315 research outputs found
The Danger of Scented Candles
These slides, presented at the Natural Sciences Poster Session at Parkland College, show how scented candles release organic compounds whether lit or not, can cause diseases, and indoor air pollution
Exploring the Nexus between Entrepreneurial Orientation Dimensions and Knowledge Management: Evidence from Yemeni Banks
This study investigates the intricate relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and Knowledge Management (KM) in the unique context of Yemeni banks. Employing advanced statistical methods, including Structural Equation Modeling, the study explores the multifaceted connections among EO dimensions—namely, Proactiveness, Innovativeness, Risk Taking, and Competitive Aggressiveness—and their influence on KM. The research adopted a Survey correlation design, targeting supervisory positions in Yemeni banks, with a sample of 282 participants. Findings reveal that EO dimensions collectively account for 75.2% of KM variability, indicating a robust overarching relationship. However, the individual dimensions yield distinct outcomes: Proactiveness is found to lack statistical significance in influencing KM, whereas Innovativeness significantly and positively affects KM practices. Conversely, Risk Taking exhibits no substantial effect on KM. Notably, Competitive Aggressiveness emerges as a potent driver of KM, emphasizing its pivotal role in shaping effective knowledge management strategies. This study provides valuable insights for both academia and practical applications in the fields of entrepreneurship and knowledge management
The SDSS-2MASS-WISE Ten Dimensional Stellar Color Locus
We present the fiducial main sequence stellar locus traced by 10 photometric
colors observed by SDSS, 2MASS, and WISE. Median colors are determined using
1,052,793 stars with r-band extinction less than 0.125. We use this locus to
measure the dust extinction curve relative to the r-band, which is consistent
with previous measurements in the SDSS and 2MASS bands. The WISE band
extinction coefficients are larger than predicted by standard extinction
models. Using 13 lines of sight, we find variations in the extinction curve in
H, Ks, and WISE bandpasses. Relative extinction decreases towards Galactic
anti-center, in agreement with prior studies. Relative extinction increases
with Galactic latitude, in contrast to previous observations. This indicates a
universal mid-IR extinction law does not exist due to variations in dust grain
size and chemistry with Galactocentric position. A preliminary search for
outliers due to warm circumstellar dust is also presented, using stars with
high signal-to-noise in the W3-band. We find 199 such outliers, identified by
excess emission in Ks-W3. Inspection of SDSS images for these outliers reveals
a large number of contaminants due to nearby galaxies. Six sources appear to be
genuine dust candidates, yielding a fraction of systems with infrared excess of
0.120.05%.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, MNRAS Accepted. Tables 1 and 2 available
online: https://github.com/jradavenport/wise_locu
Cytokine profile of obese asthma phenotype
Background: The incidence of asthma and obesity is increasing worldwide. Understanding the causal directions between asthma and obesity could have important therapeutic implications. However, the mechanism connecting the two is not well defined.Objective: This study was undertaken to compare pulmonary function tests (PFTs), C-reactive protein (CRP) and inflammatory cytokines in obesity and asthma in Egyptian adolescents and to investigate whether obese asthmatics have a specific inflammatory phenotype than lean asthmatics.Methods: Fifty asthmatic and 30 control subjects were enrolled in the study and divided into 2 sub-groups: obese and non-obese. Serum levels of CRP, leptin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-5, body mass index (BMI) and PFTs were done for asthmatics and controls.Results: Serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α and leptin in obese individuals whether asthmatic or not showed significant increase compared to lean ones (P < 0.01). Body mass index (BMI) showed positive linear correlations with serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α, leptin and CRP. Serum IL-5 showed significantly higher levels in all asthmatics versus all controls (P < 0.01). Also serum IL-5 showed non-significant difference between lean and obese asthmatics and it showed significant negative correlations with FEV1/FVC % and PEF.Conclusion: Serum levels ofIL-6, TNF-α and leptin could be considered surrogate markers for obesity, whereas serum IL-5 is considered a marker of airway inflammation in bronchial asthma. Thus obesity and asthma have been shown to coexist together but systemic and airway inflammation appears to operate independent of each other.Keywords: Asthma, cytokines, obesity, phenotyp
Beyond a state-centric approach to urban informality: Interactions between Delhi’s middle class and the informal service sector
Since the ‘discovery’ of the informality in the early 1970s, its conceptualization has been significantly expanded beyond economic activity to include land-use and service provision. While informality often refers to that which is beyond the reach of the state, urban scholars focused on cities in the global South have shown that governments actively contribute to its production. This article presents original research on relations between
middle class residents and informal-sector workers in Delhi, India. It demonstrates that middle-class associations establish localized regimes that confer legitimacy on the work of street hawkers and waste workers, their use of urban space and the provision of services (e.g. waste collection). Thus, the state is one actor among many that seeks to govern cities, and in many cases localized governance regimes are imposed by non-state actors. I argue that the state should not serve as a key reference point for identifying informality. Instead scholars should focus on governance regimes imposed by state and non-state powerbrokers, and conceptualize informality as that which remains unregulated
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The LSST DESC data challenge 1: Generation and analysis of synthetic images for next-generation surveys
Data Challenge 1 (DC1) is the first synthetic data set produced by the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC). DC1 is designed to develop and validate data reduction and analysis and to study the impact of systematic effects that will affect the LSST data set. DC1 is comprised of r-band observations of 40 deg2 to 10 yr LSST depth. We present each stage of the simulation and analysis process: (a) generation, by synthesizing sources from cosmological N-body simulations in individual sensor-visit images with different observing conditions; (b) reduction using a development version of the LSST Science Pipelines; and (c) matching to the input cosmological catalogue for validation and testing. We verify that testable LSST requirements pass within the fidelity of DC1. We establish a selection procedure that produces a sufficiently clean extragalactic sample for clustering analyses and we discuss residual sample contamination, including contributions from inefficiency in star-galaxy separation and imperfect deblending. We compute the galaxy power spectrum on the simulated field and conclude that: (i) survey properties have an impact of 50 per cent of the statistical uncertainty for the scales and models used in DC1; (ii) a selection to eliminate artefacts in the catalogues is necessary to avoid biases in the measured clustering; and (iii) the presence of bright objects has a significant impact (2-6) in the estimated power spectra at small scales (> 1200), highlighting the impact of blending in studies at small angular scales in LSST
Effects of daily low-dose date consumption on glycemic control, lipid profile, and quality of life in adults with pre-and type 2 diabetes: A randomized controlled trial
Dates have a low glycemic index and are a source of antioxidants but, nevertheless, contain more than 70% sugar. This study aims to assess the effects of date consumption (three dates daily) on glycemic profile (HbA1c), body mass index (BMI), quality of life, and lipid profile, including total cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) in terms of safety for type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM) subjects. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with a sample of 100 T2DM subjects (39 male and 61 female) randomly assigned in two groups. The first group received three dates daily for 16 weeks, and the control group avoided date consumption. After a 16-week follow-up period, the study results showed an improvement of lipid profile with a statistically significant decrease in total cholesterol of ∆ = −0.209 mmol/L (confidence interval (CI) 95% −0.358, −0.059; p < 0.05) and in LDL of ∆ = −0.171 mmol/L (CI 95% −0.358, 0.016) in the group receiving three dates daily. Intra-group mean differences of BMI were not statistically different in both groups after 16 weeks of date consumption. Even HbA1c did not change, both within and between groups after date consumption (∆ = 0.087%; CI 95% −0.086, 0.261). Between groups, mean difference changes (intervention minus control) showed a statistically significant improvement of quality of life index of ∆ = ± 30.66 points (CI 95% 12.45, 48.23) due to the consequent improvement in mental health. Although the definitive effect of dose/intake response of date consumption on Hb1Ac, lipid profile, and BMI in T2DM subjects is still to be established, the study suggests that dates could potentially have a beneficial effect on lipid profile, especially in reducing total cholesterol and elevating HDL, because of its high polyphenolic content. In addition, a low–moderate consumption of dates did not impact glucose levels because of dates’ low glycemic index
Spurious Shear in Weak Lensing with LSST
The complete 10-year survey from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)
will image 20,000 square degrees of sky in six filter bands every few
nights, bringing the final survey depth to , with over 4 billion
well measured galaxies. To take full advantage of this unprecedented
statistical power, the systematic errors associated with weak lensing
measurements need to be controlled to a level similar to the statistical
errors.
This work is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate the absolute level
and statistical properties of the systematic errors on weak lensing shear
measurements due to the most important physical effects in the LSST system via
high fidelity ray-tracing simulations. We identify and isolate the different
sources of algorithm-independent, \textit{additive} systematic errors on shear
measurements for LSST and predict their impact on the final cosmic shear
measurements using conventional weak lensing analysis techniques. We find that
the main source of the errors comes from an inability to adequately
characterise the atmospheric point spread function (PSF) due to its high
frequency spatial variation on angular scales smaller than in the
single short exposures, which propagates into a spurious shear correlation
function at the -- level on these scales. With the large
multi-epoch dataset that will be acquired by LSST, the stochastic errors
average out, bringing the final spurious shear correlation function to a level
very close to the statistical errors. Our results imply that the cosmological
constraints from LSST will not be severely limited by these
algorithm-independent, additive systematic effects.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, accepted by MNRA
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