Impact of an Employment Guarantee Scheme on Utilisation of Maternal Healthcare Services: Results from a Natural Experiment in India

We assess the impact of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme, the world’s largest workfare scheme, on healthcare utilisation – specifically maternal healthcare. The primary objective of NREG is to improve the income of rural households by guaranteeing 100 days of employment. We expect that by improving household income, thereby reducing some of the financial barriers, such as out-of-pocket payments, NREG can increase utilisation of maternal health services. Using a nationally representative household survey and a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the phased rollout of the scheme, we estimate the impact of NREG on utilisation of maternal health services: mainly deliveries at health facilities. We find that NREG did not increase overall facility deliveries, even though it led to an increase in deliveries at public facilities. There is weak evidence to suggest that deliveries at private facilities reduced due to NREG. Furthermore, sub-group analyses reveal that among poorer households, who are more likely to participate in NREG, there is a reduction in facility deliveries while home deliveries increased. Among richer households, NREG increased deliveries at public facilities. There was no impact on households belonging to marginalised castes. We conclude by discussing the possible mechanisms for these effects and its impact on equity in healthcare utilisation

Media practioners engaging with higher education.

This Case Study focuses on teacher-practitioners in higher education (HE) and the benefits and challenges that they have encountered through this type of engagement. Its aim is to explore whether practitioners’ engagement with HE has made a significant impact on lifestyle and work practices. Most importantly, though, this case study will qualify what HE has given to teacher-practitioners and how they will look to apply their experiences to future achievements and aspirations

Road lighting and future factors

Street lighting is currently a growing market that is adapting to and benefiting from numerous technological developments. This dissertation maps the technological factors that will contribute to the future of road lighting in order to aid professionals working in the field, such as lighting designers and engineers. Therefore, this dissertation makes a contribution to knowledge in this area by developing a framework tool (Figure 41. SLSNF - developed on draw.io) to assist stakeholders seeking to implement a new street lighting system. This is based on insights gathered through mixed methods of research from a varied group of professionals associated with street lighting. Furthermore, it also establishes a summarising model (Figure 49. Road lighting and associated factors overview, developed by Ajay Parmar, using www.mindmeister.com) to illustrate all of the considerations surrounding road lighting as a domain. One of the primary focuses of this research targets how lighting professionals interact with lighting standards. Data is collected by mixed methods research of both interviews and a questionnaire. This research confirms that good collaboration amongst a range of different professionals is required for new street lighting projects to develop efficiently. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of these projects, the proposed tool (Figure 41. SLSNF - developed on draw.io), which has been developed as a result of the data collected, will assist those involved to identify and mitigate any possible oversights in a street lighting installation at an early stage

A BeppoSAX observation of the supersoft source 1E 0035.4-7230

Results from a 37,000 s BeppoSAX Low-Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS) observation of the supersoft source SMC 13 (=1E 0035.4-7230) in the Small Magellanic Cloud are reported. The BeppoSAX spectrum is fitted either with a blackbody spectrum with an effective temperature kT = 26-58 eV, an LTE white dwarf atmosphere spectrum with kT = 35-50 eV, or a non-LTE white dwarf atmosphere spectrum with kT = 25-32 eV. The bolometric luminosity is < 8 10^37 erg s-1 and < 3 10^37 erg s^-1 for the LTE and the non-LTE spectrum. We also applied a spectral fit to combined spectra obtained with BeppoSAX LECS and with ROSAT PSPC. The kT derived for the non-LTE spectrum is 27-29 eV, the bolometric luminosity is 1.1-1.2 10^37 erg s^-1. We can exclude any spectrally hard component with a luminosity > 2 10^35 erg s^-1 (for a bremmstrahlung with a temperature of 0.5 keV) at a distance of 60 kpc. The LTE temperature is therefore in the range 5.5+/-0.2 10^5 K and the non-LTE temperature in the range 3.25+/-0.16 10^5 K. Assuming the source is on the stability line for atmospheric nuclear burning, we constrain the white dwarf mass from the LTE and the non-LTE fit to ~1.1 M-solar and ~0.9 M-solar respectively. However, the temperature and luminosity derived with the non-LTE model for 1E 0035.4-7230 is consistent with a lower mass M~0.6-0.7 M-solar white dwarf as predicted by Sion and Starrfield (1994). At the moment, neither of these two alternatives for the white dwarf mass can be excluded.Comment: 6 pages, accepted by A&A March 30th 199