478 research outputs found
A spatial regression approach to FDI in Vietnam: province-level evidence
Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Vietnam have increased significantly in recent years and are distributed unequally between provinces. This paper aims to investigate the locational determinants of FDI in 62 Vietnamese provinces and whether spatial dependence is a significant factor that both researchers and policy-makers should take into account. We report that province-specific percapita income, secondary education enrolment, labor costs, openness to trade, and domestic investment affect FDI directly within the province itself and have indirect effects on FDI in neighboring provinces. The direct and indirect effects coexist with spill over effects and spatial dependence between provinces. Our findings indicate that FDI in Vietnam reflects a combination of complex vertical and export platform motivations on the part of foreign investors; and an agglomeration dynamics that may perpetuate the existing regional disparities in the distribution of FDI capital between provinces
A direct image of the obscuring disk surrounding an active galactic nucleus
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are generally accepted to be powered by the
release of gravitational energy in a compact accretion disk surrounding a
massive black hole. Such disks are also necessary to collimate powerful radio
jets seen in some AGN. The unifying classification schemes for AGN further
propose that differences in their appearance can be attributed to the opacity
of the accreting material, which may obstruct our view of the central region of
some systems. The popular model for the obscuring medium is a parsec-scale disk
of dense molecular gas, although evidence for such disks has been mostly
indirect, as their angular size is much smaller than the resolution of
conventional telescopes. Here we report the first direct images of a pc-scale
disk of ionised gas within the nucleus of NGC 1068, the archetype of obscured
AGN. The disk is viewed nearly edge-on, and individual clouds within the
ionised disk are opaque to high-energy radiation, consistent with the unifying
classification scheme. In projection, the disk and AGN axes align, from which
we infer that the ionised gas disk traces the outer regions of the long-sought
inner accretion disk.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, PSfig, to appear in Nature. also available at
http://hethp.mpe-garching.mpg.de/Preprint
Framework, principles and recommendations for utilising participatory methodologies in the co-creation and evaluation of public health interventions
Background:
Due to the chronic disease burden on society, there is a need for preventive public health interventions to stimulate society towards a healthier lifestyle. To deal with the complex variability between individual lifestyles and settings, collaborating with end-users to develop interventions tailored to their unique circumstances has been suggested as a potential way to improve effectiveness and adherence. Co-creation of public health interventions using participatory methodologies has shown promise but lacks a framework to make this process systematic. The aim of this paper was to identify and set key principles and recommendations for systematically applying participatory methodologies to co-create and evaluate public health interventions.
Methods:
These principles and recommendations were derived using an iterative reflection process, combining key learning from published literature in addition to critical reflection on three case studies conducted by research groups in three European institutions, all of whom have expertise in co-creating public health interventions using different participatory methodologies.
Results:
Key principles and recommendations for using participatory methodologies in public health intervention co-creation are presented for the stages of: Planning (framing the aim of the study and identifying the appropriate sampling strategy); Conducting (defining the procedure, in addition to manifesting ownership); Evaluating (the process and the effectiveness) and Reporting (providing guidelines to report the findings). Three scaling models are proposed to demonstrate how to scale locally developed interventions to a population level.
Conclusions:
These recommendations aim to facilitate public health intervention co-creation and evaluation utilising participatory methodologies by ensuring the process is systematic and reproducible
Effect of Investment in Malaria Control on Child Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2002–2008
BACKGROUND: Around 8.8 million children under-five die each year, mostly due to infectious diseases, including malaria that accounts for 16% of deaths in Africa, but the impact of international financing of malaria control on under-five mortality in sub-Saharan Africa has not been examined. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We combined multiple data sources and used panel data regression analysis to study the relationship among investment, service delivery/intervention coverage, and impact on child health by observing changes in 34 sub-Saharan African countries over 2002-2008. We used Lives Saved Tool to estimate the number of lives saved from coverage increase of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs)/indoor residual spraying (IRS). As an indicator of outcome, we also used under-five mortality rate. Global Fund investments comprised more than 70% of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) for malaria control in 34 countries. Each 3.90 vs. $7.05). Increased ITN/IRS coverage in high-burden countries led to 3,575 lives saved per 1 million children, as compared with 914 lives in lower-burden countries. Impact of ITN/IRS coverage on under-five mortality was significant among major child health interventions such as immunisation showing that 10% increase in households with ITN/IRS would reduce 1.5 [95%CI: 0.3-2.8] child deaths per 1000 live births. CONCLUSIONS: Along with other key child survival interventions, increased ITNs/IRS coverage has significantly contributed to child mortality reduction since 2002. ITN/IRS scale-up can be more efficiently prioritized to countries where malaria is a major cause of child deaths to save greater number of lives with available resources
Does drinking affect long-term sickness absence? A sample selection approach correcting for employment and accounting for drinking history
Persistence of Integration in the Face of Specialization: How Firms Navigated the Winds of Disintegration and Shaped the Architecture of the Semiconductor Industry
Firms cash management, adjustment cost and its impact on firms’ speed of adjustment-A cross country analysis
We investigate the firms’ specific attributes that determine the difference in speed of adjustment
(SOA) towards the cash holdings target in the Scandinavian countries: Denmark,
Norway and Sweden. We examine whether Scandinavian firms maintain an optimal level
of cash holdings and determine if the active cash holdings management is associated with
the firms’ higher SOA and lower adjustment costs. Our findings substantiate that a higher
level of off-target cost induces professional managers to rebalance their cash level towards
the optimal balance of cash holdings. Our results reveal that Scandinavian firms accelerate
SOA towards cash targets primarily for the precautionary motive. Moreover, our results
show that SOA is heterogeneous across Scandinavian firms based on adjustment cost and
deviate cash holdings towards the target mainly with the support of internal financing. Furthermore,
our empirical findings show that the SOA of Norwegian firms is significantly
higher than the Danish and Swedish firms
Communicating Phylogeny: Evolutionary Tree Diagrams in Museums
Tree of life diagrams are graphic representations of phylogeny—the evolutionary history and
relationships of lineages—and as such these graphics have the potential to convey key evolutionary
ideas and principles to a variety of audiences. Museums play a significant role in teaching about
evolution to the public, and tree graphics form a common element in many exhibits even though
little is known about their impact on visitor understanding. How phylogenies are depicted and used
in informal science settings impacts their accessibility and effectiveness in communicating about
evolution to visitors. In this paper, we summarize the analysis of 185 tree of life graphics collected
from museum exhibits at 52 institutions and highlight some potential implications of how trees are
presented that may support or hinder visitors’ understanding about evolution. While further work is
needed, existing learning research suggests that common elements among the diversity of museum
trees such as the inclusion of anagenesis and absence of time and shared characters might
represent potential barriers to visitor understanding
Differential effects of tamoxifen and anastrozole on optic cup size in breast cancer survivors
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