Using the self-organizing maps (SOM) method, we ranked and compared simulation results of atmospheric circulation precipitation for 32 global climate models (GCMs) in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) over China, found that ranking GCM’s ability to simulate frequency sea level pressure (SLP) weather patterns (WPs) was not correlated with its annual WPs. Then, attributed diff...

A funeral is a costly occasion. This paper studies indigenous insurance institutions developed to cope with the high costs of funerals, based on evidence from rural areas in Tanzania and Ethiopia. These institutions are based on well-defined rules and regulations, often offering premium-based insurance for funeral expenses. Increasingly, they are also offering other forms of insurance and credi...

The aggregation of web services in order to achieve a common goal is a basic concept in Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). This paper demonstrates OGC Web Services (OWS) aggregation based on a simulated bomb threat scenario which is a possible disaster management example. Web services are aggregated based on the OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) interface. Here the concept of a “Composite-WPS...

Saviour politics permeates some understandings of global gender norms by those who construct the Global North as origin norms, and less attention is given to how saviour functions within South, wielded privileged women against grassroots women. We argue that South women, despite their marginalisation, are actors deserve greater decision-making power on local international stages. show United Na...

INTRODUCTION The rheumatoid arthritis-specific Work Productivity Survey (WPS-RA) measures the impact of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and treatment on patient productivity within and outside the home. It contains nine questions addressing employment status, productivity within and outside the home, and daily activities. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the discriminant validity, responsi...

We examine the e ect of shocks to teacher inputs on child performance in school. We start with a household optimization framework where parents spend optimally in response to teacher and other school inputs. This helps to isolate the impact of teachers from other inputs. As a proxy measure for these shocks, we use teacher absenteeism during a 30 day period. Shocks to teacher inputs have a signi...

In Mozambique, easily treatable diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, and respiratory infections contribute to a heavy burden of disease. Notwithstanding efforts by the Mozambican government to promote access to health care, many who could benefit from simple cost-effective health care services do not currently receive treatment. Moreover, it is known that the utilization of health services varie...

Utilization of health services are an important policy concern in most developing countries, reflecting both efforts to improve health outcomes and to meet international obligations to make health services broadly accessible. Although many policy and research initiatives have focused on the need to improve physical access, not enough is understood about what factors affect health care choices, ...

Recent reforms in most African economies of their trading and exchange rate regimes have eliminated much of the protection which previously limited competition. Despite these reforms, African manufacturing firms remain unsuccessful, particularly in international export markets. In this paper we consider the roles of learning, competition and market imperfections in determining three aspects of ...