Does variation in GP practice matter for the length of sick leave? A multilevel analysis based on Norwegian GP—patient data

In many countries, the social insurance system is under pressure from an ageing population. An increasing number of people are on sickness benefits and disability pensions in Norway. The general practitioner (GP) is responsible for assessing work capacity and issuing certificates for sick leave based on an evaluation of the patient. Although many studies have analysed certified sickness absence and predictive factors, very few studies focus on the length of sick leave and no studies assess its variation between patients, GPs or geographical areas within a multilevel framework. This study aims to analyse factors explaining the variation in the length of certified sick leave and to disentangle patients, GPs and municipality sources of variation in sickness durations for the whole population of Norwegian workers in 2003. This study uses a unique Norwegian administrative data set that merges data from different sources. The study uses amatched patient—GP data set, and employs amultilevel random intercept model to separate out patient, GP and municipality-level explained and unexplained parts of the variation in the certified sickness durations. We find that all observed patient and GP characteristics are significantly associated with the length of sick leaves (LSL). However, 98% of the variation in the LSL is attributed to patient factors rather than influenced by variations in GP practice or differences in municipality-level characteristics. Medical diagnosis is an important observed factor explaining certified sickness durations. Low variations across GPs may imply that the gatekeeping role of Norwegian GPs is weak compared with their advocate role.general practitioners (GPs); length of sick leave; multilevel regression models; matched GP—patient data

Women in rural Bangladesh: empowered by access to mobile phones

Mobile phones are seen as a means for social and economic progress in rural and remote areas of developing countries. In Bangladesh the availability and use of information and communication technology (ICT), particularly mobile phones, is thought to have accelerated the development of women in the rural population by creating the possibility of a wider connection. Using qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection, this research has investigated the impact of mobile phone use by women with particular emphasis on opportunities in health, education and livelihood. A sample of 99 women from three rural villages in Bangladesh showed that mobile phones provide easy access to health related services. Although impact on facilitating girls’ education appears to be limited, mobile phones have an indirect effect in ensuring security for girls. Respondents confirmed that their overall living standards have improved due to access to information on economic and income earning opportunities. These rural women also feel independent and empowered by access to a mobile phone. It can be argued that mobile phone technology can facilitate improvements in the living standards of rural women, which contribute to their personal development. Finally, the paper suggests that wide and innovative utilization of ICT is needed to accelerate development of women in the rural population with the help of low-cost mobile phone technology

Teachers' Sickness Absence in Primary Schools: A Panel Data Multilevel Analysis

This paper uses longitudinal employer–employee data and multilevel models to examine both observed and unobserved variation of the probability and length of certified and self-certified sickness absence for Norwegian primary school teachers. We argue that self-certified absences are particularly prone to moral hazard. We find that most of the observed teacher, school and municipality characteristics are significantly associated with the probability and the length of sickness absence. However, most of the unexplained variation is attributed to teacher factors rather than influenced by variation at the school or municipality levels. Teacher characteristics that may be associated with less attachment to the workplace increase the probability of self-certified absences. Moreover, the unexplained variation in schools and at municipality level is higher for self-certified than for certified sickness absence. There may be some scope for reducing self-certified absence by improving work conditions or changing administrative practices, but our main policy conclusion is that to reduce sickness absence, the main focus must be on individual health and the incentives to report sick.sickness absence; employer-employee data; multilevel analysis

Temporal causality and dynamics of financial development, trade openness, and economic growth in Vector Auto Regression (VAR) for Bangladesh, 1974-2003: Implication for poverty reduction

This paper examines whether financial development and openness to international trade can play any positive role in reducing poverty in Bangladesh through their growth enhancing effect. The paper takes granted that growth reduce poverty and makes econometric test to ascertain whether financial development and trade openness cause growth. Standard Granger-causality test is employed for this purpose. Variables are found first difference stationary without having any co-integrating relationship as reported by Johansen co-integration test. As such Granger-causality test is carried out in first difference VAR. The paper does not find any causal relationship between trade openness and growth, and financial development and growth. This implies that financial development and trade openness do not reduce poverty through their effect on growth. However, bi-directional causal link evidenced between financial development and trade openness indicates that these two can contribute to poverty reduction directly through their mutual effect on each other

Proposed Thermal Circuit Model for the Cost Effective Design of Fin FET

The Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) device has been rapidly evolving and its size has been drastically decreasing ever since it was first fabricated in 1960 [Us Patent 3,356,858: 1967]. The substantial reduction in the CMOS device size has led to short channel effects which have resulted in the introduction of Fin Field Effect Transistor (FinFET), a tri-gate transistor built on a silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate. Furthermore, due to the geometry of the FinFET the severity of the heating problem has dramatically increased. Self-heating in the 3-dimensional FinFET device enhances the temperature gradients and peak temperature, which decrease drive current, increase the interconnect delays and degrade the device and interconnect reliability. In this work we have proposed a methodology to develop an accurate thermal model for the FinFET through a rigorous physics-based mathematical approach. A thermal circuit for the FinFET will be derived from the model. This model will allow chip designers to predict interconnect temperature which will lead them to achieve cost-effective design for the FinFET-based semiconductor chips. Keywords: Bulk CMOS, SOI CMOS, FinFET, Thermal heating

Concentration indices of income related self-reported health: a meta-regression analysis

Proliferating evidence reporting on standardised cross-country concentration indexes of income related self-reported health is increasingly being used for policy evaluation. Nonetheless, limited efforts have been put forward to examine the extent to which such evidence is subject to any specific methodological and publication biases, given that studies rely upon survey data form different samples and both heterogeneous health system institutions and empirical strategies. We conduct the first study drawing upon appropriate statistical methods to examine the presence of publication bias in the health economics literature measuring health inequalities of self-reported health. We test for other biases including the effect of precision estimates based on meta-regression analysis (MRA). We account for a set of biases in estimates of income-related health inequalities that rely on concentration index-related methods and self-reported health measures. Our findings suggest evidence of publication bias that primarily depends on the cardinalisation of self-reported health and some evidence of study-specific precision

Origin and Accumulation Mechanism of Gas Condensate in Kailashtila Gas Field, Sylhet Basin, Bangladesh

The Kailashtila gas field (KGF) is situated in the northeastern part of Sylhet basin, Bangladesh. This paperpresents chemical characteristics of extractable natural gas in drilled well KTL-2, in order to examine their potentialsource and maturity of organic matter, and hydrocarbon accumulation mechanism in the basin. The gas condensate inthe KTL-2 composed primarily of methane (85.81 wt.%), ethane (6.68 wt.%), propane (2.13 wt.%), and traces of higherhydrocarbons (i-butane, 0.69 wt.%; n-butane, 0.73 wt.%; i-pentane, 0.50 wt.%; n-pentane, 0.44 wt.%; hexane, 1.27wt.%; heptane, 0.99 wt.%; octane, 0.24 wt.%). Nitrogen and CO2 contents in the gas condensate are low (0.46 wt.%and 0.05 wt.%, respectively). Average dry coefficient (C1/C1–5) value in the gas condensate is 0.93 (0.91–0.95), whichreflects relatively mature hydrocarbon migrating from nearby deeply buried source rocks. The δ13C1 (–39 to –40‰) andC1/C(2+3) (19.77) variation diagram show that gas condensate in the KGF is mainly controlled by type III kerogen, andthe organic matter was thermally mature in nature. However, the relationships between stable isotope value of methane(δ13C1), ethane (δ13C2) and propane (δ13C3) indicate mainly thermogenic origin of the studied gas condensate, andminor input from mixed thermogenic and bacteriogenic processes

TUKAB: An Efficient NAT Traversal Scheme on Security of VoIP Network System Based on Session Initiation Protocol

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is subject to many security threats unique to both telephony and traditional Internet data transmission. As adoption of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based telephony increases, concerns are rising over risks to system confidentiality, integrity and availability. Currently, several VoIP security tools are available to detect vulnerabilities and protect against attacks. In this paper we present various issues concerning the security of VoIP. A brief discussion of the SIP protocol is presented based on its operating principle. Finally we proposed a solution for the Network Address Translation (NAT) traversal problem of SIP based networks. This solution supports all types of NAT and maintains the current VoIP architecture. Based on our experiment, we examined the latency, buffer size and voice packet loss under various network conditions. We found that it is possible to establish a call from outside the NAT to inside maintaining the quality issues of VoIP call. With this approach it is possible to use the current network architecture with having few changes in the registrar server. Hence we evaluate our model showing the QoS conditions that achieves both high efficiency and secure voice transmission. Sufficient simulation results are presented to verify our model