Preliminary design of high rise buildings for global adaptation using the linear static method

Preliminary sizing of the members of high-rise buildings for adaptation in Nigeria and other countries with similar earth tremor data is carried out in this work using the linear static (lateral force) method. The studied building model comprises a regular, symmetric 50 storey Steel Dual-Concentric (chevron) Brace Frame, SD-CBF. European wide flange beam section of HE220M, column section HE260M and brace section HE180B were realised as initial design sections which are structurally safe. Results indicate that the aforementioned sections, though structurally safe can be made more robust for greater safety by applying a factor of safety ranging from 1.25 to 1.5 depending on available investment and seismicity of the environment. This is to justify safety of lives and properties.Keywords: High-rise, Earth-tremor, Linear Static Method and SD-CBF

MANAGEMENT AND CLASSIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION WASTE IN INDIA

Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste have a huge potential to replace virgin materials. However, due to lack of management, its utilization has not been optimized. Issues like sharing of responsibilities among various stakeholders and classification of C&D waste are some of bottleneck on part of effective implementation of C&D waste management in India. This paper illustrates quantity and quality of C&D waste generation in India, regulatory framework, policy interventions and R&D work carried out to classify C&D waste aggregate for production of concrete. Experimental studies were carried out using two different sources of recycled concrete aggregates; one batch of aggregates are obtained from Burari Plant located in New Delhi and another batch of aggregates were created in laboratory by crushing concrete cubes of 20- 30MPa. Thereafter, recycled concrete aggregates were classified on basis of their physical properties like specific gravity and water absorption and their performance in concrete have been evaluated in terms of fresh properties like workability, air content, bleed water percentage and mechanical properties like compressive and flexural strength. Study indicates that air content in concrete mixes prepared from recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) is 5-20 % higher than that of corresponding control mix whereas admixture requirement for concrete mixes prepared with RCA was found to be slightly higher in comparison to that of control. Experimental study indicates that compressive strength as well as flexural strength of concrete mixes prepared with recycled concrete aggregate has been reduced drastically in comparison to control mixes without recycled coarse aggregate

Liver enzyme elevations in a cohort of HIV/AIDS patients on first-line antiretroviral therapy in Namibia: Findings and implications

Introduction: All antiretroviral therapies (ARTs) are potentially toxic to the liver. In sub-Saharan Africa, the rising incidence of ART induced adverse events has complicated treatment leading to recent revisions of Namibian ART guidelines. Unfortunately there have been limited studies to date evaluating ART induced liver injury in Namibia to guide further revisions if needed. Objective: Determine the current patterns and grades of ALT elevation in Namibia’s HIV/AIDS. Methods: Retrospective cohort analysis. Patterns of alanine amino transferase (ALT) liver enzyme elevation were determined in a cohort of ART naïve HIV patients on firstline ART regimen in a referral hospital in Namibia over a 1 year treatment period. Patterns of ALT changes at baseline, 3 months and 6 months were analyzed using ANOVA and Bonferroni test for pairwise comparisons. Results: Of 79 eligible patients, 72 developed significant ALT elevation within 3 months of ART initiation (F (3, 76) = 6.4, p = 0.002, η2 = 0.193). Four 4 (5.6%) and 1 (1.38%) patient respectively developed grade 2 and grade 3 ALT elevation by month 3. There was no significant difference between mean ALT levels at baseline and month 6. A CD4 count of <350 cells/mm3; female gender and age over 40 years were the main factors associated with moderate or severe ALT elevation. Conclusions: First line ART commonly induces mild self-limiting liver enzyme elevation in Namibian HIV patients especially in the first 3 months. Consequently, there is a need to monitor ALT levels for at least 3 months after initiation mainly in high risk patients to reduce side-effect concerns. This is already happening

A systematic review of effective parent-adolescent sexual and reproductive health information communication in lower- and middle-income countries

Background: Parents play an important role in the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of their adolescents. Parent–adolescent SRH information communication is cardinal and is expected to improve SRH outcomes of adolescents. Aim: The aim of this systematic review was to search for effective SRH information communication interventions in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to inform the adaptation of parent–adolescent SRH information communication intervention. Method: This is the first phase of an explanatory sequential mixed method study. The systematic review was carried out by employing Joanna Briggs Institute software for reviews. Search sources included Cochrane Reviews Library, EMBASE, CINAHL, PubMed, OVID, Scopus, Web of Science and Science Direct. A systematic search strategy was formulated, making use of the key terms: adolescent, teenager, youth, parent, mother, father, caregiver, reproductive, sexual, health, information, communication and intervention. Results: Five articles met the inclusion criteria for full-text screening. The interventions included addressed sociodemographic covariates; parent–adolescent general communication; parental monitoring; parent–adolescent communication about sex-related topics; parent’s sexual communication skills; parent’s self-efficacy in sexual communication; parent’s responsiveness to sexual communication; communication frequency; quality of sex‑related communication and information-motivational-behavioural skills. Conclusion: Findings suggest that evidence-based SRH information communication interventions are effective in improving parent–adolescent SRH information communication to optimise safe SRH behaviour in LMICs. Contribution: This systematic review identified effective SRH information communication interventions in LMICs, which can form the basis of further qualitative exploration for adaptation of a culturally sensitive intervention in Ghana

Rings of real functions in pointfree topology

AbstractThis paper deals with the algebra F(L) of real functions on a frame L and its subclasses LSC(L) and USC(L) of, respectively, lower and upper semicontinuous real functions. It is well known that F(L) is a lattice-ordered ring; this paper presents explicit formulas for its algebraic operations which allow to conclude about their behaviour in LSC(L) and USC(L).As applications, idempotent functions are characterized and previous pointfree results about strict insertion of functions are significantly improved: general pointfree formulations that correspond exactly to the classical strict insertion results of Dowker and Michael regarding, respectively, normal countably paracompact spaces and perfectly normal spaces are derived.The paper ends with a brief discussion concerning the frames in which every arbitrary real function on the α-dissolution of the frame is continuous

Moduli and (un)attractor black hole thermodynamics

We investigate four-dimensional spherically symmetric black hole solutions in gravity theories with massless, neutral scalars non-minimally coupled to gauge fields. In the non-extremal case, we explicitly show that, under the variation of the moduli, the scalar charges appear in the first law of black hole thermodynamics. In the extremal limit, the near horizon geometry is $AdS_2\times S^2$ and the entropy does not depend on the values of moduli at infinity. We discuss the attractor behaviour by using Sen's entropy function formalism as well as the effective potential approach and their relation with the results previously obtained through special geometry method. We also argue that the attractor mechanism is at the basis of the matching between the microscopic and macroscopic entropies for the extremal non-BPS Kaluza-Klein black hole.Comment: 36 pages, no figures, V2: minor changes, misprints corrected, expanded references; V3: sections 4.3 and 4.5 added; V4: minor changes, matches the published versio

alpha'-exact entropies for BPS and non-BPS extremal dyonic black holes in heterotic string theory from ten-dimensional supersymmetry

We calculate near-horizon solutions for four-dimensional 4-charge and five-dimensional 3-charge black holes in heterotic string theory from the part of the ten-dimensional tree-level effective action which is connected to gravitational Chern-Simons term by supersymmetry. We obtain that the entropies of large black holes exactly match the alpha'-exact statistical entropies obtained from microstate counting (D=4) and AdS/CFT correspondence (D=5). Especially interesting is that we obtain agreement for both BPS and non-BPS black holes, contrary to the case of R^2-truncated (four-derivative) actions (D-dimensional N=2 off-shell supersymmetric or Gauss-Bonnet) were used, which give the entropies agreeing (at best) just for BPS black holes. The key property of the solutions, which enabled us to tackle the action containing infinite number of terms, is vanishing of the Riemann tensor \bar{R}_{MNPQ} obtained from torsional connection defined with \bar{\Gamma} = \Gamma - H/2. Morover, if every monomial of the remaining part of the effective action would contain at least two Riemanns \bar{R}_{MNPQ}, it would trivially follow that our solutions are exact solutions of the full heterotic effective action in D=10. The above conjecture, which appeared (in this or stronger form) from time to time in the literature, has controversial status, but is supported by the most recent calculations of Richards (arXiv:0807.3453 [hep-th]). Agreement of our results for the entropies with the microscopic ones supports the conjecture. As for small black holes, our solutions in D=5 still have singular horizons.Comment: 28 pages; v2: minor changes, references added; v3: extended discussion on small black holes in sec. 5.4, more references added, accepted in JHE

Black Hole Microstates and Attractor Without Supersymmetry

Due to the attractor mechanism, the entropy of an extremal black hole does not vary continuously as we vary the asymptotic values of various moduli fields. Using this fact we argue that the entropy of an extremal black hole in string theory, calculated for a range of values of the asymptotic moduli for which the microscopic theory is strongly coupled, should match the statistical entropy of the same system calculated for a range of values of the asymptotic moduli for which the microscopic theory is weakly coupled. This argument does not rely on supersymmetry and applies equally well to nonsupersymmetric extremal black holes. We discuss several examples which support this argument and also several caveats which could invalidate this argument.Comment: 50 pages; references adde

Vascular endothelial growth factor-A165b is protective and restores endothelial glycocalyx in diabetic nephropathy

Diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of ESRD in high-income countries and a growing problem across the world. Vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) is thought to be a critical mediator of vascular dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy, yet VEGF-A knockout and overexpression of angiogenic VEGF-A isoforms each worsen diabetic nephropathy. We examined the vasculoprotective effects of the VEGF-A isoform VEGF-A165b in diabetic nephropathy. Renal expression of VEGF-A165b mRNA was upregulated in diabetic individuals with well preserved kidney function, but not in those with progressive disease. Reproducing this VEGF-A165b upregulation in mouse podocytes in vivo prevented functional and histologic abnormalities in diabetic nephropathy. Biweekly systemic injections of recombinant human VEGF-A165b reduced features of diabetic nephropathy when initiated during early or advanced nephropathy in a model of type 1 diabetes and when initiated during early nephropathy in a model of type 2 diabetes. VEGF-A165b normalized glomerular permeability through phosphorylation of VEGF receptor 2 in glomerular endothelial cells, and reversed diabetes-induced damage to the glomerular endothelial glycocalyx. VEGF-A165b also improved the permeability function of isolated diabetic human glomeruli. These results show that VEGF-A165b acts via the endothelium to protect blood vessels and ameliorate diabetic nephropathy

Developing expert international consensus statements for opioid-sparing analgesia using the Delphi method

Introduction: The management of postoperative pain in anaesthesia is evolving with a deeper understanding of associating multiple modalities and analgesic medications. However, the motivations and barriers regarding the adoption of opioid-sparing analgesia are not well known. Methods: We designed a modified Delphi survey to explore the perspectives and opinions of expert panellists with regard to opioid-sparing multimodal analgesia. 29 anaesthetists underwent an evolving three-round questionnaire to determine the level of agreement on certain aspects of multimodal analgesia, with the last round deciding if each statement was a priority. Results: The results were aggregated and a consensus, defined as achievement of over 75% on the Likert scale, was reached for five out of eight statements. The panellists agreed there was a strong body of evidence supporting opioid-sparing multimodal analgesia. However, there existed multiple barriers to widespread adoption, foremost the lack of training and education, as well as the reluctance to change existing practices. Practical issues such as cost effectiveness, increased workload, or the lack of supply of anaesthetic agents were not perceived to be as critical in preventing adoption. Conclusion: Thus, a focus on developing specific guidelines for multimodal analgesia and addressing gaps in education may improve the adoption of opioid-sparing analgesia