196,331 research outputs found
Double trouble for couch potatoes: high blood pressure in a rural population in South Africa
No full textAfrica is faced with an increasing burden of hypertension, but a paucity of population-based evidence hinders effective preventive and control strategies for hypertension, write SETH MKHONTO, MUSA MABASO AND DEMETRE LABADARIOS.
Coming out of the closet: negotiating social and physical spaces
No full textIn South Africa, as elsewhere, despite bisexual, political, legal and educational reforms, lesbian, gay, lesbians, and transgender youth (LGBTIQ+) continue to battle against homophobia in their daily lives (Butler & Astbury, 2005; Gedro, 2009; Naidoo & Mabaso, 2014; Chikovore & Naidoo, 2016). Sexual orientation prejudice contributes to stress and confusion as LGBTIQ+ people come to terms with their identities (Diaz et al., 2001; Reddy. 2001 Everett, 2015). When LGBTIQ+ people ultimately make a decision toa cknowledge their sexual orientation and come out to others, it is often a difficult decision and a process with many possible routes and outcomes (Naidoo & Mabaso, 20 14; Everett, 2015). Coming out' is a term used to describe the process of acknowledging, accepting and appreciating one's self-identification with a particular sexual orientation and disclosing this understanding to other people (Galatzer-Levy & Cohler, 2002; Ward & Winstanley, 2005; Shilo & Savaya. 2011). The complexity of the process of forming a gay identity is highlighted in the six stage Cass Model, where firstly, identity confusion involves individuals beginning to question and experience confusion about their sexual orientation.
Double trouble for couch potatoes: high blood pressure in a rural population in South Africa
No full textAfrica is faced with an increasing burden of hypertension, but a paucity of population-based evidence hinders effective preventive and control strategies for hypertension, write SETH MKHONTO, MUSA MABASO AND DEMETRE LABADARIOS.
Dr. Duane M. Jackson, Morehouse College, July 2011
No full textThis video is a conversation with Dr. Duane M. Jackson. Dr. Jackson talks about his paper, "Recall and the Serial Position Effect: The Role of Primacy and Recency on Accounting Students' Performance." Jackie Daniel, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
Temporal Variations in Malaria Risk in Africa
No full textIn sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is a major cause of morbidity and mortality especially among children less than five years of age and pregnant women. Malaria situations are very diverse because of many factors involved in malaria transmission and the great variety of their local combinations. These include climatic, ecologic, social, economic and cultural factors. A number of epidemiological approaches have been used to try and reduce malaria situations to a manageable number of types and classes for efficient planning and targeting of appropriate malaria control strategies. Modelling and mapping of malaria have long been recognized as important means to developing empirical knowledge of this kind. Recently, the availability of new data sets, innovative analytical tools and statistical methods has resulted in the development of more comprehensive malaria maps for east, west and central Africa. However, most risk maps that have been produced so far do not take into account seasonal variation in malaria transmission. Seasonality affects the dynamic relationship between vector mosquito densities, inoculation rate, parasite prevalence and disease outcome. Quantitative description and mapping of malaria seasonality is therefore important for modelling malaria transmission dynamics and for timely spatial targeting of interventions. This thesis is part of an on going effort within the MARA/ARMA (Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa/Atlas du risqué de la Malaria en Afrique) collaboration towards the development of improved malaria risk maps for Africa. The main objective is the development of an empirical model of malaria seasonality by fitting classical and modern statistical models to clinical and / or entomological indices where available. This work also intended to identify important determinants of between-year and between-area variation that may be useful for developing climate based seasonal forecasting models for malaria epidemics. Chapter 1 gives an overview of the transmission and epidemiology of malaria in Africa and set the rational for this work. The initial focus of the analysis was on southern Africa, until recently this was the only region with reasonably comprehensive clinical malaria case data in the continent and therefore offered an ideal starting point. This region has a long history of successful malaria vector control by indoor residual spraying (IRS) with insecticides and this may have an impact on the level of malaria endemicity and consequently what we are modelling. Chapter 2 therefore reviews the historical impact of IRS in southern Africa. Chapters 3 evaluate the impact of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon on annual malaria incidence in Southern Africa. This is the main driver of inter-annual and seasonal variability in climate in most regions in Africa, and is important because ENSO events alter seasonality in climate in a way that influences malaria seasonality. Chapter 4 uses Zimbabwe to examine the spatio-temporal role of climate on year to year variation of malaria incidence. This country has a heterogeneity of climatic suitability for malaria transmission and reflects varying epidemiological profiles that occur in Southern Africa. Chapter 5 uses Zimbabwe as an example towards the development of an empirical model of malaria seasonality based on clinical malaria case data. Chapter 6 assesses the potential for use of the entomological inoculation rate (EIR) to describe malaria seasonality in Africa. Chapter 7 improves on work done in chapter 6 by modelling and mapping seasonal transmission of malaria transmission using an approximation based on discrete Fourier transformations which remove noise in the original time series and allows for the description important / main seasonal components in EIR in relation to those of meteorological covariates. The work described in these chapters culminated in five scientific publications and one working paper Chapter 2 showed that Southern African countries that sustained the application of IRS reduced the level of transmission from hyper- to meso-endemicity and from meso- to hypo-endemicity. This means that in instances where pre-control malariometric indices are not available one can not assume to be modelling baseline endemicity. Preferably, where the data are available the ideal situation will be to develop pre- and post-control models to evaluate changes in the malaria risk pattern over time. Chapter 3 found that contrary to east Africa where ENSO events and in particular El Nino has been linked to changes in climatic condition and increase in epidemic risk, in Southern Africa, ENSO has the opposite effect during El Nino years, with heightened incidence during La Nina years. However, the impact of ENSO also varies over time within countries, depending on existing malaria control efforts and response capacity. From this analysis it is clear that in order to lay an empirical basis for epidemic forecasting models there is a need for spatial-temporal models that at the same time consider both ENSO driven climate anomalies and non ENSO factors influencing epidemic risk potential. Chapter 4 confirmed that there is considerable inter-annual variation in the timing and intensity of malaria incidence in Zimbabwe. The modelling approach adjusted for unmeasured space-time varying risk factors and showed that while year to year variation in malaria incidence is driven mainly by climate the resultant spatial risk pattern may to large extent be influenced by other risk factors except during high and low risk years following the occurrence of extremely wet and dry conditions, respectively. It is likely therefore that only years characterized by extreme climatic conditions may be important for delineating areas prone to climate driven epidemics, and for developing climate based seasonal forecasting models for malaria epidemics. Chapter 5 employed the Bayesian spatial statistical method to quantify the relative amount of transmission in each month. This method smoothed for unobserved or unmeasured residual variation in malaria case rates while adjusting for environmental covariates enabling us to interpret the spatial pattern of malaria in seasonality. This work also demonstrated the feasibility of using Markham’s seasonality index (previously used for rainfall) to describe malaria seasonality. In this analysis the index was used to summarize the spatial pattern of the modelled seasonal trend by displaying the concentration of malaria case load during the peak season across, which is important for malaria control. Chapter 6 adopted Markham’s seasonality index to characterize seasonality in EIR in relation to environment covariates. This work successfully identified rainfall seasonality and minimum temperature as predictors of malaria seasonality across a number of sites in Africa. However, model predictions were poor in areas characterized by two rainfall peaks and irrigation activities. The seasonality concentration index performed better in areas with a unimodal seasonal pattern, and this might have had an adverse effect in the analysis in areas with a bimodal seasonal pattern. This highlighted the need for an improved quantification of malaria seasonality to model the complex and varied seasonal dynamics across the continent. Chapter 7 used an approximation of the discrete Fourier transform to the model relationship between seasonality in EIR and meteorological covariates. This was used to predict the seasonal average as well as the magnitude and timing of the main seasonal cycles. This allowed for the estimation of the overall degree and timing malaria seasonality and the duration of transmission across sub-Saharan Africa. Model predictions can be used to estimate the average seasonal pattern of malaria transmission across the continent. This analysis presents the first step towards the development of improved models of malaria seasonality, and as more data become available the models can be further refined. In conclusion the Bayesian analytical framework used in this study enhanced our ability to evaluate the relationship between malaria and climatic / environmental factors, and improved considerably the identification of important associations and covariates. Climatic and associated environmental determinants of seasonal and between yearvariation in malaria, including the impact of ENSO identified in this work, provide valuable information for the development of climate based seasonal forecasting models for malaria. Furthermore, an approximation of the discrete Fourier transformation of the data enabled us for the first time to develop empirical models and maps of the seasonality of transmission of malaria at a continental level. These are positive developments for the malaria modelling, mapping and control community in general
"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.
No full text"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states.
By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement.
To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Dr. Glendon Swarthout
No full textHosted by Roger M. Busfield, MSU Assistant Professor of Speech and Theater, Meet the Author is designed to introduce a general audience to a contemporary author and their work through in-depth interviews. This episode features a conversation between Dr. Glendon Swarthout, prolific author and English professor at MSU, and assistant professors Sam S. Baskett and Theodore B. Strandness
Simulation of thermal plant optimization and hydraulic aspects of thermal distribution loops for large campuses
No full textFollowing an introduction, the author describes Texas A&M University and its utilities system. After that, the author presents how to construct simulation models for chilled water and heating hot water distribution systems. The simulation model was used in a $2.3 million Ross Street chilled water pipe replacement project at Texas A&M University. A second project conducted at the University of Texas at San Antonio was used as an example to demonstrate how to identify and design an optimal distribution system by using a simulation model. The author found that the minor losses of these closed loop thermal distribution systems are significantly higher than potable water distribution systems. In the second part of the report, the author presents the latest development of software called the Plant Optimization Program, which can simulate cogeneration plant operation, estimate its operation cost and provide optimized operation suggestions. The author also developed detailed simulation models for a gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator and identified significant potential savings. Finally, the author also used a steam turbine as an example to present a multi-regression method on constructing simulation models by using basic statistics and optimization algorithms. This report presents a survey of the author??s working experience at the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) at Texas A&M University during the period of January 2002 through March 2004. The purpose of the above work was to allow the author to become familiar with the practice of engineering. The result is that the author knows how to complete a project from start to finish and understands how both technical and nontechnical aspects of a project need to be considered in order to ensure a quality deliverable and bring a project to successful completion. This report concludes that the objectives of the internship were successfully accomplished and that the requirements for the degree of Degree of Engineering have been satisfied
Intern experience at CH���M Hill, Inc.: an internship report
No full textIncludes author's vita"Submitted to the College of Engineering of Texas A&M University in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Engineering."Includes bibliographical referencesA review of the author's internship experience with CH���M HILL, Inc.
during the period September 1975 through May 1976 is presented. During this nine month
internship the author worked as an Engineer II in the Industrial Processes discipline of this
large consulting engineering firm... The author's prime responsibility was as one of three
lead design engineers on the design of a large wastewater treatment facility for a pulp mill
in Hoquiam, Washington owned by ITT Rayonier Inc. The work generally consisted of the design
of individual treatment units and associated piping and pumping. The purpose of the project
was to provide wastewater treatment capabilities that would satisfy the effluent limitations
(standards) imposed upon the mill by the State of Washington Department of Ecology and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author's assignment also entailed necessary
interaction with the project manager and other CH���M HILL design engineers and support staff
members, the client's representatives, and representatives of two other consulting engineering
firms working on the project. Thus, the internship position at CH���M HILL provided considerable
experience coordinating the author's work with the work of other engineers, guiding the design
and administrative efforts of a support staff, and interacting regularly with the client and
other consulting firms. This broad exposure to a variety of engineering and organizational
problems provided a valuable educational experience
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