Assessing access barriers to maternal health care: measuring bypassing to identify health centre needs in rural Uganda.

BACKGROUND: In low income countries, several barriers exist to the use of health services for child delivery, including distance, transportation, informal costs or low perceived quality. Yet there is rarely information about which barriers are more or less important to the use of a given health facility. This study assessed the relative importance of different barriers to maternal health facility use in rural Uganda through the use of simple indicators based on locally available data. METHODS: Data from public health facilities performing deliveries in a rural district were used along with census information to construct a set of indicators useful for diagnosing barriers to delivery service use. Indicators included the number of facility-based deliveries per 1000 women served, the proportion of users from a facility's local area, and a new indicator, the 'bypassing ratio', defined as the number of women from a facility's local area who delivered in other facilities, divided by the number of local women using the facility itself. RESULTS: Numbers of deliveries varied greatly between facilities of the same level. A few very low use facilities saw over 75% of women come from the local area, while other facilities services attracted a large majority of women from other areas. The phenomenon of bypassing provides additional insight into the relative importance of distance or transport as opposed to internal facility factors preventing use. CONCLUSIONS: Simple and easily replicable tools are essential to assist health managers to identify communities and facilities needing improvements in access to delivery care. The methods developed in this paper could be utilized by local officials in other areas to assist planning and improvement of both maternal care and other health services

Overcoming access barriers for facility-based delivery in low-income settings: insights from Bangladesh and Uganda.

Women in both Bangladesh and Uganda face a number of barriers to delivery in professional health facilities, including costs, transportation problems, and sociocultural norms to deliver at home. Some women in both the countries manage to overcome these barriers. This paper reports on a comparative qualitative study investigating how some women and their families were able to use professional delivery services. The study provides insights into the decision-making processes and overcoming access barriers. Husbands were found to be particularly important in Uganda, while, in Bangladesh, a number of individuals could influence care-seeking, including unqualified local healers or traditional birth attendants. In both the settings, cost and transport barriers were often overcome through social networks. Social prohibitions on birth in the health facility did not feature strongly in women's accounts, with several Ugandan women explaining that friends or peers also used facilities, while, in Bangladesh, perceived complications apparently justified the use of professional medical care. Investigating the ways in which some women can overcome common barriers can help inform policy and planning to increase the use of health facilities for child delivery

Letter from Gerard Previn Meyer to Hubert Creekmore

Meyer writes from Greenvale, Long Island, to Creekmore in Jackson, Mississippi. He discusses translations that he plans to give Creekmore for his anthology. He mentions Oscar Williams, Justin O\u27Brien, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Guillaume Apollinaire.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/creekmore/1082/thumbnail.jp

The Role of British Colonial Administration in the Establishment and Workings of the Nigerian Police Force, 1930 – 1960

Ideally, colonial administrations, including the British colonial administration, played significant role in the establishment and workings of security agencies to maintain peaceful coexistence and protect the lives and property of all members of any given society around the world. This paper examines, critically, the role of the British Colonial Administration in the establishment and workings of the Nigerian Police Force, contrary to bourgeois claim that the Nigerian Police Force protect all members of the Nigerian society; the paper posits that the Nigerian Police Force was established primarily to save guard the British colonial state and also to protect the lives and property of British Officials and influential members of the Nigerian society. Although the British colonial administration ended in 1960, the Nigerian Police Force continued providing state security services for the Nigerian state with minimum attention to the people – oriented security services for common Nigerians. The writer has observed that the preoccupation of the British colonial administration with the provision of state security services instead of providing people – oriented security services for all members of the Nigerian society provoked nationalist agitation against the British colonial administration. The writer has out rightly condemned colonialism and the associated discriminative practices against the colonized Nigerians. The paper concludes that it was the British colonial state’s preoccupation with the protection of colonial state institution and the lives and property of the British and influential Nigerians rather than the provision of people – oriented security services for all members of the Nigerian society that brought about the end of British colonial administration in 1960

Filtering of Acoustic Emission Data Through Principal Frequency Component Extraction

Rapid editing of acoustic emission (AE) data is required in order to make real-time acoustic emission flaw growth systems a viable testing method for materials and setups that contain noisy signals. It was hypothesized that extracting major frequency components from the acoustic emission signal would therefore provide a representative acoustic signature of the major waveforms occurring due to defect growth This research has verified that the aforementioned filtering technique does, in fact, extract a representative signal from the composite and metal specimens utilized herein These findings were verified both through visual analysis of the data as well as the low error occurrence in backpropagation neural network predictions and good classification in self-organizing map type neural networks applied to the testing data

Tiv People and the Provision of People-Oriented Security Services Before the Establishment of Chieftaincy Institution in Tiv, 1900 -1960

Admittedly, most societies in the world were ruled by kings or queens during the 19th and early 20th century probably because it was believed that “strong” or dictatorial kings or queens would provide better protection against external aggressors than a group of “weak” or democratic people. But few societies including Tiv people in the present day central Nigeria, were ruled by their elders for reasons that scholars are yet to satisfactorily   explain. In this paper, the writer explains that Tiv people preferred democratic administration with people-oriented security services to autocratic or dictatorial administration which over emphasizes security for state institution to the detriment of the common people. People –oriented security services denotes welfare package which the administration provides for the benefit of both the poor and the rich   in the society.  The writer has, however, observed that the British colonial administration compelled Tiv people to abandon the budding   democratic culture with associated people –oriented security services for the Tor-Tiv chieftaincy institution with its emphasis on the provision of security services for the British colonial state in 1946. The writer explains that the British colonial administration destroyed the evolving democratic culture among Tiv people and established chieftaincy institution in order to facilitate the exploitation of human and natural resources and integrate Tiv economy into the global capitalist system. The paper criticizes the tricks and methods employed by the British colonialists to force the chieftaincy institution on Tiv people with consequent destruction of the evolving humane or people oriented security services. The writer  suggested that the functionaries of the chieftaincy institution should provide people-oriented security services for Tiv people. The paper concludes that the provision of people-oriented security services will convince Tiv people and other Nigerians that the chieftaincy institution is not simply another exploitative colonial legacy left by the British to maintain socio-economic and political inequality as well as insecurity among Tiv people in the 21st century

The cultural and creative industries: a review of the literature

This account takes a sixty year trip from \u27The Culture Industry\u27, through the \u27cultural industries\u27, ending at the \u27creative industries\u27. Its main theme is the tension between culture and economics which lie at the heart of this terminology. This is not simply a question of \u27art\u27 and \u27the market\u27; this is part of it, but the market in \u27cultural commodities\u27 has a long history and \u27artists\u27 have long been at home with it. In the last century the production of cultural commodities has accelerated with the development of technologies of reproduction ? digitalisation following in the treads of Gutenberg; and this production has become increasingly capitalised. Commodity production is not the same as capitalism; the former has an ancient history, the latter began 500 years ago in Europe. Capitalism is animated by the principle of unlimited accumulation at the expense of all other values. \u27Art\u27 or \u27culture\u27 has always been one of the limits on, or protests against, this principle. But it did so whilst at the same time being a commodity increasingly subject to the laws of capital. This is part of a series of literature review produced by Creative Partnerships. The reviews are commissioned to introduce readers to the main principles, theories, research and debates in the field. They aim to introduce the major themes and writing pertaining to each area of study and to outline key trends and argument

Innovative responses for preventing HIV transmission: The protective value of population-wide interruptions of risk activity.

Concurrent partnering contributes to high HIV prevalence. This is in part due to the natural history of the virus. After transmission, an individual’s viral load spikes in a period of ‘acute infection’ during which they are highly infectious. Models estimate that around 10 - 45% of HIV acquisition arises from sex with an individual in the acute infection period.&#x0D; If everyone in a population abstained from high-risk sex for a given period of time, in theory the viral loads of all recent seroconverters should pass through the acute infection period. When risk behaviour resumed there would be almost no individuals in the high-viraemic phase, thereby reducing infectivity, and HIV incidence would fall. &#x0D; Recurring population-wide shifts in risk behaviour are not unheard of. Many, in fact, occur as part of existing religious observances. The month of Ramadan in Muslim communities is perhaps one of the most obvious cases. Ramadan sees significant behaviour changes. In addition to fasting from sunrise to sunset, observant individuals abstain from coitus during daylight hours. There is anecdotal evidence that risky sexual behaviours are also significantly reduced over this period. In Indonesia, for instance, it was reported that research with sex workers was not possible during Ramadan because people ‘abstained from sex from one end of the month to the other … Many sex workers returned to home villages during this time.’ &#x0D; This article argues that a population-wide interruption of risk behaviour for a set period of time could reduce HIV incidence and make a significant contribution to prevention efforts. It calls for mathematical modelling of periodic risk behaviour interruptions, as well as encouragement of policy interventions to develop campaigns of this nature. A policy response, such as a ‘safe sex/no sex’ campaign in a cohesive population, deserves serious consideration as an HIV prevention intervention. In some contexts, periods of abstinence from risk behaviour could also be linked to existing religious practices to provide policy options.</jats:p

Mathematics as a Tool for Re-Branding Nigeria: Implications of Difficulties in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics by In-Experienced Teachers in Universal Basic Education

Mathematics education is the pivot of all sciences. Achievement of Nigeria’s vision 20,2020 therefore is based principally on the successful attainment of the objectives of mathematics education at all levels. The removal of all impediments or problem areas in the achievement of the goals of mathematics education has become imperative at all levels of education so as to maintain the enviable position of mathematics in nation building.The Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) Chief Examiner’s report  about the very poor performances of students in mathematics in JSSCE in Uzo-Uwani LGA of Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State gave rise to the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) workshop of 1995. This research work was  therefore conducted at Uzo-Uwani LGA, an educationally disadvantaged area in Nsukka education  zone to discover whether the causes of poor performances in mathematics as discussed in 1995 by CDC are still in existence or not. There was no random sampling exercise since all the 13 (thirteen) post basic and 16 (sixteen) basic schools in LGA were used in the study. A total of 6 (six) research question and 2 (two) hypotheses guided the study. Findings made are that all areas of difficulties identified by the CDC in 1995 are still in existence. Insufficiency of qualified mathematics teachers, lack of instructional materials, difficulties in the teaching and learning of number and numeration, addition, subtraction, simple equations etc. and difficulties in the teaching and learning of geometry, trigonometry are still there. Recommendations made are include that qualified teachers should be recruited for basic and post basic levels of education, further training through workshops, seminars and sandwich degree programmes be made available for the teachers  at that level of education to help remove these bottlenecks

Consumer Ecoregions and the Geography of Automotive Brand Preference: An Analysis of Vehicle Registration Data

This article analyzes regional variability in consumer automotive brand preferences using vehicle registration data from Oregon and Washington. Vehicle registration data are aggregated by county and per-capita ownership rates are calculated and analyzed to assess regional variability. Results indicate that Consumer Ecoregions may be more cohesive, in terms of homogenous ownership rates by automotive brand groups, than corresponding States. As such, Consumer Ecoregions may provide a more useful partition for understanding regional variability for a variety of business applications including the identification of sales and distribution territories or comparable applications where the geographical dimension of the supply chain is salient