OBJECTIVE The study was conducted to assess clients' satisfaction with PMTCT services on privacy, waiting time and counselling in PMTCT of HIV /AIDS in Dodoma Rural district. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted to 208 women assessing Reproductive Child Health (RCH) and PMTCT of HIV services. Data collection method involved both client exit interviews and focus group discussions (FGD...

BACKGROUND To investigate the prevalence of antibiotic usage in children aged <5 years with acute respiratory tract illness (ARTI) in Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data were collected from a national health survey conducted in 2010 (Iran's Multiple Indicator Demographic and Health Survey). Participants of this cross-sectional study were selected by multistage stratified cluster-random sampling ...

Internet Referral Services, hosted either by independent third-party infomediaries or by manufacturers serve as “lead-generators” in electronic marketplaces, directing consumer traffic to particular retailers. In a model of price dispersion with mixed strategy equilibria, we investigate the competitive implications of these institutions on retailer and manufacturer pricing strategies as well as...

INTRODUCTION Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing has become an essential part of current clinical practice in the management of cervical cancer and precancerous lesions. We reviewed the most important validation studies of a next-generation real-time polymerase chain reaction-based assay, the RealTime High Risk HPV test (RealTime)(Abbott Molecular, Des Plaines, IL, USA), for triage in referral p...

Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms are often used to sample combinatorial structures such as matchings and independent sets in graphs. A Markov chain is defined whose state space includes the desired sample space, and which has an appropriate stationary distribution. By simulating the chain for a sufficiently large number of steps, we can sample from a distribution arbitrarily close to the sta...

Bounding chains are a technique that offers three benefits to Markov chain practitioners: a theoretical bound on the mixing time of the chain under restricted conditions, experimental bounds on the mixing time of the chain that are provably accurate and construction of perfect sampling algorithms when used in conjunction with protocols such as coupling from the past. Perfect sampling algorithms...

The previous lecture showed that, for self-reducible problems, the problem of estimating the size of the set of feasible solutions is equivalent to the problem of sampling nearly uniformly from that set. This lecture explores the applications of that result by developing techniques for sampling from a uniform distribution. Specifically, this lecture introduces the concept of Markov Chain Monte ...

BACKGROUND Physical activity is promoted to help adults manage chronic health conditions, but evidence suggests that individuals relapse after intervention cessation. The objective of this study was to explore the determinants and strategies for successful and unsuccessful physical activity maintenance. METHODS A qualitative study using semistructured interviews was conducted with 32 particip...

BACKGROUND Public health research involving social or kin groups (such as sexual partners or family members), rather than samples of unrelated individuals, has become more widespread in response to social ecological approaches to disease treatment and prevention. This approach requires the development of innovative sampling, recruitment and screening methodologies tailored to the study of relat...

BACKGROUND Communication between general practitioners (GPs) and specialists is important, if we want patients to receive the right type of care at the right moment. Most communication takes place through telephone contact, letters concerning information on patients more recently also by email, and joint postgraduate training. As much research has been aimed at the content of communication betw...