cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.874
title: Risk factors of perceived stigma in leprosy affected persons and unaffected community persons in Western Nepal

description: Background: Stigma is a social process of interpretation of an attribute. Leprosy has been seen as the epitome of stigmatization. The psychosocial impact a person has to bear in a society after the diagnosis weighs heavier than the physical afflictions it causes which does not get cured with the mere medical treatment. There are various factors which construct the perception of stigma in both leprosy affected persons and unaffected persons. The main purpose of this study was to determine the level of perceived stigma and the risk factors contributing to it among leprosy affected person attending the Green Pastures Hospital and the community members living in the same community of ward 15, Pokhara municipality.Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted among 135 people affected by leprosy in Green Pastures Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre and 281 leprosy unaffected community persons above the age of 18 were studied. 2 sets of questionnaire form with additional Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC) for each group were used in both affected and unaffected persons.Results: Among 135 leprosy affected persons, the median score of perceived stigma was 10 while it ranged from 0 to 34. Concerning their baseline characteristics, the higher perceived stigma score was found in (54.8%) illiterate (p=0.008), persons who (66.7%) felt economic inadequacy (p=0.014) and who (46.7%) changed their occupation due to leprosy (p=0.018). Similarly, lack of knowledge on information (p=0.025), leprosy cause (p=0.02) and transmission (p=0.046) followed by perception that difficulty to treat (p=0.001) and severe disease (p=0.001) had higher perceived stigma score. Presence of disfigurement (p=0.014) and ulcer (p=0.022) had higher perceived stigma score.Among 281 community members, the median score of perceived stigma was 12 while it ranged from 0-30. Ethnic group, Brahmin (15.7%) and Dalits (18.5%) had higher perceived stigma compared to the rest (p=0.001), community members living at the distance more than 2km (27.4%) had higher stigma compared to living closer to the hospital (p=0.019) and nuclear family (33.1%) had higher perceived stigma than joint family (p=0.014). Lack of information on leprosy (49.8%) had higher perceived stigma (p=0.002) followed by perception that difficulty treatment (p&lt;0.001) and severe disease (p&lt;0.001) had higher perceived stigma.Conclusion: Stigma in leprosy was found highly associated with the lack of knowledge and their perception regarding leprosy. Stigma reduction strategies should focus on health education, targeting to alleviate their perception about the disease with their active participation.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.875
title: Determinants of microcredit repayment rate in India, Bangladesh, Peru, and Bolivia

description: The main purpose of this study was to discover if competition has a negative effect on microloan repayment rates. In addition, this study tests the effects of gender, income, interest rate, age of microfinance institution, legal status, and regulatory status on loan repayment rates. In order to test the relationships, this study used two countries from Asia, India and Bangladesh, and two countries from Latin America, Peru and Bolivia. The years of the observations used varies from 2003 to 2011.The results show that the competition variable is not significant in any countries studied while gender and legal status have a significant positive effect on repayment rates, whereas age has a significant negative effect in repayment rate in specific countries. This study also shows that in the case of Bolivia, the repayment rate is strongly affected by the economic condition of the country at the time.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.876
title: The impact of household’s insurance coverage on health care financial protection

description: The Vietnamese Government implemented the Law on Health Insurance in 2009, aimed at achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2014. However, we only achieved 60% of population coverage in 2010 and evidences of health insurance impacts were reported weakly. The main objective of this study is to determine the impact of health insurance coverage within a household on health care financial protection.We used the data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) in 2010. Logit regression, OLS and quantile regression were employed to investigate the associated factors with catastrophic health care spending and out-of-pocket expenditure as a proportion of household capacity to pay (OOP/CTP).The main findings of this study are that higher health insurance coverage rate within a household was found to be associated with lower probability of catastrophic health expenditure and reduced the out-of-pocket (OOP) spending as a proportion of household capacity to pay, especially for those in the upper tail of OOP distribution. More members in the households, living in the rural areas and higher asset index score are associated with lower rate of catastrophic encountering; while more elderly and children in households increases the chances of incurring catastrophic health spending for a household.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.877
title: Potential determinants of the desire to enroll in the national health insurance fund among families in the informal sector in the northern state of Sudan

description: This is a cross-sectional study aimed at exploring the potential determinants of the desire to enroll in the NHIF, among families in the informal sector in the Northern State of Sudan as well as their expectation of health insurance. Primary data were collected from 717, families in the informal sector, in the Northern State of Sudan between February and March 2013, using a multi-stage sampling design.The results from estimating a binary choice model reveal that, urban residency health of the head of the family, health of male dependents, medical advice seeking frequency, and perfect and average health insurance awareness, are significantly and positively related with the desire to enroll in NHIF,, while the dummy variable which indicates the occupational status of a merchant is significant and negative.These results are broadly confirmed by estimating an ordered response logit model, but in addition the intensity of the desire to enroll is found to significantly decrease with age, education and family income.The study recommends some reforming interventions that consider people’s expectations of health insurance, and support the goal of achieving universal health insurance coverage of in the Northern State of Sudan.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.878
title: Sustainability of state malaria control programmes in Nigeria : looking beyond donor support

description: The objectives of this study were to 1) identify success factors of malaria control, 2) assess financing alternatives, and 3) formulate alternative funding strategies for sustaining malaria control programmes in four Nigerian States of Adamawa, Gombe, Kano and Zamfara due to their high maternal and child mortality and morbidity figures. Quantitative data were collected through reviews of reports on malaria morbidity and mortality in the states. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussion and in-depth interviews.The main factors found to be behind the success of the state malaria control programmes included the provision of long lasting insecticidal treated nets, free distribution of ACTs and SPs, Indoor Residual Spray, building the capacity of health workers and community awareness and involvement in mobilization and enlightenment for malaria control.Strategies based on the needs, priorities and resource availability for the different states are suggested as alternatives for sustaining malaria control. These include exploring partnerships with the private sector especially for states with high economic activities. This can take the form of local production of treated nets and malaria drugs through subsidy policy from the government and tax relief. Other strategies include involving the communities to contribute to malaria control through trainings, community health insurance schemes and participation in distribution of drugs and nets; vigorous resource mobilization; strengthening of environmental management policies and ensure strong surveillance systems especially in states with international borders. All these may provide windows of opportunity for making malaria programmes sustainable even in the absence of donor support.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.879
title: Differences in health care utilization in Bavi District, Vietnam, 2002–2011

description: Health care utilization of different socio-economic groups is a very important factor for the policy-making process. Being aware of the model of health care utilization can help policy makers to evaluate the accessibility to health care services, evaluate the responsiveness of the health sector to people’s needs and thus can adapt the health care services to the real situation. Capturing the differences in health care utilization of different demographic and socio-economic groups can help to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in health care utilization, and thus can improve the health inequity in the society.The study aims at evaluating the differences in health care utilization among different demographic and socio-economic groups in Bavi district, Vietnam in the period of 2002 – 2011.This study analyzed a panel data of 45,326 individuals in 11,056 households with their demographic and socio-economic information in 2002, 2007 and 2011. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression for panel data were applied to capture the trend and distinguish the associations between demographic and socio-economic factors with the use of different types of health care services including self-treatment, the use of health care services at communal health centers, district hospitals, provincial/central hospitals and private clinics.Private clinics and self-treatment were used most commonly in Bavi in 2002, 2007 and 2011. There were significant differences in health care utilization among different demographic and socio-economic groups. Rich people tended to use more health care services at provincial/central hospitals while poor people treated themselves at home more frequently. Males used more formal treatment at provincial/central hospitals, district hospitals and private clinics than females. People with higher educational level and married people tended to use more tertiary and secondary care. Famers were more familiar with self-treatment. Therefore, more efforts should be made to improve the accessibility to health care services at higher level for the poor, and for people belonging to lower social classes.
DOI: 10.11578/1562023
title: Plasma measurements of the Fe XVII L-shell emission and blending with F VIII and F IX

description: We measured the L-shell emission spectrum of Fe XVII in a low-density, low-gradient magnetically confined laboratory plasma that contains predominantly C, O, Fe, and Ni as trace elements and find excellent agreement with the relative spectral emission obtained in solar and astrophysical observations. However, we obtained spectra that appear to have an usually large 1s^22s^22p^5_{1/2}3d_{3/2} --&gt; 1s^22s^22p^6 Fe XVII resonance transition, commonly labeled 3C, from hot plasmas that also contain F. The wavelength of the Ly-alpha feature of F IX is coincident with the wavelength of the Fe XVII line 3C within one part in 538, and its flux, therefore, enhances the Fe XVII resonance line. Moreover, the resonance and forbidden lines of F VIII are close to the 3s --&gt; 2p transitions in Fe XVII, and may further alter the inferred apparent Fe XVII line ratios, particularly in spectrometers with moderate spectral resolution. The enhanced emission of line 3C, thus, can serve as a new spectral diagnostic for the detection of fluorine in astrophysical plasmas.
DOI: 10.11578/1562025
title: Study of the impact of pre- and real-time deposition of lithium on plasma performance on NSTX

description: The efficiency of two lithium (Li) injection methods used on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) are compared in terms of the amount of Li used to produce equivalent plasma performance improvements, namely Li evaporation over the divertor plates, prior to the initiation of the discharge, and real-time Li injection directly into the plasma scrape-off layer during the discharge. The measurements show that the real-time method can affect the energy confinement and edge stability of NSTX plasmas in a more efficient way than the Li evaporation method as it requires only a fraction of the amount of Li used by the evaporation method to produce similar improvements.
DOI: 10.11578/1562026
title: Theory based scaling of edge turbulence and implications for the scrape-off layer width

description: Turbulence and plasma parameter data from the National Spherical Torus Experiment NSTX [M. Ono, S.M. Kaye, Y.-K.M. Peng, G. Barnes et al., Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)] is examined and interpreted based on various theoretical estimates. In particular, quantities of interest for assessing the role of turbulent transport on the midplane scrape-off layer heat flux width are assessed. Because most turbulence quantities exhibit large scatter and little scaling within a given operation mode, this paper focuses on length and time scales and dimensionless parameters between operational modes including Ohmic, low (L), and high (H) modes using a large NSTX edge turbulence database [S.J. Zweben, W.M. Davis, S.M. Kaye, J.R. Myra et al., Nucl. Fusion 55, 093035 (2015)]. These are compared with theoretical estimates for drift and interchange rates, profile modification saturation levels, a resistive ballooning condition, and dimensionless parameters characterizing L and high H mode conditions. It is argued that the underlying instability physics governing edge turbulence in different operational modes is in fact similar, and is consistent with curvature-driven drift ballooning. Saturation physics, however, is dependent on the operational mode. Five dimensionless parameters for drift-interchange turbulence are obtained and employed to assess the important of turbulence in setting the scrape-off layer heat flux width lambda_q and its scaling. An explicit proportionality of the width lambda_q to safety factor and major radius (qR) is obtained under these conditions. Quantitative estimates and reduced model numerical simulations suggest that the turbulence mechanism is not negligible in determining lambda_q in NSTX, at least for high plasma current discharges.
DOI: 10.14457/cu.the.2012.880
title: Risk factors of perceived stigma in leprosy affected and non-affected persons in Non Somboon, Khon Khaen Province, Thailand

description: Background: Leprosy has long been seen as the epitome of stigmatization and has become a metaphor for degradation in colloquial English. The most common notion of stigma, however, still refers to people’s fear of dealing with leprosy-affected people. This is often due to a lack of scientific knowledge and suspicious ideas about the disease. This study investigated risk factors of perceived stigma in leprosy affected persons living in Non Somboon leprosy colony in Khon Kaen province, Thailand, and in non-leprosy affected persons living in the community nearby.Methods: This is a cross-sectional study design to assess risk factors for stigma in leprosy affected and non-leprosy affected persons in Non Somboon, Thailand. 265 leprosy–affected subjects and 257 non-leprosy affected subjects were studied via questionnaire and interview.Results: Some of the results of this study agreed with findings in earlier studies. As for leprosy-affected persons, there was a significant association between perceived stigma and occupation (p=0.013), low knowledge on leprosy (several sub-categories) and visible disfigurements (p=0.008). New risk factors were found to be the initial location of treatment (p=0.004) and the presence of ulcers (p=0.009). For non-leprosy affected subjects it was age (p=0.021), years of education (p=0.024), occupation (p=0.002) and poor knowledge on leprosy that had a significant impact on the level of perceived stigma.Conclusions: Major factors that were associated with perceived stigma in leprosy were poor knowledge on the disease and visible or noticeable disfigurements. Strategies to reduce perceived stigma should therefore focus on the improvement of health educational programs on leprosy.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3424602
title: Data for "Why Study Gene Ratios" manuscript

description: This upload includes the pre-processed data used for the "Why Study Gene Ratios" manuscript.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3424603
title: Data for "Why Study Gene Ratios" manuscript

description: This upload includes the pre-processed data used for the "Why Study Gene Ratios" manuscript.
DOI: 10.11578/1562027
title: Computation of Alfvèn eigenmode stability and saturation through a reduced fast ion transport model in the TRANSP tokamak transport code

description: Alfvénic instabilities (AEs) are well known as a potential cause of enhanced fast ion transport in fusion devices. Given a specific plasma scenario, quantitative predictions of (i) expected unstable AE spectrum and (ii) resulting fast ion transport are required to prevent or mitigate the AE- induced degradation in fusion performance. Reduced models are becoming an attractive tool to analyze existing scenarios as well as for scenario prediction in time-dependent simulations. In this work, a neutral beam heated NSTX discharge is used as reference to illustrate the potential of a reduced fast ion transport model, known as kick model, that has been recently implemented for interpretive and predictive analysis within the framework of the time-dependent tokamak transport code TRANSP. Predictive capabilities for AE stability and saturation amplitude are first assessed, based on given thermal plasma profiles only. Predictions are then compared to experimental results, and the interpretive capabilities of the model further discussed. Overall, the reduced model captures the main properties of the instabilities and associated effects on the fast ion population. Additional information from the actual experiment enables further tuning of the model’s parameters to achieve a close match with measurements.
DOI: 10.11578/1562028
title: Two-dimensional turbulence cross-correlation functions in the edge of NSTX

description: The 2-D radial vs. poloidal cross-correlation functions of edge plasma turbulence were measured near the outer midplane using the gas puff imaging (GPI) diagnostic on NSTX. These correlation functions were evaluated at radii r= 0 cm, ±3 cm, and ±6 cm from the separatrix and poloidal locations p=0 cm and ±7.5 cm from the GPI poloidal center line for 20 different shots. The ellipticity ε and tilt angle φ of the positive cross- correlation regions, and the minimum negative cross-correlation “cmin” and total negative over positive values “neg/pos” were evaluated for each of these cases. The average results over this data set were ε=2.2±0.9, φ=87±34o (i.e. poloidally oriented), cmin= -0.30±0.15, and neg/pos=0.25±0.24. Thus there was significant variation in these correlation results within this database, with dependences on the location within the image, the magnetic geometry, and the plasma parameters. Possible causes for this variation are discussed, including the misalignment of the GPI view with the local B field line, the magnetic shear of field lines in the edge, the poloidal flow shear of the turbulence, blob-hole correlations, and the neutral density ‘shadowing’ effect in GPI.
DOI: 10.11578/1562029
title: Quasi-linear gyrokinetic predictions of the Coriolis momentum pinch in NSTX

description: This paper presents quasi-linear gyrokinetic predictions of the Coriolis momentum pinch for low aspect-ratio NSTX H-modes where previous experimental measurements were focused. Local, linear calculations predict that in the region of interest (just outside the mid-radius) of these relatively high-beta plasmas, profiles are most unstable to microtearing modes that are only effective in transporting electron energy. However, sub-dominant electromagnetic and electrostatic ballooning modes are also unstable, which are effective at transporting energy, particles and momentum. The quasi-linear prediction of transport from these weaker ballooning modes, assuming they contribute transport in addition to that from microtearing modes in a nonlinear turbulent state, leads to a very small or outward convection of momentum, inconsistent with the experimentally measured inward pinch, and opposite to predictions in conventional aspect ratio tokamaks. Additional predictions of a low beta L-mode plasma, unstable to more traditional electrostatic ion temperature gradient-trapped electron mode instability, show that the Coriolis pinch is inward but remains relatively weak and insensitive to many parameter variations. The weak or outward pinch predicted in NSTX plasmas appears to be at least partially correlated to changes in the parallel mode structure that occur at finite beta and low aspect ratio, as discussed in previous theories. The only conditions identified where a stronger inward pinch is predicted occur either in the purely electrostatic limit or if the aspect ratio is increased. As the Coriolis pinch cannot explain the measured momentum pinch, additional theoretical momentum transport mechanisms are discussed that may be potentially important.
DOI: 10.11578/1562030
title: Phase space effects on fast ion distribution function modeling in tokamaks

description: Integrated simulations of tokamak discharges typically rely on classical physics to model energetic particle (EP) dynamics. However, there are numerous cases in which energetic particles can suffer additional transport that is not classical in nature. Examples include transport by applied 3D magnetic perturbations and, more notably, by plasma instabilities. Focusing on the effects of instabilities, ad-hoc models can empirically reproduce increased transport, but the choice of transport coefficients is usually somehow arbitrary. New approaches based on physics-based reduced models are being developed to address those issues in a simplified way, while retaining a more correct treatment of resonant wave-particle interactions. The kick model implemented in the tokamak transport code TRANSP is an example of such reduced models. It includes modifications of the EP distribution by instabilities in real and velocity space, retaining correlations between transport in energy and space typical of resonant EP transport. The relevance of EP phase space modifications by instabilities is first discussed in terms of predicted fast ion distribution. Results are compared with those from a simple, ad-hoc diffusive model. It is then shown that the phase-space resolved model can also provide additional insight into important issues such as internal consistency of the simulations and mode stability through the analysis of the power exchanged between energetic particles and the instabilities.