A Mobile-based Healthcare Utilization Assessment in Rural Ghana

AbstractBackgroundIdentifying the needs of disadvantaged populations is essential to addressing those needs. Investigations of healthcare access in rural sub-Saharan Africa rely on in-person interviews and SMS, which have distinct limitations.ObjectivesTo use interactive-voice-response (IVR) technology to survey healthcare utilization patterns in rural Ghana.MethodsThis project used IVR to survey healthcare behavior by mobile phone users in rural Ghana. Automated voice messages offered an 18-question survey in 5 local languages.ResultsOut of >64,000 placed calls, 8,601 proceeded to the survey. Survey completion rate was 1.3%, for 827 full respondents, at a total cost of 5 USD for each full survey response.ConclusionsIVR has limitations, but the ability to engage rural populations with low time and resource investment is valuable

Evidence of a dibaryon spectrum in coherent π0π0d photoproduction at forward deuteron angles

The coherent reaction, was studied with the BGOOD experiment at ELSA from threshold to a centre-of-mass energy of 2850 MeV. A full kinematic reconstruction was made, with final state deuterons identified in the forward spectrometer and decays in the central BGO Rugby Ball. The strength of the differential cross section exceeds what can be described by models of coherent photoproduction and instead supports the three isoscalar dibaryon candidates reported by the ELPH collaboration at 2.38, 2.47 and 2.63 GeV/c2. A low mass enhancement in the invariant mass is also observed at the ⁎ centre-of-mass energy which is consistent with the ABC effect. At higher centre-of-mass energies, a narrow peak in the invariant mass at 2114 MeV/c2 with a width of 20 MeV/c2 supports a sequential two-dibaryon decay mechanism

The theory and method of comparative area studies

Though many now downplay the tension between area studies and disciplinary political science, there has been little substantive guidance on how to accomplish complementarity between their respective approaches. This article seeks to develop the idea of comparative area studies (CAS) as a rubric that maintains the importance of regional knowledge while contributing to general theory building using inductive intra-regional, cross-regional, inter-regional comparison. Treating regions as theoretically-grounded analytical categories, rather than inert or innate geographical entities, can help inform both quantitative and qualitative attempts to build general theory.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Observation of a cusp-like structure in the γp → K+Σ0 cross section at forward angles and low momentum transfer

The gamma+p->K+ + Sigma0 differential cross section at extremely forward angles was measured at the BGOOD experiment. A three-quarter drop in strength over a narrow range in energy and a strong dependence on the polar angle of the in the centre-of-mass of the reaction is observed at a centre-of-mass energy of 1900 MeV. Residing close to multiple open and hidden strangeness thresholds, the structure appears consistent with meson-baryon threshold effects which may contribute to the reaction mechanism

The BGO Calorimeter of BGO-OD Experiment

The BGO Rugby Ball is a large solid angle electromagnetic calorimeter now installed in the ELSA Facility in Bonn. The BGO is operating in the BGO-OD experiment aiming to study meson photoproduction off proton and neutron induced by a Bremsstrahlung polarized gamma beam of energies from 0.2 to 3.2 GeV and an intensity of 5 x 10(7) photons per second. The scintillating material characteristics and the photomultiplier read-out make this detector particularly suited for the detection of medium energy photons and electrons with very good energy resolution. The detector has been equipped with a new electronics read-out system, consisting of 30 sampling ADC Wie-Ne-R modules which perform the off-line reconstruction of the signal start-time allowing for a good timing resolution. Performances in linearity, resolution and time response have been carefully tested at the Beam Test Facility of the INFN National Laboratories in Frascati by using a matrix of 7 BGO crystals coupled to photomultipliers and equipped with the Wie-Ne-R sampling ADCs

THE BGO-OD EXPERIMENT AT ELSA

Meson photoproduction is a key tool for the experimental investigation of the nucleon excitation spectrum. To disentangle the specific couplings of resonances, in addition to the rather well measured pion and eta photoproduction channels it is mandatory to obtain information on channels involving strange and vector mesons and higher mass pseudoscalar mesons, and the associated multi-particle final states with both charged and neutral particles. In this respect, the new BGO-OD experiment at the ELSA accelerator of the University of Bonn's Physikalisches Institut provides unique instrumentation. We describe the experiment, present its status and the initial program of measurements

Strangeness Photoproduction at the BGO-OD Experiment

BGO-OD is a newly commissioned experiment to investigate the internal structure of the nucleon, using an energy tagged bremsstrahlung photon beam at the ELSA electron facility. The setup consists of a highly segmented BGO calorimeter surrounding the target, with a particle tracking magnetic spectrometer at forward angles. BGO-OD is ideal for investigating meson photoproduction. The extensive physics programme for open strangeness photoproduction is introduced, and preliminary analysis presented