How access to contraception affects fertility and contraceptive use in Tunisia

To a great extent, fertility decline in Tunisia can be explained by the rise in the age at which women marry, probably because they are better educated and because social legislation has given them more rights. A second major factor in fertility decline was the increased use of contraception. The main focus of this paper is what determines the practice of contraception. The general increase in the use of contraception was the result of a strong family planning program as well as increases in education over time. The family planning program in Tunisia is considered one of the best in the world. There has been a substantial program to improve the access of the rural, poor, and least educated population groups to family planning. Although in the last 10 years contraceptive use increased the most among the least educated women, these groups are still served less well than the more privileged. The results of this paper show the central role of mortality decline and access to contraception. Health facilities, especially clinics, and good water are important in reducing mortality, which in turn increases the motivation to restrict fertility and the likelihood that people will act on that motivation. The structural model used is designed to distinguish such community variables as access to family planning from the channels through which they operate.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences

Effect of Processing Parameters on the Density and Microstructure of Direct Laser Sintered Al-12Si Powders

The effect of processing parameters on the sintering behaviour of gas atomised Al-12Si powders has been investigated. Laser power, scanning rate, scan spacing and layer thickness are found to control the densification and the resultant microstructural characteristics of the laser sintered parts. It was found that sintered density increased as the energy density increased reaching a maximum of 80.2% at an energy input per unit volume of 67 J mm-3. For parts produced with a slightly lower power density (50 J mm-3), the microstructure consisted of fine dendrites with interconnected porosity while parts fabricated with a slightly higher power density (100 J mm-3) were noted to have a preponderance of coarse dendrites with a discontinuous network of irregular shaped pores surrounded by a fully dense aluminium-silicon matrix.Mechanical Engineerin

Selective Laser Sintering of Polymer Nanocomposites

This paper describes the fabrication and characterization of polymer nanocomposite (PNC) materials for use in the selective laser sintering (SLS) process. PNC materials are of great interest generally because of their excellent physical properties, and offer excellent potential in rapid manufacturing of structural polymeric parts. Three different nano additive materials have been used: cerium oxide IV, yttrium stabilized zirconia, and layered Hectorite clay. These materials have been used to reinforce PA6 polymer using solution blending and spray drying to create powder with particle sizes in the range of 5-40 µm. The mechanical properties and microstructure of the PNC materials have been evaluated and the results compared to those of unfilled polymer.Mechanical Engineerin

The luminosity-dependent clustering of Hα emitters from z~0.8 to z~2.2 with HiZELS

Poster presented at the conference Galaxy evoltion Across Time, 12-16 June, Paris, France We study the clustering of star-forming galaxies, using halo models to derive dark matter halo masses. Typical galaxies in our samples are star-forming centrals, residing in host halos of mass 10^12 M_solar. We find strong trends between galaxy Hα luminosity and dark matter halo mass at all redshifts. See also https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.0547

Stand-alone flat-plate photovoltaic power systems: System sizing and life-cycle costing methodology for Federal agencies

A simple methodology to estimate photovoltaic system size and life-cycle costs in stand-alone applications is presented. It is designed to assist engineers at Government agencies in determining the feasibility of using small stand-alone photovoltaic systems to supply ac or dc power to the load. Photovoltaic system design considerations are presented as well as the equations for sizing the flat-plate array and the battery storage to meet the required load. Cost effectiveness of a candidate photovoltaic system is based on comparison with the life-cycle cost of alternative systems. Examples of alternative systems addressed are batteries, diesel generators, the utility grid, and other renewable energy systems

Listening to students

Written assessment feedback has not been widely researched despite higher education students continually expressing the need for meaningful and constructive feedback. This qualitative study employing focus groups captures and interprets the student perspective of written assessment feedback. Participants were Registered Nurses and non-traditional entrants to higher education. The findings generated a framework of themes and categories representing the feedback process experienced by the students. The themes were `learning from', `the process of receiving' and `making sense of' feedback. When this framework incorporates strategies such as `feed-forward', self-managed learning and personalized guidance it then represents a heuristic model of effective written assessment feedback. The model, created as a result of the research, should enhance the student experience and aid understanding of the complex processes associated with providing written assessment feedback

Component-aware Orchestration of Cloud-based Enterprise Applications, from TOSCA to Docker and Kubernetes

Enterprise IT is currently facing the challenge of coordinating the management of complex, multi-component applications across heterogeneous cloud platforms. Containers and container orchestrators provide a valuable solution to deploy multi-component applications over cloud platforms, by coupling the lifecycle of each application component to that of its hosting container. We hereby propose a solution for going beyond such a coupling, based on the OASIS standard TOSCA and on Docker. We indeed propose a novel approach for deploying multi-component applications on top of existing container orchestrators, which allows to manage each component independently from the container used to run it. We also present prototype tools implementing our approach, and we show how we effectively exploited them to carry out a concrete case study

Negotiating the educational spaces of urban multiculture: Skills, competencies and college life

This paper contributes to research on urban multiculture and debates as to how people routinely live and experience ethnic diversity in their everyday lives. This research takes an ‘unpanicked’ approach to multiculture that sits differently to, although not unaffected by, multiculturalism as policy objective and those debates around multiculturalism that variously celebrate cultural difference or construct it through crisis talk. Critical to this paper are the routine phenomenologies of multiculture and the everyday practices, competencies and skills of young people attending college. Because of their diverse intakes and the openness of young people to difference, colleges are key sites within which urban multiculture is experienced and through which it is defined. Based on participant observation, repeat in-depth discussion groups and interviews, the focus of this paper is young adults attending post-16 colleges and schools in three ethnically diverse urban locations. Colleges and schools are urban spaces that mediate sociality and student experience but are also woven into the wider urban setting in which they are placed. The paper explores the skills and competencies that young adults develop to negotiate college and we particularly focus on their use of jokes and the exercise of restraint to get along with others