In this study, the artificial neural network was deployed to develop a classification model for predicting the class of a drug-related suspect into either the drug peddler or non-drug peddler class. A dataset consisting of 262 observations on drug suspects and offenders in central Nigeria was used to train the model which uses parameters such as exhibit type, suspect's age, exhibit weight, and suspect's gender to predict the class of a suspect, with a predictive accuracy of 83%. The model sets the pace for the implementation of a full system for use at airports, seaports, police stations, and by security agents concerned with drug-related matters. The accurate classification of suspects and offenders will ensure a faster and correct reference to the sections of the drug law that correspond to a particular offence for appropriate actions such as prosecution or rehabilitation.
Comments on Marina J. Malinov & Paul M. Sommers's paper (1997) on the Phillips curve relationship between inflation & unemployment between 1973 & 1992 & on Bradley T. Ewing's & William L. Seyfried's (1999) comments on that work. The efforts of both groups are extended, using monthly data & correcting the model for the presence of first order serial correlations, oil price changes, & the role of inflationary expectations. With these changes, the hypothesized relationship between inflation & unemployment remained intact. 4 References. M. Pflum
ABSTRACTOccasionally, the ability of prospective research participants to consent may be uncertain. Yet standardized capacity‐assessment tools may not suffice to determine the ability to consent to a particular research protocol. This study consisted of a retrospective review of the outcomes of an alternative approach used by the Ability to Consent Assessment Team at the National Institutes of Health. Of 944 individuals evaluated over 20 years (1999‐2019), 70.1% were determined to have capacity to consent to participate in research. Of those who lacked capacity to consent and were subsequently evaluated for their ability to assign a surrogate, 86.0% had the ability to do so. The findings demonstrate that establishing a task‐specific approach for assessing the capacity of potential participants to consent to a variety of research protocols can facilitate safe and ethically justifiable inclusion of individuals whose ability to consent is initially uncertain.
INTRODUCTION: Precipitating factors that contribute to the severity of exertional heat stroke (EHS) are unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of prior illness (PI) on EHS severity. METHODS: We performed a retrospective clinical record review of 179 documented cases of EHS at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. RESULTS: Approximately 30% of EHS cases had a medically documented PI. Anthropometrics (height, weight, body mass index) and commonly associated risk factors for EHS (age, number of days in training, wet bulb globe temperature, sleep patterns) did not differ between PI and no illness (NI) groups. PI patients presented with higher maximal rectal core temperatures (40.6 ± 1.0°C vs. 40.3 ± 1.2°C; P = 0.0419), and elevated pulse rates (118.1 ± 16.7 bpm vs. 110.5 ± 24.2 bpm; P = 0.0397). At the point of care, biomarker values were similar between PI and NI groups, with the exception of a trend toward elevated monocytes in those with PI (7.9 ± 2.9% vs 6.7± 2.7%; P = 0.0521). Rate and duration of cooling were similar between PI and NI patients. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that PI has a minimal effect on the patient presentation, severity and treatment outcome of EHS. The results of this study have important implications for military, civilian, and occupational populations who are at risk for EHS.
… an in-depth reference work … well organized and well written … well illustrated with figures and tables … an enjoyable reading for those who are interested in selenium, especially the investigators, teachers and graduate students involved in selenium research.-Saura C. Sahu, US Editor, Journal of Applied Toxicology.
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1. Ecological and other factors in the rise and fall of the Zimbabwe state / by J. H. Bannerman. - 5 S.; 2. The Rozvi in search of their past / by D. N. Beach. - 12 S.; 3. The Portuguese legacy in South-Central Africa : a reflective essay on the debates originating from use of Portuguese sources / by H. H. K. Bhila. - 9 S.; 4. Lineage formation among the Luo revised : Karachuonyo and Kayamkago (Southwestern Kenya) in the nineteenth century / by Judith Butterman. - 30 S.; 5. Phelps-stokesism and education in Zimbabwe / by R. J. Challiss. - 17 S.; 6. Bantu conquest and colonization of Zimbabwe / by A. S. Chigwedere. - 8 S.; 7. Impact of the second world war in cattle marketing in Sulumaland, Tanganyika / by Samuel N. Chipungu. - 17 S.; 8. From Paul Dikkop to Simbini Nkomo : some origins of modern African thought in Southern Africa / by J. Mutero Chirenje. - 12 S.; 9. The Mozambican cotton cooperative : the creation of a grassroots alternative to forced commodity production / Allen Isaacman. - 24 S.; 10. Famines, epidemics, plagues and long periods of warfare : their effects in Mozambique 1700-1975 / by Gerhard J. Liesegang. - 8 S.; 11. A project to record the oral sources of history in Mozambique : first results and further plans / by Gerhad Liesegang. - 9 S.; 12. Bankrupt settler farmers, unemployment and state response in colonial Zimbabwe in the 1930's / by V. Machingaidze. - 12 S.; 13. Inside the Hippo / by Hugh Macmillan. - 19 S.; 14. Labour mobilization in the forces labour economy of the early colonial Zimbabwe : the Selukwe mines case / E. P. Makombe. - 20 S.; 15. The origins and early development of white trade unions / Louis Molamu. - 11 S.; 16. Capital class struggle and the state in colonial Zimbabwe / by Joseph Frederick Mbwiliza. - 32 S.; 17. Chiefs and ethnic unity in two colonial worlds : the Bakgatla-ba-ga-Kgafela of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Transvaal, 1872-1966 / R. F. Morton. - 28 S.; 18. The land question - the historical roots of the problem / by H. V. Moyana. - 30 S.; 19. The Jamaican experiment 1972-1980 : similarities with the Zimbabwean experiment / by K. Nyamayaro Mufuka. - 9 S.; 20. Oral history - the archival approach in Zimbabwe / by D. K. Munjeri. - 11 S
A major problem facing the economic development of Ghana and the West African sub-regions is the provision of enterprise credit to small businesses. In order to address this issue, the British Council together with ISSER organized a three-day sub-regional seminar in March 1995. The seminar focused on four specific issues: the nature and level of demand for credit by small and medium enterprises; credit supply constraints; alternatives to bank credit; and the scope for future support from informal finance. This book represents a selection of the papers presented at the seminar. (DÜI-Hff)
Ecosystems in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta are changing rapidly, as are ecosystems around the world. Extreme events are becoming more frequent and thresholds are likely to be crossed more often, creating greater uncertainty about future conditions. The accelerating speed of change means that ecological systems may not remain stable long enough for scientists to understand them, much less use their research findings to inform policy and management. Faced with these challenges, those involved in science, policy, and management must adapt and change and anticipate what the ecosystems may be like in the future. We highlight several ways of looking ahead—scenario analyses, horizon scanning, expert elicitation, and dynamic planning—and suggest that recent advances in distributional ecology, disturbance ecology, resilience thinking, and our increased understanding of coupled human–natural systems may provide fresh ways of thinking about more rapid change in the future. To accelerate forward-looking science, policy, and management in the Delta, we propose that the State of California create a Delta Science Visioning Process to fully and openly assess the challenges of more rapid change to science, policy, and management and propose appropriate solutions, through legislation, if needed.
A vision model is designed using low-level vision principles so that it can perform as a human observer model for camouflage assessment. In a camouflaged-object assessment task, using military patterns in an outdoor environment, human performance at detection and recognition is compared with the human observer model. This involved field data acquisition and subsequent image calibration, a human experiment, and the design of the vision model. Human and machine performance, at recognition and detection, of military patterns in two environments was found to correlate highly. Our model offers an inexpensive, automated, and objective method for the assessment of camouflage where it is impractical, or too expensive, to use human observers to evaluate the conspicuity of a large number of candidate patterns. Furthermore, the method should generalize to the assessment of visual conspicuity in non-military contexts.
WOS: 000469975500005 ; We present the discovery of HD 221416 b, the first transiting planet identified by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for which asteroseismology of the host star is possible. HD 221416 b (HIP 116158, TOI-197) is a bright (V = 8.2 mag), spectroscopically classified subgiant that oscillates with an average frequency of about 430 mu Hz and displays a clear signature of mixed modes. The oscillation amplitude confirms that the redder TESS bandpass compared to Kepler has a small effect on the oscillations, supporting the expected yield of thousands of solar-like oscillators with TESS 2 minute cadence observations. Asteroseismic modeling yields a robust determination of the host star radius (R-* = 2.943 +/- 0.064 R-circle dot), mass (M-* = 1.212 +/- 0.074 M-circle dot), and age (4.9 +/- 1.1 Gyr), and demonstrates that it has just started ascending the red-giant branch. Combining asteroseismology with transit modeling and radial-velocity observations, we show that the planet is a "hot Saturn" (R-p = 9.17 +/- 0.33 R-circle plus) with an orbital period of similar to 14.3 days, irradiance of F = 343 +/- 24 F-circle plus, and moderate mass (M-p = 60.5 +/- 5.7 M-circle plus) and density (rho(p) = 0.431 +/- 0.062 g cm(-3)). The properties of HD 221416 b show that the host-star metallicity-planet mass correlation found in sub-Saturns (4-8 R-circle plus) does not extend to larger radii, indicating that planets in the transition between sub-Saturns and Jupiters follow a relatively narrow range of densities. With a density measured to similar to 15%, HD 221416 b is one of the best characterized Saturn-size planets to date, augmenting the small number of known transiting planets around evolved stars and demonstrating the power of TESS to characterize exoplanets and their host stars using asteroseismology. ; National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the TESS Guest Investigator Program [80NSSC18K1585]; National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) [AST-1717000]; Science and Technology Facilities CouncilScience & Technology Facilities Council (STFC); UK Space Agency; European Social Fund via the Lithuanian Science Council [09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0103]; Danish National Research FoundationDanmarks Grundforskningsfond [DNRF106]; FONDECYT projectComision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT)CONICYT FONDECYT [1171208]; CONICYT projectComision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) [BASAL AFB-170002]; Ministry for the Economy, Development, and Tourism's Programa Iniciativa Cientifica Milenio [IC 120009]; FONDECYTComision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT)CONICYT FONDECYT [3180246]; Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS); MINECOSpanish Ministry of Economy & Competitiveness [ESP2017-82674-R]; AGAURAgencia de Gestio D'Ajuts Universitaris de Recerca Agaur (AGUAR) [SGR2017-1131]; PLATO grant from the CNES; European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP72007-2013) ERC grant [338251]; European Research Council through the SPIRE grant [647383]; FCT (Portugal); FEDER through COMPETE2020 [UID/FIS/04434/2013, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007672, PTDC/FIS-AST/30389/2017, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030389]; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grantEuropean Union (EU) [792848]; European UnionEuropean Union (EU) [664931]; Independent Research Fund Denmark [7027-00096B]; Australian Research CouncilAustralian Research Council; NASANational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [NNX16AI09G, AS5-26555]; NSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [AST-1514676]; Australian Research CouncilAustralian Research Council [DP150100250]; ERCEuropean Research Council (ERC) [772293]; Ramon y Cajal fellowshipMinistry of Education and Science, Spain [RYC-2015-17697]; Carlsberg FoundationCarlsberg Foundation [CF17-0760]; HBCSE-NIUS programme; NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants - Space Telescope Science Institute [HST-HF2-51399.001, HST-HF2-51424.001]; Premiale 2015 MITiC; NKFIH [K-115709]; Lendulet Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences [LP2018-7/2018]; NASA's Science Mission directorate ; The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawai'ian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. We thank Andrei Tokovinin for helpful information on the Speckle observations obtained with SOAR. D.H. acknowledges support by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the TESS Guest Investigator Program (80NSSC18K1585) and by the National Science Foundation (AST-1717000). A.C. acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under the Graduate Research Fellowship Program. W.J.C., W.H.B., A.M., O.J.H., and G.R.D. acknowledge support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council and UK Space Agency. H.K. and F.G. acknowledge support from the European Social Fund via the Lithuanian Science Council grant No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0103. Funding for the Stellar Astrophysics Centre is provided by The Danish National Research Foundation (grant DNRF106). A.J. acknowledges support from FONDECYT project 1171208, CONICYT project BASAL AFB-170002, and by the Ministry for the Economy, Development, and Tourism's Programa Iniciativa Cientifica Milenio through grant IC 120009, awarded to the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS). R.B. acknowledges support from FONDECYT Post-doctoral Fellowship Project 3180246, and from the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS). A.M.S. is supported by grants ESP2017-82674-R (MINECO) and SGR2017-1131 (AGAUR). R.A.G. and L.B. acknowledge the support of the PLATO grant from the CNES. The research leading to the presented results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP72007-2013) ERC grant agreement No. 338251 (StellarAges). S.M. acknowledges support from the European Research Council through the SPIRE grant 647383. This work was also supported by FCT (Portugal) through national funds and by FEDER through COMPETE2020 by these grants: UID/FIS/04434/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007672, PTDC/FIS-AST/30389/2017, and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030389. T.L.C. acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 792848 (PULSATION). E.C. is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 664931. V.S.A. acknowledges support from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (Research grant 7027-00096B). D.S. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council. S.B. acknowledges NASA grant NNX16AI09G and NSF grant AST-1514676. T.R.W. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council through grant DP150100250. A.M. acknowledges support from the ERC Consolidator Grant funding scheme (project ASTEROCHRONOMETRY, G.A. n. 772293). S.M. acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal fellowship number RYC-2015-17697. M.S.L. is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (grant agreement No. CF17-0760). A.M. and P.R. acknowledge support from the HBCSE-NIUS programme. J.K.T. and J.T. acknowledge that support for this work was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants HST-HF2-51399.001 and HST-HF2-51424.001 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract AS5-26555. T.S.R. acknowledges financial support from Premiale 2015 MITiC (PI B. Garilli).; This project has been supported by the NKFIH K-115709 grant and the Lendulet Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, project No. LP2018-7/2018.; Based on observations made with the Hertzsprung SONG telescope operated on the Spanish Observatorio del Teide on the island of Tenerife by the Aarhus and Copenhagen Universities and by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Funding for the TESS mission is provided by NASA's Science Mission directorate. We acknowledge the use of public TESS Alert data from pipelines at the TESS Science Office and at the TESS Science Processing Operations Center. This research has made use of the Exoplanet Follow-up Observation Program website, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program. This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission, which are publicly available from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST).
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID-19. Methods: A global expert response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian β-regression model was used to estimate 12-week cancellation rates for 190 countries. Elective surgical case-mix data, stratified by specialty and indication (surgery for cancer versus benign disease), were determined. This case mix was applied to country-level surgical volumes. The 12-week cancellation rates were then applied to these figures to calculate the total number of cancelled operations. Results: The best estimate was that 28 404 603 operations would be cancelled or postponed during the peak 12 weeks of disruption due to COVID-19 (2 367 050 operations per week). Most would be operations for benign disease (90·2 per cent, 25 638 922 of 28 404 603). The overall 12-week cancellation rate would be 72·3 per cent. Globally, 81·7 per cent of operations for benign conditions (25 638 922 of 31 378 062), 37·7 per cent of cancer operations (2 324 070 of 6 162 311) and 25·4 per cent of elective caesarean sections (441 611 of 1 735 483) would be cancelled or postponed. If countries increased their normal surgical volume by 20 per cent after the pandemic, it would take a median of 45 weeks to clear the backlog of operations resulting from COVID-19 disruption. Conclusion: A very large number of operations will be cancelled or postponed owing to disruption caused by COVID-19. Governments should mitigate against this major burden on patients by developing recovery plans and implementing strategies to restore surgical activity safely.