Reproductive time lost due to sexual union dissolution in San José, Costa Rica

Abstract It has long been recognized, on a theoretical level, that widowhood, divorce, and separation, if not immediately followed by re-marriage, could have a negative impact on fertility. Davis and Blake specifically identified the amount of reproductive time spent after or between unions as one of the eleven intermediate variables bearing immediately upon fertility.     

River basin planning as a strategy for rural development in Nigeria

River basin planning has existed in one form or another since the third millenium B.C. when some of the earliest civilizations evolved in the great drainage basins of Mesopotamia, Egypt and north-west India. It has, however, undergone several modifications before finally culminating in the comprehensive planning for simultaneous development of all resources of a river basin.The idea of river basin planning was first mooted in Nigeria by the Food and Agriculture Organization in the late 1960s. Beginning in the early 1970s, the Federal government of Nigeria also came to the belief that river basin planning could play a significant role in the country's development. At the height of the ‘oil boom’ in 1976 and with the incipient manifestation of structural problems in the national economy, the government took a giant step in river basin planning by the establishment of 11 river basin development authorities. River basin planning is viewed as a ‘new approach’ to rural development and has involved more substantial capital outlay than all the other rural programmes combined.This paper examines the implementation and impact of these projects, which are large-scale and capital intensive, and which may be incompatible with a strategy aimed at improving the lot of the peasant farmers. The projects have wrought havoc on the prevailing rural economy and social-economic structures. Even if they were to achieve the primary objective of increasing rural productivity, this may be at a great cost to the rural populace and the environment.Perhaps more important is that river basin planning has the potential of substituting one form of dependency for another (food importation being substituted for the importation of fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment, machines and foreign experts). The projects are thus benefiting a powerful combination of interests comprising local and foreign contractors, land speculators, bureaucrats, rural elites and incipient capitalist farmers who have not borne any losses in the process of implementation.     

Maximum-likelihood estimates and likelihood-ratio criteria for multivariate elliptically contoured distributions

For a class of multivariate elliptically contoured distributions the maximum-likelihood estimators of the mean vector and covariance matrix are found under certain conditions. Likelihood-ratio criteria are obtained for a class of null hypotheses. These have the same form as in the normal case.     

Hospital-physician relations: overcoming barriers to cooperation.

In the September-October 1986 issue of Physician Executive, we discussed the application of strategic business units (SBUs) to health care. SBUs are those corporate entities that market similar products to one or more target populations with similar characteristics. Examples of SBUs in health care are obstetrics, cardiology, orthopedics, etc. When the services within each SBU are linked together, they might resemble a vertically integrated health care system. In the case of obstetrics, a woman may have contact with physicians, a hospital, home care nurses, house-cleaning services, birthing teachers, and maternity clothing boutiques. Each of these are products/services within the SBU of obstetrics. Strategy development by SBU implies an external focus on the marketplace in terms of the specific mission of the SBU (clinical specialty). It also implies responding to the needs of consumers for whom the historical and present divisiveness between hospitals and physicians is immaterial and irrelevant. In this article, we will focus on ways to stabilize the relationship between hospitals and physicians within an SBU context in order to compete more successfully as a team in today's health care environment.     

Assessment of family planning programme effects on births: Preliminary results obtained through direct matching of birth and programme acceptor records

Abstract In order to match birth and family planning acceptance records and thereby to obtain estimates of pre- and post-acceptance fertility, use is made of seven-digit national identity card numbers, issued to all adult West Malaysians. These unique numbers are recorded on live-birth records and national family planning programme acceptor records of West Malaysian women. The application and preliminary results of this method of direct computer matching of these sets of records for assessing the effects of a family planning programme on fertility are described. Pre- and post-acceptance fertility rates are presented in terms of contraceptive methods used, and the key characteristics of race and age of programme acceptors, and are discussed in terms of marital duration and number of children at the time of acceptance.