The effect of early marriage timing on women's and children's health in Sub-Saharan Africa and South West Asia

Background. Age of marriage is a barrier to mother’s health care around pregnancy and children health outcomes. Objective. We provide evidence on the health benefits of postponing early marriage among young wives (from age 10-14 to age 15-17) on women’s health care and children’s health for Saharan Africa (SSA) and South West Asia (SWA). Methods. We use data for 39 countries (Demographic and Health Surveys) to estimate the effects of postponing early marriage for women’s health care and children’s health outcomes and immunisation using matching techniques. We also assess if women's health empowerment and health constraints are additional barriers. Findings. We found that in SSA, delaying the age of marriage from age 10-14 to age 15-17 and from age 15-17 to age 18 or above leads to an increase of maternal neotetanus vaccinations of 2.4% and 3.2% respectively, while gains on the likelihood of postnatal checks is larger for delaying marriage among the youngest wives (age 10- 14). In SWA, the number of antenatal visits increases by 34%, while the likelihood of having a skilled birth attendant goes up to 4.1% if young wives postpone marriage. In SSA, the probability of children receiving basic vaccinations is twice as large and their neonatal mortality reduction is nearly double if their mothers had married between age 15-17 instead of at age 10-14. The extent of these benefits is also shaped by supply constraints and cultural factors. For instance, we found that weak bargaining power on health decisions for young wives leads to 11% (SWA) fewer antenatal visits and 13% less chances (SSA) of attending postnatal checks. Conclusion. Delaying age of marriage among young wives can lead to considerable gains in health care utilisation and children health in SSA and SWA if supported by policies that lessen supply constraints and raise women's health empowerment

Mosquito Phonotaxis Assay

Phonotaxis experiments can provide information on the spectrum of sounds relevant to mosquito acoustic behaviors. It is widely known that males of disease-transmitting species are attracted to tones with frequencies resembling the wingbeat frequencies of their conspecific females. Thus, phonotaxis experiments can be coupled with wingbeat frequency measurements to inform the development of vector control tools such as acoustic traps and lures. This protocol describes how to set up and execute a phonotaxis experimen

Nonlinear Propagation of Crossing Electromagnetic Waves in Vacuum due to Photon-Photon Scattering

We review the theory for photon-photon scattering in vacuum, and some of the proposals for its experimental search, including the results of our recent works on the subject. We then describe a very simple and sensitive proposal of an experiment and discuss how it can be used at the present (HERCULES) and the future (ELI) ultrahigh power laser facilities either to find the first evidence of photon-photon scattering in vacuum, or to significantly improve the current experimental limits.Comment: Talk delivered (by D.T.) at the International Workshop on the Frontiers of Modern Plasma Physics, Trieste, 2008. To appear in the proceeding

Nonlinear phase shift from photon-photon scattering in vacuum

We show that QED nonlinear effects imply a phase correction to the linear evolution of electromagnetic waves in vacuum. We provide explicit solutions of the modified Maxwell's equations for the propagation of a superposition of two plane waves, and calculate analytically and numerically the corresponding phase shift. This provides a new framework for the search of all-optical signatures of photon-photon scattering in vacuum. In particular, we propose an experiment for measuring the phase shift in projected high-power laser facilities.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Some references were added, and the comparison with AC Kerr effect has been improve

Conciencia tributaria en la lucha contra el fraude fiscal

[ES] Fraude es la conducta contraria al ordenamiento jurídico cuya finalidad es ocultar o distorsionar la realidad para satisfacer intereses particulares en prejuicio de la Hacienda pública. En este trabajo se va a analizar la conciencia tributaria de la sociedad partiendo de la base que en España hay un alto déficit de conocimientos tanto por parte de los educadores como de los ciudadanos en general. Para ello, el trabajo se va a estructurar en cuatro partes siendo la primera dedicada a la contextualización y evolución histórica de los tributos, la segunda dedicada a un breve análisis por etapas del IRPF desde una perspectiva familiar, la tercera habla sobre la percepción de la sociedad hacia lo público, mediante estudios cuantitativos se analizará su valoración y la relación que tiene la variable educacional tanto con la percepción como con el cumplimiento fiscal y la confianza del individuo hacia las instituciones públicas. Finalmente, la cuarta parte se centra en una exposición de los datos de cumplimiento tributario y de las técnicas de la administración tributaria en la lucha contra el fraude fiscal.[EN] Fraud is conduct contrary to the legal system whose purpose is to hide or distort reality in order to satisfy particular interests in prejudice to public finances. In this paper we will analyze the tax awareness of society based on the fact that in Spain there is a high knowledge deficit. To do this, the work will be structured in four parts, the first being devoted to the contextualization and historical evolution of the tributes, the second is a short analysis by stages of the income tax from a family perspective, the third talks about society's perception of the public administration, using quantitative studies to analyze the relation that the educational variable has with the perception of the public administration, the tax compliance and the trust of the society to the public institutions. Finally, the fourth part focuses on a presentation of tax compliance and the tax administration techniques in the fight against tax fraud.Cerezo Marcos, A. (2022). Conciencia tributaria en la lucha contra el fraude fiscal. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/182331TFG

Industrial-strength Rule Interoperability using Model Driven Engineering

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is rapidly maturing and is being deployed in several situations. We report here on an experiment conducted in the context of ILOG, a leader in the development of Business Rule Management Systems (BRMS). BRMSs aim at enabling business users automating their business policies. There is a growing number of BRMS supporting different languages, but also a lack of tools for bridging them. In this paper, we present an approach based on MDE techniques for bridging rule languages; the solution has been fully implemented and tested on different BRMS. The success of the experiment has led to the development of a significant number of model transformations. At the same time, this deployment has shown new problems arising from the management of a high number of artifacts. We discuss the positive assessment of MDE in this field, but also the need to address the complexity generated

Detecting photon-photon scattering in vacuum at exawatt lasers

In a recent paper, we have shown that the QED nonlinear corrections imply a phase correction to the linear evolution of crossing electromagnetic waves in vacuum. Here, we provide a more complete analysis, including a full numerical solution of the QED nonlinear wave equations for short-distance propagation in a symmetric configuration. The excellent agreement of such a solution with the result that we obtain using our perturbatively-motivated Variational Approach is then used to justify an analytical approximation that can be applied in a more general case. This allows us to find the most promising configuration for the search of photon-photon scattering in optics experiments. In particular, we show that our previous requirement of phase coherence between the two crossing beams can be released. We then propose a very simple experiment that can be performed at future exawatt laser facilities, such as ELI, by bombarding a low power laser beam with the exawatt bump.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure