This book presents the current place and future role of the community health worker. The majority of the world's population continues to suffer levels of ill-health and death that are only a distant memory in prosperous countries. Approaches to alleviating this burden are well-known, and range from specific medical interventions to broader development policies. Since the Chinese experience of mobilising 'barefoot doctors' became known, the approach of training villagers to offer local services has received strong support from international agencies and governments. More recently reports of the quality of the services offered by these workers has indicated that a large gulf may have existed between the rhetoric and the reality. Some have questioned the basic premise that such workers can make a valuable contribution. However, the debate has been informed only by a limited number of often dated accounts. This book analyses programmes in a limited number of countries whose experience is particularly relevant to understanding the role of these workers. The picture that emerges demonstrates the potential value of community health workers as individuals, but highlights the widespread failure of the programmes required to support them. Through case studies and an analytical overview, this book sets out the preconditions for effective community health worker programmes.

The shift to a market economy in post-communist Eastern Europe has had a profound impact on science and scientists across the region, leading to reforms in research management practices and to drastic cuts in funding levels everywhere. Many countries are moving towards a system of competitive research grants awarded on the basis of peer review.

The introduction of peer review is not simply a technical matter; it signifies a fundamental change in the social structure of science, enhancing professional autonomy and giving working scientists a voice in the allocation of resources. This book combines first-hand accounts of the reform process with analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of both peer review and quantitative indicators.

Emphasizing the finite difference approach for solving differential equations, the second edition of Numerical Methods for Engineers and Scientists presents a methodology for systematically constructing individual computer programs. Providing easy access to accurate solutions to complex scientific and engineering problems, each chapter begins with objectives, a discussion of a representative application, and an outline of special features, summing up with a list of tasks students should be able to complete after reading the chapter- perfect for use as a study guide or for review. The AIAA Journal calls the book "...a good, solid instructional text on the basic tools of numerical analysis."

Inspired by Machiavelli, modern philosophers held that the tension between the goals of biblical piety and the goals of political life needed to be resolved in favor of the political, and they attempted to recast and delimit traditional Christian teaching to serve and stabilize political life accordingly. This volume examines the arguments of those thinkers who worked to remake Christianity into a civil religion in the early modern and modern periods. Beginning with Machiavelli and continuing through to Alexis de Tocqueville, the essays in this collection explain in detail the ways in which these philosophers used religious and secular writing to build a civil religion in the West. Early chapters examine topics such as Machiavelli's comparisons of Christianity with Roman religion, Francis Bacon's cherry-picking of Christian doctrines in the service of scientific innovation, and Spinoza's attempt to replace long-held superstitions with newer, "progressive" ones. Other essays probe the scripture-based, anti-Christian argument that religion must be subordinate to politics espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume, both of whom championed reason over divine authority. Crucially, the book also includes a study of civil religion in America, with chapters on John Locke, Montesquieu, and the American Founders illuminating the relationships among religious and civil history, acts, and authority. The last chapter is an examination of Tocqueville's account of civil religion and the American regime. Detailed, thought-provoking, and based on the careful study of original texts, this survey of religion and politics in the West will appeal to scholars in the history of political philosophy, political theory, and American political thought.

Dr Frankel's study of the rapid transformation of traditional medical care among the Huli of New Guinea by Western treatments strikingly combines the methods of social anthropology and epidemiology. Until the 1950s the Huli used only their own form of therapy, including symptomatic treatments, specialist surgery and major ritual intended to enlist the support of spirits. Since then, superficially at least, there has been a rejection of many traditional measures and a corresponding enthusiasm for Western treatments underpinned by Christianity. The Huli Response to Illness analyses the rich network of traditional belief relating to the classification and causation of illness, patterns of disease, historical experience, and the organisation of society. The methodological approach presented is notable not only for the study of medical pluralism, but also for examining the conditions which may influence responses to programmes of health improvement. The study as a whole integrates material conventionally divided between anthropological and medical texts and powerfully demonstrates the limitations of this traditional separation.