The Effects of Conflict on Fertility Desires and Behavior in Rwanda

Rwanda experienced genocide from April to July 1994 during which over 800,000 people were murdered. Among the far-reaching changes that followed this event among individuals and in society overall, the Rwandan Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) showed that contraceptive prevalence declined from 13% in 1992 to 4% in 2000 among married women of reproductive age. This dissertation has two hypotheses concerning Rwandan women's fertility preferences and behavior following the genocide. It is hypothesized that, first, high levels of conflict reduced women's desire for a child or for additional children and second, that women who experienced relatively high levels of conflict were more likely to act on their wish to not have a child or another child by using modern contraceptives than were women who experienced relatively low levels of conflict. The study's logistic regression dependent (outcome) variables were desire for a or another child and the use of modern contraceptives; the source for these data was the 2000 DHS. Three groups of independent variables were included: socio-demographic variables, also from the 2000 DHS, included age, number of living children, education level, urban/rural residence and socio-economic status; availability of family planning services, assessed using women's perception of distance as a barrier to obtaining health care for themselves, from the 2000 DHS, and quality of health services, assessed with data from the 2001 Service Provision Assessment; and experience of conflict, measured as the percentage of the 1994 commune populations that resided in refugee camps in 1995. Communes were considered `high migration' if 10 percent or more of their populations migrated to camps and `low migration' if less than 10 percent of their populations migrated to camps. Women who lived in high migration communes were considered to have relatively high experience of conflict and those who lived in low migration communes were consider dot have relatively low experience of conflict. Analysis showed that residents of high migration communes were significantly less likely to want a or another child as compared to residents of low migration communes (OR = .74); it appeared that the social environment of high migration had a dampening effect on desire for children. The analysis also showed that residents of high migration communes were significantly less likely to use a modern contraceptive method than were those of low migration communes (OR = .57), even though they were less likely to want a or another child and even when family planning services were reasonably available. The reasons for these results are unclear, and many factors may contribute. The generalized trauma experienced by the population may have had a numbing effect, in which taking action in any domain was difficult. Women may have felt pressured by society to have children as the society emerged from war, despite their own preferences. The population may also have distrusted government health facilities - the only source of services for most - in light of the interactions with officials during and after the genocide. However, another set of reasons specific to women and women's health may also have influenced the findings. There is a pervasive social stigma around reproductive health; these services have generally lagged behind other primary health care components. Moreover, rape was used as a weapon of war in the genocide; these experiences may have reduced women's willingness to seek reproductive health services specifically. Finally, the Rwandan genocide and its preparation were decidedly misogynistic; this pervasive dehumanization may have made it particularly difficult for women to seek care for their sexual and reproductive health needs and desires. This complex personal, social, physical and political context may explain why Rwandan women who may not have wanted a child or additional children nonetheless did not consistently act on their desires in the years following the 1994 genocide. The dissertation includes a series of essays providing the author's personal perspective on working in Rwanda in the 1980s and 1990s and being present in the country at the start of the genocide in April 1994

Why don’t humanitarian organizations provide safe abortion services?

Background Although sexual and reproductive health services have become more available in humanitarian settings over the last decade, safe abortion services are still rarely provided. The authors’ observations suggest that four reasons are typically given for this gap: ‘There’s no need’; ‘Abortion is too complicated to provide in crises’; ‘Donors don’t fund abortion services’; and ‘Abortion is illegal’. Discussion However, each of these reasons is based on false premises. Unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal mortality globally, and the collapse of health systems in crises suggests it likely increases in humanitarian settings. Abortion procedures can be safely performed in health centers by mid-level providers without sophisticated equipment or supplies. Although US government aid does not fund abortion-related activities, other donors, including many European governments, do fund abortion services. In most countries, covering 99 % of the world’s population, abortion is permitted under some circumstances; it is illegal without exception in only six countries. International law supports improved access to safe abortion. Summary As none of the reasons often cited for not providing these services is valid, it is the responsibility of humanitarian NGOs to decide where they stand regarding their commitment to humanitarian standards and women’s right to high quality and non-discriminatory health services. Providing safe abortion to women who become pregnant as a result of rape in war may be a more comfortable place for organizations to begin the discussion. Making safe abortion available will improve women’s health and human rights and save lives

Generalised gravitational burst generation with Generative Adversarial Networks

We introduce the use of conditional generative adversarial networks forgeneralised gravitational wave burst generation in the time domain.Generativeadversarial networks are generative machine learning models that produce new databased on the features of the training data set. We condition the network on fiveclasses of time-series signals that are often used to characterise gravitational waveburst searches: sine-Gaussian, ringdown, white noise burst, Gaussian pulse and binaryblack hole merger. We show that the model can replicate the features of these standardsignal classes and, in addition, produce generalised burst signals through interpolationand class mixing. We also present an example application where a convolutional neuralnetwork classifier is trained on burst signals generated by our conditional generativeadversarial network. We show that a convolutional neural network classifier trainedonly on the standard five signal classes has a poorer detection efficiency than aconvolutional neural network classifier trained on a population of generalised burstsignals drawn from the combined signal class space

Do actions occur inside the body?

The paper offers a critical examination of Jennifer Hornsby's view that actions are internal to the body. It focuses on three of Hornsby's central claims: (P) many actions are bodily movements (in a special sense of the word “movement”) (Q) all actions are tryings; and (R) all actions occur inside the body. It is argued, contra Hornsby, that we may accept (P) and (Q) without accepting also the implausible (R). Two arguments are first offered in favour of the thesis (Contrary-R): that no actions occur inside the body. Three of Hornsby's arguments in favour of R are then examined. It is argued that we need to make a distinction between the causes and the causings of bodily movements (in the ordinary sense of the word “movement”) and that actions ought to be identified with the latter rather than the former. This distinction is then used to show how Hornsby's arguments for (R) may be resisted

Research ethics in practice: Lessons from studies exploring intimate partner violence in different contexts

Studies researching interpersonal violence (IPV) are associated with a range of ethical challenges. In this paper, lessons are drawn from three case studies exploring the experiences of different groups of survivors and perpetrators of IPV in diverse contexts: refugees in the Thailand-Burma border area; partner-violent adult men and female survivors in Ireland; and, school children in five European countries. The ethical – and associated methodological - challenges faced, and the ways in which they were overcome, are presented. Drawing on the case studies presented, the paper concludes that three key areas require special attention when conducting research in this field: accessing and recruiting participants, researcher skills and experience, and appropriate use of data

Variable Dielectrics in the Calcium Magnesium Titanate System Characterized with Scanning Microwave Microscopy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65839/1/j.1551-2916.2006.00962.x.pd

THE HIGH COST OF LOW VALUE CARE

The main focus of this study is bridging the evidence gap between frontline decision-making in health care and the actual evidence, with the hope of reducing unnecessary diagnostic testing and treatments. From our work in pulmonary embolism (PE) and over ordering of computed tomography pulmonary angiography, we integrated the highly validated Wells\u27 criteria into the electronic health record at two of our major academic tertiary hospitals. The Wells\u27 clinical decision support tool triggered for patients being evaluated for PE and therefore determined a patients\u27 pretest probability for having a PE. There were 12,759 patient visits representing 11,836 patients, 51% had no D-dimer, 41% had a negative D-dimer, and 9% had a positive D-dimer. Our study gave us an opportunity to determine which patients were very low probabilities for PE, with no need for further testing

Triacylglycerol profiling of microalgae strains for biofuel feedstock by liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry

Biofuels from photosynthetic microalgae are quickly gaining interest as a viable carbon-neutral energy source. Typically, characterization of algal feedstock involves breaking down triacylglycerols (TAG) and other intact lipids, followed by derivatization of the fatty acids to fatty acid methyl esters prior to analysis by gas chromatography (GC). However, knowledge of the intact lipid profile could offer significant advantages for discovery stage biofuel research such as the selection of an algal strain or the optimization of growth and extraction conditions. Herein, lipid extracts from microalgae were directly analyzed by ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS) using a benchtop Orbitrap mass spectrometer. Phospholipids, glycolipids, and TAGs were analyzed in the same chromatographic run, using a combination of accurate mass and diagnostic fragment ions for identification. Using this approach, greater than 100 unique TAGs were identified over the six algal strains studied and TAG profiles were obtained to assess their potential for biofuel applications. Under the growth conditions employed, Botryococcus braunii and Scenedesmus obliquus yielded the most comprehensive TAG profile with a high abundance of TAGs containing oleic acid