The conjoint quest for a liberal positive program: "Old Chicago", Freiburg and Hayek

James M. Buchanan's latest contribution to the post-crisis debate in political economy underpins the necessity to reexamine the legacy of the Old Chicago School of thought, being urged by Buchanan's recently stressed plea at the 2009 Regional Meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society and at the Summer Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economic Thought in 2010. The focus of the current paper is to follow his plea by exploring the central topoi of the 1930's debate of the Chicago School as seen from the work of Henry Simons and discuss its impact on the academic arena on both sides of the Atlantic thereafter. With respect to this impact, we highlight Friedrich A. von Hayek as the focal scholar who possibly transmits these topoi that later influenced the rise of Freiburgean ordoliberalism in Germany from the mid-1930's onwards as youngest archival findings suggest. By revisiting the MPS 1947 first meeting's minutes and papers, we stress the proximity in mind of Old Chicago, Hayek and the Freiburg School ordo-liberals by contributing an explanation for the surprisingly homogenous direction of these yet unconnected schools of thought. n a next, enhanced version of this project, we will subsequently re-discuss the intellectual origins of Constitutional Political Economy's research program. Following Viktor Vanberg, we argue that CPE can be interpreted as a modernized perspective on economics that carries forward three strands of transatlantic liberal programs, being precisely Old Chicago, Freiburg and Hayek. --

Postpartum quality of life in Indian women after vaginal birth and cesarean section: a pilot study using the EQ-5D-5L descriptive system

There has been little evaluation of the postpartum quality of life (QOL) of women in India and its association with the mode of birth. This study piloted the use of the generic EQ-5D-5L questionnaire to assess postpartum QOL experienced by rural Indian women

Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services in 204 countries and territories, 1990-2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) involves all people receiving the health services they need, of high quality, without experiencing financial hardship. Making progress towards UHC is a policy priority for both countries and global institutions, as highlighted by the agenda of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW13). Measuring effective coverage at the health-system level is important for understanding whether health services are aligned with countries’ health profiles and are of sufficient quality to produce health gains for populations of all ages

Health system support and health system strengthening: two key facilitators to the implementation of ambulatory tuberculosis treatment in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan inherited a hospital-based health system from the Soviet Union. We explore the health system-related challenges faced during the scale-up of ambulatory (outpatient) treatment for drug-susceptible and drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants of the TB services, the ministries of health and finance, and their TB control partners. Structural challenges and resource needs were both discussed as obstacles to the expansion of ambulatory TB treatment. Respondents stated need for revising the financing mechanisms of the TB services to incentivize referral to ambulatory TB treatment. An increased workload and need for transportation in ambulatory TB care were also pointed out by respondents, given the quickly rising outpatient numbers but per capita financing of outpatient care. Policy makers showed strong interest in good practice examples for financing ambulatory-based management of TB in comparable contexts and in guidance for revising the financing of the TB services in a way that strengthens ambulatory TB treatment. To facilitate changing the model of care, TB control strategies emphasizing ambulatory care in hospital-oriented health systems should anticipate health system support and strengthening needs, and provide a plan of action to resolve both. Addressing both types of needs may require not only involving TB control and health financing actors, but also increasing knowledge about viable and tested financing mechanisms that incentivize the adoption of new models of care for TB

Can motivational interviewing in emergency care reduce alcohol consumption in young people? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Aims: We investigate the effect of motivational interviewing (MI), delivered in a brief intervention during an emergency care contact, on the alcohol consumption of young people who screen positively for present or previous risky alcohol consumption. Methods: MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX and Scopus were searched for randomized controlled trials with adolescents or young adults that compared MI in an emergency care setting to control conditions and measured drinking outcomes. Results: Six trials with 1433 participants, aged 13–25 years, were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. MI was never less efficacious than a control intervention. Two trials found significantly more reduction in one or more measures of alcohol consumption in the MI intervention group. One trial indicated that MI may be used most effectively in young people with highvolume alcohol consumption. Separate random effects meta-analyses were performed based on the highest impact that MI added on reducing the drinking frequency and the drinking quantity at any point in time during the different study periods. Their results were expressed as standardized mean differences (SMDs). The frequency of drinking alcohol decreased significantly more after MI than after control interventions (SMD ≤−0.17, P ≤ 0.03). In addition, MI reduced the drinking quantity further than control interventions in a meta-analysis of the subset of trials that were implemented in the USA (SMD=−0.12, P=0.04). Meta-analyses of the smallest mean differences between MI and control groups detected no differences in alcohol use (SMD ≤ 0.02, P ≥ 0.38). Conclusion: MI appears at least as effective and may possibly be more effective than other brief interventions in emergency care to reduce alcohol consumption in young people

Directionality of THz emission from photoinduced gas plasmas

Forward and backward THz emission by ionizing two-color laser pulses in gas is investigated by means of a simple semi-analytical model based on Jefimenko's equation and rigorous Maxwell simulations in one and two dimensions. We find the emission in backward direction having a much smaller spectral bandwidth than in forward direction and explain this by interference effects. Forward THz radiation is generated predominantly at the ionization front and thus almost not affected by the opacity of the plasma, in excellent agreement with results obtained from a unidirectional pulse propagation model

Finite-Temperature Dynamics and Thermal Intraband Magnon Scattering in Haldane Spin-One Chains

The antiferromagnetic spin-one chain is considerably one of the most fundamental quantum many-body systems, with symmetry protected topological order in the ground state. Here, we present results for its dynamical spin structure factor at finite temperatures, based on a combination of exact numerical diagonalization, matrix-product-state calculations and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Open finite chains exhibit a sub-gap band in the thermal spectral functions, indicative of localized edge-states. Moreover, we observe the thermal activation of a distinct low-energy continuum contribution to the spin spectral function with an enhanced spectral weight at low momenta and its upper threshold. This emerging thermal spectral feature of the Haldane spin-one chain is shown to result from intra-band magnon scattering due to the thermal population of the single-magnon branch, which features a large bandwidth-to-gap ratio. These findings are discussed with respect to possible future studies on spin-one chain compounds based on inelastic neutron scattering.Comment: 10 pages with 11 figures total (including Supplemental Material); changes in v2: new Figs. S1 and S5, Fig. S3 expanded + related discussion + many smaller modifications to match published versio