Community-based Crisis Response: Evidence from Sierra Leone’s Ebola Outbreak

Postmortems on the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa suggest that effective community engagement helped slow transmission by encouraging people to come forward and be tested. We evaluate the impact of Community Care Centers: a new crisis response model designed to allay fears about western medical care and, thus, encourage early reporting, isolation, and treatment. We employ new panel data on reported Ebola cases and a difference-in-difference design and find that Community Care Centers dramatically increased reporting, potentially reducing the spread of Ebola. Our results highlight how community-based efforts to increase confidence in health systems can be critical for crisis management

Institutions, violent conflict, windfall gains and economic development in Africa

cum laude graduation (with distinction

Encryption Regulation in the Wake of September 11, 2001: Must We Protect National Security at the Expense of the Economy?

This Note argues that although privacy and economic concerns have ruled the encryption debate during the past decade, the move toward increased privacy on the Internet and relaxed encryption regulation, designed to promote electronic commerce, comes at the expense of national security and the protection of Americans\u27 safety. The Article begins with historical information about encryption and an examination of how businesses use encryption to secure their communications and financial transactions on the Internet. This Section also observes that this technology is employed by terrorist organizations to accomplish the same goal: to send private communications. The Author next details the history of encryption regulation during the last decade and addresses why the government has relaxed its stance even though encryption ultimately poses such a threat. The Note then analyzes whether encryption regulation will provide the intelligence community the tools to deal with terrorists who are now technologically savvy, or whether regulation will hurt the nation\u27s already wounded economy. The Author then examines Magic Lantern, cutting-edge technology developed by the FBI that effectively incorporates the privacy benefits of encryption while still providing Americans protection in this new era of terrorism. The Author concludes by proposing the adoption of Magic Lantern as a way to protect privacy and economic concerns while ensuring national security

Multiple shells around G79.29+0.46 revealed from near-IR to millimeter data

Aiming to perform a study of the warm dust and gas in the luminous blue variable star G79.29+0.46 and its associated nebula, we present infrared Spitzer imaging and spectroscopy, and new CO J=2-->1 and 4-->3 maps obtained with the IRAM 30m radio telescope and with the Submillimeter Telescope, respectively. We have analyzed the nebula detecting multiple shells of dust and gas connected to the star. Using Infrared Spectrograph-Spitzer spectra, we have compared the properties of the central object, the nebula, and their surroundings. These spectra show a rich variety of solid-state features (amorphous silicates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and CO2 ices) and narrow emission lines, superimposed on a thermal continuum. We have also analyzed the physical conditions of the nebula, which point to the existence of a photo-dissociation region.Comment: Received by ApJ 2009 November 20, accepted for publication 2010 February 25, Published 2010 March 2