Models and algorithms for analyzing complex networks are widely used in research and affect society at large through their applications in online social networks, search engines, and recommender systems. According to a new study, however, one widely used algorithmic approach for modeling these networks is fundamentally flawed, failing to capture important properties of real-world complex networks.
Read More
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-widely-machine-methods-dont.html
Views: 0
Women can be especially susceptible to stress, and new research shows that stress can have devastating consequences, including long-term serious illness. Unchecked, stress can wreak havoc on your mind and body, leading to anxiety and depression as well as physical health problems like gastrointestinal complaints, headaches, and other chronic maladies.Let?s explore some simple techniques you can start using today to help reduce stress.
Read More
http://www.associationofmarketing.org/articles/view.php?article_id=16078
Views: 0
Here are three email tests to help you start optimizing your program today.
Time of Day: A quick glance of my inbox shows that many senders continue to send weekday mornings. In contrast, most studies on shopping show that most people buy in the evening after work or on weekends. If it?s been a while or you?ve never tested time of day for email sends now is a good time to start testing. Start with general day parts (morning vs. afternoon and morning vs. evening). If you see an uptick for a particular day part, then try expanding testing by breaking that day part down to hourly increments to fine tune.
Read More
http://www.associationofmarketing.org/articles/view.php?article_id=14699
Views: 0
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s health ministry on Sunday urged its citizens to defer all non-essential travel abroad in an unprecedented move for the Asian transport hub, as part of new measures to control the coronavirus that is fast spreading around the world.
Singapore will also tell all entering the country with recent travel history to the Asean group of nations, Japan, Switzerland or the United Kingdom to quarantine themselves at their place of residence for 14 days, the ministry added.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) comprises Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Countries, such as the UK and Switzerland have “abandoned” any attempt at containing the spread of the infection, said Lawrence Wong, a minister who co-heads Singapore’s virus fighting taskforce.
“That’s why we are more concerned that Singapore may well be exposed to a new wave of infections, which is potentially larger than what we have seen previously.”
The majority of new infections being reported in Singapore, an island nation with a population of 5.7 million, over the past few days have been people returning from overseas rather than local transmissions.
At least five cases of Singaporeans have been linked to a large religious gathering in Malaysia that was attended by more than 10,000 people from several countries.
Short-term visitors who are nationals of its Southeast Asian neighbours will also have to seek prior approval from the health ministry before their journey to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
The restriction comes after a number of cases that entered Singapore with the specific purpose of seeking healthcare, the health ministry said. There have been two cases of Indonesians who had coronavirus symptoms at home before arriving in Singapore, known for its superior healthcare facilities.
The measures will be reviewed after a month. They will not apply to sea and land crossings with Malaysia, which will have separate precautions. Wong said 300,000 people a day move across the land checkpoints with Malaysia.
The Asian travel hub has previously announced bans on visitors from several coronavirus-hit countries, including China, Italy and France.
Singapore has won international praise for its painstaking onslaught on the virus since it initially emerged with one of the highest tallies of infections outside China. But other nations have since outpaced it.
Singapore has reported 212 infections, but no fatalities. Globally, more than 150,000 people have been infected while over 5,800 have died, a Reuters tally shows. — Reuters
Read More
https://www.thesundaily.my/world/singaporeans-should-avoid-overseas-travel-government-says-XI2129044
Views: 0
Twenty-five years ago, two global events – the International Conference on Population and Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing – formally recognized that women’s health and reproductive choices cannot be separated from the social context of their lives.
Now, researchers have created a dataset which brings together national surveys from 74 countries, representing 3 million women. For the first time, it allows them to describe trends in demand/use of modern contraceptives alongside social and economic indicators.
The data is published in The Lancet Global Health and is authored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the World Health Organization.
It shows that, over time, women are more likely to have their demand for modern contraception met in countries where gender equality and their educational opportunities improve.
Trends in sexual activity and demand for use and use of modern contraceptive methods in 74 countries: a retrospective analysis of nationally representative surveys finds that met need for modern contraception is strongly correlated with positive shifts in social structures.
For every 0.1-point increase in a country’s gender development index, it found a 6.7% rise in women who were sexually active and did not want to conceive. Of those women, an additional 13.5% used modern methods to prevent a pregnancy.
Expectations of every girl’s right to education also made a difference. Each extra year in schooling is linked to an increase of 2.3% in demand, and a 4.7% increase in use of modern contraceptive methods.
“This study shows how every woman must negotiate her reproductive autonomy within the social framework in which she lives, responding to barriers and opportunities as they emerge,” says Dr Lale Say, one of the authors of the study and Unit Head at WHO and HRP.
“Gender equality is both a precondition and a driving force for securing women’s reproductive health and rights – as well as the sustainable development targets, which are our best chance for delivering health and well-being for all.”
Overall, the data reinforce global trends: more time spent sexually-active and single, postponement of parenthood, and the near-universal desire for smaller families.
The study also highlights where action is needed at country-level to avoid family planning services falling behind demand.
Out of the 74 countries analyzed, 42 showed an increase in demand for contraception. Only 37 countries show an increase in use of a modern method to prevent pregnancy.
Although unmet need for contraception declined in 34 countries, it increased in 14 countries. Significantly more progress is needed, and faster, to ensure each girl and woman is able to access the sexual and reproductive health services she needs.
Gender equality can affect contraceptive use in many ways. From the personal and political degree to which women are free to choose their sexual activity, to accessing family planning services it can also shape any power imbalances within personal relationships. This study supports recent efforts by WHO to adopt a broader, integrated concept of sexual and reproductive health – and to translate it into a framework for policy and practice.
The authors argue that family planning targets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will not be met without a profound shift: from focus on ‘access to contraception’, to broader aspects of sexual health and social context.
Since reproductive health and women’s empowerment are intertwined, trends in contraceptive use can also reveal progress towards another global target: progress towards gender equality.
Read More
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/10-03-2020-the-unmet-need-for-social-context-in-family-planning
Views: 0
While many Australians were preoccupied with panic-buying toilet paper, sales of another commodity encountered a very different sort of crisis.
Read More
Views: 0
General Motors, trying to refashion itself as a futuristic company with technology to compete against Tesla, rolled out plans Wednesday for 13 new electric vehicles during the next five years.
Read More
Views: 0
A large majority of Americans believe Facebook has “too much power” but many would be disappointed if the social networking giant disappeared, a survey showed Monday.
Read More
Views: 0
An interactive data tool launched by WHO reveals for the first time the current and future financial cost of health care for women living with conditions caused by female genital mutilation (FGM).
The total costs amount to USD 1.4 billion annually.
The FGM Cost Calculator is being launched on this year’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM. This new tool shows that if FGM were abandoned now the associated savings
in health costs would be more than 60% by 2050. This data, available for 27 of the 30 countries where FGM is practiced, will strengthen the economic argument of community activists, policy makers, programme planners and donors working to end this
human rights violation.
Q&As on the FGM Cost Calculator
Access the FGM Cost Calculator
FGM includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated.
[1] An extreme form of gender discrimination, it is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women: including the right to health, security and physical integrity and the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment.
FGM has no health benefits and causes only harm. Women and girls who are subjected to FGM are at risk of both short- and long-term negative health consequences – including for their physical, sexual, mental, and social well-being.
The direct financial cost of treating the negative health complications caused by FGM can span generations, starting as early as childbirth. This puts a significant economic burden on health systems and national budgets, especially in countries with rates
of FGM greater than 10%.
Until now, there have been limited data on the financial costs associated with FGM, making it hard to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of programmes and policies that can prevent FGM by 2030 – a global priority in the Sustainable Development Agenda.
The new WHO Cost Calculator now provides an economic argument which can be used by those advocating for an end to FGM.
Users of the new FGM Cost Calculator can choose a country and identify current costs of treating health conditions caused by FGM. Since the tool is interactive, it produces bespoke graphs showing the potential amount of money saved if FGM is prevented
by a selected percentage.
If no action is taken to prevent FGM, it is estimated that related health costs will soar by 50% by 2050, as populations grow and as more girls undergo the procedure.
The FGM Cost Calculator combines data on health risk associated with FGM, health costs and national FGM prevalence to analyze the economic impact on national health services of treating the consequences of these harmful practices.
Health risk data were taken from a WHO database created for this analysis, pooling all available information from systematic reviews of health consequences of FGM. The following categories were used, each with a biological link to FGM: gynaecological,
obstetric, urological, mental and sexual, as well as the immediate health complications that can result following the cutting.
To be included in the calculator, a health condition needed to show evidence of increased risk when comparing women with and without FGM. It also needed to have a treatment which could be implemented and costed in the health sector.
Health costs were calculated from the WHO One Health Tool and other data. The financial burden of treating selected health conditions was calculated at a national level.
Rates of FGM have declined over the past 30 years, but not fast enough to keep up with population growth. If trends continue, the number of girls and women undergoing FGM will rise significantly in the next 15 years, in turn raising national health care
costs of caring for them.
Additional resources are urgently needed to scale up interventions that can prevent FGM in the future and reduce health complications.
By providing quantifiable numbers on the cost of treating health conditions directly linked to FGM, for the first time, the FGM Cost Calculator can be a crucial tool in building an investment case for a future where no girl or woman is cut.
[1] Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Global Concern, UNICEF, New York, 2016
Read More
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/06-02-2020-economic-cost-of-female-genital-mutilation
Views: 0
Vaccination, screening, treatment and palliative care are the key interventions of WHO’s Draft Global Strategy towards the Elimination of Cervical Cancer as a Public Health Problem,
the fourth most common cancer in women.
On World Cancer Day, new estimates show that this strategy could save more than 62 million girls and women from a cervical cancer death and prevent 74 million cases within the next 100 years – but only if these interventions are used effectively
together.
These estimates, published by the WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Modelling Consortium (CCEMC) in The Lancet, are based on the draft strategy’s targets to achieve a global coverage of 90% vaccination, 70% screening and 90% treatment by 2030.
Developed by Member States, UN agencies and other partners, the draft global strategy seeks to redress the unequal burden of cervical cancer around the world. Nine in 10 cervical cancer deaths occur in low and lower-middle-income countries, where
women lack access to health services.
As Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s Director-General has said, “It doesn’t have to be this way. Cervical cancer
is one of the most preventable and treatable forms of cancer, as long as it is detected early and managed effectively.”
This new analysis compares the impact of vaccination, screening and treatment of cervical pre-cancer lesions as single or combined interventions. Focusing on 78 countries where cervical cancer mortality is highest, the results clearly show that no
single intervention will be sufficient to reduce levels of cervical cancer in the next 100 years to below the elimination target of 4 cases per 100,000 women per year.
Acting immediately on all three fronts is crucial.
Vaccinating girls against cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV) before the age of 15 is the foundation for bringing every country’s incidence rate of cervical cancer down to the agreed elimination level.
Right now, however, vaccination is not enough. As a single strategy, vaccination targets would only deliver a 0.1% reduction in cervical cancer mortality by 2030. Scaling up screening and treatment of cervical pre-cancer lesions at the same time would
reduce mortality by more than one third, or 300,000 deaths, in the same period.
The evidence shows that when all adult women are screened for cervical cancer at least twice, at ages 35 and 45, abnormalities are more likely to be detected before they become cancerous. When cancer has developed, screening increases a women’s
likelihood of early and successful treatment, as well as palliative care if recovery is no longer an option.
Meeting these triple-intervention targets would be a major contribution to target 3.4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a one-third reduction in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by 2030.
WHO’s global strategy towards eliminating cervical cancer aims to set the world on the right track by 2030, but it is just the beginning.
At this pace, global elimination of cervical cancer is not predicted until 2120.
While high HPV vaccination coverage is the primary prevention intervention, ensuring every woman has two cervical screenings in her life would accelerate elimination by 11 – 31 years, depending on the country.
If no action is taken, cervical cancer deaths will rise almost 50% by 2030. Approval of the draft global strategy at the WHO World Health Assembly in 2020, and investment in mechanisms to deliver it, is vital.
As the new World Cancer Report shows, only 18% of countries that currently provide screening for cervical cancer reached the recommended target of more than 70% coverage. An estimated 55% of low-income countries that reported offering
cervical cancer screening generally lack accessible radiotherapy or surgery services.
Elimination of cervical cancer is possible within the lifetime of today’s youngest girls, but the clock starts now and every intervention counts.
Read More
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/04-02-2020-to-eliminate-cervical-cancer-in-the-next-100-years
Views: 0