Politics, Child Mortality, and Health System Development in Tanzania and Uganda, 1995-2009.

Sub-Saharan African countries have diverged sharply in health status in recent years: Some have reduced premature mortality rapidly while others have made little progress, despite significant health-oriented foreign aid. This article identifies political economy and institutional factors that help explain dramatic differences in the pace of child mortality reduction between Tanzania and Uganda from 1995-96 to 2006-07. The existing literature largely explains divergence in basic health outcomes like child mortality with reference to economic variables such as GDP per capita, or in terms of inputs such as the level of public sector health spending. However, these factors cannot explain recent divergence across African countries with similar levels of GDP per capita, rates of economic growth, and levels of health funding. I argue that in addition to economic factors, governance-related variables can play a large role in determining health outcomes. I argue that institutional and governance divergences between Tanzania and Uganda can be linked directly to differing levels of coverage of key child health interventions (especially related to malaria control), and thus to differing child health outcomes. These governance-related divergences are found in the institutional dynamics of malaria control, in the degree of meritocracy and bureaucratic autonomy found at the Ministry of Health, in the political economy of health sector decentralization, and in corruption levels in the pharmaceutical supply chain. These institutional differences can be explained in part by historical factors, but the more relevant causes can be found in recent years. In Tanzania, there was an unusually effective project of institution-building in the health sector, centered on malaria policy and research institutions, and on district-level reforms driven by use of demographic surveillance systems. In Uganda, by contrast, there was a negative political shock to the health system, driven by the repatrimonialization of the Ugandan state after President Yoweri Museveni’s decision to eliminate term limits in the 2001-2006 period and embark on the “president-for-life project.” This repatrimonialization process reversed previous health sector institutional gains and had particularly negative effects on child health service delivery in Uganda

Scattering rigidity with trapped geodesics

We prove that the flat product metric on $D^n\times S^1$ is scattering rigid where $D^n$ is the unit ball in $\R^n$ and $n\geq 2$. The scattering data (loosely speaking) of a Riemannian manifold with boundary is map $S:U^+\partial M\to U^-\partial M$ from unit vectors $V$ at the boundary that point inward to unit vectors at the boundary that point outwards. The map (where defined) takes $V$ to $\gamma'_V(T_0)$ where $\gamma_V$ is the unit speed geodesic determined by $V$ and $T_0$ is the first positive value of $t$ (when it exists) such that $\gamma_V(t)$ again lies in the boundary. We show that any other Riemannian manifold $(M,\partial M,g)$ with boundary $\partial M$ isometric to $\partial(D^n\times S^1)$ and with the same scattering data must be isometric to $D^n\times S^1$. This is the first scattering rigidity result for a manifold that has a trapped geodesic. The main issue is to show that the unit vectors tangent to trapped geodesics in $(M,\partial M,g)$ have measure 0 in the unit tangent bundle.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Local monotonicity of Riemannian and Finsler volume with respect to boundary distances

We show that the volume of a simple Riemannian metric on $D^n$ is locally monotone with respect to its boundary distance function. Namely if $g$ is a simple metric on $D^n$ and $g'$ is sufficiently close to $g$ and induces boundary distances greater or equal to those of $g$, then $vol(D^n,g')\ge vol(D^n,g)$. Furthermore, the same holds for Finsler metrics and the Holmes--Thompson definition of volume. As an application, we give a new proof of the injectivity of the geodesic ray transform for a simple Finsler metric.Comment: 13 pages, v3: minor corrections and clarifications, to appear in Geometriae Dedicat

Cross-cultural education: Arab women studying a non-traditional subject

The number of studies being carried out into the lives of Arab women in general and Arab women in education have increased in recent years. There has been little examination, however, of the phenomenon of modern Gulf Arab women and women of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) entering third-level education to study a subject that is considered non-traditional in their culture. This study aims to redress the balance by focusing on women of the UAE, where women have full access to third-level education and government policy stresses the importance of educated women participating in the workforce. The methodologies used are grounded theory, phenomenology and ethnography. Data was collected through the use of informal interviews and a detailed diary, which was kept throughout the study. Participants were selected using the theoretical sampling procedure, and collection of data was discontinued when the themes became saturated. Data was analysed using the constant comparative method. All of the women who participated in the study had made two specific choices with regard to their third-level education: to study Visual Communications and to study it through English. This distinction is important to the study because it places these women at the forefront of social change. Their choice to study through English and their choice of course reflects a definite career outlook. These students were aware that these choices meant a very real possibility of pursuing a career in this area, especially as this kind of work could be undertaken from the home. In all aspects of their lives these students have participated in meaningful discussions that will impact on how they live their lives both now and in the future. This is a very important change and heralds the other changes now taking place in UAE society, on all levels. This thesis concludes that the stereotype of Arab women as largely ignored, downtrodden, bullied and forced against their will to cover themselves is highly inaccurate. The Western notion of the Arab family as a controlling unit is far too simplistic. The Emirati family structure is complex: no single description can encompass its varieties and specificities

Longer-Baseline Telescopes Using Quantum Repeaters

We present an approach to building interferometric telescopes using ideas of quantum information. Current optical interferometers have limited baseline lengths, and thus limited resolution, because of noise and loss of signal due to the transmission of photons between the telescopes. The technology of quantum repeaters has the potential to eliminate this limit, allowing in principle interferometers with arbitrarily long baselines.Comment: 10 pages, v2 improved clarit