Senior Development Fellowship Report (Rômulo Paes de Sousa)

In this report, an outline of the experiences and achievements of each RPID Senior International Associate follows a general discussion of the programme. Dr. Paes de Sousa was selected because of his wide experience as both a policy analyst and policymaker in Brazil’s social protection and health sectors. His experience as a Deputy Minister for Social Development and the Fight Against Hunger has made him uniquely equipped to provide support and advice for the creation of a programme of activities that involves both policy analysts and policymakers. Dr. Paes de Sousa is also a member of the Advisory Council for the RPID Programme.DFI

Senior Development Fellowship Report (Zhang Xiulan)

In this report, an outline of the experiences and achievements of each Senior International Associate follows a general discussion of the programme. Professor Zhang was selected because of her wide experience as an analyst of Chinese social and health policy and her close collaboration with policymakers in that country. In addition, the School of Social Development and Public Policy, of which she is a Director, has already established a postgraduate course on development studies for students from a variety of low and middle income countries.DFI

Health Systems Research in a Complex and Rapidly Changing Context: Ethical Implications of Major Health Systems Change at Scale

This paper discusses health policy and systems research in complex and rapidly changing contexts. It focuses on ethical issues at stake for researchers working with government policy makers to provide evidence to inform major health systems change at scale, particularly when the dynamic nature of the context and ongoing challenges to the health system can result in unpredictable outcomes. We focus on situations where ‘country ownership’ of HSR is relatively well established and where there is significant involvement of local researchers and close ties and relationships with policy makers are often present. We frame our discussion around two country case studies with which we are familiar, namely China and South Africa and discuss the implications for conducting ‘embedded’ research. We suggest that reflexivity is an important concept for health system researchers who need to think carefully about positionality and their normative stance and to use such reflection to ensure that they can negotiate to retain autonomy, whilst also contributing evidence for health system change. A research process informed by the notion of reflexive practice and iterative learning will require a longitudinal review at key points in the research timeline. Such review should include the convening of a deliberative process and should involve a range of stakeholders, including those most likely to be affected by the intended and unintended consequences of change

Making mHealth Work for All

Rapid Response BriefingInformation and Communication technologies (ICTs) are going to have a major impact on health and health systems in the near future. To ensure that everyone (including the very poor) benefits from this new technology, it is vital that those designing new technologies, people responsible for health systems and social researchers come together to explore the opportunities and potential challenges, especially for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)

Non-Communicable Disease and Development: Future Pathways

From a biomedical perspective, non-communicable disease (NCD) is not a new problem, particularly in the global North. However, awareness of the increasing burden from these conditions in low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs) has only recently emerged in the arena of development policy and practice (Beaglehole et al. 2011). In September 2011, the United Nations convened a summit on NCD, only the second such meeting ever to address a disease matter. However, despite a declaration reiterating the importance of NCD, few concrete actions emerged. The focus of the meeting was only on the conditions included in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) core definition of NCD, diseases which share a defined set of individual-level risk factors and collectively constitute a substantial proportion of the disease burden: cardiovascular disease (CVD), chronic respiratory diseases, certain cancers and diabetes. Yet notwithstanding the Secretary-General’s call to bring NCD into the broader global health and development agenda, alongside growing concern about the financial and social implications of premature deaths and morbidity from these conditions, the impression persists in some quarters that NCD is not a ‘development problem’. Since some of the personal risk factors for these diseases are linked to lifestyle (in the case of the WHO core conditions, factors such as tobacco and alcohol use, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets), there is a tendency to retain a narrow medical and individual-level focus in conceptualising the problem and responses.UK Department for International Developmen

The Dynamic X-ray Sky of the Local Universe

Over the next decade, we can expect time domain astronomy to flourish at optical and radio wavelengths. In parallel with these efforts, a dedicated transient "machine" operating at higher energies (X-ray band through soft gamma-rays) is required to reveal the unique subset of events with variable emission predominantly visible above 100 eV. Here we focus on the transient phase space never yet sampled due to the lack of a sensitive, wide-field and triggering facility dedicated exclusively to catching high energy transients and enabling rapid coordinated multi-wavelength follow-up. We first describe the advancements in our understanding of known X-ray transients that can only be enabled through such a facility and then focus on the classes of transients theoretically predicted to be out of reach of current detection capabilities. Finally there is the exciting opportunity of revealing new classes of X-ray transients and unveiling their nature through coordinated follow-up observations at longer wavelengths.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures; White Paper submitted to the Astro2010 SSE pane

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI