Impact of Home-Based Management of malaria combined with other community-based interventions: what do we learn from Rwanda?

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of home-based management of malaria (HBM) strategy on time to treatment and reported presumed malaria morbidity in children aged less than 5 years in Rwanda. Methods: The study was carried out in two malaria-endemic rural districts, one where HBM was applied and the other serving as control. In each district, a sample of mothers was surveyed by questionnaire before (2004) and after (2007) implementation of HBM. Results: After implementation, we observed: i) an increase (P<0.001) in the number of febrile children treated within 24 hours of symptom onset in the experimental district (53.7% in 2007 vs 5% in 2004) compared with the control district (28% vs 7.7%); ii) a decrease in the reported number of febrile children in the experimental district (28.7% vs 44.9%, P<0.01) compared with the control district (45.7% vs 56.5%, P<0.05). Conclusion: HBM contributed to decrease time to treatment and reported presumed malaria morbidity.Pan African Medical Journal 2013; 14:5

The relationship between gender and delinquency: Assessing the mediating role of anticipated guilt

Purpose: Gender differences in delinquency are well-documented, with dominant explanations drawing largely on control, strain, and learning theories. We suggest that gender differences in guilt mediate a substantial portion of gender\u27s association with delinquency over and above variables derived from these theories. Methods: We use negative binomial regression and path analysis to test this assertion using data collected from a convenience sample of middle-school and high-school students in a Northeastern region of the United States. Results: Results suggest that variables derived from control and learning theories may explain part of the gender gap in delinquency, but that a larger portion of the gender gap is due to gender differences in anticipated guilt. Conclusions: Anticipated guilt appears to reflect a critical component of the explanation for why males engage in higher levels of delinquency than females, and future research should therefore pay greater attention to identifying the factors that influence interpersonal differences in the experience of guilt

Deficit Limits and Fiscal Rules for Dummies

The paper shows that common fiscal rules, such as a limit to the deficit-output ratio, induce an “escape clause”–type fiscal policy, similar to that studied for monetary policy by Flood and Isard (1988 and 1989) and Lohmann (1992): The government resorts to an active stabilization (for example, countercyclical) policy only during “exceptional times” by running deficits in recession phases and surpluses during economic booms. In contrast, it optimally chooses a procyclical policy in intermediate states of the economy, for example, by raising the budget deficit when output improves. Because the optimal fiscal reaction function in the presence of fiscal rules is not monotonous in output, the standard estimates that assume linearity are prone to a serious bias, and the conclusions on the pro- or countercyclical properties of fiscal policy found in the literature are likely to be unreliable. IMF Staff Papers (2007) 54, 455–473. doi:10.1057/palgrave.imfsp.9450015