Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P K Townsend.
It is shown that a IIA superstring carrying D0-brane charge can be "blown up," in a Minkowski vacuum background, to a (1/4)-supersymmetric tubular D2-brane, supported against collapse by the angular momentum generated by crossed electric and magnetic Born-Infeld fields. This "supertube" can be viewed as a world-volume realization of the sigma-model Q lump.
Medical ecology has been one of the dominant theoretical strands in medical anthropology since the 1960s. It has come to be identified with a rather narrow range of research issues, concerning such matters as adaptation to climate and infectious disease, and has dealt with small-scale foraging societies. An ecological model has potential for dealing broadly with other health issues, in the case explored here, women's reproductive health, a topic that has frequently been approached from either a cultural or biological standpoint rather than the integrated one advocated here.
In this small East Sepik population, the infant death rate is extremely high, about 400 per 1000. It has remained at least as high in the generation after contact in the early 1960s as in the generation born prior to first contact with government and missionaries, despite many other kinds of social and economic change. Simple aid post treatment available year round and twice yearly immunization patrols remain a pressing need for small, peripheral populations like this one who are still without these services.
Family planning records were analyzed for 18 urban and rural clinics throughout Papua New Guinea. From the record cards of 7443 women, contraceptive continuation rates for the first method used were calculated. Continuation rates after one year are 92 per cent with the IUD (intra-uterine device), 41 per cent with oral contraceptives and 54 per cent with injections. Differences associated with age, parity, and rural-versus-urban clinics are discussed. Continuation rates are used to give an estimate of current contraceptive use of less than seven per cent of Papua New Guinea women. Improvement in access to services for rural women is needed, as is better communication in the initial interview with a new acceptor.