Macroeconomic Policy Reform and Economic Growth in Zambia

The paper discusses the role that government policies and macroeconomic reforms played in influencing economic growth in Zambia during the period 1964-2013. The study identifies two economic systems that guided the implementation of policies and reforms in Zambia. The first relates to a command-driven economy, where economic growth patterns were influenced by nationalist ideologies and administrative controls. The second relates to a market-driven economy where economic growth patterns were influenced by market-oriented fundamentals with some degree of administrative controls. The study concludes that economic policies and reforms were instrumental in influencing the performance of major macroeconomic drivers of economic growth in Zambia such as the accumulation of physical capital, human capital development, international trade, real exchange rate determination and inflation

Public Debt and Economic Growth Nexus in the Euro Area: A Dynamic Panel ARDL Approach

This study investigates the relationship between public debt and economic growth using panel data from 10 European Countries. Using a panel ARDL approach, the results show that public debt, government consumption, and the real exchange rate are negatively associated with economic growth both in the short- and long-run. Furthermore, investment and the real interest rate were found to be positively associated with economic growth both in the short- and long-run. Inflation and trade openness were found to have mixed results: both were negatively associated with economic growth in the long run while in the short run the relationship was positive and consistent across groups with a few exceptions. Second, the study results also showed that debt is nonlinear at the 70% threshold only in the long-run while in the short run the results were consistently negative and across groups. The study results have significant policy implications for the Stability and Growth Pact of the Euro area. It is recommended that member states should ensure fiscal sustainability by balancing their fiscal budgets to effectively reduce the accumulation of public debt as well as implementing structural reforms that will improve the efficiency of investment as well as macroeconomic stability.JEL Codes - C23, F34, F43, H63, N1

Exogenous and Endogenous Growth Models: a Critical Review

The main divisions of the theoretical economic growth literature that we study today include exogenous and endogenous growth models that have transitioned through a number of notions and criticisms. Proponents of exogenous growth models argue that technological progress is the key determinant of long-run economic growth as well as international productivity differences. Within the endogenous growth models, there are two notions that are propagated. The first postulates that capital used for innovative purposes can exhibit increasing returns to scale and thus account for the international productivity differences we observe today. The key determinants include knowledge, human capital, and research and development. The second argues that factors that affect the efficiency of capital, and hence cause capital flight, can also explain international productivity differences. These factors that affect the efficiency of capital include government spending, inflation, real exchange rates, and real interest rates. Our study results reveal that there is still no agreement on the dominant theoretical economic growth model amongst economists that can fully account for international productivity differences. We conclude that the future of theoretical economic growth is far from over and more work needs to be done to develop more practical structural economic growth models

Inclusive Anti-poaching? Exploring the Potential and Challenges of Community-based Anti-Poaching

As it is acknowledged that the largely (para)militarised approach to anti-poaching has its limitations, alternative approaches to conservation law enforcement are being sought. One alternative, what we call inclusive anti-poaching, focuses on including people from local communities in antipoaching initiatives. Using a case study of a community programme from southern Mozambique, located adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, we examine the potential of a community ranger initiative to move towards a more inclusive and sustainable approach to anti-poaching and conservation. While highlighting its challenges and potential drawbacks, we argue that including local people in conservation law enforcement efforts can help address poaching and the problematic aspects of current anti-poaching measures. However, to be a genuine and sustainable alternative, community ranger programmes must be part of a broader shift towards developing local wildlife economies that benefit local communities, as opposed to supporting pre-existing antipoaching interventions

Exploring teachers' interpretations and implementations of the intended mathematical literacy curriculum

A thesis submitted to the School of Science Education in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, September 2013This study aims at investigating the question: How do Mathematical Literacy (ML) teachers interpret, experience and implement the intended Mathematical Literacy curriculum in Grades 10 – 12? The study draws from a socio-cultural perspective to analyse the ML Curriculum and teachers’ interpretations of the ML curriculum. It draws largely from Basil Bernstein’s (1975; 1982; 1996) framework of knowledge system and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (1996) framework of curriculum analysis. The study consists of three phases: The first phase involved 60 teachers across schools in the East London (Eastern Cape) district of South Africa. The teachers’ views and experiences of Mathematical Literacy, as expressed in questionnaires, were analysed, using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) programme. In the second phase, seven teachers were purposefully selected for interviews from the sixty teachers who had participated in the first phase. The third phase involved consecutive lesson observations with two teachers selected from the seven teachers who had participated in the second phase. Results show that teachers have different views and understandings of the Mathematical Literacy curriculum, and also have different ways of implementing the subject. Teachers’ mathematical backgrounds were found to have a great influence on how teachers implement Mathematical Literacy. The study illuminates connections and disconnections between the intended curriculum and the implemented curriculum, and furthermore shows that teachers’ interpretations and recontextualisations of the intended curriculum in classroom contexts are key to the nature of the curriculum that is implemented. The study explores five important areas which relate to how teachers interpret, experience and implement Mathematical Literacy. These areas are: (i) Teacher Knowledge; (ii) Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Literacy; (iii) Recontextualising and reproducing the curriculum; (iv) Mathematisation in Mathematical Literacy and (v) Content and contexts of Mathematical Literacy. The study concludes with recommendations for classroom practice and for further research

The Development and Implementation of an Early Intervention Program for Underserved Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

This dissertation focuses on the design and implementation of an early intervention protocol—the Early Social Interaction-Community Outreach Project (ESI-CO)—for families with limited education and limited income. The project was modified from an existing parent-mediated intervention, the Early Social Interaction Project (Wetherby & Woods, 2006), to increase participation from a population that historically has been underserved, and to place greater emphasis on the influences of family environment and experiences of caregivers of children with ASD. Specific aims of the project were to 1) apply empirically supported methods for promoting treatment attendance, adherence, and retention in the specified population; and 2) provide preliminary outcome data that includes descriptive, quantitative, and qualitative analyses of the experiences of participating families. Participants were 14 families from the Southeast Michigan region. Families received 24 in-home treatment sessions over the course of 5 months with an additional 3 months of resource support. Data were collected and analyzed using a mixed- methods approach. A single-subject multiple baseline design was used to measure caregivers’ acquisition of strategies to facilitate their child’s social engagement and communication, while additional data were collected qualitatively to assess caregivers’ satisfaction with the intervention. Eight families completed the intervention, yielding an attrition rate of 38%. This rate was higher than most other reported autism interventions, but lower than what is typically reported in research with low-income populations. Data are presented on the first four families to complete the intervention. Caregivers demonstrated acquisition of treatment strategies with generalization of skills to activities and families were assisted in identifying and enrolling in community autism resources. Overall, caregivers reported positive experiences with the intervention. The ESI-CO study yields promising results in promoting positive change in families from underserved populations. Future directions will include the recruitment of a larger sample and modifications to the research and intervention design to afford the examination of mediating and moderating factors affecting caregiver and child outcome. Results from the project will contribute to the development of treatment services that are accessible and appropriate for families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.Ph.D.PsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89803/1/tmhcarr_1.pd

Teachers' views on the role of context in mathematical literacy

This study focused on teachers’ views on the role of context in Mathematical Literacy. The study falls within a constructivist framework. The research method used was a case study involving two teachers. The data for the study was collected from teachers through semi-structured interviews and was collected from learners through mathematical literacy tasks. In the analysis of the research data, five issues are identified and discussed: They are concerned with (a) the balance between content and context, (b) the relation between context and access to mathematics, (c) links between context and interest, (d) context and language and (e) context as a barrier in mathematics. The study concludes that real life context is very important and useful in teaching and learning mathematics. However, teachers need be careful in selecting context because inappropriate context can become a barrier to learning. The report concludes with recommendations for classroom practice, teacher education and further research

An investigation into the improvement in WCDMA system performance using multiuser detection and interference cancellation

WCDMA is typically characterised as a system capable of providing mobile users with data rates up to 2 Mb/s and beyond. It has been termed an ultra high-speed, ultra high-capacity radio technology that will be able to carry a new range of fast, colourful media, such as colour graphics, video, animations, digital audio, Internet and e-mail that consumers will be able to access over their mobiles devices. This current study has researched on the various existing Multiuser detection (MUD) processes or proposals conducted by various research institutions around the world. It has identified the advantages that the past work offers, and it is these advantages that form the basis of the current research into the improvement techniques. The proposed Partial Parallel Pipelined Multiuser Detector (PPPMUD or P3MUD) has come about from two main flavours or directions of research. The first one seeks to promote the Soft Parallel Interference Cancellation technique as an effective bias mitigation technique. This bias occurring in the second stage decision statistics, exhibits a very harmful effect on system Bit Error Rate, (BER), particularly for large system loads. This current study goes further by carefully analysing the Soft Cancellation Factor, SCF behaviour to eventually derive and determine the optimum SCF value which exhibits positive characteristics when varied with the increasing system load (number of users). This optimum SCF value is called the universal SCF or SCFUNV, as it is theoretically supposed to perform favourably under various system loads. A favourable or acceptable performance would be characterised by low observed or measured BER during the system processing stages. A further enhancement to the operational performance of the SCFUNV algorithm is the SCFUNV Compensator, which is basically a compensation mechanism created by modelling the behaviour of the SCF values, and adjusts the SCFUNV depending on the system load, (number of simultaneous users). Thus, the SCFUNV is adaptively adjusted in order to perform acceptably under all load conditions. The second direction of research, as regards improvements in MUD techniques, involves the conventional Bit-Streaming, Pipelined Multiuser Detector. This came about due to the computational complexity as well as matrix inversions which affected earlier asynchronous multiuser detection techniques. This detector has a pipelined architecture which avoids multishot (block-based) detection and instead, processes the bits in a streaming fashion. The architecture consists of a matched filter followed by three stages of parallel interference cancellation, (PIC). This present study extends that research by outlining the advantages of incorporating the soft parallel interference cancellation technique, by way of the universal soft cancellation factor, (SCFUNV), into the conventional pipelined multiuser detector architecture to form the P3MUD architecture, which includes the compensator. The contributions of the proposed P3MUD system is that the observed BER output simulations are promising, with an observed overall decrease in the error rate for the P3MUD process, as compared to the conventional pipelined detection method. This decrease signifies an improvement offered by the proposed (P3MUD) algorithm. Further observed analysis indicates the possibility of decreasing the number of parallel interference cancellation stages from three to at least two, after the matched filter detection stage, without an observable change in system BER. Hence, the proposal of the two-stage P3MUD.Dissertation (MEng (Electronic))--University of Pretoria, 2006.Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineeringunrestricte

Entomological indices of malaria transmission in Chikhwawa district, Southern Malawi

Abstract Background Although malaria is highly prevalent throughout Malawi, little is known of its transmission dynamics. This paper describes the seasonal activity of the different vectors, human biting indices, sporozoite rates and the entomological inoculation rate in a low-lying rural area in southern Malawi. Methods Vectors were sampled over 52 weeks from January 2002 to January 2003, by pyrethrum knockdown catch in two villages in Chikhwawa district, in the Lower Shire Valley. Results In total, 7,717 anophelines were collected of which 55.1% were Anopheles gambiae sensu lato and 44.9% were Anopheles funestus. Three members of the An. gambiae complex were identified by PCR: Anopheles arabiensis (75%) was abundant throughout the year, An. gambiae s.s. (25%) was most common during the wet season and Anopheles quadriannulatus occurred at a very low frequency (n=16). An. funestus was found in all samples but was most common during the dry season. Anopheles gambiae s.s. and An. funestus were highly anthropophilic with human blood indices of 99.2% and 96.3%, respectively. Anopheles arabiensis had fed predominantly on humans (85.0%) and less commonly on cattle (10.9%; 1.2% of blood meals were of mixed origin). Plasmodium falciparum (192/3,984) and Plasmodium malariae (1/3,984) sporozoites were detected by PCR in An. arabiensis (3.2%) and An. funestus (4.5%), and in a significantly higher proportion of An. gambiae s.s. (10.6%)(pP. falciparum sporozoite rate was 4.8%, resulting in estimated inoculation rates of 183 infective bites/ person per annum, or an average rate of ~15 infective bites/person/month. Conclusions The results demonstrate the importance of An. gambiae s.s., An. arabiensis and An. funestus in driving the high levels of malaria transmission in the south of Malawi. Sustained and high coverage or roll out of current approaches to malaria control (primarily insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual house spraying) in the area are likely to reduce the observed high malaria transmission rate and consequently the incidence of human infections, unless impeded by increasing resistance of vectors to insecticides.</p

Reliability of reporting of HIV status and antiretroviral therapy usage during verbal autopsies: a large prospective study in rural Malawi.

OBJECTIVE: Verbal autopsies (VAs) are interviews with a relative or friend of the deceased; VAs are a technique used in surveillance sites in many countries with incomplete death certification. The goal of this study was to assess the accuracy and validity of data on HIV status and antiretroviral therapy (ART) usage reported in VAs and their influence on physician attribution of cause of death. DESIGN: This was a prospective cohort study. METHODS: The Karonga Health and Demographic Surveillance Site monitors demographic events in a population in a rural area of northern Malawi; a VA is attempted on all deaths reported. VAs are reviewed by clinicians, who, with additional HIV test information collected pre-mortem, assign a cause of death. We linked HIV/ART information reported by respondents during adult VAs to database information on HIV testing and ART use and analysed agreement using chi-square and kappa statistics. We used multivariable logistic regression to analyse factors associated with agreement. RESULTS: From 2003 to 2014, out of a total of 1,952 VAs, 80% of respondents reported the HIV status of the deceased. In 2013-2014, this figure was 99%. Of those with an HIV status known to the study, there was 89% agreement on HIV status between the VA and pre-mortem data, higher for HIV-negative people (92%) than HIV-positive people (83%). There was 84% agreement on whether the deceased had started ART, and 72% of ART initiation dates matched within 1 year. CONCLUSIONS: In this population, HIV/ART information was often disclosed during a VA and matched well with other data sources. Reported HIV/ART status appears to be a reliable source of information to help classification of cause of death