May the Best Canon Win: Lockhart v. United States and the Battle of Statutory Interpretation

In Lockhart v. United States, the Supreme Court resolved a long-standing circuit split regarding 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(2), which triggered a mandatory minimum sentence for recidivists who had previously been convicted under federal or state crimes relating to “aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward.” In expected fashion, the Court relied on the statute’s plain meaning to decide whether Lockhart’s previous crime had triggered the mandatory minimum. However, even with identical approaches to the text, the majority and dissent reached contrary conclusions. This commentary explores how a single approach could result in dueling interpretations, and whether judicial activism hides behind both opinions

Comparing SVM and Naive Bayes classifiers for text categorization with Wikitology as knowledge enrichment

The activity of labeling of documents according to their content is known as text categorization. Many experiments have been carried out to enhance text categorization by adding background knowledge to the document using knowledge repositories like Word Net, Open Project Directory (OPD), Wikipedia and Wikitology. In our previous work, we have carried out intensive experiments by extracting knowledge from Wikitology and evaluating the experiment on Support Vector Machine with 10- fold cross-validations. The results clearly indicate Wikitology is far better than other knowledge bases. In this paper we are comparing Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Na\"ive Bayes (NB) classifiers under text enrichment through Wikitology. We validated results with 10-fold cross validation and shown that NB gives an improvement of +28.78%, on the other hand SVM gives an improvement of +6.36% when compared with baseline results. Na\"ive Bayes classifier is better choice when external enriching is used through any external knowledge base.Comment: 5 page

Role of the Uterine Artery Ligation (UAL) In Control of Postpartum Hemorrhage

Objective: To determine the efficacy and safety of uterine artery ligation (UAL) in control of Postpartum Hemorrhage. Methodology: This case series study was conducted at Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics Peoples University of Medical & Health Sciences for Women Nawabshah. All the women age between 20-45 years, gestation duration at and beyond 34 weeks, antepartum hemorrhage; intraoperative atonic postpartum hemorrhage and discovery of a placenta accreta; or an adherent placental part after piecemeal removal of the placenta, with bleeding from the placental site were included. After failure of treatment from medical measures, the initial surgical approach of uterine artery ligation (UAL) was done. Efficacy was defined as positive when patient improves or clinically doesn’t develop any complication throughout admission after UAL. Safety was assessed by appearance of side effects if any occurred after procedure. Data was recorded via study proforma and analysis was done by using SPSS version 20. Results: Out of 76 patients admitted of postpartum hemorrhage mean age was 58 years. Most of the patients 59.2% were multiparous and 40.8% were primiparous. The most common cause of postpartum hemorrhage was uterine atony 56.5% and adherent Placenta accreta 43.42%. Most of the patients 81.6% had no postoperative complications except for 11 patients, who had developed gaping of the wound from which they recovered and discharged. The patients required hysterectomy due to intractable hemorrhage and 2.3% mortality was observed due to DIC. Conclusion:  Uterine devascularization by bilateral uterine artery ligation is a simple, effective and the safest initial surgical option with less blood loss and less surgical time for controlling postpartum hemorrhage during cesarean section. It should be used as the first surgical step of choice after medical managements fail in controlling postpartum hemorrhage due to minimal rate of complications and mortality

Intrusion-aware Alert Validation Algorithm for Cooperative Distributed Intrusion Detection Schemes of Wireless Sensor Networks

Existing anomaly and intrusion detection schemes of wireless sensor networks have mainly focused on the detection of intrusions. Once the intrusion is detected, an alerts or claims will be generated. However, any unidentified malicious nodes in the network could send faulty anomaly and intrusion claims about the legitimate nodes to the other nodes. Verifying the validity of such claims is a critical and challenging issue that is not considered in the existing cooperative-based distributed anomaly and intrusion detection schemes of wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a validation algorithm that addresses this problem. This algorithm utilizes the concept of intrusion-aware reliability that helps to provide adequate reliability at a modest communication cost. In this paper, we also provide a security resiliency analysis of the proposed intrusion-aware alert validation algorithm.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Assessing retention and motivation of public health-care providers (particularly female providers) in rural Pakistan

The main objectives of this project in Pakistan were to explore the core issue of availability of health providers, especially female providers who are required for provision of maternal and neonatal healthcare, and to determine the range of factors that either constrain or motivate providers to serve in key positions in public facilities in rural areas. The study, conducted by the Population Council with funding from the Maternal and Newborn Health Programme ‐ Research and Advocacy Fund, identifies a number of problems faced by healthcare providers working in the public healthcare system in Pakistan and makes the following recommendations for consideration by policymakers: 1) ensure implementation of a “Human Resource for Health Management” system; 2) enforce strict adherence to organizational policies on recruitment, transfer, and promotion; 3) improve the physical work environment and ensure the availability of equipment, medicine, and supplies; and 4) put in place a national private practice regulation policy

Business Intelligence at Telenor Pakistan

Telenor Pakistan won two “best practices” awards from The Data Warehousing Institute for its business intelligence (BI) infrastructure in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, its Director of BI was promoted to Vice President of BI for the Telenor Group that had stakes in cellular network operations across thirteen countries. The new Director of BI, Rizwan Fazal, had been recruited from a major competitor. With past credentials, existing challenges and future ambitions in mind, his task was now to design a “roadmap” for BI that would satisfy all stakeholders that the unit would indeed progress ahead. The challenge – as he saw it – was, “How do you take what is already a de facto ‘centre-of-excellence’ even further?

Provider cost analysis supports results-based contracting out of maternal and newborn health services: an evidence-based policy perspective

Background There is dearth of evidence on provider cost of contracted out services particularly for Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH). The evidence base is weak for policy makers to estimate resources required for scaling up contracting. This paper ascertains provider unit costs and expenditure distribution at contracted out government primary health centers to inform the development of optimal resource envelopes for contracting out MNH services. Methods This is a case study of provider costs of MNH services at two government Rural Health Centers (RHCs) contracted out to a non-governmental organization in Pakistan. It reports on four selected Basic Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (BEmONC) services provided in one RHC and six Comprehensive Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (CEmONC) services in the other. Data were collected using staff interviews and record review to compile resource inputs and service volumes, and analyzed using the CORE Plus tool. Unit costs are based on actual costs of MNH services and are calculated for actual volumes in 2011 and for volumes projected to meet need with optimal resource inputs. Results The unit costs per service for actual 2011 volumes at the BEmONC RHC were antenatal care (ANC) visit USD$18.78, normal delivery US$ 84.61, newborn care US$16.86 and a postnatal care (PNC) visit US$ 13.86; and at the CEmONC RHC were ANC visit US$45.50, Normal Delivery US$ 148.43, assisted delivery US$167.43, C-section US$ 183.34, Newborn Care US$41.07, and PNC visit US$ 27.34. The unit costs for the projected volumes needed were lower due to optimal utilization of resources. The percentage distribution of expenditures at both RHCs was largest for salaries of technical staff, followed by salaries of administrative staff, and then operating costs, medicines, medical and diagnostic supplies. Conclusions The unit costs of MNH services at the two contracted out government rural facilities remain higher than is optimal, primarily due to underutilization. Provider cost analysis using standard treatment guideline (STG) based service costing frameworks should be applied across a number of health facilities to calculate the cost of services and guide development of evidence based resource envelopes and performance based contracting