Who Should be Interviewed in Surveys of Household Income?

This study tests the null hypothesis that it is sufficient to interview only the household head to obtain accurate information on household income. Results show that using a husband’s estimate of his wife’s income does not produce statistically reliable results for poverty analysis. Estimates of the wife’s income provided by the husband and wife are in agreement in only six percent of households. While limiting interviews to one person has the advantage of reducing the time and expense of household surveys, this appears detrimental in terms of accuracy, and may lead to incorrect conclusions on the determinants of poverty.Africa, gender, household dynamics, household surveys, Malawi, poverty, Agricultural Finance,

The effect of drug therapy on the uptake of radioactive fluorine by osseous metastases

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117024/1/cpt196785647.pd

Environmental Fit: A Model for Assessing and Treating Problem Behavior Associated with Curricular Difficulties in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Theoretical considerations suggest that problem behavior should increase when a child’s competency does not match the curricular demands of the environment (i.e., when there is poor environmental fit). In the present study, environmental fit was examined for six children with autism spectrum disorders. Results indicated that the children exhibited high rates of problem behavior associated with poor motor or academic competency. Curricular modifications resulted in (a) a decrease in the level of problem behavior, (b) an increase in the percentage of task steps completed correctly, and (c) improved affect. Adults who worked with the children reported ease of intervention techniques. The concept of environmental fit and its usefulness in guiding both assessment of and intervention for problem behavior are discussed

Four-shooter: a large format charge-coupled-device camera for the Hale telescope

We describe an astronomical camera for the 200-in. Hale telescope using four 800 X800 Texas Instruments CCDs in an optical arrangement that allows imaging of a contiguous 1600-pixel-square region of sky. The system employs reimaging optics to yield a scale of 0.33 arcsec per pixel, a good match to the best seeing conditions at Palomar Observatory. Modern high-efficiency coatings are used in the complex optical system to yield a throughput at peak efficiency of nearly 50% (including the losses in the telescope), corresponding to a quantum efficiency on the sky of about 30%. The system uses a fifth CCD in a spectroscopic channel, and it is possible to obtain simultaneous imaging and spectroscopic observations with the system. The camera may also be used in a scanning mode, in which the telescope tracking rate is offset, and the charge is clocked in the chips in such a manner as to keep the charge image aligned with the optical image. In this way, a survey for high-redshift quasars has been carried out over a large area of sky. The instrument has produced images for the most distant clusters of galaxies yet discovered as well as spectra of the most distant galaxies yet observed

Hacia una tecnología de apoyo conductual "no aversivo"

En este artículo se hace una introducción del tratamiento conductual no aversivo. Se sugieren importantes definiciones y se presentan tres elementos fundamentales: a) un emergente conjunto de procedimientos para apoyar a personas con trastornos conductuales graves; b) criterios de validación social que insisten en la dignidad de las personas; y c) una recomendación de que se prohíban o limiten ciertas estrategias. Estos elementos se definen con la esperanza de que provoquen ulteriores debates y análisis empíricos del apoyo conductual positivo

Hacia una tecnología de apoyo conductual "no aversivo"

En este artículo se hace una introducción del tratamiento conductual no aversivo. Se sugieren importantes definiciones y se presentan tres elementos fundamentales: a) un emergente conjunto de procedimientos para apoyar a personas con trastornos conductuales graves; b) criterios de validación social que insisten en la dignidad de las personas; y c) una recomendación de que se prohíban o limiten ciertas estrategias. Estos elementos se definen con la esperanza de que provoquen ulteriores debates y análisis empíricos del apoyo conductual positivo

The Cold Peace: Russo-Western Relations as a Mimetic Cold War

In 1989–1991 the geo-ideological contestation between two blocs was swept away, together with the ideology of civil war and its concomitant Cold War played out on the larger stage. Paradoxically, while the domestic sources of Cold War confrontation have been transcended, its external manifestations remain in the form of a ‘legacy’ geopolitical contest between the dominant hegemonic power (the United States) and a number of potential rising great powers, of which Russia is one. The post-revolutionary era is thus one of a ‘cold peace’. A cold peace is a mimetic cold war. In other words, while a cold war accepts the logic of conflict in the international system and between certain protagonists in particular, a cold peace reproduces the behavioural patterns of a cold war but suppresses acceptance of the logic of behaviour. A cold peace is accompanied by a singular stress on notions of victimhood for some and undigested and bitter victory for others. The perceived victim status of one set of actors provides the seedbed for renewed conflict, while the ‘victory’ of the others cannot be consolidated in some sort of relatively unchallenged post-conflict order. The ‘universalism’ of the victors is now challenged by Russia's neo-revisionist policy, including not so much the defence of Westphalian notions of sovereignty but the espousal of an international system with room for multiple systems (the Schmittean pluriverse)

Reconstructing the Inflaton Potential---in Principle and in Practice

Generalizing the original work by Hodges and Blumenthal, we outline a formalism which allows one, in principle, to reconstruct the potential of the inflaton field from knowledge of the tensor gravitational wave spectrum or the scalar density fluctuation spectrum, with special emphasis on the importance of the tensor spectrum. We provide some illustrative examples of such reconstruction. We then discuss in some detail the question of whether one can use real observations to carry out this procedure. We conclude that in practice, a full reconstruction of the functional form of the potential will not be possible within the foreseeable future. However, with a knowledge of the dark matter components, it should soon be possible to combine intermediate-scale data with measurements of large-scale cosmic microwave background anisotropies to yield useful information regarding the potential.Comment: 39 pages plus 2 figures (upon request:[email protected]), LaTeX, FNAL--PUB--93/029-A; SUSSEX-AST 93/3-

A CD8 + NK cell transcriptomic signature associated with clinical outcome in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Abstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) with the majority of cases characterised by relapsing/remitting (RRMS) attacks of neurologic dysfunction followed by variable resolution. Improving clinical outcomes in RRMS requires both a better understanding of the immunological mechanisms driving recurrent demyelination and better means of predicting future disease course to facilitate early targeted therapy. Here, we apply hypothesis-generating network transcriptomics to CD8+ cells isolated from patients in RRMS, identifying a signature reflecting expansion of a subset of CD8+ natural killer cells (NK8+) associated with favourable outcome. NK8+ are capable of regulating CD4+ T cell activation and proliferation in vitro, with reduced expression of HLA-G binding inhibitory receptors and consequent reduced sensitivity to HLA-G-mediated suppression. We identify surrogate markers of the NK8+ signature in peripheral blood leucocytes and validate their association with clinical outcome in an independent cohort, suggesting their measurement may facilitate early, targeted therapy in RRMS