109,788 research outputs found
Decentralization and Health: Case Studies of Kenya, Pakistan, and the Philippines
Decentralization, defined by the World Bank (2001) as, “the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to intermediate and local governments or quasi-‐independent government organizations and/or the private sector,” is a movement that has gained much traction in recent history. For many countries undergoing decentralization, a major driver has been a desire to increase the role and participation of local governments in the decision-‐making space. In doing this, it is hoped to create governance structures that are more accountable and responsive to the people. For health, decentralization has been touted as a potential way to improve responsiveness to local needs, improve service delivery, and improve equitability. In light of these goals, many countries as part of their political decentralization have also opted to decentralize healthcare.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/cwicposters/1020/thumbnail.jp
Structure and dielectric properties of polar fluids with extended dipoles: results from numerical simulations
The strengths and short-comings of the point-dipole model for polar fluids of
spherical molecules are illustrated by considering the physically more relevant
case of extended dipoles formed by two opposite charges separated by a
distance (dipole moment ). Extensive Molecular Dynamics
simulations on a high density dipolar fluid are used to analyse the dependence
of the pair structure, dielectric constant \eps and dynamics as a function of
the ratio (\sig is the molecular diameter), for a fixed dipole
moment . The point dipole model is found to agree well with the extended
dipole model up to d/\sig \simeq 0.3. Beyond that ratio, \eps shows a
non-trivial variation with d/\sig. When d/\sig>0.6, a transition is
observed towards a hexagonal columnar phase; the corresponding value of the
dipole moment, \mu^2/\sig^3 k T=3, is found to be substantially lower than
the value of the point dipole required to drive a similar transition.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures; Paper submitted to Molecular Physic
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Polarization control at the microscopic and electronic structure observatory
The new Microscopic and Electronic Structure Observatory (MAESTRO) at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in Berkeley provides X-rays of variable polarization, produced by an elliptically polarized undulator (EPU), for angle resolved photoemission (ARPES) and photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) experiments. The interpretation of photoemission data, in particular of dichroism effects in ARPES, requires the precise knowledge of the exact polarization state. Numerical simulations show that the first harmonics of the EPU at MAESTRO provides soft X-rays of almost 100% on axis polarization. However, the higher harmonics as well as the downstream optical elements of the beamline, have a considerable impact on the polarization of the light delivered to the experimental end-station. Employing a simple reflective polarimeter, the polarization is characterized for variable EPU and beamline settings and the overall degree of polarization in the MAESTRO end-stations is estimated to be on the order of 83%
Urban planning law in Liberia: the case for a transformational approach
This article discusses the need for a fundamental rethinking of urban planning in Liberia with special reference to Monrovia, the capital. Liberia is a post-conflict country and is facing a multitude of problems. One is the very rapid urbanisation of the country. Well over 50% of the population live in urban areas, and over one million people—one third of the population—live in Monrovia, for the most part in informal ‘illegal’ settlements with few facilities. Despite land issues being acknowledged as in need of being tackled as a matter of urgency, little has been done by the Johnson-Sirleaf government since it came to power in 2006. What is needed and what this article argues for is a plan for the development of Monrovia based on the Right to the City with residents given clear rights to land and to participate in the governance of their city. The approach is denominated as a transformational one, taking its inspiration from van der Walt’s approach set out in his Property in the Margins. The need for and the outline of an Urban Transformation Act are set out in the article which concludes with a warning that it cannot be supposed that the residents of Monrovia will continue indefinitely to put up with their very poor living conditions
The kink-type instability of toroidal stellar magnetic fields with thermal diffusion
The stability of toroidal magnetic fields in rotating radiative stellar zones
is studied for realistic values of both the Prandtl numbers. The two considered
models for the magnetic geometry represent fields with odd and even symmetry
with respect to the equator. In the linear theory in Boussinesq approximation
the resulting complex eigenfrequency (including growth rate and drift rate) are
calculated for a given radial wavenumber of a nonaxisymmetric perturbation with
m=1. The ratio of the Alfven frequency, \Omega_A, to the rate of the basic
rotation, \Omega, controls the eigenfrequency of the solution. For strong
fields with \Omega_A > \Omega the solutions do not feel the thermal diffusion.
The growth rate runs with \Omega_A and the drift rate is close to -\Omega so
that the magnetic pattern will rest in the laboratory system. For weaker fields
with \Omega_A < \Omega the growth rate strongly depends on the thermal
conductivity. For fields with dipolar parity and for typical values of the heat
conductivity the resulting very small growth rates are almost identical with
those for vanishing gravity. For fields with dipolar symmetry the differential
rotation of any stellar radiative zone (like the solar tachocline) is shown as
basically stabilizing the instability independent of the sign of the shear.
Finally, the current-driven kink-type instability of a toroidal background
field is proposed as a model for the magnetism of Ap stars. The recent
observation of a lower magnetic field treshold of about 300 Gauss for Ap stars
is understood as corresponding to the minimum magnetic field producing the
instability.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, acc. for publicatio
DeepAPT: Nation-State APT Attribution Using End-to-End Deep Neural Networks
In recent years numerous advanced malware, aka advanced persistent threats
(APT) are allegedly developed by nation-states. The task of attributing an APT
to a specific nation-state is extremely challenging for several reasons. Each
nation-state has usually more than a single cyber unit that develops such
advanced malware, rendering traditional authorship attribution algorithms
useless. Furthermore, those APTs use state-of-the-art evasion techniques,
making feature extraction challenging. Finally, the dataset of such available
APTs is extremely small.
In this paper we describe how deep neural networks (DNN) could be
successfully employed for nation-state APT attribution. We use sandbox reports
(recording the behavior of the APT when run dynamically) as raw input for the
neural network, allowing the DNN to learn high level feature abstractions of
the APTs itself. Using a test set of 1,000 Chinese and Russian developed APTs,
we achieved an accuracy rate of 94.6%
Impact of schizophrenia on anterior and posterior hippocampus during memory for complex scenes.
ObjectivesHippocampal dysfunction has been proposed as a mechanism for memory deficits in schizophrenia. Available evidence suggests that the anterior and posterior hippocampus could be differentially affected. Accordingly, we used fMRI to test the hypothesis that activity in posterior hippocampus is disproportionately reduced in schizophrenia, particularly during spatial memory retrieval.Methods26 healthy participants and 24 patients with schizophrenia from the UC Davis Early Psychosis Program were studied while fMRI was acquired on a 3 Tesla Siemens scanner. During encoding, participants were oriented to critical items through questions about item features (e.g., "Does the lamp have a square shade?") or spatial location (e.g., "Is the lamp on the table next to the couch?"). At test, participants determined whether scenes were changed or unchanged. fMRI analyses contrasted activation in a priori regions of interest (ROI) in anterior and posterior hippocampus during correct recognition of item changes and spatial changes.ResultsAs predicted, patients with schizophrenia exhibited reduced activation in the posterior hippocampus during detection of spatial changes but not during detection of item changes. Unexpectedly, patients exhibited increased activation of anterior hippocampus during detection of item changes. Whole brain analyses revealed reduced fronto-parietal and striatal activation in patients for spatial but not for item change trials.ConclusionsResults suggest a gradient of hippocampal dysfunction in which posterior hippocampus - which is necessary for processing fine-grained spatial relationships - is underactive, and anterior hippocampus - which may process context more globally - is overactive
A Snapshot of J. L. Synge
A brief description is given of the life and influence on relativity theory
of Professor J. L. Synge accompanied by some technical examples to illustrate
his style of work
Parametric Fokker-Planck equation
We derive the Fokker-Planck equation on the parametric space. It is the
Wasserstein gradient flow of relative entropy on the statistical manifold. We
pull back the PDE to a finite dimensional ODE on parameter space. Some
analytical example and numerical examples are presented
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