Raising domestic resources for health Can tax revenue help fund Universal Health Coverage?

For countries that aspire to achieve the goal of Universal Health Coverage, the question of how to increase funding for health is of fundamental importance; external sources such as donor funding can be unstable and unsustainable, and insurance schemes often exclude the most poor and marginalised populations. Ensuring ‘health for all’ requires substantial increases in funding from domestic sources in a sustainable and equitable manner. One way of increasing revenue is through improved tax collection and larger total government budgets. Recent evidence from South Africa, Kenya and Lagos State in Nigeria, shows that it is possible to increase tax revenue without raising tax rates. What has been more challenging however, is ensuring that this additional revenue is allocated to the health sector. This brief outlines how the countries increased tax revenue and identifies common factors across contexts. It then uses the South African experience to explore whether the health sector benefited from additional tax revenue. The brief concludes with recommendations for health sector officials about how to negotiate more successfully for additional resources to be spent on health

Workplace-based learning for health system leaders: practical strategies for training institutions and governments

RESYST members Jane Doherty and Lucy Gilson have published a report following a three-day consultative workshop in Cape Town. The workshop brought together 35 leadership training experts from a range of institutions to enhance the capacity and capabilities of the people and systems engaged in leadership development. "Fast-changing and unpredictable health systems require creative, intelligent and resilient leaders" The norm in leadership training is formal, residential training programmes which face a number of limitations and can be disruptive to service delivery. The participants brainstormed how training institutions and governments can better support public health sector leaders to realise their leadership potential through enabling learning in the workplace. The report addresses several questions including: - What are the key challenges faced by leaders trying to operate effectively in the public health sectors of their own countries? - What type of leadership does the public health sector need? - What tools and approaches can best to support workplace-based learning? -How can we make workplace-based training sustainable? The informal report is intended to generate excitement for designing and supporting workplace-based learning in low- and middle-income country settings. It also includes detailed sections outlining experiences, strategies, critical reflections and recommended techniques that were discussed during the workshop. The report also recommends useful resources for further development

Gravity

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1985.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Transferred to 1/2 in VHS videotape from 8 mm film.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).Film is composed of tiny photographs which, when projected, sometimes look very much like people and things in the real world. Film, too, cannot be separated from its tools. Aesthetic criticism was, and still is, weighted towards consideration of the life-like tiny photographs. This thesis traces the evolution of film technology in order to establish the point where non- fiction ideology (aesthetics) lost pace with technical innovation - a derailment, so to speak, with nefarious implications for the present-day filmmaker. The emphasis is on lenses - the provocative "camera eye" - and sound recording equipment - which proved to be the rate-limiter of technical advance. This thesis considers two filmmaking solutions to the present malaise; the Standard TV Documentary, and the single-person shooting methodology of former MIT filmmakers, Jeff Kreines and Joel DeMott - both of which, in turn , will be compared to my own response - in the form of a movie, Gravity, which is about the members of an MIT experimental astrophysics laboratory trying to discover gravity waves. A videotape copy of the movie. is included with the thesis paper.by Mary Jane Doherty.M.S.V.S

Entangled two cavity modes preparation via a two-photon process

We propose a scheme for entangling two field modes in two high-Q optical cavities. Making use of a virtual two-photon process, our scheme achieves maximally entangled states without any real transitions of atomic internal states, hence it is immune to the atomic decay.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 7 figure

Human mucosal-associated invariant T cells contribute to antiviral influenza immunity via IL-18–dependent activation

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are innate-like T lymphocytes known to elicit potent immunity to a broad range of bacteria, mainly via the rapid production of inflammatory cytokines. Whether MAIT cells contribute to antiviral immunity is less clear. Here we asked whether MAIT cells produce cytokines/chemokines during severe human influenza virus infection. Our analysis in patients hospitalized with avian H7N9 influenza pneumonia showed that individuals who recovered had higher numbers of CD161+Vα7.2+ MAIT cells in peripheral blood compared with those who succumbed, suggesting a possible protective role for this lymphocyte population. To understand the mechanism underlying MAIT cell activation during influenza, we cocultured influenza A virus (IAV)-infected human lung epithelial cells (A549) and human peripheral blood mononuclear cells in vitro, then assayed them by intracellular cytokine staining. Comparison of influenza-induced MAIT cell activation with the profile for natural killer cells (CD56+CD3−) showed robust up-regulation of IFNγ for both cell populations and granzyme B in MAIT cells, although the individual responses varied among healthy donors. However, in contrast to the requirement for cell-associated factors to promote NK cell activation, the induction of MAIT cell cytokine production was dependent on IL-18 (but not IL-12) production by IAV-exposed CD14+ monocytes. Overall, this evidence for IAV activation via an indirect, IL-18–dependent mechanism indicates that MAIT cells are protective in influenza, and also possibly in any human disease process in which inflammation and IL-18 production occur

Expansion of the private health sector in east and southern Africa

Comprehensive policies on privatization in the health sector need to be developed, together with robust regulations and enhanced capacities for monitoring activity. The paper explores increased private, for-profit activity in the health sector in the region. It identifies issues of concern, indicating some features of financing that may lead to private sector expansion that does not support social objectives. The paper recommends that governments reconsider financing incentives in view of effects such as private sector capture of public subsidies