THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.Eastern Europe, banking, microfinance, efficiency

Increasing Smoking History Documentation and Lung Cancer Screening Orders in a Primary Care Clinic

BACKGROUND: In 2018, there were approximately 234,030 new lung cancer diagnoses and 154,500 lung cancer deaths in the United States. Kentucky leads the nation in new lung cancer cases each year. The USPSTF estimates that 10% to 12% of lung cancers detected by routine screening would not have been detected until the cancer advanced; therefore, the USPSTF recommends yearly lung cancer screenings using low dose CT (LDCT) scans of the chest for patients 55 to 80 years old who have a 30 pack-year smoking history and are currently smoking or have quit within the last 15 years. PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to increase smoking history documentation, including pack-years, and LDCT orders for patients 55 to 80 years old who meet screening criteria in a primary care setting. METHODS: The FOCUS-PDSA model for improvement was used to guide this quality improvement project. Four PDSA cycles using variations of prompts for screening (eg. lung cancer screening flyers and smoking history stickers on patient intake document) were conducted to identify the best strategies for increasing smoking history documentation, including pack-years and increasing LDCT orders. Retrospective and prospective chart reviews were completed for smoking history documentation and LDCT orders before and after the interventions. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in each PDSA cycle for smoking history documentation (p=0.64) or LDCT orders (p=0.44). PDSA cycles one, two, and four showed a non-significant increase in documentation and orders. Current smokers were more likely to receive LDCT orders than former smokers who met eligibility criteria (p=0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that reminders like, educational lung cancer screening flyers, and smoking history stickers could increase documentation and LDCT scan orders. More research is needed comparing lung cancer screening orders between current and former smokers

Characterization of Impactite Clay Minerals with Implications for Mars Geologic Context and Mars Sample Return

Geological processes, including impact cratering, are fundamental throughout rocky bodies in the solar system. Studies of terrestrial impact structures, like the Ries impact structure, Germany, have informed on impact cratering processes – e.g., early hot, hydrous degassing, autometamorphism, and recrystallization/devitrification of impact glass – and products – e.g., impact melt rocks and breccias comprised of clay minerals. Yet, clay minerals of authigenic impact origin remain understudied and their formation processes poorly-understood. This thesis details the characterization of impact-generated clay minerals at Ries, showing that compositionally diverse, abundant Al/Fe/Mg smectite clays formed through these processes in thin melt-bearing breccia deposits of the ejecta, as well as at depth. The inherent complexity of smectites – their formation, type, structure, and composition – makes their provenance difficult to discern; these factors may explain why impact-generated and altered materials, which comprise an appreciable volume and extent of Mars’ ancient Noachian crust, are not generally recognized as a source of the enigmatic clays that are ubiquitous in those regions. Clay minerals can provide a defining window into a planet’s geologic and climatic past as an indicator of water availability and geochemistry; the presence of clay minerals on Mars has been used to support the hypothesis of climatically “warm, wet” ancient conditions. Yet, climate modeling of Early Mars suggests that the likely nature of the climate was not conducive to long-term aqueous activity. We suggest that the omission of impact-generated materials in current models of Mars clay mineral formation leaves a fundamental gap in our understanding of Noachian crustal materials – materials that were continually recycled and completely transformed on a global scale over millennia on Mars. The opportunity to investigate clay-bearing impactites and strata-bound clay minerals will be presented to the upcoming NASA Mars 2020 and ESA ExoMars rovers; this thesis offers caution in assigning clay mineral provenance until samples are returned to Earth from these missions. We furthermore suggest a methodological approach to augment current rover-based exploration frameworks to characterize potential impact-origin. Discerning clay species and provenance – and acknowledging the implications of that provenance – is central to understanding the geologic context of Mars, and thus its past climatic conditions and habitability potential

A Darkness at Dawn: Appalachian Kentucky and the Future

Outspoken Appalachian writer Harry M. Caudill analyzes the exploitation and decline of the eastern Kentucky mountain lands, which have rendered “no people in the nation...more forlorn than the Appalachian highlanders in our time.Frontier attitudes, a strong attachment to the land, and isolation have produced in Appalachia a backwoods culture which made its people susceptible to an outside exploitation of their resources that has perpetrated on them a passive society largely dependent on relief. But the times, says Mr. Caudill, are changing. A growing world population and global industrialization have created a drastically altered situation in eastern Kentucky. The area’s resources of energy are essential to the progress and well-being not only of the nation but also of the world; and the world is prepared to court the favor of the people who control these resources and is prepared to pay the price demanded by those owners. Mr. Caudill makes an eloquent plea for Kentuckians to reclaim the resources that lie in their mountains and to demand their fair share of the wealth generated by those resources. If they are willing to do this, the state and especially the people in eastern Kentucky can have a bright and prosperous future. But they can delay no longer. They must break the mold of passivity and take destiny into their own hands. Harry M. Caudill is the author of such well-known books as Night Comes to the Cumberlands, Dark Hills to Westward, and My Land is Dying. The Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf is a celebration of two centuries of the history and culture of the Commonwealth.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_appalachian_studies/1004/thumbnail.jp

Solvability of a Parabolic Boundary Value Problem with Internal Jump Condition

We examine a model for the propagation of heat through a one-dimensional object with an interior \u27\u27flaw . The flaw is modeled as a nonlinear relationship between the flux and temperature jump at an interior point of the object. Under realistic hypotheses, the resulting nonlinear initial boundary value problem is shown to have a unique and suitably smooth solution

Reconstruction of an Unknown Boundary Portion From Cauchy Data in N-dimensions

We consider the inverse problem of determining the shape of some inacces­ sible portion of the boundary of a region in n dimensions from Cauchy data for the heat equation on an accessible portion of the boundary. The inverse problem is quite ill-posed, and nonlinear. We develop a Newton-like algorithm for solving the problem, with a simple and efficient means for computing the required derivatives, develop methods for regularizing the process, and provide computational example

Stability and Reconstruction for an Inverse Problem for the Heat Equations

We examine the inverse problem of determining the shape of some unknown portion of the boundary of a region W from measurements of the Cauchy data for solutions to the heat equation on W. By suitably linearizing the inverse problem we obtain uniqueness and continuous dependence results. We propose an algorithm for recovering estimates of the unknown portion of the surface and use the insight gained from a detailed analysis of the inverse problem to regularize the inversion. Several computational examples are presented

Uniqueness for a Boundary Identification Problem in Thermal Imaging

An inverse problem for a parabolic initial-boundary value problem is considered. The goal is to determine an unknown portion of the boundary of a region in Rn from measurements of Dirichlet data on a known portion of the boundary. It is shown that under reasonable hypotheses uniqueness results hold