19672 research outputs found
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Hawai‘i Jungle Writing: Where There is the Most Life
No full textThis autoethnography uses a series of loosely connected personal reflections, imaginative flights and academic commentary to explore life writing from the Hawaiian jungle. Jungle–the cacophonic chaos of ecologic diversity, memory, intersection, interdependence, fragility and, of course, impending end and rebirth–overflows with biology, yet is also threatened by it. The writing of the struggle of the jungle is nothing less than the writing of the struggle of life. To illuminate the intersection between jungle writing and life writing, the piece places writing of the jungle within the context of my own memories of Hawai‘i, the ecosystem surrounding my parents’ home, the threat to endemic jungle life, and the broader development and underlying themes of nature writing and ecocriticism. I also reflect on how writing of the jungle made me consider my own relationship with it and with life writing. The fragmented, somewhat disordered style of the piece reflects the jumbled and nonlinear nature of the jungle and of life. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Predatory Journals on Trial: Allegations, Responses, and Lessons for Scholarly Publishing from FTC v. OMICS
No full textOn 25 August 2016, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued OMICS Group Inc., iMedPub LLC, Conference Series LLC, and Srinubabu Gedela, all affiliated with open access mega-publisher OMICS International, for deception in their solicitation of journal articles and advertising of conferences. The ongoing lawsuit seeks to stop OMICS's deceptive practices and disgorge US 2.1 billion for harm caused by the lawsuit to its business and employees. This article describes the main arguments, counter-arguments, and court decisions in the 5920 pages of pleadings, exhibits, and orders that have been filed through 14 October 2018. The article then evaluates the case to formulate key take-aways for publishers, editors, academics, and universities. Depending on its ultimate outcome, the case against OMICS may be a turning point in the practices of questionable open access online publishers, making this interim case assessment pertinent to all concerned about the future of academic publishing. © University of Toronto Press
SecureSurgiNET: A framework for ensuring security in telesurgery
No full textThe notion of surgical robotics is actively being extended to enable telesurgery, where both the surgeon and patient are remotely located and connected via a public network, which leads to many security risks. Being a safety-critical application, it is highly important to make telesurgery robust and secure against active and passive attacks. In this article, we propose the first complete framework, called SecureSurgiNET, for ensuring security in telesurgery environments. SecureSurgiNET is primarily based on a set of well-established protocols to provide a fool-proof telesurgical robotic system. For increasing the efficiency of secured telesurgery environments, the idea of a telesurgical authority is introduced that ensures the integrity, identity management, authentication policy implementation, and postoperative data security. An analysis is provided describing the security and throughput of Advanced Encryption Standard during the intraoperative phase of SecureSurgiNET. Moreover, we have tabulated the possible attacks on SecureSurgiNET along with the devised defensive measures. Finally, we also present a time complexity analysis of the SecureSurgiNET through simulations. © The Author(s) 2019
Developmental Impacts of Remittances on Migrant-Sending Households: Micro-Level Evidence from Punjab, Pakistan
No full textThis article analyzes the overall and type of developmental impacts of remittances for migrant-sending households (HHs) in districts of Punjab, Pakistan. For this purpose, an HH-based human development index is constructed based on the dimensions of education, health and housing, with a view to enrich insights into interactions between remittances and HH development. Using high-quality data from a HH micro-survey for Punjab, the study finds that most migrant-sending HHs are better off than the HHs without this stream of income. More importantly, migrant HHs have significantly higher development in terms of housing in most districts of Punjab relative to non-migrant HHs. Thus, the government would need policy interventions focusing on housing to address inequalities in human development at the district-HH level, and subsequently balance its current focus on the provision of education and health. © The Author(s) 2019
Zika virus modulates blood-brain barrier of brain microvascular endothelial cells
No full textZika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne Flaviviruses. ZIKV is known to cause birth defect in pregnant women, especially microcephaly in the fetus. Hence, more study is required to understand the infection of Zika virus towards human brain microvascular endothelial cells (MECs). In this study, brain MECs were infected with ZIKV at MOI of 1 and 5 in vitro. The changes in barrier function and membrane permeability of ZIKV-infected brain MECs were determined using electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) system followed by gene expression of ZIKV-infected brain MECs at 24 hours post infection using one-color gene expression microarray. The ECIS results demonstrated that ZIKV infection enhances vascular leakage by increasing cell membrane permeability via alteration of brain MECs barrier function. This was further supported by high expression of proinflammatory cytokine genes (lnc-IL6-2, TNFAIP1 and TNFAIP6), adhesion molecules (CERCAM and ESAM) and growth factor (FIGF). Overall, findings of this study revealed that ZIKV infection could alter the barrier function of brain MECs by altering adhesion molecules and inflammatory response. © 2019, Malaysian Society for Parasitology. All rights reserved
Survey of knowledge, attitudes and practice regarding adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting among community pharmacists in Selangor, Malaysia
No full textBackground: Community pharmacists play a pivotal role in adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting because they provide services to a large proportion of the community. Although ADR reporting by healthcare providers in Malaysia is increasing, few ADR reports are submitted by community pharmacists. Aim: This study assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practice of ADR reporting, as well as barriers and facilitators of ADR reporting, among community pharmacists in Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional 52-item validated questionnaire was distributed to 278 community pharmacists in Selangor, Malaysia, in 2015. Multistage sampling was performed whereby community pharmacists from three of the nine administrative districts in the region were eligible for inclusion. Community pharmacies were then randomly sampled from the selected districts. Data are reported using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 219 pharmacists responded to the survey, giving a response rate of 78.8%. These community pharmacists self-reported a positive attitude towards ADR reporting. Nevertheless, less than half (34.2%; n = 75) had previously reported an ADR. Lack of information provided by the patient, insufficient clinical knowledge and uncertainty relating to the association between the adverse reaction and the drug were the main barriers to ADR reporting. Conclusions: The attitude and practices among community pharmacists indicates there is room for improvement in ADR reporting in Malaysia. Ongoing education and training on ADR reporting for community pharmacists is required to ensure delivery of high-quality care to the community
A 6000-km-long Neo-Tethyan arc system with coherent magmatic flare-ups and lulls in South Asia
No full textMagmatic arcs typically exhibit non-steady-state evolution with episodic flare-ups and lulls, yet the main drivers remain contentious. Situated in the southwest margin of Southeast Asia, Sumatra records a long-lived magmatic arc that is still poorly constrained in age and tempo. Detrital zircon data from Sumatra delineate major arc magmatic pulses at ca. 212, 102-85, 52, and 22-11 Ma. The mid-Cretaceous to early Eocene zircons mostly yield high positive εHf(t) values, indicating magma derivation from juvenile sources and matching well with those of the Gangdese batholiths in the southern Lhasa terrane. These similarities substantiate an extended (~6000 km) Neo-Tethyan arc system from southern Tibet to Sumatra that exhibits concurrent magmatic lulls (ca. 150-105 and 85-65 Ma) and flare-ups (ca. 105-85 and 65-40 Ma). The Late Cretaceous magmatic lull coincided with a period of strong regional deformation and increasingly fast northward drift of India, likely attributable to Neo-Tethyan flat slab subduction. Periodic pulses of Neo-Tethyan arc magmatism most likely correlated with repeated steepening and shallowing of slab dip, rather than India-Eurasia convergence rates
Controllable linear-circular polarization conversion of radial variant vector beams in a strongly nonlocal nonlinear medium
No full textThe dynamical properties of radial-variant vector beams in strongly nonlocal nonlinear (SNN) media are theoretically demonstrated. The analytical expressions for the variation of root-mean-square (RMS) beam width and the critical powers Pcr that keep the RMS beam widths invariant during propagation are derived using the moments method. When the initial power Pin does not equal the critical power Pcr, the RMS beam widths evolve periodically. The coherent superposition of different polarization components with different evolution trajectories during propagation in an SNN medium leads to the linear-circular polarization conversion. The linear-circular polarization conversion occurs, especially in the beam center, and the propagation distances between the peak intensities of the converted polarizations can be manipulated by the initial distribution of polarization states and the initial powers. The conversion efficiency and the converted polarization purity during propagation are also analyzed
Optimization of KOH etching process for MEMS square diaphragm using response surface method
No full textPotassium hydroxide (KOH) wet etching is widely used in realizing microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) diaphragm due to its low cost, safe and easy handling. However, a variety of etching parameters such as etchant concentration, temperature, mask size and etching time need to be optimized thoroughly in order to save the time and costs of the etching process. This paper presents the numerical study and optimization of KOH etching process parameters using the response surface method (RSM) to realize the desired shape and size of MEMS diaphragm. Face central composite design (FCC) of RSM was employed as the experimental design to analyze the result and generate a mathematical prediction model. From the analysis, the temperature was identified as the most significant process parameter that affects the etching rate, thus affecting the thickness and size of the diaphragm. The results of RSM prediction for optimization were applied in this study. Particularly, 45% of KOH concentration, temperature of 80°C, 1735 µm2 of mask size, and 7.2 hours of etching time were implemented to obtain a square MEMS diaphragm with thickness of 120 µm and size of 1200 µm2. The results of RSM based optimization method for KOH wet etching offers a quick and effective method for realizing a desired MEMS devices
Differential abundance and core members of the bacterial community associated with wild male Zeugodacus cucurbitae fruit flies (Insecta: Tephritidae) from three geographical regions of Southeast Asia
No full textZeugodacus cucurbitae (Coquillet) is one of the most significant and widespread tephritid pest species of agricultural crops. This study reports the bacterial communities associated with Z. cucurbitae from three geographical regions in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sarawak). The bacterial microbiota were investigated by targeted 16S rRNA gene (V3–V4 region) sequencing using the Illumina Mi-Seq platform. At 97% similarity and filtering at 0.001%, there were seven bacterial phyla and unassigned bacteria, comprising 11 classes, 23 orders, 39 families and 67 genera. The bacterial diversity and richness varied within and among the samples from the three geographical regions. Five phyla were detected for the Sarawak sample, and six each for the Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia samples. Four phyla—Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria—were represented in all the fruit fly specimens, forming the core members of the bacterial community. Proteobacteria was the predominant phylum, followed by Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. Fifty-three genera were represented in the Thailand sample, 56 in the Peninsular Malaysia sample, and 55 in the Sarawak sample. Forty-two genera were present in all the three geographical regions. The predominant core members were order Enterobacteriales (Proeteobacteria), and family Enterobacteriaceae (Enterobacteriales). Klebsiella (Enterobacteriaceae) was the predominant genus and K. oxytoca the predominant species with all specimens having > 10% relative abundance. The results indicate the presence of a great diversity as well as core members of the bacterial community associated with different populations of Z. cucurbitae