794 research outputs found
Mengukur Indeks Keislaman Ekonomi Negara ASEAN
There are many factors in determining economic growth as well as an explanation of the success of economic performance that not only includes political and social forces. In particular there has been attention to the role of religion in the economics, with a number of economists that explored the relationship between religion and economic performance. This paper aims to measure how Islamic countries, which declared their country as an Islamic State or Islamic majority adherents, or as a member of the Organization of Islamic Confederation (OIC) which is part of the ASEAN? Are these countries run on Islamic economic principles? To measure Economic IslamicityIndex ASEAN countries, we use 10 indicators Economic Islamicity Index represented by 10 representatives based on the Islamic principles in economic
Fully automated screening of veterinary drugs in milk by turbulent flow chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry
There is an increasing interest in screening methods for quick and sensitive analysis of various classes of veterinary drugs with limited sample pre-treatment. Turbulent flow chromatography in combination with tandem mass spectrometry has been applied for the first time as an efficient screening method in routine analysis of milk samples. Eight veterinary drugs, belonging to seven different classes were selected for this study. After developing and optimising the method, parameters such as linearity, repeatability, matrix effects and carry-over were studied. The screening method was then tested in the routine analysis of 12 raw milk samples. Even without internal standards, the linearity of the method was found to be good in the concentration range of 50 to 500 ”g/L. Regarding repeatability, RSDs below 12% were obtained for all analytes, with only a few exceptions. The limits of detection were between 0.1 and 5.2 ”g/L, far below the maximum residue levels for milk set by the EU regulations. While matrix effectsâion suppression or enhancementâare obtained for all the analytes the method has proved to be useful for screening purposes because of its sensitivity, linearity and repeatability. Furthermore, when performing the routine analysis of the raw milk samples, no false positive or negative results were obtained
Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layers and Diurnal Cycles â Challenges for Weather and Climate Models
The representation of the atmospheric boundary layer is an important part of weather and climate models and impacts many applications such as air quality and wind energy. Over the years, the performance in modeling 2-m temperature and 10-m wind speed has improved but errors are still significant. This is in particular the case under clear skies and low wind speed conditions at night as well as during winter in stably stratified conditions over land and ice. In this paper, the authors review these issues and provide an overview of the current understanding and model performance. Results from weather forecast and climate models are used to illustrate the state of the art as well as findings and recommendations from three intercomparison studies held within the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS). Within GABLS, the focus has been on the examination of the representation of the stable boundary layer and the diurnal cycle over land in clear-sky conditions. For this purpose, single-column versions of weather and climate models have been compared with observations, research models, and large-eddy simulations. The intercomparison cases are based on observations taken in the Arctic, Kansas, and Cabauw in the Netherlands. From these studies, we find that even for the noncloudy boundary layer important parameterization challenges remain.SB acknowledges the financial support received from the
NationalScience Foundation by way of Grant AGS-1122315
Multifaceted contributions : health workers and smallpox eradication in India
Smallpox eradication in South Asia was a result of the efforts of many grades of health-workers. Working from within the confines of international organisations and government structures, the role of the field officials, who were of various nationalities and also drawn from the cities and rural enclaves of the countries in these regions, was crucial to the development and deployment of policies. However, the role of these personnel is often downplayed in official histories and academic histories, which highlight instead the roles played by a handful of senior officials within the World Health Organization and the federal governments in the sub-continent. This article attempts to provide a more rounded assessment of the complex situation in the field. In this regard, an effort is made to underline the great usefulness of the operational flexibility displayed by field officers, wherein lessons learnt in the field were made an integral part of deploying local campaigns; careful engagement with the communities being targeted, as well as the employment of short term workers from amongst them, was an important feature of this work
Comprehensive screening and quantification of veterinary drugs in milk using UPLCâToF-MS
Ultra-performance liquid chromatography combined with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLCâToF-MS) has been used for screening and quantification of more than 100 veterinary drugs in milk. The veterinary drugs represent different classes including benzimidazoles, macrolides, penicillins, quinolones, sulphonamides, pyrimidines, tetracylines, nitroimidazoles, tranquillizers, ionophores, amphenicols and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs). After protein precipitation, centrifugation and solid-phase extraction (SPE), the extracts were analysed by UPLCâToF-MS. From the acquired full scan data the drug-specific ions were extracted for construction of the chromatograms and evaluation of the results. The analytical method was validated according to the EU guidelines (2002/657/EC) for a quantitative screening method. At the concentration level of interest (MRL level) the results for repeatability (%RSDâ<â20% for 86% of the compounds), reproducibility (%RSDâ<â40% for 96% of the compounds) and the accuracy (80â120% for 88% of the compounds) were satisfactory. Evaluation of the CCÎČ values and the linearity results demonstrates that the developed method shows adequate sensitivity and linearity to provide quantitative results. Furthermore, the method is accurate enough to differentiate between suspected and negative samples or drug concentrations below or above the MRL. A set of 100 samples of raw milk were screened for residues. No suspected (positive) results were obtained except for the included blind reference sample containing sulphamethazine (88Â ÎŒg/l) that tested positive for this compound. UPLCâToF-MS combines high resolution for both LC and MS with high mass accuracy which is very powerful for the multi-compound analysis of veterinary drugs. The technique seems to be powerful enough for the analysis of not only veterinary drugs but also organic contaminants like pesticides, mycotoxins and plant toxins in one single method
Climate influences the response of community functional traits to local conditions in bromeliad invertebrate communities
Functional traits determine an organism's performance in a given environment and as such determine which organisms will be found where. Species respond to local conditions, but also to larger scale gradients, such as climate. Trait ecology links these responses of species to community composition and species distributions. Yet, we often do not know which environmental gradients are most important in determining community trait composition at either local or biogeographical scales, or their interaction. Here we quantify the relative contribution of local and climatic conditions to the structure and composition of functional traits found within bromeliad invertebrate communities. We conclude that climate explains more variation in invertebrate trait composition within bromeliads than does local conditions. Importantly, climate mediated the response of traits to local conditions; for example, invertebrates with benthic lifeâhistory traits increased with bromeliad water volume only under certain precipitation regimes. Our ability to detect this and other patterns hinged on the compilation of multiple fineâgrained datasets, allowing us to contrast the effect of climate versus local conditions. We suggest that, in addition to sampling communities at local scales, we need to aggregate studies that span large ranges in climate variation in order to fully understand trait filtering at local, regional and global scales
Emotional problems in preadolescents in Norway: the role of gender, ethnic minority status, and home- and school-related hassles
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>"The gender gap" refers to a lifelong higher rate of emotional problems in girls, as compared to boys, that appears during adolescence. The gender gap is a well-replicated finding among older adolescents and is assumed to be a cross-cultural phenomenon. However, these cross-cultural studies have not investigated the gender gap in ethnic minorities but sampled ethnic majority adolescents in different countries. Some studies that investigated the gender gap across ethnic groups indirectly (by presenting emotional problem scores stratified by gender and ethnic group) indicate that the gender gap is less prominent or even absent among minorities. The aims of this study were to assess whether the gender gap is found in both majority and minority preadolescents, and to investigate whether a possible (gender and ethnic) group difference can be accounted for by differences in home or school hassles.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants were 902 preadolescent students (aged 10 to 12) from two cities in Norway. We collected self-report measures of emotional problems and home and school hassles. Using mediated moderation analysis we tested whether the interaction effect between gender and ethnic minority background on emotional problems was mediated by home or school hassles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The gender gap in emotional problems was restricted to ethnic majority preadolescents. School hassles but not home hassles accounted in part for this effect.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The absence of the gender gap among minority as opposed to majority preadolescents may indicate that social circumstances may postpone or hamper the emergence and magnitude of the gender gap in ethnic minority preadolescents. In this study, school hassles partly accounted for the combined gender and ethnic group differences on emotional problems. This indicates that school hassles may play a role in the higher levels of emotional problems in preadolescent minority boys and consequently the absence of a gender gap found in our minority sample.</p
Autosomal recessive long QT syndrome, type 1 in eight families from Saudi Arabia.
One of the most common primary cardiac arrhythmia syndromes is autosomal dominant long QT syndrome, type 1 (LQT1), chiefly caused by mono-allelic mutations in the javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@1ece3341 gene. Bi-allelic mutations in the javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@7269232c gene are causal to Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome (JLNS), characterized by severe and early-onset arrhythmias with prolonged QTc interval on surface ECG and sensorineural deafness. Occasionally, bi-allelic mutations in javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@2001e7dc are also found in patients without any deafness, referred to as autosomal recessive long QT syndrome, type 1 (AR LQT1).
We used Sanger sequencing to detect the pathogenic mutations in javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@4f6526ea gene in eight families from Saudi Arabia with autosomal recessive LQT1.
We have detected pathogenic mutations in all eight families, two of the mutations are founder mutations, which are c.387-5T>A and p.Val172Met/p.Arg293Cys ( javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement@205e407c ). QTc and cardiac phenotype was found to be pronounced in all the probands comparable to the cardiac phenotype in JLNS patients. Heterozygous carriers for these mutations did not exhibit any clinical phenotype, but a significant number of them have sinus bradycardia.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first description of a large series of patients with familial autosomal recessive LQT, type 1. These mutations could be used for targeted screening in cardiac arrhythmia patients in Saudi Arabia and in people of Arabic ancestry
Exercise does not influence development of phenotype in PLN p.(Arg14del) cardiomyopathy
BACKGROUND: Endurance and frequent exercise are associated with earlier onset of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) and ventricular arrhythmias (VA) in desmosomal gene variant carriers. Individuals with the pathogenic c.40_42del; p.(Arg14del) variant in the PLN gene are frequently diagnosed with ARVC or dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of exercise in PLN p.(Arg14del) carriers. METHODS: In total, 207 adult PLN p.(Arg14del) carriers (39.1% male; mean age 53âŻÂ±â15 years) were interviewed on their regular physical activity since the age of 10 years. The association of exercise with diagnosis of ARVC, DCM, sustained VA and hospitalisation for heart failure (HF) was studied. RESULTS: Individuals participated in regular physical activities with a median of 1661 metabolic equivalent of task (MET) hours per year (31.9 MET-hours per week) until clinical presentation. The 50% most and least active individuals had a similar frequency of sustained VA (18.3% vs 18.4%; pâŻ=â0.974) and hospitalisation for HF (9.6% vs 8.7%; pâŻ=â0.827). There was no relationship between exercise and survival free from (incident) sustained VA (pâŻ=â0.65), hospitalisation for HF (pâŻ=â0.81), diagnosis of ARVC (pâŻ=â0.67) or DCM (pâŻ=â0.39) during follow-up. In multivariate analyses, exercise was not associated with sustained VA or HF hospitalisation during follow-up in this relatively not-active cohort. CONCLUSION: There was no association between the amount of exercise and the susceptibility to develop ARVC, DCM, VA or HF in PLN p.(Arg14del) carriers. This suggested unaffected PLN p.(Arg14del) carriers can safely perform mild-moderate exercise, in contrast to desmosomal variant carriers and ARVC patients
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Food environments and obesity: a geospatial analysis of the South Asia Biobank, income and sex inequalities.
Introduction: In low-middle income countries (LMICs) the role of food environments on obesity has been understudied. We address this gap by 1) examining the effect of food environments on adults' body size (BMI, waist circumference) and obesity; 2) measuring the heterogeneity of such effects by income and sex. Methods: This cross-sectional study analysed South Asia Biobank surveillance and environment mapping data for 12,167 adults collected between 2018 and 2020 from 33 surveillance sites in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Individual-level data (demographic, socio-economic, and health characteristics) were combined with exposure to healthy and unhealthy food environments measured with geolocations of food outlets (obtained through ground-truth surveys) within 300 m buffer zones around participants' homes. Multivariate regression models were used to assess association of exposure to healthy and unhealthy food environments on waist circumference, BMI, and probability of obesity for the total sample and stratified by sex and income. Findings: The presence of a higher share of supermarkets in the neighbourhood was associated with a reduction in body size (BMI, ÎČ = - 3â23; p < 0â0001, and waist circumference, ÎČ = -5â99; p = 0â0212) and obesity (Average Marginal Effect (AME): -0â18; p = 0â0009). High share of fast-food restaurants in the neighbourhood was not significantly associated with body size, but it significantly increased the probability of obesity measured by BMI (AME: 0â09; p = 0â0234) and waist circumference (AME: 0â21; p = 0â0021). These effects were stronger among females and low-income individuals. Interpretation: The results suggest the availability of fast-food outlets influences obesity, especially among female and lower-income groups. The availability of supermarkets is associated with reduced body size and obesity, but their effects do not outweigh the role of fast-food outlets. Policies should target food environments to promote better diets and reduce obesity
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