in future years.This material is based upon work supported by Cooperative States Research Education and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 00-34228-8988 and Missouri Department of Agriculture proposal #00112091