Essays on Female Empowerment and Its Health Consequences in West Africa

Part 1: The Impact of Female Empowerment on Men's Extramarital Sexual Behavior: Evidence from West Africa Improving women's bargaining power to negotiate safer sex with their partner is widely seen as fundamental to reducing women's vulnerability to HIV infection, although little causal evidence has been provided. This paper uses exogenous variation in a determinant of female bargaining power, women's kin support, to identify the causal effect of women's empowerment on men's extramarital sexual behavior. I establish the relevance of kin support shocks for measures of bargaining power such as women's reported decision-making authority over major and daily household purchases, women's healthcare, and household cooking decisions. Reduced form estimates indicate that having one more adult male sibling alive leads to a decrease of 1.3 percent in the probability of her husband's extramarital behavior. However, the number of living adult female siblings does not influence her husband's behavior. A measure of shocks to kin support, captured by the death of a woman's young siblings, is shown to increase her husband's extramarital behavior. The kin support measures are balanced across observables and results are robust to excluding households in which women's relatives reside, as well as alternate definitions of the kin support measures. This suggests that a woman's bargaining power within the household does influence the likelihood of her husband's extramarital sexual behavior, and thus her risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Part 2: Kin Support, Female Bargaining Power, and Fertility Do decreases in a woman's bargaining power relative to her husband lead to higher fertility? This paper attempts to answer this question in the context of West Africa using shocks over time to a determinant of a woman's bargaining power, her kin support, to identify the causal effect. Kin support shocks are captured by deaths of a woman's young siblings, which are argued to be an indication that the woman's natal family has suffered a negative shock. The shocks are shown to be relevant across couples for women's reported household decision-making authority. I exploit differences in the timing of the shocks across couples over time to estimate how changes in a woman's bargaining power impact a couple's fertility. A couple is on average 2.5 percentage points more likely to have a child in any given year after the woman has experienced an additional post-marriage young sibling death. The effect is robust to removing village-year and country-cohort-year effects among other controls. Analysis of the dynamics of fertility changes relative to the timing of the shocks support the validity of the findings

CONSIDERAZIONI DI PROGETTO PER L’ALLARGAMENTO DI BANDA DEL RICEVITORE MULTIFEED BANDA K DI SRT

Descrizione dell'aggiornamento a tutta banda del ricevitore multifeed in banda K montato all'antenna SRT

The Medicina Station Status Report

General information about the Medicina Radio Astronomy Station, the 32-m antenna status, and the staff in charge of the VLBI observations is provided. In 2012, the data from geodetic VLBI observations were acquired using the Mark 5A recording system with good results. Updates of the hardware were performed and are briefly described

Calcolo dei valori di marca di rumore e composizione del multifeed banda Q

Il presente documento riassume i risultati ottenuti dalla produzione di 19 catene di iniezione di rumore necessarie a definire le marche di rumore del ricevitore criogenico multifeed operante nella banda 33-50 GHz (banda Q)

Ricevitore multifeed banda 33-50GHz: stima delle prestazioni stand alone e con il collegamento fibra ottica

Nel presente rapporto vengono descritte le prestazioni simulate del ricevitore multifeed 19 beam operante nella banda 33-50 GHz (Q-band) da installare su SRT

INP MMIC AMPLIFIERS FOR CRYOGENIC RADIOASTRONOMICAL APPLICATIONS

Abstract Radioastronomical observation development, pushes technology research to develop equipment working up to 100-150 GHz. This trend make heavier the Low noise Amplifiers (LNA) noise contribution. A significantly improvement comes from the Indium Phosphide (InP) Technology, that gives the best noise performances in this range. Moreover radioastronomy moves also towards array receivers configuration, this implies high integration and repeatability. In the frame of the FARADAY PROJECT we were involved in designing several kind of MMIC amplifiers in the 18 to 26 GHz range in order to approach the InP technology and the MMIC design methodology

Caratterizzazione della nuova versione del modulo di conversione di frequenza in banda Q 33-50 GHz (Q-CONV)

Misure sui prototipi di convertitore di frequenza per il ricevitore multifeed 33-50GHz per l'antenna SRT

Progetto di sistema per ricevitori e back-end a srt

Si descrive l'architettura di gestione dei ricevitori, attuali e in costruzione, del radio telescopio della Sardegna (SRT) e il loro interfacciamento con tutti i back-end attuali e futuri. Vengono discusse le problematiche insite in questa nuova architettura e le possibili configurazioni, indicando anche quella scelta e i motivi della decisione

Assemblaggio e test di laboratorio del Compact Triband Receiver di Medicina

Descrizione delle attività di assemblaggio e test del Compact TriBand Receiver per l'antenna parabolica "Gavril Grueff Radio Telescope" della Stazione Radioastronomica di Medicina dell'INAF-IR

Il feed system per il ricevitore multibeam nella banda 33-50 GHz (Q-band)

Il presente rapporto tecnico descrive i 19 feed system utilizzati nel ricevitore multibeam operante nella banda 33-50 GHz (Q-band) per osservazioni radio astronomiche con il Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT)