Intimate Partner Violence and Children Under 5 Morbidities and Mortality in Afghanistan: Findings From a National Survey

Limited knowledge exists concerning the prevalence and drivers of intimate partner violence (IPV) against Afghan women and its association with child morbidity and mortality in Afghanistan. The study used data from the 2015 Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey (ADHS 2015). The prevalence and associated sociodemographic factors of IPV were described by analyzing the data from Afghan women aged 15 to 49 years selected for the IPV module in ADHS 2015 (n = 24,070) whose children under 5 (n = 22,927) were included in the further analysis to estimate the morbidity and mortality of children and its association with IPV. It appeared that more than half of the Afghan women aged 15 to 49 years experienced IPV in the past year. Illiteracy (odds ratio [OR] = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.19, 2.39), living in rural areas (OR = 1.47; [1.19, 1.82]) being from the Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and Pashai ethnic backgrounds were associated with a higher risk of IPV exposure. In general, the likelihood of child mortality within the first 5 years was higher among children born to mothers exposed to IPV, particularly physical and sexual even after adjustment for sociodemographic inequalities, the number of antenatal care, and marriage age. In addition, the odds of diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, and fever in the past 2 weeks were significantly higher among the children of victimized mothers in both adjusted and unadjusted models. Moreover, low birth weight and small birth size were more likely to be observed among the children of a mother who either experienced sexual or physical violence. The findings emphasized the elevated risk of morbidity and mortality among children under 5 born to mothers exposed to IPV and incorporating IPV screening into maternity and child care could reduce these adverse outcomes among Afghan women.publishedVersio

The association of child marriage with morbidities and mortality among children under 5 years in Afghanistan: findings from a national survey

Background There is still a gap in knowledge of the impact that child marriage could have on the mortality and morbidity of children in Afghanistan. This study used the data from the latest Afghanistan demographic health survey conducted in 2015 (ADHS) to address this gap and advance the current knowledge. Methods A secondary analysis of the 2015 ADHS, including the births in the past 5 years to ever-married women aged 15–24 years old, was carried out. Logistic regression analyses were employed to examine the association of child marriage (< 18y) with morbidities (diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, and fever in the last 2 weeks), mortality (neonatal, infant, child), and size at birth among the children under 5 born to women aged 15–24 years, before and after adjusting for the effect of sociodemographic and structural inequalities. Results Approximately two-thirds of births in the past 5 years belong to 15–24 years old mothers who married at ages < 18. The majority of them were born to mothers residing in rural areas (75.67%) with no education (51.68%) from poor households (39.39%). As compared to the births to women married at ages ≥ 18, there was a significantly higher likelihood of neonatal mortality among births to women married at ages < 18 (crude OR = 2.30, 95% CI: 1.52–3.49 & adjusted OR = 1.94, 95% CI: 1.25–3.01) and higher infant mortality among the births to the women married at ages ≤ 14y (crude OR = 1.94, 95% CI: 1.06–3.53). However, it disappeared for neonatal mortality after adjustment for adequacy of antenatal care (ANC) and infant mortality after adjustment for sociodemographic inequalities. Conclusion Although the births to women married as a child (< 18) were more likely to die at an early age, this association disappeared after adjustment for the adequacy of ANC. Given the unavoidable practice of child marriage in Afghanistan, this finding emphasizes the importance of providing adequate ANC for young brides to prevent child mortality. In addition, strong global advocacy is required to empower and support young Afghan women in negotiating their reproductive and maternity rights with their partners by reducing social and gender-based inequalities.publishedVersio

Constraining Attacker Capabilities Through Actuator Saturation

For LTI control systems, we provide mathematical tools - in terms of Linear Matrix Inequalities - for computing outer ellipsoidal bounds on the reachable sets that attacks can induce in the system when they are subject to the physical limits of the actuators. Next, for a given set of dangerous states, states that (if reached) compromise the integrity or safe operation of the system, we provide tools for designing new artificial limits on the actuators (smaller than their physical bounds) such that the new ellipsoidal bounds (and thus the new reachable sets) are as large as possible (in terms of volume) while guaranteeing that the dangerous states are not reachable. This guarantees that the new bounds cut as little as possible from the original reachable set to minimize the loss of system performance. Computer simulations using a platoon of vehicles are presented to illustrate the performance of our tools

Marijuana use and its correlates among school-going Jamaican adolescents: a finding from a national survey

Introduction: The recent data indicate almost a fifth of Jamaican adolescents used marijuana in the past 30 days. To ensure the optimal allocation of resources, a country-specific understanding of factors associated with marijuana use among adolescents is essential. Therefore, this study aimed to address this gap among adolescents aged 13–17 years in Jamaica. Methods: We analyzed data from the recent Jamaica Global School-Based Student Health Survey conducted in 2017. The sample consists of school-going Jamaican adolescents of 7th−12th grades. The prevalence of recent marijuana use was assessed and compared across different demographics, substance use, and risk behaviors using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses. Results: Older adolescents and men had a higher likelihood of recent marijuana use. Psychosocial risks, such as loneliness, frequent worry, suicidal ideation, physical attacks, and school absenteeism, were associated with higher marijuana usage. Parental smoking increased the odds, whereas strong parental support and awareness decreased it. Other substance uses, especially amphetamine and tobacco products, had strong associations with marijuana use. Early initiation of substances was associated with a higher risk of marijuana use. Sexually active adolescents, especially those initiated before the age of 14 years, had higher rates of marijuana use. Conclusion: The intricate link between harmful and supportive psychosomatic and risk behaviors with recent marijuana use highlights the importance of holistic interventions and policies focusing on emotional health, parental guidance, substance education, and sexual activity implications.publishedVersio

Security of Vehicular Platooning

Platooning concept involves a group of vehicles acting as a single unit through coordination of movements. While Platooning as an evolving trend in mobility and transportation diminishes the individual and manual driving concerns, it creates new risks. New technologies and passenger’s safety and security further complicate matters and make platooning attractive target for the malicious minds. To improve the security of the vehicular platooning, threats and their potential impacts on vehicular platooning should be identified to protect the system against security risks. Furthermore, algorithms should be proposed to detect intrusions and mitigate the effects in case of attack. This dissertation introduces a new vulnerability in vehicular platooning from the control systems perspective and presents the detection and mitigation algorithms to protect vehicles and passengers in the event of the attack

Insider Vs. Outsider threats to autonomous vehicle platooning

Autonomous vehicles and platooning enhance productivity and present new opportunities and competitive advantages in the transportation industry. Platooning concept involves a group of vehicles acting as a single unit through coordination of movements. While Platooning as an evolving trend in mobility and transportation diminishes the individual and manual driving concerns, it creates new risks. New technologies and passengers’ safety and security further complicate matters and make platooning attractive target for the malicious minds. Threats and their potential impacts on vehicular platooning should be identified in order to protect the system against security risks. In this note, we show the range of the disruption that malicious insider and outsider can cause to the platoon. The insider attacker follows the normal control law of the platoon before it stArts the attack. This type of attack is implemented through control law modification, where the attacker maliciously misconfigures its controller. Outsider attacker is a non-platoon member who attempts to disrupt platoon. While the intruder can impact the other vehicles’ motions using its movement, it is not affected by other vehicles in the platoon. Outsider attack happens when attacker joins platoon deceitfully and tries to affect the platoon via its acceleration and deceleration. We demonstrate impacts of each attack on the platoon and discuss which type of attack poses the higher risks and results in the more catastrophic impacts

イランに住むアフガニスタン女性における適切な出産前ケアに対する障壁と関連要因に関する研究：ミクストメソッド研究

京都大学新制・課程博士博士(社会健康医学)甲第23119号社医博第115号新制||社医||11(附属図書館)京都大学大学院医学研究科社会健康医学系専攻(主査)教授 近藤 尚己, 教授 万代 昌紀, 教授 川上 浩司学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Public HealthKyoto UniversityDFA

Application Of Geographical Information System And Smart Growth Modelling For Identification Of Ineffective Quarters In Bandar Abbas, Iran

During recent decades, planning and management of urban land use has had an important role in development of social and economy of countries. On the other hand expansion of land use can be managed by using geospatial data and development patterns. In Bandar Abbas city, the management of urban development are by trial and error urban land policies as compared to other cities due lack to the of accurate and complete geospatial data. It has been caused by the overgrowing population and migration towards the city without planning. In addition, the inefficiency and very old buildings had also contributed and became the main reason for low quality of urban life in District 1. The aim of this research was to recognize and identify the development patterns for inefficient quarters in District 1 with an inclination towards the use of AHP and Smart Growth models. To achieve appropriate patterns for managing and identifying the utilization of land in quarters, a spatial and attribute database in the GIS environment was used. The relationship between effective factors namely land use, population, density and construction of the development were considered in the analytical process. The investigation was carried out to locate capable region for urban development in the inefficient areas of District 1 in the Region 3 of Bandar Abbas. The use of AHP and Smart Growth model in GIS environment were implemented to the collected geospatial database. The collected information includes the land use of the present condition, the procedure of urban development and the effective factors over inefficient land use. The procedure of this research started with the reconnaissance of effective parameters upon land development in the surveyed region. Having identified the effective factors, layer classification was generated according to their degree of importance and criteria through the use of AHP model. It was implemented to identify suitable site for developing urban users in District 1. Then the Smart Growth model was used to generate zones under the surveyed region according to the kind of operation in inefficient patterns and land use. In Smart Growth model on the basis of divisions of land use it has been designed into three zones of Regional Center Development (RCD), Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND), and Special District (SD). Finally by investigating the relationships and their effects towards each other, and by determining smart code for each zone, the development pattern and inefficient control in District 1 were identified.The results achieved from this research have successfully identified the suitable lands for urban uses development and identify patterns of user control and land development in inefficient quarters of District 1. According to the results obtained from AHP model central and western portion are appropriate for development. Based on the results obtained from zoning in District 1 and also the Smart Growth model, a major part of the inefficiency of available textures in the quarters of District 1 is due to existing incompatible land uses, being old and obsolete residential and non residential textures, poor management, lack of supervision regulations and comprehensive lack of administrative laws

On boundary degrees of freedom in three dimensional Anti-de Sitter spacetime and thermofield-double

In this article, we will study the Gibbons-Hawking-York (GHY) action over a co-dimension one hypersurface, called the ``physical boundary,'' close to the boundary of AdS$_3$. For that, we take a coordinate system that consists of two times, one is associated with evolution on the boundary, and the second is associated with evolution into the bulk. The resulting action is divergent and needs regularization. We consider two particular schemes. In the first scheme, we will add the Einstein-Hilbert on-shell action as the counter-term, which, while cancels the divergent part, adds the contribution of deep in the bulk, such as an existing horizon. The resulting action includes the Liouville action, which describes the curvature of the physical boundary. In the second scheme, however, we prescribe a natural regularization for GHY action without adding any counter-term. The resulting action will include two copies of Schwarzian actions associated with the left and right-moving reparametrization modes. At finite temperature, these modes live on two disjoint circles. We will show that these are the thermofield-double's effective degrees of freedom. While the first scheme is more common in practice, the second scheme may be more convenient for Susskind-'t Hooft proposal for holography.Comment: 42 pages, 6 figure

An Assessment of the Asphalt Fatigue Equation for Bitumen Stabilised Materials

The aim of this research is to characterise the laboratory fatigue performance of a typical foamed bitumen mix used in Western Australia. It has also investigated the applicability of Austroads fatigue equation for the design of in-situ foamed bitumen stabilised materials. A new four-point bending device was utilised as a scaled up version which allows testing of much larger beams by removing the constraint that the maximum width and thickness are dominated by maximum aggregate size