Training of front-line health workers for tuberculosis control: Lessons from Nigeria and Kyrgyzstan

Efficient human resources development is vital for facilitating tuberculosis control in developing countries, and appropriate training of front-line staff is an important component of this process. Africa and Central Asia are over-represented in global tuberculosis statistics. Although the African region contributes only about 11% of the world population, it accounts for at least 25% of annual TB notifications, a proportion that continues to increase due to poor case management and the adverse impact of HIV/AIDS. Central Asia's estimated current average tuberculosis prevalence rate of 240/100 000 is significantly higher than the global average of 217/100 000. With increased resources currently becoming available for countries in Africa and Central Asia to improve tuberculosis control, it is important to highlight context-specific training benchmarks, and propose how human resources deficiencies may be addressed, in part, through efficient (re)training of frontline tuberculosis workers. This article compares the quality, quantity and distribution of tuberculosis physicians, laboratory staff, community health workers and nurses in Nigeria and Kyrgyzstan, and highlights implications for (re)training tuberculosis workers in developing countries

Modeling the analysis of speech errors of Chinese students learning Russian

Цель данной статьи заключается в том, чтобы определить, насколько снижается информативность фразы для русскоговорящего адресата, высказанной иностранцем (в исследовательском случае китайцем), и, соответственно, как увеличивается коммуникативная нагрузка на первого посредством возрастающей когнитивной сложности. Материалом для исследования послужили: 1) ошибочные устные высказывания на занятиях по РКИ и письменные продукты (сочинения, изложения, а также электронная переписка на русском языке в мессенджерах (WeChat, ВКонтакте) китайских студентов, обучающихся на подготовительном отделении УрГУПС; 2) реакции-интерпретации русскоговорящих адресатов на фразы, содержащие речевую/-ые ошибку/-и. В статье описаны результаты лингвистического эксперимента, произведен расчет по введенной авторами формуле, представлена математическая модель в виде диаграммы, демонстрирующая качество восприятия информации адресатом.This article is aimed at determining how much the informativeness of a foreigner’s (in the case described – a Chinese) phrase addressed to a Russophone recipient decreases and, accordingly, how much the communicative load on the latter increases through increasing cognitive complexity. Erroneous statements at Russian as a Foreign Language lessons produced by Chinese students studying at the Preparatory Department of USURT and their written products (essays, presentations, as well as communication in Russian in WeChat, VKontakte messengers) and reactions-interpretations of Russian-speaking addressees to phrases containing speech errors served as materials for the research. The article describes the results of a linguistic experiment, the calculation is made according to the formula introduced by the authors, according to the results of the study, a mathematical model is presented in the form of a diagram that demonstrates the quality of information perception by the recipient