E-Jurnal Universitas Tunas Husada Tasikmalaya
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A Multimodal Approach to Improve Fitness and Surgical Outcomes for Patients Undergoing Pancreatic Resection
No full textPancreatic surgery is associated with significant morbidity. Objectively measured aerobic fitness can predict postoperative outcomes. Similarly, poor insulin sensitivity is associated with postoperative complications. Supervised exercise training can improve cardiorespiratory fitness and insulin sensitivity. Immunonutrition may work synergistically with exercise. The primary objective of this thesis was to investigate the effect of multimodal prehabilitation on aerobic and metabolic fitness, in patients undergoing pancreatic surgery.In this prospective, non-randomised pilot study, we recruited patients with benign or malignant pathology, listed for pancreatic resection. Subjects underwent a baseline cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET). Insulin sensitivity was measured using the gold standard technique, the hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp. The 4-week intervention comprised: resistance and high intensity interval training (ten sessions) plus daily eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid (2g), and extra virgin olive oil (30 ml). CPETs and clamps were repeated after four weeks. These were compared with contemporaneous non-randomised controls.Of 21 recruited patients, 12 out of 12 (prehab) and 6 out of 9 (control) completed the study. Prehabilitation led to an improvement in oxygen uptake at anaerobic threshold (+2.0 (95 per cent CI 0.1 to 4.0) ml kg-1 min-1) and peak exercise (+3.0 (95 per cent CI 0.7 to 5.3) ml kg-1 min-1), compared to controls. Within the prehab group, there were significant improvements in peak power (P = 0.001), oxygen uptake at anaerobic threshold (P = 0.017) and peak exercise (P = 0.002). Aerobic fitness was unchanged amongst controls. Insulin sensitivity did not change in either group.There is limited work on biological incorporation, in relation to nutritional prehabilitation; a secondary component of this thesis demonstrated a significant increase in serum phospholipid eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, after supplementation. Sleep duration and well-being also improved following prehabilitation.Multimodal prehabilitation can increase aerobic fitness before major pancreatic surgery. This is a novel finding, which could impact postoperative outcomes. Furthermore, this is the first study to measure the metabolic effect of prehabilitation
Increased admissions to paediatric wards with a primary mental health diagnosis: results of a survey of a network of eating disorder paediatricians in England
No full textContribution of Earth observation data to support SDG indicators: An analytical framework and related case studies
No full textIn 2015, member countries of the United Nations adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Sustainable Development Summit in New York. These global goals have 169 targets and 232 indicators that are based on the three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social, and environmental. Substantial challenges remain in obtaining data of the required quality to inform the indicators, especially in developing countries, given the often limited resources that are available. One promising and relatively innovative way of addressing this issue is to use Earth Observation (EO) satellite data. This research aimed to critically analyse the potential of EO approaches to data collection for populating SDG indicators, with the particular focus on those covering the social and economic dimensions of sustainable development, as these are relatively unexplored in the EO context. Additionally, this research aimed to explore the use of EO technologies linked to monitoring, reporting and verification within policy. Firstly, a novel analytical framework entitled Maturity Matrix Framework (MMF) was developed for assessing the potential of EO to populate all 232 SDG indicators. This framework was further consolidated by using a wide consultation with 38 experts in sustainability and EO, thus obtaining the advanced MMF 2.0 framework. Both frameworks have been applied to all SDG indicators and the results demonstrated that the potential of EO‐derived data do vary among the SDG indicators, but overall, EO can have a direct contribution to make towards populating environmental indicators and an indirect (proxy) measure or weakcontribution for socio-economic indicators. Therefore, the evaluation of the potential of EO satellite data against MMF 2.0 and the literature available shown that 19 indicators have weak support from EO, 67 partial support from EO, and 22 strong EO support. The results that emerged from both frameworks (MMF and MMF 2.0) led towards exploring a more conventional application of satellite data and its implications in the policy context but also towards, developing an EO approach that measures socio-economic indicators. Therefore, this research presents three case studies. The first case study shows how EO satellite data can be used for assessing the habitat of five key species in Surrey Hills. In the second case study available published literature was assessed to understand the potential of estimating SOC using EO technologies. This review was complemented by a series of semistructuredinterviews with specialists in the soil health and policy sector. Both case studies can help the current Environmental Land Management Scheme in the context of the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) process. In the third case study, 1900 rural primary schools across 19 Nigerian states were measured using satellite images and teaching area per pupil was calculated. The approach identified 81.4 % of the schools as being overcrowded
Modelling diagnostics for Echinococcus granulosus surveillance in sheep using Latent Class Analysis: Argentina as a case study
No full textResponse of antibiotic resistance genes and microbial niches to dissolved oxygen in an oxygen-based membrane biofilm reactor during greywater treatment
No full textLinear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) in greywater (GW) will simulate antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) production in the biofilm-based system. Our study emphasizes the dissolved oxygen (DO)-dependent ARGs accumulation and microbial niches succession in an oxygen-based membrane biofilm reactor (O2-MBfR) treating GW, as well as revealing the key roles of EPS. Changing DO concentrations led to significant differences in ARGs production, EPS secretion and microbial communities, as well as the organics and nitrogen removal efficiency. Increasing DO concentration from 0.2 to 0.4 mg/L led to improved organics (> 90%) and nitrogen removal, as well as less EPS (especially for proteins and carbohydrates) and ARGs accumulation (e.g., intl-1, korB and sul-2) in the biofilm; the high-DO-concentration accumulated microbial niches, including Flavobacteriaceae and Cyanobacteria that revealed by LEfSe analysis, contributed to both nitrogen reduction and organics biodegradation. While, the inefficient electron acceptor at low DO conditions (0.2 mg/L) reduced the organics and nitrogen removal efficiency, as well as the improved accumulation of EPS in biofilm; high EPS enabled the capture of residual LAS from the liquid phase, which stimulated the production of ARGs by the distinct microbial community compositions. These findings suggested the DO-based ARGs reduction regulation strategy in the O2-MBfR treating GW
Social Isolation in Older Adults: A Qualitative Study on the Social Dimensions of Group Outdoor Health Walks
No full textPhysical distancing practices during the COVID-19 global pandemic contributed to a high degree of social isolation among older adults. To reduce loneliness and other ill effects of social isolation, public health experts recommended outdoor social gathering, with physical distancing. Adopting a case study approach, we explored how social aspects of group outdoor health walks (GOHWs) mitigate social isolation for older adults and improve individual social wellbeing. We used semi-structured interviews to understand the experiences of social isolation and social relationships in nine older (50–80 s) adults participating in a GOHW in Scotland, United Kingdom (UK). Verbatim transcripts were analysed through an iterative process of thematic analysis carried out by an interdisciplinary team of qualitative researchers from environmental psychology, medicine, and geography. Themes provide insight into the social dimensions of GOHWs, the mediating effects of social experiences, and the contribution these make to individual social wellbeing. GOHWs provide opportunities to be part of a group and attend to the needs of inexperienced or physically challenged individuals. Being part of the group walk fosters casual interpersonal interactions through spontaneous mixing during and after the walk. This programmatic structure counters loneliness, engenders pleasurable anticipation of regular contact with others, supports physical activity, and fosters group cohesion. These in turn contribute to individual social wellbeing, including expanding social networks, meaningful relationships, a sense of belonging, and acting on empathy for others. GOWHs may be beneficial for mitigation of social isolation as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings were used to propose a conceptual model to parse social constructs and inform selection or development of quantitative social measures for future studies of nature-based interventions such as GOHWs
Lumped kinetic modelling of polyolefin pyrolysis: A non-isothermal method to estimate rate constants
No full textThe measurement of kinetic parameters in the pyrolysis of polyolefins requires the use of a lumped kinetic model for predicting the product distribution of wax, oil and gas yields. A non-isothermal method was established, in which a sample is heated in a tube reactor to a desired temperature at a constant rate of temperature rise. This method avoided the error present in the heating up stage which is inherent in any practical isothermal method in which reaction proceeds to a significant extent before the operating temperatures of polyolefin pyrolysis are reached, which results in challenges when defining the reaction time. The non-isothermal measurements were conducted between 450 and 550°C for polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) and the temperature and lump yields are non-linearly regressed to achieve the kinetic parameters. The measured kinetic rate constants have the same trend as those reported in the literature using the isothermal method, but are higher than the values reported above 450°C and similar to the values for lower temperatures of 350°C and 370°C. The kinetic parameters derived are then validated by using isothermal experimental data. The calculated data using the measured kinetic parameters are generally in agreement with the experimental data. The non-isothermal method established in this work proves to be a much faster method for the measurement of intrinsic rate constants at high temperatures
Translating Images into Maps
No full textWe approach instantaneous mapping, converting images to a top-down view of the world, as a translation problem. We show how a novel form of transformer network can be used to map from images and video directly to an overhead map or bird's-eye-view (BEV) of the world, in a single end-to-end network. We assume a 1-1 correspondence between a vertical scanline in the image, and rays passing through the camera location in an overhead map. This lets us formulate map generation from an image as a set of sequence-to-sequence translations. Posing the problem as translation allows the network to use the context of the image when interpreting the role of each pixel. This constrained formulation, based upon a strong physical grounding of the problem, leads to a restricted transformer network that is convolutional in the horizontal direction only. The structure allows us to make efficient use of data when training, and obtains state-of-the-art results for instantaneous mapping of three large-scale datasets, including a 15% and 30% relative gain against existing best performing methods on the nuScenes and Argoverse datasets, respectively.</p
Creativity in translation: machine translation as a constraint for literary texts
No full textThis article presents the results of a study involving the translation of ashort story by Kurt Vonnegut from English to Catalan and Dutch using threemodalities: machine-translation (MT), post-editing (PE) and translation withoutaid (HT). Our aim is to explore creativity, understood to involve novelty andacceptability, from a quantitative perspective. The results show that HT hasthe highest creativity score, followed by PE, and lastly, MT, and this isunanimous from all reviewers. A neural MT system trained on literary data doesnot currently have the necessary capabilities for a creative translation; itrenders literal solutions to translation problems. More importantly, using MTto post-edit raw output constrains the creativity of translators, resulting ina poorer translation often not fit for publication, according to experts
First application of mass measurement with the Rare-RI Ring reveals the solar r-process abundance trend at A=122 and A=123
No full textThe Rare-RI Ring (R3) is a recently commissioned cyclotron-like storage ringmass spectrometer dedicated to mass measurements of exotic nuclei far fromstability at Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) in RIKEN. The firstapplication of mass measurement using the R3 mass spectrometer at RIBF isreported. Rare isotopes produced at RIBF, 127Sn, 126In, 125Cd,124Ag, 123Pd, were injected in R3. Masses of 126In, 125Cd,and 123Pd were measured whereby the mass uncertainty of 123Pd wasimproved. This is the first reported measurement with a new storage ring massspectrometery technique realized at a heavy-ion cyclotron and employingindividual injection of the pre-identified rare nuclei. The latter is essentialfor the future mass measurements of the rarest isotopes produced at RIBF. Theimpact of the new 123Pd result on the solar r-process abundances in aneutron star merger event is investigated by performing reaction networkcalculations of 20 trajectories with varying electron fraction Ye. It isfound that the neutron capture cross section on 123Pd increases by afactor of 2.2 and β-delayed neutron emission probability,P1n, of 123Rh increases by 14\%. The neutron capture crosssection on 122Pd decreases by a factor of 2.6 leading to pileup ofmaterial at A=122, thus reproducing the trend of the solar r-processabundances. The trend of the two-neutron separation energies (S2n)was investigated for the Pd isotopic chain. The new mass measurement withimproved uncertainty excludes large changes of the S2n value atN=77. Such large increase of the S2n values before N=82 wasproposed as an alternative to the quenching of the N=82 shell gap toreproduce r-process abundances in the mass region of A=112-124