Newborn resuscitation in Gombe State, northeastern Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Basic newborn resuscitation for babies not breathing at birth is a highly effective intervention and its scale-up identified as a top research priority. However, tracking progress on the scale-up and coverage of this intervention is compromised by limitations in measuring both the number of newborns receiving the intervention and the number of newborns requiring the intervention. Using data from a facility and birth attendant survey in Gombe State, Nigeria, we aimed to advance the measurement agenda by developing a proxy indicator defined as the "percent of newborns born in a facility with the potential to provide newborn resuscitation". METHODS: The indicator's denominator was defined as: the total number of births in facilities during a defined time period (facility records). The numerator was constructed from the number of those births that occurred in appropriately equipped facilities (facility inventory), where a birth attendant demonstrated basic resuscitation competence (assessed by a simulation exercise). The proportion of facility-births that took place in a setting with the potential to provide newborn resuscitation was then calculated. RESULTS: The analysis included 17 383 births that occurred during May-October 2015 in 117 primary and referral facilities surveyed in November 2015. Overall 81% of the facilities did not have all items of essential equipment required for resuscitation; the items of equipment least frequently present included a timing device and resuscitation bag with two sizes of neonatal face mask. Only 3% of 117 birth attendants interviewed demonstrated competence to undertake resuscitation, all of whom were classified as skilled attendants and worked in referral facilities. We found that 20% of the 17 383 births took place in a facility with the potential to provide lifesaving resuscitation care. CONCLUSIONS: The indicator definition of neonatal resuscitation presented here responds to the need to advance the measurement agenda for newborn care and importantly adjusts for the volume of births occurring in different facilities. Its application in this setting revealed substantial missed opportunities to providing lifesaving care and highlights the need for a greater focus on input as well as process quality in all levels of health facilities

Implication of fertiliser subsidy withdrawal on societal welfare, rice output and imports in Malaysia's rice sector

The study analysed the effects of de-subsidised fertiliser input, as an alternative policy, in the rice sector in Malaysia. Time series data (1980-2012) were collected and analysed through different stages of analyses. The fist stage of analysis involved time series econometric model, namely Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) which was used for coeffiients estimation. Estimated elasticities were subjected to and passed the relevant diagnostic tests. The estimated elasticities were then used for the second stage of analysis-that is scenario simulation (removal of fertiliser subsidy while retaining any other rice production subsidy and support) and forecast. Finally, the generated simulation results were further used in estimating societal welfare through the producer surplus change estimation technique. Results showed, on the average and by 2020, yields declined by 10%, national output contracted by 10% and net import increased by 19.1%. Producer welfare loss stood at RM839 million, revenue saved was RM183 million and the net loss or societal welfare loss was about RM655 million. Thus, the policy option should not be on the decision table of policy makers because of net lost to society in general

Effects of paddy price support withdrawal on Malaysian rice sector: time series econometric approach

The study simulated effects of paddy price support withdrawal, as an alternative policy, on key variables namely domestic rice supply, domestic rice demand, net import of rice, area planted to paddy and paddy producer price. Time series data (1980-2012) were collected and analyzed using Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL). The long run coefficients or elasticities generated were used in scenarios simulation through appropriate simulation technique. The results show that, on the average, paddy price support withdrawal would affect the rice sector by 2020 in the following ways: 13% decline in domestic rice production; 23% increase in net rice import; area planted to paddy decrease in size by 13%; and, paddy producer price reduce by 20%. However, there was no effect on aggregate rice consumption. Since the country is concern about raising farm income and ensuring rice food security, sustaining the paddy support price is worthwhile policy in order to avoid a decline in paddy producer price (income) and surge in import bills

Co-integration approach to the estimation of demand equation for Malaysian rice sector

Government policy at achieving self-sufficiency and food security in rice must anchor on understanding structural relationships exist among the major variables in demand side of rice sector. This is because a result-oriented policy decision and implementation depend on the adopted inferences from valid demand elasticities. The validity of estimated coefficients pre-supposes time series data are stationary. Test statistics, like T-test, X2-test and F-test, on which basis inferences are made, depend on this assumption. Some earlier empirical findings about rice demand behaviour might have suffered spurious regression problem with skeptical inferences because the time series data used did not take cognizance of unit root problems.Hence, this study attempted estimating demand equation by co-integration method. Time series data (1980- 2012) were collected and analyzed using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL). For valid inference, estimated coefficients were subjected to necessary diagnostic and unit root tests. The results show that wheat remains a substitute to rice in consumption both in short run and long run. In relation to income per capita, rice can be considered as normal good in the short run; but inferior good in the long run. Rice consumption per capita was inelastic in relation to its price

Impact of construction waste minimization at construction site: case study

Waste reduction in the construction sector is essential not just from the position of overall performance, but also interests escalated recently about the detrimental impact of the waste of construction materials on the natural surroundings. The reuse and recycling of construction elements used to be substantial due to material scarcity during the war and post-war era, specifically when the price of virgin materials keep inflating. Nevertheless, the motivation to reuse and recycle construction materials has fallen ever since the flow of raw materials has grown more consistent and satisfactorily. This paper involves an ongoing sequence of waste audits at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) R&D construction sites. The methodology consists of discussion, observation and quantitative evaluations of the kinds and distribution of wastes. The finding of this study demonstrates that the project aimed at both minimizing the volume of waste generated and diverting as much waste as possible from landfill that contribute to the recycle with over 1200 tonnes of material which constitute about 73% of recycle and reused rate mainly from timber and metal

"It's About the Idea Hitting the Bull's Eye": How Aid Effectiveness Can Catalyse the Scale-up of Health Innovations.

BACKGROUND: Since the global economic crisis, a harsher economic climate and global commitments to address the problems of global health and poverty have led to increased donor interest to fund effective health innovations that offer value for money. Simultaneously, further aid effectiveness is being sought through encouraging governments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to strengthen their capacity to be self-supporting, rather than donor reliant. In practice, this often means donors fund pilot innovations for three to five years to demonstrate effectiveness and then advocate to the national government to adopt them for scale-up within country-wide health systems. We aim to connect the literature on scaling-up health innovations in LMICs with six key principles of aid effectiveness: country ownership; alignment; harmonisation; transparency and accountability; predictability; and civil society engagement and participation, based on our analysis of interviewees' accounts of scale-up in such settings. METHODS: We analysed 150 semi-structured qualitative interviews, to explore the factors catalysing and inhibiting the scale-up of maternal and newborn health (MNH) innovations in Ethiopia, northeast Nigeria and the State of Uttar Pradesh, India and identified links with the aid effectiveness principles. Our interviewees were purposively selected for their knowledge of scale-up in these settings, and represented a range of constituencies. We conducted a systematic analysis of the expanded field notes, using a framework approach to code a priori themes and identify emerging themes in NVivo 10. RESULTS: Our analysis revealed that actions by donors, implementers and recipient governments to promote the scale-up of innovations strongly reflected many of the aid effectiveness principles embraced by well-known international agreements - including the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness. Our findings show variations in the extent to which these six principles have been adopted in what are three diverse geographical settings, raising important implications for scaling health innovations in low- and middle-income countries. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that if donors, implementers and recipient governments were better able to put these principles into practice, the prospects for scaling externally funded health innovations as part of country health policies and programmes would be enhanced

Market integration of the Malaysian poultry industry: a bound testing approach to co-integration

This paper examines market integration by analyzing transmission of price among spatially separated regional wholesale poultry markets in Peninsular Malaysia. Short-run and long-run relationship of wholesale price among regional markets was examined using bound testing approach to co-integration and error correction models. The statistics follows the procedure of Wald or F-statistics in a generalized Dickey-Fuller regression, which is used to test the significance of lagged levels of the variables in a conditional unrestricted Equilibrium Correction Model (ECM). Based on Wald or F-test results of the jointly lag wholesale regional market prices, there exist co-integration among the price series. The value of the F-statistics (4.176) is greater than the upper bound critical values (3.67) at 5% significance level and also significant. Therefore, a long-run equilibrium relationship was found to exist between the regional markets. Results of the pair-wise Granger-causality between regional wholesale markets indicate bidirectional causality between central as terminal market and East-coast market. There is unidirectional South region Granger-cause central wholesale market price like-wise North region market Granger-cause Central market but not on the other direction

IDEAS project - Scaling-up innovations to improve maternal and newborn health - Nigeria case study resources

The IDEAS project sought to improve the health and survival of mothers and babies through generating evidence to inform policy and practice in Ethiopia, northeast Nigeria and Uttar Pradesh, India. This data collection contains interview field notes and supporting information produced as part of a case study to investigate how an emergency transport scheme for pregnant women and newborn babies introduced in Gombe state had been scaled up to Adamawa state by Transaid and the Society for Family Health, working with National Union of Transport Workers

A bayesian via laplace approximation on log-gamma model with censored data

Log-gamma distribution is the extension of gamma distribution which is more flexible, versatile and provides a great fit to some skewed and censored data. Problem/Objective: In this paper we introduce a solution to closed forms of its survival function of the model which shows the suitability and flexibility towards modelling real life data. Methods/Analysis: Alternatively, Bayesian estimation by MCMC simulation using the Random-walk Metropolis algorithm was applied, using AIC and BIC comparison makes it the smallest and great choice for fitting the survival models and simulations by Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods. Findings/Conclusion: It shows that this procedure and methods are better option in modelling Bayesian regression and survival/reliability analysis integrations in applied statistics, which based on the comparison criterion log-gamma model have the least values. However, the results of the censored data have been clarified with the simulation results

District decision-making for health in low-income settings: a feasibility study of a data-informed platform for health in India, Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Low-resource settings often have limited use of local data for health system planning and decision-making. To promote local data use for decision-making and priority setting, we propose an adapted framework: a data-informed platform for health (DIPH) aimed at guiding coordination, bringing together key data from the public and private sectors on inputs and processes. In working to transform this framework from a concept to a health systems initiative, we undertook a series of implementation research activities including background assessment, testing and scaling up of the intervention. This first paper of four reports the feasibility of the approach in a district health systems context in five districts of India, Nigeria and Ethiopia. We selected five districts using predefined criteria and in collaboration with governments. After scoping visits, an in-depth field visit included interviews with key health stakeholders, focus group discussions with service-delivery staff and record review. For analysis, we used five dimensions of feasibility research based on the TELOS framework: technology and systems, economic, legal and political, operational and scheduling feasibility. We found no standardized process for data-based district level decision-making, and substantial obstacles in all three countries. Compared with study areas in Ethiopia and Nigeria, the health system in Uttar Pradesh is relatively amenable to the DIPH, having relative strengths in infrastructure, technological and technical expertise, and financial resources, as well as a district-level stakeholder forum. However, a key challenge is the absence of an effective legal framework for engagement with India's extensive private health sector. While priority-setting may depend on factors beyond better use of local data, we conclude that a formative phase of intervention development and pilot-testing is warranted as a next step