Environmental effects of ozone depletion, UV radiation and interactions with climate change : UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, update 2017

Peer reviewe

Oral colonization by yeasts in HIV-positive patients in Brazil

INTRODUCTION: In HIV-infected patients, colonization of the oral cavity by potential pathogenic yeast may lead to development of systemic fungemia. We evaluated the prevalence of yeast in the oral cavity of Brazilian HIV-positive patients and verified whether or not the species characterized were enzymatically active. Furthermore, the species identified were tested for their susceptibility to antifungal treatment. METHODS: Patient saliva and oropharyngeal candidiasis samples were collected from 60 seropositive HIV patients and identified by the API20C system. Enzymatic activity was evaluated by the production of proteinase and phospholipase. Susceptibility to antifungal treatments were determined using the broth microdilution method. RESULTS: the most commonly isolated species were C. albicans (51.56%) followed by non-albicans Candida species (43.73%), Trichosporon mucoides (3.12%) and Kodamaea ohmeri (1.56%). Oral colonization by association of different species was observed in 42% of the patients. Enzymatic activity was verified in most of species isolated, except for C. glabrata, C. lusitaniae and C. guilliermondii. Resistance to Fluconazole and Amphotericin B was observed in isolates of C. albicans, C. glabrata, C. parapsilosis, C. krusei, and K. ohmeri. CONCLUSION: HIV-positive patients are orally colonized by single or multiple species of yeast that are occasionally resistant to Fluconazole or Amphotericin B

Impact of an 8-week walking program on quality of life in patients with thalassemia major

Background: Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder which despite treatment its clinical manifestations affect the patients' quality of life. Therefore, psychological support and rehabilitation programs are needed to improve the quality of life in such patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of an 8-week walking program on quality of life in patients with thalassemia major. Materials and Methods: In this semi-experimental study, 61 patients with thalassemia major (18 years and older) were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups. Patients in the experimental group performed an 8-week walking program. Quality of life was assessed using the SF36 questionnaire before and after the intervention in both groups.Results: Results showed significant improvements in quality of life in the experimental group compared with the control group after an 8-week regular walking program (

A Proposal for Streamlining 3D Digital Cadastral Data Lifecycle

In urban areas, managing the lifecycle of land and property data related to interlocked and intertwined structures and infrastructure services is a grand challenge for cadastral systems. Addressing the physical and legal complexities of vertically stratified ownership arrangements is a major step towards the modernization of cadastral systems. The research problem that this study addresses is the lack of a simplified and effective approach for modelling, storing, visualizing, and querying 3D cadastral data for multi-story buildings. This research primarily leads to the development of an approach based on Building Information Modelling (BIM), as well as state-of-the-art ETL (extract, transform, load), database and visualization technologies for 3D cadastral data lifecycle management in current practices. The proposed steps for recording, preserving, and disseminating 3D cadastral data are crucial in shifting current 2D cadastral systems towards 3D digital information systems. The results showed improvements in data creation, storage, conversion, and communication when upgrading from a 2D to 3D digital cadastre. Therefore, this study confirmed that streamlining the lifecycle of cadastral data using 3D environments would mitigate issues associated with the current fragmented 2D cadastral datasets used in the multi-story developments

Design and development of an LADM-driven 3D Land administration system: Lessons learned in Malaysia

Urban infrastructure has been dramatically increasing in Malaysian cities over the last decades. The current 2D-based practices are challenged by the stratified development of urban land in underground and aboveground areas. Currently, in Malaysia, surveying measurements are stored in a 2D-based cadastral database in the form of horizontal coordinates. However, this method is not capable to accommodate ownership complexities in the vertical dimension. The existing methods to capture, compute and adjust cadastral survey data need to be upgraded for the purpose of implementing a 3D land administration system (LAS) in Malaysia. The transformation from 2D to 3D LAS should be in accordance with a standard-based approach. Land Administration Domain Model (LADM): ISO 19152:2012 provides an internationally accepted standard model for recording and managing cadastral data. This study aims to design and develop an LADM-driven 3D LAS for Malaysia by building on existing research carried out for LADM adoption in this country. The proposed approach includes modifications in the existing workflows for capturing 3D survey data, new architecture to support 3D land parcels, and a new database for creating an LADM-based 3D LAS in line with data requirements in Malaysia. The major part of the upgrade from 2D to a 3D environment consists of capturing, processing and management of height of survey points that define parcel boundaries. This study demonstrated and confirmed that the LADM standard plays a significant role in realising a 3D-enabled system for Malaysian land administration

Tackling the challenges of visualising digital cadastral plans: The Victorian cadastre experience

ePlan, as a digital cadastral data initiative, is a collaborative program between the land authorities and the surveying industry which aims to replace paper and PDF cadastral plans and surveys with digital data in LandXML format. ePlan has been adopted by Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. ePlan has been operational in the State of Victoria for 2D plans since 2013. The ePlan files are automatically converted into PDF plans by the ePlan visualisation service within the Victorian state’s digital lodgement portal, namely Surveying and Planning through Electronic Applications and Referral (SPEAR). Cadastral plan in PDF format forms part of the legal title in Victoria. Presently, ePlan, in terms of development, has limitations in visualising detailed, complex and large scaled 2D plans. The visualised plan from the LandXML file must comply with accepted Victorian survey drawing standards as the plan is a source for plan certification by council, forms part of a contract of sale, and when the plan is registered by the State of Victoria land authority, Land Use Victoria (LUV), it becomes the title diagram. In addition, through significant engagement with the Victorian Surveying industry, LUV has received feedback from surveyors that they would like to have the ability to enhance the presentation of visualised plans to create enlargements, define additional sheets, exaggerate the position of lines, and move the placement of visualised labels. These enhancement provisions would provide greater scope to ensuring plans complied with the aforementioned drawing standards. A Licensed Surveyor, the creator of the LandXML file is also duty bound to sign the visualised plan. In addressing the abovementioned problem, a research methodology, including the conceptual, choice of technology, development and evaluation phases has been defined and implemented at LUV. The ‘conceptual’ phase considered the business and technical requirements for developing a tool to support surveyors to enhance the presentation of the visualised ePlans. The ‘choice of technology’ phase focused on defining the most suitable technologies for developing the tool. In the ‘development’ phase, the tool was implemented within SPEAR. The surveyors’ feedback on the tool usability was collected as part of the ‘evaluation’ phase. The main outcome of this research has been the ePlan Visualisation Enhancement Tool (VET) developed within SPEAR based on OpenLayers technology, which enables surveyors to improve the presentation of auto-generated cadastral plans. The evaluation phase showed that end users were generally satisfied by the usability of VET and identified the areas that need further improvement. This paper first provides an overview of the ePlan project in Victoria with a focus on the research problem and objective. The relevant interstate and international experiences are then reviewed. Next, the paper discusses the research methodology including the above four phases in detail. The outcomes of the evaluation phase are then discussed. The paper concludes with some discussions around the approach taken for this research, the surveyors’ feedback and the future directions

Seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis in Kermanshah City, west of Iran

It is estimated that one-third of the world's population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the latest status of toxoplasmosis seroprevalence in the general population and pregnant women in the west of Iran. This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in 2018. Accordingly, data associated with serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis, age, sex, anti-toxoplasmosis IgG and IgM, and pregnancy status in women were collected from 6 health centers of Kermanshah City, the west of Iran, during 2016-2017. In total, 1228 people referred to the health centers in Kermanshah City. Of 1228 people, 359 (29.23) individuals were seropositive for toxoplasmosis, of them 294 (81.89) individuals were seropositive only for IgG, and 65 (18.11) individuals were both IgG and IgM seropositive. The seropositivity in men was 29.3 (n = 63), in women was 29.2 (n = 296), and in pregnant women was 25.9 (n = 44). All individuals were examined using ELISA kit. This study showed that the prevalence of this disease in the west of Iran has been decreased in comparison with the previous studies. Therefore, regular epidemiological studies of in different regions seem to be necessary in order to conclude on the decrease or increase trend of this disease in an area

Moving Towards a Single Smart Cadastral Platform in Victoria, Australia

Various jurisdictions are currently in the process of reforming their cadastral systems to achieve a smart and multidimensional system that provides a range of land administration services to the wider community. The state of Victoria in Australia has been actively modernizing its cadastral system since the 1990s by developing a digital cadastre database, an online digital cadastral plan lodgment portal named SPEAR, and smart cadastre services for validating and visualizing digital data in the ePlan (LandXML) format. However, due to challenges in the implementation of the smart cadastre lifecycle in Victoria, the uptake of ePlan is currently low across the surveying industry. This study aims to explore the feasibility of implementing a smart platform for managing ePlan lodgments in Victoria, which provides all required services within an integrated digital environment. To achieve this aim, the business and technical requirements for realizing a single smart cadastral platform are first explored. A proof of concept (PoC) is then developed to showcase a suitable approach for developing this platform. The evaluation of the PoC confirmed that integration of smart cadastre services into a single environment could significantly streamline the digital cadastral data management processes in Victori