Business Training for Microfinance Clients: How it Matters and for Whom?

We measure the impact of a business training program for female microentrepreneur clients of a group banking program in Peru. Using the credit with education model, we assigned clients randomly to either treatment or control groups. Treatment groups received thirty to sixty minute entrepreneurship training sessions during their normal weekly group banking meeting. These lasted between one to two years. Control groups remained as they were before, meeting weekly with the group banking program solely for making loan and savings payments. We find that intention to treat (ITT) led to higher repayment and client retention rates for the microfinance institution, improved business knowledge, and practices. More importantly, average business sales revenues also increase while revenues fluctuations were reduced. In addition, we find significant heterogeneity in the exposure of clients within the treatment group. Treatment on the treated (TOT) estimates, obtained using ITT as instrumental variable, show substantially larger effects.Microfinance, business training, adult education

Health and social care professionals’ attitudes to interprofessional working and interprofessional education:A literature review

The healthcare setting is a rich learning environment for students to experience interprofessional working (IPW) and interprofessional education (IPE). However, opportunities for IPE are limited, and student experiences of effective IPW are varied. This raises the question of how IPW and IPE are valued by health or social care professionals. A search of the literature was carried out to identify studies of health and social care staff attitudes to IPW and IPE. This review provides a summary of the main factors found to influence attitudes and the strengths and limitations of these studies. Professional background and prior IPE experience were identified as the influencing factors for which there is most evidence. The main limitations of the studies accessed included a focus on the value of IPE for staff, as opposed to students, and a limited number of studies considering the relationship between attitudes to IPW and the value placed on IPE. It is important that health and social care professionals lead by example by working collaboratively and providing students with opportunities for IPE. Identifying the variables influencing attitudes to IPW and IPE may assist in improving IPW and experiences of IPE for students learning in the healthcare setting.PostprintPeer reviewe

Spanish generation from Spanish Sign Language using a phrase-based translation system

This paper describes the development of a Spoken Spanish generator from Spanish Sign Language (LSE – Lengua de Signos Española) in a specific domain: the renewal of Identity Document and Driver’s license. The system is composed of three modules. The first one is an interface where a deaf person can specify a sign sequence in sign-writing. The second one is a language translator for converting the sign sequence into a word sequence. Finally, the last module is a text to speech converter. Also, the paper describes the generation of a parallel corpus for the system development composed of more than 4,000 Spanish sentences and their LSE translations in the application domain. The paper is focused on the translation module that uses a statistical strategy with a phrase-based translation model, and this paper analyses the effect of the alignment configuration used during the process of word based translation model generation. Finally, the best configuration gives a 3.90% mWER and a 0.9645 BLEU

Developing a structured approach to furthering integrated care for the population of the Midland Health Board, Republic of Ireland: the ICON project / Susan Tucker, Veronica Larkin and Martina Martin

MHB / 200

Austerity, measles and mandatory vaccination: cross-regional analysis of vaccination in Italy 2000-14.

Background: Italy has experienced a resurgence in measles since 2015. Although much emphasis has been placed on the role of individuals opting out of vaccination, here we test the hypothesis that large budget reductions in public health spending were also a contributing factor. Methods: Multi-variate statistical models were used to assess the relationship between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) coverage and real public health expenditure per-capita across Italy's 20 regions covering the period 2000-14. Results: Between 2010 and 2014 Italy's public health expenditure fell by over 2%, although varying among regions. Fixed effects models estimate that each 1% reduction in per-capita public health expenditure was associated with a decrease of 0.5 percentage points (95% CI: 0.36-0.65 percentage points) in MMR coverage, after adjusting for time and regional-specific time trends. The consequences can be illustrated by comparing two regions, Lazio, where public health spending fell by 5% and MMR coverage by over 3 percentage points, and Sardinia, a historically deprived region, where public health spending partly rose and MMR rates remained approximately steady. Conclusion: Adoption of austerity policies in the Italian health system was found to be significantly associated with declining vaccination rates for MMR. However, the recent introduction of mandatory vaccination for Italian children may help counteract this trend

Advanced Speech Communication System for Deaf People

This paper describes the development of an Advanced Speech Communication System for Deaf People and its field evaluation in a real application domain: the renewal of Driver’s License. The system is composed of two modules. The first one is a Spanish into Spanish Sign Language (LSE: Lengua de Signos Española) translation module made up of a speech recognizer, a natural language translator (for converting a word sequence into a sequence of signs), and a 3D avatar animation module (for playing back the signs). The second module is a Spoken Spanish generator from sign writing composed of a visual interface (for specifying a sequence of signs), a language translator (for generating the sequence of words in Spanish), and finally, a text to speech converter. For language translation, the system integrates three technologies: an example based strategy, a rule based translation method and a statistical translator. This paper also includes a detailed description of the evaluation carried out in the Local Traffic Office in the city of Toledo (Spain) involving real government employees and deaf people. This evaluation includes objective measurements from the system and subjective information from questionnaire

A New Remotely Operated Sensor Platform for Interdisciplinary Observations under Sea Ice

Observation of the climate and ecosystem of ice covered polar seas is a timely task for the scientific community. The goal is to assess the drastic and imminent changes of the polar sea ice cover induced by climate change. Retreating and thinning sea ice affects the planets energy budget, atmospheric, and oceanic circulation patterns as well as the ecosystem associated with this unique habitat. To increase the observational capabilities of sea ice scientists, we equipped a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) as sensor platform for interdisciplinary research at the ice water interface. Here, we present the technical details and operation scheme of the new vehicle and provide data examples from a first campaign in the Arctic in autumn 2016 to demonstrate the vehicle's capabilities. The vehicle is designed for efficient operations in the harsh polar conditions. Redundant modular design allows operation by three scientists simultaneously operating a wide variety of sensors. Sensors from physical, chemical, and biological oceanography are combined with optical and acoustic sea ice sensors to provide a comprehensive picture of the underside of sea ice. The sensor suite provides comprehensive capabilities and can be further extended as additional ports for power and communication are available. The vehicle provides full six degrees of freedom in navigation, enabling intervention, and manipulation skills despite its simple one function manipulator arm

Electromagnon in ferrimagnetic eps-Fe2O3 nanograin ceramics

Electromagnons are known from multiferroics as spin waves excited by the electric component of electromagnetic radiation. We report the discovery of an excitation in the far-infrared spectra of eps-Fe2O3 which we attribute to an electromagnon appearing below 110 K, where the ferrimagnetic structure becomes incommensurately modulated. Inelastic neutron scattering shows that the electromagnon energy corresponds to that of a magnon from the Brillouin zone boundary. Dielectric measurements did not reveal any sign of ferroelectricity in eps-Fe2O3 down to 10 K, despite its acentric crystal structure. This shows that the activation of an electromagnon requires, in addition to the polar ferrimagnetic structure, a modulation of the magnetic structure. We demonstrate that a combination of inelastic neutron scattering with infrared and / or terahertz spectroscopies allows detecting electromagnons in ceramics, where no crystal-orientation analysis of THz and infrared spectra is possible.Comment: accepted to Phys. Rev.