Seasonality, precautionary savings and health uncertainty: Evidence from farm households in central Kenya

The high prevalence of risks in low income economies makes managing uncertainty critical for productivity and survival. This paper analyzes seasonal changes in farm households’ per capita consumption and saving in response to weather and health shocks. Using a sample of 196 households in central Kenya, it tests the notion that people save most of their transitory income, and examines their precautionary saving motives. The results show that the propensity to save out of transitory income is about a fifth of what the permanent income hypothesis postulates. The propensity to save differs by wealth, with the poor exhibiting stronger precautionary motives towards rainfall variability. But the wealth effect is weak, suggesting that the asset base is vulnerable even for the better-off. However, precautionary savings tend to increase with wealth among HIV/AIDS affected households. Since illness is associated with higher consumption, and therefore less investment, we find more volatile consumption for HIV/AIDS affected households

International Actors, Norms and Human Development

A number of international humanitarian organizations focus on human development and aim to improve the situation of children. In many developing countries, states have not been able to fulfill the educational or basic needs of its children. To fill this void, international actors have stepped in to help with human development. This thesis focuses on answering the question: How are norms diffused to local communities? Looking at the implementation of human development norms, this paper examines the norms-based actions that NGOs take to maximize the development potential of children. Programs aimed at increasing basic education as well as fighting child labor are addressed. When exploring the norm socialization process NGOs use to promote programs in education and child labor, it is clear that a different process is present than is suggested by existing literature. This is due to the locale where norms are implemented: local communities

Cluster and nebular properties of the central star-forming region of NGC 1140

We present new high spatial resolution HST/ACS imaging of NGC 1140 and high spectral resolution VLT/UVES spectroscopy of its central star-forming region. The central region contains several clusters, the two brightest of which are clusters 1 and 6 from Hunter, O'Connell & Gallagher, located within star-forming knots A and B, respectively. Nebular analysis indicates that the knots have an LMC-like metallicity of 12 + log(O/H) = 8.29 +/- 0.09. According to continuum subtracted H alpha ACS imaging, cluster 1 dominates the nebular emission of the brighter knot A. Conversely, negligible nebular emission in knot B originates from cluster 6. Evolutionary synthesis modelling implies an age of 5 +/- 1 Myr for cluster 1, from which a photometric mass of (1.1 +/- 0.3) x 10^6 Msun is obtained. For this age and photometric mass, the modelling predicts the presence of ~5900 late O stars within cluster 1. Wolf-Rayet features are observed in knot A, suggesting 550 late-type WN and 200 early-type WC stars. Therefore, N(WR)/N(O) ~ 0.1, assuming that all the WR stars are located within cluster 1. The velocity dispersions of the clusters were measured from constituent red supergiants as sigma ~ 23 +/- 1 km/s for cluster 1 and sigma ~ 26 +/- 1 km/s for cluster 6. Combining sigma with half-light radii of 8 +/- 2 pc and 6.0 +/- 0.2 pc measured from the F625W ACS image implies virial masses of (10 +/- 3) x 10^6 Msun and (9.1 +/- 0.8) x 10^6 Msun for clusters 1 and 6, respectively. The most likely reason for the difference between the dynamical and photometric masses of cluster 1 is that the velocity dispersion of knot A is not due solely to cluster 1, as assumed, but has an additional component associated with cluster 2.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Presence and species identity of rumen flukes in cattle and sheep in the Netherlands

The purpose of the study was to gain knowledge about the prevalence and identity of rumen flukes (RF) in cattle and sheep in the Netherlands. Routine faecal examinations of diagnostic submissions between May 2009 and September 2014 showed a mean annual herd or flock RF prevalence of 15.8% for cattle and 8.0% for sheep. Prevalence in cattle was higher after 2012 than before, which may reflect a change in detection method as well as an increase in true prevalence. During November and December 2014, an abattoir survey was conducted to allow for scoring of rumen fluke burden and to obtain specimens for molecular species characterization. Over 8 visits to 5 abattoirs in areas deemed to pose a high risk for trematode infection, 116 cows and 41 sheep from 27 herds and 10 flocks were examined. Prevalence of RF was higher in beef cattle than in dairy cattle and higher in cattle than in sheep. Median fluke burden was >100 specimens per animal for most positive animals. Using a semi-quantitative RF density score as a gold standard, sensitivity and specificity of a modified quantitative Dorsman egg counting method were estimated at 82.6% and 83.3%, respectively. Of 14 collected adult rumen flukes, twelve (8 bovine and 4 ovine specimens) were identified as Calicophoron daubneyi. The other two, of bovine origin, were identified as Paramphistomum leydeni, which was unexpected as in other European countries all recently collected rumen flukes in both cattle and sheep were identified as C. daubneyi. The findings implicate that multiple rumen fluke species, intermediate host species and transmission cycles may play a role in rumen fluke infections in the Netherlands

The Cauchy-Schlomilch transformation

The Cauchy-Schl\"omilch transformation states that for a function $f$ and $a, \, b > 0$, the integral of $f(x^{2})$ and $af((ax-bx^{-1})^{2}$ over the interval $[0, \infty)$ are the same. This elementary result is used to evaluate many non-elementary definite integrals, most of which cannot be obtained by symbolic packages. Applications to probability distributions is also given

Optimized stray-field-induced enhancement of the electron spin precession by buried Fe gates

The magnetic stray field from Fe gates is used to modify the spin precession frequency of InGaAs/GaAs quantum-well electrons in an external magnetic field. By using an etching process to position the gates directly in the plane of the quantum well, the stray-field influence on the spin precession increases significantly compared with results from previous studies with top-gated structures. In line with numerical simulations, the stray-field-induced precession frequency increases as the gap between the ferromagnetic gates is reduced. The inhomogeneous stray field leads to additional spin dephasing.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Weak formulation for singular diffusion equation with dynamic boundary condition

In this paper, we propose a weak formulation of the singular diffusion equation subject to the dynamic boundary condition. The weak formulation is based on a reformulation method by an evolution equation including the subdifferential of a governing convex energy. Under suitable assumptions, the principal results of this study are stated in forms of Main Theorems A and B, which are respectively to verify: the adequacy of the weak formulation; the common property between the weak solutions and those in regular problems of standard PDEs.Comment: 23 page