Where have all the nomads gone? Fifty years of statistical and demographic invisibilities of African mobile pastoralists

There is considerable interest in the numbers and population dynamics of mobile African pastoralists alongside a recognition that they are probably undercounted or excluded from many data sources because of the difficulties in enumerating mobile individuals. In the Sustainable Development Goals where it is anticipated that everyone will be counted and their characteristics measured, it is important to develop appropriate strategies for including mobile pastoralists. I document the extent to which mobile African pastoralists have been invisible in the demographic record in the last half century and analyse the diverse pathways by which these invisibilities have been brought about in census and survey data collection exercises in different countries. A careful review of available documentation for censuses and Demographic and Health Surveys for the band of countries from Mauritania across to Kenya reveals heterogeneous patterns of pastoral nomad statistical invisibility with different forms and intensities according to national and socio-political context. Whereas there was substantial statistical invisibility of mobile pastoralists in the 1980s and 1990s in both data sources, deliberate exclusion has been much reduced in recent years, although there remain issues of clarity and definition. Although the availability of demographic and statistical data on mobile pastoralists is improving, it is impossible to document with any accuracy any transformations in the numbers of these populations over the last half century. Considerable work on developing appropriate categories and definitions needs to be undertaken if statistics on the characteristics of mobile pastoralists are to be appropriately represented in the Sustainable Development Goals

Visibilité et invisibilité statistique en Afrique: Adapter les méthodes de collecte de données aux populations ciblées

La qualité des données démographiques nationales en Afrique revêt quatre dimensions : l’exhaustivité de la couverture, la pertinence des catégories employées dans la collecte des données, la fiabilité des données collectées et la profondeur des données sur une question précise. Cet article étudie particulièrement les deux premières dimensions afin d’examiner pourquoi certaines populations sont sous-énumérées dans différentes modalités de collecte des données nationales. Il utilise des données publiques : les recensements, les DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys) et d’autres enquêtes nationales avec leur documentation, y compris les rapports méthodologiques et les manuels d’enquêteur. Il identifie trois groupes qui sont sous-énumérés ou mal représentés – les vieilles femmes sahéliennes, les pasteurs nomades et les hommes jeunes – et il en interroge les raisons diverses : l’exclusion volontaire, les méthodologies de collecte mal adaptées à la culture locale et les définitions harmonisées

Poverty in African Households: the limits of survey representations

National and international statistics on poverty focus almost entirely on measurements at household level despite perspectives which suggest poverty should also be analysed in relation to perceived needs incorporating both material and human dimensions. Indicators calculated from surveys by-pass most notions of wealth in people We analyse what poverty means in a context of modernisation and the tensions and solutions developed by local residence units in order to survive and participate in a rapidly changing society. We compare domestic household strategies in rural and urban settings in Tanzania and Burkina Faso through detailed case studies (n=48 per country) to explore local understandings of household membership, contributions, demands, loyalties and intergenerational support. Across settings and countries we observe two contrasting responses to poverty generated by the changing socio-economic environment including new educational and health care needs and more material goods. Some households manage and mitigate poverty through extreme flexibility, maximising potential resources and managing safety nets through movement, economic diversification, sharing, or depending on kin and others in crisis. For these households wealth remains in people and in the spreading of risk and resources that people provide. The opposite response is isolation and self-containment - unable to request or offer help. Household survey data which measure poverty in terms of assets and material conditions may misrepresent both the resources base and those who can depend on it. Such data may represent the situation of isolated families and households well, but distort those for whom resources in people mitigates poverty

Inter and intra-hemispheric structural imaging markers predict depression relapse after electroconvulsive therapy: a multisite study.

Relapse of depression following treatment is high. Biomarkers predictive of an individual's relapse risk could provide earlier opportunities for prevention. Since electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) elicits robust and rapidly acting antidepressant effects, but has a >50% relapse rate, ECT presents a valuable model for determining predictors of relapse-risk. Although previous studies have associated ECT-induced changes in brain morphometry with clinical response, longer-term outcomes have not been addressed. Using structural imaging data from 42 ECT-responsive patients obtained prior to and directly following an ECT treatment index series at two independent sites (UCLA: n = 17, age = 45.41±12.34 years; UNM: n = 25; age = 65.00±8.44), here we test relapse prediction within 6-months post-ECT. Random forests were used to predict subsequent relapse using singular and ratios of intra and inter-hemispheric structural imaging measures and clinical variables from pre-, post-, and pre-to-post ECT. Relapse risk was determined as a function of feature variation. Relapse was well-predicted both within site and when cohorts were pooled where top-performing models yielded balanced accuracies of 71-78%. Top predictors included cingulate isthmus asymmetry, pallidal asymmetry, the ratio of the paracentral to precentral cortical thickness and the ratio of lateral occipital to pericalcarine cortical thickness. Pooling cohorts and predicting relapse from post-treatment measures provided the best classification performances. However, classifiers trained on each age-disparate cohort were less informative for prediction in the held-out cohort. Post-treatment structural neuroimaging measures and the ratios of connected regions commonly implicated in depression pathophysiology are informative of relapse risk. Structural imaging measures may have utility for devising more personalized preventative medicine approaches

Early (and Later) LHC Search Strategies for Broad Dimuon Resonances

Resonance searches generally focus on narrow states that would produce a sharp peak rising over background. Early LHC running will, however, be sensitive primarily to broad resonances. In this paper we demonstrate that statistical methods should suffice to find broad resonances and distinguish them from both background and contact interactions over a large range of previously unexplored parameter space. We furthermore introduce an angular measure we call ellipticity, which measures how forward (or backward) the muon is in eta, and allows for discrimination between models with different parity violation early in the LHC running. We contrast this with existing angular observables and demonstrate that ellipticity is superior for discrimination based on parity violation, while others are better at spin determination.Comment: 31 pages, 19 figures. References added, minor modifications made to section

Preliminary prediction of individual response to electroconvulsive therapy using whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging data.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) works rapidly and has been widely used to treat depressive disorders (DEP). However, identifying biomarkers predictive of response to ECT remains a priority to individually tailor treatment and understand treatment mechanisms. This study used a connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) approach in 122 patients with DEP to determine if pre-ECT whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) predicts depressive rating changes and remission status after ECT (47 of 122 total subjects or 38.5% of sample), and whether pre-ECT and longitudinal changes (pre/post-ECT) in regional brain network biomarkers are associated with treatment-related changes in depression ratings. Results show the networks with the best predictive performance of ECT response were negative (anti-correlated) FC networks, which predict the post-ECT depression severity (continuous measure) with a 76.23% accuracy for remission prediction. FC networks with the greatest predictive power were concentrated in the prefrontal and temporal cortices and subcortical nuclei, and include the inferior frontal (IFG), superior frontal (SFG), superior temporal (STG), inferior temporal gyri (ITG), basal ganglia (BG), and thalamus (Tha). Several of these brain regions were also identified as nodes in the FC networks that show significant change pre-/post-ECT, but these networks were not related to treatment response. This study design has limitations regarding the longitudinal design and the absence of a control group that limit the causal inference regarding mechanism of post-treatment status. Though predictive biomarkers remained below the threshold of those recommended for potential translation, the analysis methods and results demonstrate the promise and generalizability of biomarkers for advancing personalized treatment strategies

Mobilités familiales face à l'isolement des personnes âgées au Burkina Faso = Family mobility as a means of preventing the isolation of elderly people in Burkina Faso

Au Burkina Faso tout comme dans la majorité des pays de l’Afrique au sud du Sahara, les processus d’adaptation des ménages et familles aux crises sociales et économiques appellent de nouvelles interrogations sur les mécanismes de prise en charge des personnes âgées. Particulièrement au sein de familles multilocales, la dépendance des parents âgés suscite de nouvelles stratégies. L’étude vise à analyser les stratégies migratoires et reconfigurations familiales à partir de deux enquêtes qualitatives menées au sein de l’Observatoire de Population de Ouagadougou. Les résultats montrent comment le vieillissement induit des stratégies migratoires spécifiques pour les familles autour de Ouagadougou. Ces stratégies mobilisent les personnes dépendantes elles-mêmes ou des aidants familiaux. Elles sont fortement influencées, pas seulement par les besoins sanitaires des personnes concernées mais aussi par les normes sociales et les rôles attribués aux différents genres et générations dans l’organisation familiale traditionnelle en œuvre. Ces résultats révèlent, face au besoin de prendre en charge un parent âgé dépendant, l’ampleur des tensions entre le souci des enfants de se conformer à la norme sociale, les implications de ces aménagements dans le mode de vie familial autour de ces personnes âgées et enfin, le bien-être de ces dernières. / Care for the elderly in Burkina Faso has generally focused on issues around health and the inadequacy of the public policy response. The ways in which households and families adapt to social and economic crises call for new approaches to understanding the position of the elderly, especially the dependent elderly. It is clear that, especially within multi-local families, new strategies are being adopted to cope with the dependency of elderly parents. This study uses data from two qualitative studies undertaken within the Observatoire de Population de Ouagadougou (OPO) to analyze the migration strategies and family reconfigurations observed within families. The results show how aging leads to specific migration strategies for families around Ouagadougou where either the dependents themselves are obliged to move or, sometimes, family caregivers. Such responses are strongly influenced both by the health needs of the people concerned, and also by social norms and the roles expected of the different genders and generations in traditional family organization. Faced with the need to care for an elderly parent, we highlight the tensions between the adult offspring’s concern for complying with social norms, the implications of these changes for his/her family life, the well-being of these elderly people and, finally, the care-givers’ well-being

UN 'households' and local interpretations in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda and Tanzania

Over the half century since Independence in most African states the UN Statistical Division has played an increasing role in getting member countries to standardise and streamline their data collection and in particular the definitions used for data collection. A key concept in censuses and surveys is the definition of household since this determines the units for which much data are collected and analysed, and thus influences the data which are the basis for many policies. In this paper we analyse the evolution of the UN household definition over this time period and what aspects of the household this definition appears to be trying to capture. Using detailed census and survey documentary data (from questionnaires, enumerator and supervisor manuals etc) for 4 African countries (Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda and Tanzania) we examine the extent to which each country has actually implemented this definition in different data collection activities over the last 50 years, highlighting differences between Anglophone and Francophone practice but also noting where country level idiosyncrasies and adaptations to local conditions are priorities. In a final stage perspectives provided from in-depth interviews with key informants from different levels within the hierarchy of statistical offices in each country, demonstrate the variability in the importance accorded to the UN harmonisation aims and the problems which arise when these standardised approaches interact with local norms and living arrangements