The future of spaceborne altimetry. Oceans and climate change: A long-term strategy

The ocean circulation and polar ice sheet volumes provide important memory and control functions in the global climate. Their long term variations are unknown and need to be understood before meaningful appraisals of climate change can be made. Satellite altimetry is the only method for providing global information on the ocean circulation and ice sheet volume. A robust altimeter measurement program is planned which will initiate global observations of the ocean circulation and polar ice sheets. In order to provide useful data about the climate, these measurements must be continued with unbroken coverage into the next century. Herein, past results of the role of the ocean in the climate system is summarized, near term goals are outlined, and requirements and options are presented for future altimeter missions. There are three basic scientific objectives for the program: ocean circulation; polar ice sheets; and mean sea level change. The greatest scientific benefit will be achieved with a series of dedicated high precision altimeter spacecraft, for which the choice of orbit parameters and system accuracy are unencumbered by requirements of companion instruments

Improving Maternal Survival in South Asia—What Can We Learn from Case Studies?

Technical interventions for maternal healthcare are implemented through a dynamic social process. Peoples' behaviours—whether they be planners, managers, providers, or potential users—influence the outcomes. Given the complexity and unpredictability inherent in such dynamic processes, the proposed cause-and-effect relationships in any one context cannot be directly transferred to another. While this is true of all health services, its importance is magnified in maternal healthcare because of the need to involve multiple levels of the health system, multiple types of care providers from the highly skilled specialist to community-level volunteers, and multiple technical interventions, without the ability to measure significant change in the outcome, the maternal mortality ratio. Patterns can be followed however, in terms of outcomes in response to interventions. From these case studies of implementation of maternal health programmes across five states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, some patterns stand out and seem to apply virtually everywhere (e.g. failure of systems to post staff in difficult areas) while others require more data to understand the observed patterns (e.g. response to financial incentives for improving maternal health systems; instituting available accessible safe blood). The patterns formed can provide guidance to programme managers as to what aspects of the process to track and micro-manage, to policy-makers as to what features of a context may particularly influence impacts of alternative maternal health strategies, and to governments more broadly as to the factors shaping dynamic responses that might themselves warrant intervention

Global mean sea surface computation based upon a combination of SEASAT and GEOS-3 satellite altimeter data

A mean sea surface map was computed for the global ocean areas between 70 deg N latitude and 62 deg S latitude based upon the 70 day SEASAT and 3.5 year GEOS-3 altimeter data sets. The mean sea surface is presented in the form of a global contour map and a 0.25 deg x 0.25 deg grid. A combination of regional adjustments based upon crossover techniques and the subsequent adjustment of the regional solutions into a global reference system was employed in order to minimize the effects of radial orbit error. A global map of the crossover residuals after the crossover adjustments are made is in good agreement with earlier mesoscale variability contour maps based upon the last month of SEASAT collinear data. This high level of agreement provides good evidence that relative orbit error was removed to the decimeter level on a regional basis. This represents a significant improvement over our previous maps which contained patterns, particularly in the central Pacific, which were due to radial orbit error. Long wavelength, basin scale errors are still present with a submeter amplitude due to errors in the PGS-S4 gravity model. Such errors can only be removed through the improvement of the Earth's gravity model and associated geodetic parameters

Quality of Obstetric Care in Public-sector Facilities and Constraints to Implementing Emergency Obstetric Care Services: Evidence from High- and Low-performing Districts of Bangladesh

This study explored the quality of obstetric care in public-sector facilities and the constraints to programming comprehensive essential obstetric care (EOC) services in rural areas of Khulna and Sylhet divisions, relatively high- and low-performing areas of Bangladesh respectively. Quality was explored by physically inspecting all public-sector EOC facilities and the constraints through in-depth interviews with public-sector programme managers and service providers. Distribution of the functional EOC facilities satisfied the United Nation's minimum criteria of at least one comprehensive EOC and four basic EOC facilities for every 500,000 people in Khulna but not in Sylhet region. Human-resource constraints were the major barrier for maternal health. Sanctioned posts for nurses were inadequate in rural areas of both the divisions; however, deployment and retention of trained human resources were more problematic in rural areas of Sylhet. Other problems also plagued care, including unavailability of blood in rural settings and lack of use of evidence-based techniques. The overall quality of care was better in the EOC facilities of Khulna division than in Sylhet. ‘Context' of care was also different in these two areas: the population in Sylhet is less literate, more conservative, and faces more geographical and sociocultural barriers in accessing services. As a consequence of both care delivered and the context, more normal vaginal and caesarian-section deliveries were carried out in the public-sector EOC facilities in the Khulna region, with the exception of the medical college hospitals. To improve maternal healthcare, there is a need for a human-resource plan that increases the number of posts in rural areas and ensures availability. All categories of maternal healthcare providers also need training on evidence-based techniques. While the centralized push system of management has its strengths, special strategies for improving the response in the low-performing areas is urgently warranted

SPAN: Ocean science

The Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) is a multi-mission, correlative data comparison network which links space and Earth science research and data analysis computers. It provides a common working environment for sharing computer resources, sharing computer peripherals, solving proprietary problems, and providing the potential for significant time and cost savings for correlative data analysis. This is one of a series of discipline-specific SPAN documents which are intended to complement the SPAN primer and SPAN Management documents. Their purpose is to provide the discipline scientists with a comprehensive set of documents to assist in the use of SPAN for discipline specific scientific research

Public-sector Maternal Health Programmes and Services for Rural Bangladesh

Achieving Millennium Development Goal 5 in Bangladesh calls for an appreciation of the evolution of maternal healthcare within the national health system to date plus a projection of future needs. This paper assesses the development of maternal health services and policies by reviewing policy and strategy documents since the independence in 1971, with primary focus on rural areas where three-fourths of the total population of Bangladesh reside. Projections of need for facilities and human resources are based on the recommended standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1996 and 2005. Although maternal healthcare services are delivered from for-profit and not-for-profit (NGO) subsectors, this paper is focused on maternal healthcare delivery by public subsector. Maternal healthcare services in the public sector of Bangladesh have been guided by global policies (e.g. Health for All by the Year 2000), national policies (e.g. population and health policy), and plans (e.g. five- or three-yearly). The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), through its two wings—Health Services and Family Planning—sets policies, develops implementation plans, and provides rural public-health services. Since 1971, the health infrastructure has developed though not in a uniform pattern and despite policy shifts over time. Under the Family Planning wing of the MoHFW, the number of Maternal and Child Welfare Centres has not increased but new services, such as caesarean-section surgery, have been integrated. The Health Services wing of the MoHFW has ensured that all district-level public-health facilities, e.g. district hospitals and medical colleges, can provide comprehensive essential obstetric care (EOC) and have targeted to upgrade 132 of 407 rural Upazila Health Complexes to also provide such services. In 2001, they initiated a programme to train the Government's community workers (Family Welfare Assistants and Female Health Assistants) to provide skilled birthing care in the home. However, these plans have been too meagre, and their implementation is too weak to fulfill expectations in terms of the MDG 5 indicator—increased use of skilled birth attendants, especially for poor rural women. The use of skilled birth attendants, institutional deliveries, and use of caesarean section remain low and are increasing only slowly. All these indicators are substantially lower for those in the lower three socioeconomic quintiles. A wide variation exists in the availability of comprehensive EOC facilities in the public sector among the six divisions of the country. Rajshahi division has more facilities than the WHO 1996 standard (1 comprehensive EOC for 500,000 people) whereas Chittagong and Sylhet divisions have only 64% of their need for comprehensive EOC facilities. The WHO 2005 recommendation (1 comprehensive EOC for 3,500 births) suggests that there is a need for nearly five times the existing national number of comprehensive EOC facilities. Based on the WHO standard 2005, it is estimated that 9% of existing doctors and 40% of nurses/midwives were needed just for maternal healthcare in both comprehensive EOC and basic EOC facilities in 2007. While the inability to train and retain skilled professionals in rural areas is the major problem in implementation, the bifurcation of the MoHFW (Health Services and Family Planning wings) has led to duplication in management and staff for service-delivery, inefficiencies as a result of these duplications, and difficulties of coordination at all levels. The Government of Bangladesh needs to functionally integrate the Health Services and Family Planning wings, move towards a facility-based approach to delivery, ensure access to key maternal health services for women in the lower socioeconomic quintiles, consider infrastructure development based on the estimation of facilities using the WHO 1996 recommendation, and undertake a human resource-development plan based on the WHO 2005 recommendation

Reflecting on the first three years of Topex/Poseidon

satellite, in orbit since August 1992, is the first global ocean observing system specifically de-signed to study ocean dynamics. The satellite uses a state-of-the-art radar altimeter system to determine the sea level-the height of sea sur-face relative to a reference ellipsoid-with an unprecedented accuracy. It is supplying a wealth of new information on ocean circula-tion and the patterns of the global seasonal cy-cle, low-frequency wave dynamics, gyre-scale variabilities, ocean tides, and global mean sea level variations. These observations are being used to test ocean circulation theories and the ever-maturing computer models of ocean gen-eral circulation. T/P observations cover the global oceans from 66"s to 66"N every 10 days, allowing oceanographers to routinely monitor the dy-namic global ocean. For the first time, the ocean is being accurately sampled with suffi-cient spatial and temporal resolution to ad-dress its variability at frequencies and wavenumbers (spatial frequency) previously unattainable by in situ observations. The mis-sion was also designed to measure ocean tides, resulting in the most accurate deep ocean tide models to date. The tidal signals were then removed from the sea level measure-ments to make the data suitable for ocean cir-culation studies. The radar altimeter also measures wind speed and wave height, which are part of the mission's data product in addi-tion to sea level. Many results from the mission have been published in two special issues o

Asia

French version available in IDRC Digital Library: Trouver des méthodes contraceptives sûre