Equity of Inpatient Health Care in Rural Tanzania:\ud A Population- and Facility-Based Survey

To explore the equity of utilization of inpatient health care at rural Tanzanian health centers through the use of a short wealth questionnaire.Methods: Patients admitted to four rural health centers in the Kigoma Region of Tanzania from May 2008 to May 2009 were surveyed about their illness, asset ownership and demographics. Principal component analysis was used to compare the wealth of the inpatients to the wealth of the region’s general population, using data from a previous population-based survey. Among inpatients, 15.3% were characterized as the most poor, 19.6% were characterized as very poor, 16.5% were characterized as poor, 18.9% were characterized as less poor, and 29.7% were characterized as the least poor. The wealth distribution of all inpatients (p < 0.0001), obstetric inpatients (p < 0.0001), other inpatients (p < 0.0001), and fee-exempt inpatients (p < 0.001) were significantly different than the wealth distribution in the community population, with poorer patients underrepresented among inpatients. The wealth distribution of pediatric inpatients (p = 0.2242) did not significantly differ from the population at large. The findings indicated that while current Tanzanian health financing policies may have improved access to health care for children under five, additional policies are needed to further close the equity gap, especially for obstetric inpatients.\u

Laboratory Measurement of the Pure Rotational Transitions of the HCNH+ and its Isotopic Species

The pure rotational transitions of the protonated hydrogen cyanide ion, HCNH+, and its isotopic species, HCND+ and DCND+, were measured in the 107 - 482 GHz region with a source modulated microwave spectrometer. The ions were generated in the cell with a magnetically confined dc-glow discharge of HCN and/or DCN. The rotational constant B0 and the centrifugal distortion constant D0 for each ion were precisely determined by a least-squares fitting to the observed spectral lines. The observed rotational transition frequencies by laboratory spectroscopy and the predicted ones are accurate in about 30 to 40 kHz and are useful as rest frequencies for astronomical searches of HCNH+ and HCND+.Comment: 14 pages in TeX, 1 figures in JPE

Strong Decays of Strange Charmed P-Wave Mesons

Goldstone boson decays of P-wave $D_s^{**}$ mesons are studied within the framework of Heavy Hadron Chiral Perturbation Theory. We first analyze the simplest single kaon decays of these strange charmed mesons. We derive a model independent prediction for the width of $D_{s2}$ and use experimental information on $D_{s1}$ to constrain the S-wave contribution to $D_1^0$ decay. Single and double pion decay modes are then discussed and shown to be significantly restricted by isospin conservation. We conclude that the pion channels may offer the best hope for detecting one strange member of an otherwise invisible P-wave flavor multiplet.Comment: 16 pages, 2 updated figures not included but available upon request, CALT-68-1902. (Revised estimates for error on $D_{s2}$ width and for isospin violating neutral pion decay of $D'_{s1}$.

Novel technique for monitoring the performance of the LAT instrument on board the GLAST satellite

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is an observatory designed to perform gamma-ray astronomy in the energy range 20 MeV to 300 GeV, with supporting measurements for gamma-ray bursts from 10 keV to 25 MeV. GLAST will be launched at the end of 2007, opening a new and important window on a wide variety of high energy astrophysical phenomena . The main instrument of GLAST is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which provides break-through high-energy measurements using techniques typically used in particle detectors for collider experiments. The LAT consists of 16 identical towers in a four-by-four grid, each one containing a pair conversion tracker and a hodoscopic crystal calorimeter, all covered by a segmented plastic scintillator anti-coincidence shield. The scientific return of the instrument depends very much on how accurately we know its performance, and how well we can monitor it and correct potential problems promptly. We report on a novel technique that we are developing to help in the characterization and monitoring of LAT by using the power of classification trees to pinpoint in a short time potential problems in the recorded data. The same technique could also be used to evaluate the effect on the overall LAT performance produced by potential instrumental problems.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, manuscript submitted on behalf of the GLAST/LAT collaboration to First GLAST symposium proceeding

Bose-Einstein condensation and Superfluidity of magnetoexcitons in Graphene

We propose experiments to observe Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and superfluidity of quasi-two-dimensional (2D) spatially indirect magnetoexcitons in bilayer graphene. The magnetic field $B$ is assumed strong. The energy spectrum of collective excitations, the sound spectrum as well as the effective magnetic mass of magnetoexcitons are presented in the strong magnetic field regime. The superfluid density $n_S$ and the temperature of the Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition $T_c$ are shown to be increasing functions of the excitonic density $n$ but decreasing functions of $B$ and the interlayer separation $D$. Numerical results are presented from these calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Gluon fragmentation to 1D2^1D_2 quarkonia

Gluon fragmentation to heavy $J^{PC}=2^{-+}$ quarkonia is studied herein. We compute these D-wave states' polarized fragmentation functions and find that they are enhanced by large numerical prefactors. The prospects for detecting the lowest lying $^1D_2$ charmonium state at the Tevatron are discussed.Comment: 10 pages with 4 uuencoded figures, CALT-68-195

Understanding the DsJ+(2317)D^+_{sJ}(2317) and DsJ+(2460)D^+_{sJ}(2460) with Sum Rules in HQET

In the framework of heavy quark effective theory we use QCD sum rules to calculate the masses of the $\bar c s$ $(0^+, 1^+)$ and $(1^+, 2^+)$ excited states. The results are consistent with that the states $D_{sJ}(2317)$ and $D_{sJ}(2460)$ observed by BABAR and CLEO are the $0^+$ and $1^+$ states in the $j_l={1\over 2}^+$ doublet

ANALYSIS OF VEGETABLE PRODUCTION AMONG RURAL WOMEN FARMERS IN IMO STATE NIGERIA

Globally, vegetable forms a most valuable part of every household's diet and are used to increase the quality of the soup. It has also become the most important crop grown by farmers in recent times. However, vegetable farming is not without production challenges. Regrettably, there is an acute shortage of empirical studies to substantiate this claim. It was against this backdrop that the study on analysis of vegetable production among rural women farmers in Imo State, Nigeria was undertaken. Specifically, the study was guided by the following objectives; describing the socio-economic characteristic of women in the study area; identifying the types of vegetables produced by women; identifying women's intent/reason for all-round vegetable farming. A multistage random sampling method was used in the selection of respondents. The sample size comprised one-hundred and thirty-five (135) vegetable women farmers. Well, a structured questionnaire was the main tool for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools, likert –scale rating, and multiple regression analysis.&nbsp; Results show that the mean age was 44.00 years.&nbsp; The majority (71.11%) were married with an average household size of 6 persons.&nbsp; Average educational level, farming experience, farm size, and monthly farm income were 12 years (equivalent to secondary school education), 21.00years, 1.20ha, and N101,200 respectively. About 82.96% and 71.85% of the women farmers were visited once per month by extension agents and were members of cooperatives respectively. As types of vegetable crops produced by the women Approximately, 98.52%, 96.30% 91.85%, 89.63%, and 68.15% were also involved in Fluted pumpkin&nbsp;(Telfairiaoccidentalis), pepper (Capsicum annuum), Scent leaf (Ocimumgratissimum), Waterleaf (Talinumfruticosum) and Okra (Abelmoschusesculentus) respectively amongst others. The result shows that about 99.26%, 96.30%, and 95.56% identified personal intentions, wanting autonomy, and unstable income respectively as intent/reasons for all-round vegetable farming. Radio and farmers’ cooperative societies were identified by approximately 98.52% and 95.56% as sources of information on all-around vegetable farming among other sources. The study concludes that most of the women are involved in the cultivation of almost all the vegetables and therefore recommends that the extension agents should increase their visits/training to the rural vegetable farmers as results show low extension visits which affected them in the choice of vegetable planted as recent technologies has made it possible for farmers in the southeast to plant most of the vegetables formerly believed to survive only in the northern area of the country

Book Reviews

Book Reviews by Charles S. Desmond, Godfrey P. Schmidt, Robert E. Sullivan, Louis C. Kaplan, and Paul C. Bartholomew

The charmonium and bottomonium mass spectroscopy with a simple approximaton of the kinetic term

In this paper we propose a particular description of meson spectroscopy, with emphasis in heavy bound states like charmonia and bottomonia, after working on the main aspects of the construction of an effective potential model. We use the prerogatives from ``soft QCD'' to determine the effective potential terms, establishing the asymptotic Coulomb term from one gluon exchange approximation. At the same time, a linear confinement term is introduced in agreement with QCD and phenomenological prescription. The main aspect of this work is the simplification in the calculation, consequence of a precise and simplified description of the kinetic term of the Hamiltonian. With this proposition we perform the calculations of mass spectroscopy for charmonium and bottomonium mesons and we discuss the real physical possibilities of developing a generalized potential model, its possible advantages relative to experimental parameterization and complexity in numerical calculations