Myanmar’s Education Reforms: A pathway to social justice?

This book reviews the state of education in Myanmar over the past decade and a half as the country is undergoing profound albeit incomplete transformation. Set within the context of Myanmar’s peace process and the wider reforms since 2012, Marie Lall’s analysis of education policy and practice serves as a case study on how the reform programme has evolved. Drawing on over 15 years of field research carried out across Myanmar, the book offers a cohesive inquiry into government and non-government education sectors, the reform process, and how the transition has played out across schools, universities and wider society. It casts scrutiny on changes in basic education, the alternative monastic education, higher education and teacher education, and engages with issues of ethnic education and the debate on the role of language and the local curriculum as part of the peace process. In so doing, it gives voice to those most affected by the changing landscape of Myanmar’s education and wider reform process: the students and parents of all ethnic backgrounds, teachers, teacher trainees and university staff that are rarely heard

Higher Education reform in Myanmar: Neoliberalism versus an inclusive developmental agenda

Myanmar has been transitioning to a parliamentary democracy following a long period of authoritarian military rule, with higher education positioned as a catalyst of and for change. This paper explores the policy reform texts through discourse analysis and the process of their enactment by senior university leaders. Two discourses emerge, one of neoliberalism and the role of globalisation, competition and marketisation. Another adopts traditional Myanmar values and argues for an inclusive, developmental agenda based on local needs using culturally sensitive approaches. The article explores the complimentary and contradictory nature of these approaches and the consequences for reform efforts

Optimal Dorfman Group Testing For Symmetric Distributions

We study Dorfman's classical group testing protocol in a novel setting where individual specimen statuses are modeled as exchangeable random variables. We are motivated by infectious disease screening. In that case, specimens which arrive together for testing often originate from the same community and so their statuses may exhibit positive correlation. Dorfman's protocol screens a population of n specimens for a binary trait by partitioning it into nonoverlapping groups, testing these, and only individually retesting the specimens of each positive group. The partition is chosen to minimize the expected number of tests under a probabilistic model of specimen statuses. We relax the typical assumption that these are independent and indentically distributed and instead model them as exchangeable random variables. In this case, their joint distribution is symmetric in the sense that it is invariant under permutations. We give a characterization of such distributions in terms of a function q where q(h) is the marginal probability that any group of size h tests negative. We use this interpretable representation to show that the set partitioning problem arising in Dorfman's protocol can be reduced to an integer partitioning problem and efficiently solved. We apply these tools to an empirical dataset from the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodology helps explain the unexpectedly high empirical efficiency reported by the original investigators.Comment: 20 pages w/o references, 2 figure

Model reduction for analysis of cascading failures in power systems

In this paper, we apply a principal-orthogonal decomposition based method to the model reduction of a hybrid, nonlinear model of a power network. The results demonstrate that the sequence of fault events can be evaluated and predicted without necessarily simulating the whole system

Group treatments for sensitive health care problems : a randomised controlled trial of group versus individual physiotherapy sessions for female urinary incontinence

Background: The aim was to compare effectiveness of group versus individual sessions of physiotherapy in terms of symptoms, quality of life, and costs, and to investigate the effect of patient preference on uptake and outcome of treatment. Methods: A pragmatic, multi-centre randomised controlled trial in five British National Health Service physiotherapy departments. 174 women with stress and/or urge incontinence were randomised to receive treatment from a physiotherapist delivered in a group or individual setting over three weekly sessions. Outcome were measured as Symptom Severity Index; Incontinence-related Quality of Life questionnaire; National Health Service costs, and out of pocket expenses. Results: The majority of women expressed no preference (55%) or preference for individual treatment (36%). Treatment attendance was good, with similar attendance with both service delivery models. Overall, there were no statistically significant differences in symptom severity or quality of life outcomes between the models. Over 85% of women reported a subjective benefit of treatment, with a slightly higher rating in the individual compared with the group setting. When all health care costs were considered, average cost per patient was lower for group sessions (Mean cost difference £52.91 95%, confidence interval (£25.82 - £80.00)). Conclusion: Indications are that whilst some women may have an initial preference for individual treatment, there are no substantial differences in the symptom, quality of life outcomes or non-attendance. Because of the significant difference in mean cost, group treatment is recommended

Return to Sport and Athletic Function in an Active Population After Primary Arthroscopic Labral Reconstruction of the Hip

Background: Labral reconstruction has been advocated as an alternative to debridement for the treatment of irreparable labral tears, showing favorable short-term results. However, literature is scarce regarding outcomes and return to sport in the nonelite athletic population. Purpose: To report minimum 1-year clinical outcomes and the rate of return to sport in athletic patients who underwent primary hip arthroscopy with labral reconstruction in the setting of femoroacetabular impingement syndrome and irreparable labral tears. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: Data were prospectively collected and retrospectively analyzed for patients who underwent an arthroscopic labral reconstruction between August 2012 and December 2017. Patients were included if they identified as an athlete (high school, college, recreational, or amateur); had follow-up on the following patient-reported outcomes (PROs): modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS), Nonarthritic Hip Score (NAHS), Hip Outcome Score–Sport Specific Subscale (HOS-SSS), and visual analog scale (VAS); and completed a return-to-sport survey at 1 year postoperatively. Patients were excluded if they underwent any previous ipsilateral hip surgery, had dysplasia, or had prior hip conditions. The proportions of patients who achieved the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) and patient acceptable symptomatic state (PASS) for mHHS and HOS-SSS were calculated. Statistical significance was set at P =.05. Results: There were 32 (14 females) athletes who underwent primary arthroscopic labral reconstruction during the study period. The mean age and body mass index of the group were 40.3 years (range, 15.5-58.7 years) and 27.9 kg/m2 (range, 19.6-40.1 kg/m2), respectively. The mean follow-up was 26.4 months (range, 12-64.2 months). All patients demonstrated significant improvement in mHHS, NAHS, HOS-SSS, and VAS (P \u3c.001) at latest follow-up. Additionally, 84.4% achieved MCID and 81.3% achieved PASS for mHHS, and 87.5% achieved MCID and 75% achieved PASS for HOS-SSS. VAS pain scores decreased from 4.4 to 1.8, and the satisfaction with surgery was 7.9 out of 10. The rate of return to sport was 78%. Conclusion: At minimum 1-year follow-up, primary arthroscopic labral reconstruction, in the setting of femoroacetabular impingement syndrome and irreparable labral tears, was associated with significant improvement in PROs in athletic populations. Return to sport within 1 year of surgery was 78%

Chemotherapy-related complications in the kidneys and collecting system: an imaging perspective

Nephrotoxicity is a common adverse effect of many chemotherapeutic agents. The agents most commonly associated with chemotherapy-associated nephrotoxicity are methotrexate, semustine, streptozocin, mithramycin, and cisplatin. Certain chemotherapeutic agents have adverse effects on the kidneys and urothelium that can be visualized radiographically, including cystic change, interstitial nephritis, papillary necrosis, urothelial changes, haemorrhagic cystitis, acute tubular necrosis, and infarction. This review focuses on imaging features identifying complications of chemotherapy in the kidneys and collecting system and provides didactic cases to alert referring clinicians

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis of closely related wild and captive tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans morsitans) populations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Tsetse flies (Diptera: Glossinidae) are vectors of trypanosomes that cause sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock across sub-Saharan Africa. Tsetse control strategies rely on a detailed understanding of the epidemiology and ecology of tsetse together with genetic variation within and among populations. High-resolution nuclear genetic markers are useful tools for elucidation of the genetic basis of phenotypic traits. In this study amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers were developed to analyze genetic variation in <it>Glossina morsitans morsitans </it>from laboratory and field-collected populations from Zimbabwe.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of seven hundred and fifty one loci from laboratory and field populations of <it>G. m. morsitans </it>from Zimbabwe were genotyped using AFLP with seven primer combinations. Analysis identified 335 polymorphic loci. The two populations could be distinguished by cluster and principal components analysis (PCA) analysis, indicating that AFLP markers can be used to separate genetically similar populations; at the same time differences observed between laboratory and field populations were not very great. Among the techniques investigated, the use of acetone was the most reliable method of preservation of tsetse for subsequent extraction of high molecular weight DNA. An interesting finding was that AFLP also enabled robust within-population discrimination of male and female tsetse flies due to their different X chromosome DNA complements.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>AFLP represents a useful additional tool to add to the suite of techniques currently available for the genetic analysis of tsetse populations and represents a useful resource for identification of the genetic basis of important phenotypic traits.</p

What makes you not a Sikh? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Sikh values contrasted with or were shared by non-Sikh adolescents. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Sikh values was fielded in a sample of 364 non-Sikh schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Values where attitudes were least positive concerned Sikh duties/code of conduct, festivals, rituals, prayer Gurdwara attendance, listening to scripture recitation, the amrit initiation. Sikh values empathized with by non-Sikhs concerned family pride, charity, easy access to ordination and Gurdwaras, maintaining the five Ks, seeing God in all things, abstaining from meat and alcohol and belief in the stories of Guru Nanak. Further significant differences of attitude toward Sikhism were found in comparisons by sex, age and religious affiliation. Findings are applied to teaching Sikhism to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends the extension of values mapping to specifically Sikh populations