Perspective

In the quiet, green countryside outside Milan, one foggy morning, a few years back, I was driving along an isolated road. There Miss Murer, one of my patients, was eagerly awaiting my arrival. But long before I was anywhere near the remote property, I was already lost. Beside me, a roughly folded map was helpfully leading me away from familiar landmarks. Inhabitants kindly provided directions, but only confused what my sense of direction had left. This was a recurrent situation in my life, until 'Sat-navs' became available. These have a clear purpose: to give complete driving directions with the least possible risk of getting lost. In a few years they have become very popular. Innovative features are offered on top of essential information: travel time between destinations, real-time traffic updates, 3D views, to name a few. Now I'm not worried any more when a patient calls me asking for a visit and proudly announces the name of a neighbourhood I never heard of. I need something similar to avoid losing my direction when a doubt comes to my mind in clinical practice: information services I can trust, that provide relevant and reliable information when I'm searching for a correct diagnosis or treatment. However, there is a vital difference: being lost does not kill people, being lost in clinical practice may do

Assessment of radioactivity of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in soil and plants for estimation of transfer factors and effective dose around Mkuju River Project, Tanzania

Purpose. To establish pre-mining indicators to assess radiological impact as a result of release of radionuclides to environment during uranium mining at Mkuju River Project radioactivity of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in soil, plants, fruits and cereals. Methods. The High Purity Germanium detector was used to determine the radioactivity and the data were subsequently used to establish soil to plant transfer factors and annual effective dose. Findings. The results revealed a strong positive correlation (r) of 0.947 and 0.950 for 226Ra and 232Th, respectively, between values determined in soils and plants. Implicit in these finding is that the distribution of radionuclides in soils is directly proportional to the corresponding radionuclides in plants. Originality. The roots of wild grass had the highest specific radioactivity (Bqkg-1) for 226Ra (2.15 ± 0.02), 232Th (1.43 ± 0.02) and 40K (198.16 ± 1.72) and the roots of cabbage had the highest values for 226Ra (1.38 ± 0.04), 232Th (1.34 ± 0.03) and 40K (146.12 ± 1.02) among the food crops, an indication of a higher ability to uptake radionuclides from soil. Similarly, since the TFs were found higher in wild grass for 226Ra (0.0533 ± 0.04), 232Th (0.0374 ± 0.002) and 40K (0.5297 ± 0.05) and cabbage for 226Ra (0.0362 ± 0.03), 232Th (0.0360 ± 0.001) and 40K (0.4173 ± 0.05). Practical implications. It is an evident that these plants can serve as good bio indicators to assess release of radionuclides from inside the mining site to the public domain. Moreover, the annual effective dose (mSvy-1) for 40K (0.23 ± 0.02), 226Ra (0.046±0.004) and 232Th (0.073 ± 0.006) in edible crops when consumed in the vicinity of the MRP before the mining operations were, as expected, insignificant.Мета. Встановити показники радіологічного впливу викиду радіонуклідів на навколишнє середовище під час видобутку урану на родовищі “Мкужу-Рівер”, а саме 226Ra, 232Th та 40K у ґрунті, рослинах, фруктах та злаках. Методика. Для визначення радіоактивності використовувався детектор високочистого германію. Отримані дані були використані для визначення факторів переносу й ефективної дози для ґрунту і рослин. Результати. Результати виявили сильну позитивну кореляцію (r) 0.947 і 0.950 226Ra та 232Th, відповідно, між отриманими значеннями в ґрунтах та рослинах. Розподіл радіонуклідів у ґрунтах прямо пропорційний відповідним радіонуклідам рослин. Наукова новизна. Найвища питома радіоактивність (Бк/кг-1) зафіксована в коріннях трави – 226Ra (2.15 ± 0.02), 232Th (1.43 ± 0.02) та 40K (198.16 ± 1.72), а корені капусти мають найвищі значення радіоактивності серед харчових культур – 226Ra (1.38 ± 0.04), 232Тh (1.34 ± 0.03) та 40 К (146.12 ± 1.02), що свідчить про більш високу здатність поглинати радіонукліди з ґрунту. Аналогічно, найвищий фактор переносу зафіксований у коріннях трави – 226Ra (0.0533 ± 0.04), 232Тh (0.0374 ± 0.002) та 40К (0.5297 ± 0.05) та капусти – 226Rа (0.0362 ± 0.03), 232Тh (0.0360 ± 0.001) та 40К (0.4173 ± 0.05). Практична значимість. Встановлено, що рослини можуть служити хорошими біоіндикаторами для загальнодоступної оцінки викиду радіонуклідів із гірничодобувної ділянки. Крім того, щорічна ефективна доза (мСв-1) для 40К (0.23 ± 0.02), 226Rа (0.046 ± 0.004) та 232Тh (0.073 ± 0.006) в їстівних культурах, що споживаються в околицях уранового родовища “Мкужу-Рівер” до початку його розробки, як і очікувалося, є незначною.Цель. Установить показатели радиационного воздействия выброса радионуклидов в окружающую среду при добыче урана на месторождении “Мкужу Ривер”, а именно 226Ra, 232Th та 40K в почве, растениях, фруктах и злаках. Методика. Для определения радиоактивности использовался детектор высокочистого германия. Полученные данные были использованы для определения факторов переноса и эффективной дозы для почвы и растений. Результаты. Результаты выявили сильную положительную корреляцию (r) 0.947 и 0.950 226Ra и 232Th, соответственно, между полученными значениями в почвах и растениях. Распределение радионуклидов в почвах прямо пропорционально соответствующим радионуклидам растений. Научная новизна. Наивысшая удельная радиоактивность (Бк/кг-1) зафиксирована в корнях травы – 226Ra (2.15 ± 0.02), 232Th (1.43 ± 0.02) и 40K (198.16 ± 1.72), а корни капусты имеют наивысшие значения радиоактивности среди пищевых культур – 226Ra (1.38 ± 0.04), 232Тh (1.34 ± 0.03) и 40 К (146.12 ± 1.02), что свидетельствует о более высокой способности поглощать радионуклиды из почвы. Аналогично, наивысший фактор переноса зафиксирован в корнях травы – 226Ra (0.0533 ± 0.04), 232Тh (0.0374 ± 0.002) и 40К (0.5297 ± 0.05) и капусты – 226Rа (0.0362 ± 0.03), 232Тh (0.0360 ± 0.001) и 40К (0.4173 ± 0.05). Практическая значимость. Установлено, что растения могут служить хорошими биоиндикаторами для общедоступной оценки выброса радионуклидов с горнодобывающего участка. Кроме того, ежегодная эффективная доза (мСВ-1) для для 40К (0.23 ± 0.02), 226Rа (0.046 ± 0.004) и 232Тh (0.073 ± 0.006) в съедобных культурах, потребляемых в окрестностях уранового месторождения “Мкужу-Ривер” до начала его разработки, как и ожидалось, является незначительной.The authors gratefully acknowledge the owners of MRP, the Uranium One, for permission to take samples in the area. The technical assistance and the logistical support provided by Mr. Beria, Site Manager, and John Ntukula, Environmental Manager, for supplying valuable background information and transport to sampling points is highly appreciated. The authors would also like to thank Mr. Mujuni Rweyemamu of TAEC for his assistance in radioactivity measurement of the samples. Thanks also go to COSTECH for financial support, and the TAEC for granting a study leave

Mathematical modelling of the effects of peer-educators’ campaign on the dynamics of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda

In this paper, we analyse the effects of peer-educator’s campaign on the dynamics of HIV. We present a sex-structured model for heterosexual transmission of HIV/AIDS in a community. The model is formulated using integro-differential equations, which help to account for a time delay due to incubation period of infective before developing AIDS. The sex-structured HIV/AIDS model divides the population into two subpopulations, namely; females and males. Both disease Free equilibrium and the endemic equilibrium points for the model are determined and their stability are examined. The model is extended to assess the effect of peer- educational campaigns in slowing or eradicating the epidemic. The exposure risk of infection after each intervention is obtained. Basic reproductive numbers for these models are computed and compared to assess the effectiveness of each intervention in a community. The models are numerically analyzed to assess the effectiveness of the treatment free measure, namely; peer educational campaign on the transmission dynamics of HIV/AIDS using demographic and epidemiological parameters of Rwanda. The study demonstrates the use of sex-structured HIV/AIDS models in assessing the effectiveness of educational campaigns as a preventive strategy in a heterosexually active populationMathematics Subject classifications (MSC 2010): 34D20, 34K60, 92D25, 34K25, 34K28Keywords: Population dynamics, Stability, Basic reproductive numbers, Equilibriu

Solving an optimal control problem of hepatitis B virus dynamics: Efficacy of fuzzy logic strategy

This work aims at using fuzzy logic strategy to solve a hepatitis B virus (HBV) optimal control problem. To test the efficacy of this numerical method, we compare numerical results with those obtained using direct method. We consider a patient under treatment during 12 months where the two drugs are taken as controls. The results are rather satisfactory. In particular, the reaction of HBV to drugs can be modeled and a feedback can be approximated by the solution of a linear quadratic problem. The drugs reduce the risk of HBV. Furthermore, results of both numerical methods are in good agreement with experimental data and this justifies the efficacy of fuzzy logic strategy in solving optimal control problems

Enhancing the capacity of EARDP-community initiatives to provide sustainable and responsive quality micro-lending services in Patandi Village, Arumeru District - Arusha Region

Rural micro financing remains very challenging and in developing countries it is generally weak, despite the efforts of different donors, Governments and Private investors to improve it. However, important lessons are emerging from these experiences that provide useful guidelines on how to expand and make more effective the provision of rural financial services. Globally the evidences and arguments suggest that microfinance interventions may increase incomes, contribute to individual and household livelihood security, and change social relations for the better. EARDP - Community Initiatives in Patandi village Arumeru District Arusha Region implements micro credit and poverty alleviation programs that support small scale entrepreneurs. The organization has highlighted the importance of considering capacity strengthening of rural micro - finance set up. Major outcomes of the project involved establishment of job functions, procedures for loan tracking, grants contract from McKnight, reviewed loan portfolio, book of accounts and financial procedures as well as launching of VICOBA groups. (Author abstract)Banzi, M. E. (2007). Enhancing the capacity of EARDP-community initiatives to provide sustainable and responsive quality micro-lending services in Patandi Village, Arumeru District - Arusha Region. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

Application of MobileNets Convolutional Neural Network Model in Detecting Tomato Late Blight Disease

Late blight (LB) disease causes significant annual losses in tomato production. Early identification of this disease is crucial in halting its severity. This study aimed to leverage the strength of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) in automated prediction of tomato LB. Through transfer learning, the MobileNetV3 model was trained on high-quality, well-labeled images from Kaggle datasets. The trained model was tested on different images of healthy and infected leaves taken from different real-world locations in Mbeya, Arusha, and Morogoro. Test results demonstrated the model's success in identifying LB disease, with an accuracy of 81% and a precision of 76%. The trained model has the potential to be integrated into an offline mobile app for real-time use, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of LB disease detection in tomato production. Similar methods could also be applied to detect other tomato infections. Keywords:  MobileNets; convolutional neural networks; plant diseases detection; image classification; transfer learnin

Sampling Distribution: Impact of the Population Reliability on the Sample Size Determination

One of the spiniest problems in the elementary theory of the sampling is the determination of the size of the sample. Several authors tried to answer this question. In this paper, we present the methods of determination of the sample size in order to estimate to a given precision the   population mean, the variance of the population being known or unknown. In the same way, we present the methods of determination of the size of the sample in order to estimate to a given precision the frequency of a character in the population at different level of its reliability denoted here by.the method uses the sampling error of the distribution of the specified statistic.  Notice that the bigger the population reliability (or 100%), the smaller is the necessary sample size to get the best estimation of the parameter. The representativeness of the population doesn't essentially depend on the size of the sample; the size of the sample influences the precision of the measures; to achieve a highest accuracy, it is necessary to increase the sample size. The results of this research will help in determining the sample size to be drawn from different populations (finite or finite).

Assessment of heavy metal concentration in water around the proposed Mkuju River Uranium Project in Tanzania

Effective verification for compliance with water quality standards in uranium mining in Tanzania requires data sensitive to monitor heavy metal concentration in water around the Mkuju River Uranium Project before mining commences. The area susceptible for pollution by the project was estimated using AERMOD dispersion model and found to cover about 1300 km2. Thirty one surface and groundwater samples were collected and analysed for heavy metals and physicochemical properties using ICP-MS and standards techniques, respectively. The physicochemical properties for water samples analysed ranges from 5.7 to 7.8 for pH, 2.8 to 80.2 mg/L for TDS and 15 to 534.5 mS/cm for EC. These values show that the water in the vicinity of the Mkuju River Uranium Project is normal. The ranges of concentration of heavy metals (μgL-1) determined in water ranges were: Al(2 to 9049), Cr(0.2 to 19.96), Mn (0.1 to 1452),Fe(2 to 53890),Co(0.02 to 27.63), Ni(0.2 to 9.7), Cu(2 to 17), Zn(2 to 62.94), As(0.4 to 19.17), Cd(0.02 to 0.14), Pb (0.02 to 78.68), Th (0.002 to 1.73),U(0.002 to 29.76). These values are below the tolerance levels of concentrations set by different International organisations. Therefore heavy metal toxicity in the study area is marginal. The parameters that could serve as baseline data because of their enhanced sensitivity to pollution were (i) concentration of chromium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, arsenic, cadmium and lead in water (ii) pH, TDS and EC for water, (iii) TDS ratio for surface to ground water values and (iv) correlation coefficients between the heavy metals. However, since TDS values are season dependent, this indicator can serve as baseline data when measured during the dry season as was the case in the study.Keywords: Baseline, Heavy Metal Pollution, Mkuju River Project, Uranium Mining, Water Pollutio

Occlusion Handler Density Networks for 3D Multimodal Joint Location of Hand Pose Hypothesis

Predicting the pose parameters during the hand pose estimation (HPE) process is an ill-posed challenge. This is due to severe self-occluded joints of the hand. The existing approaches for predicting pose parameters of the hand, utilize a single-value mapping of an input image to generate final pose output. This way makes it difficult to handle occlusion especially when it comes from the multimodal pose hypothesis. This paper introduces an effective method of handling multimodal joint occlusion using the negative log-likelihood of a multimodal mixture-of-Gaussians through a hybrid hierarchical mixture density network (HHMDN). The proposed approach generates multiple feasible hypotheses of 3D poses with visibility, unimodal and multimodal distribution units to locate joint visibility. The visible features are extracted and fed into the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) layer of the HHMDN for feature learning. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved on ICVL, NYU, and BigHand public hand pose datasets. The imperative results show that the proposed method in this paper is effective as it achieves a visibility error of 30.3mm, which is less error compared to many state-of-the-art approaches that use different distributions of visible and occluded joints

Disseminação bio-inspirada de eventos em redes dinâmicas e descentralizadas

Resumo: O advento de novos paradigmas de comunicação, tais como a computação móvel e o modelo peer-to-peer , demandam modelos de rede auto gerenciáveis e descentralizados. O controle e administração dos recursos em modelos descentralizados não é uma tarefa simples, uma vez que essa tarefa deve ser realizada conjuntamente pelos integrantes da rede. Uma maneira promissora de lidar com esse problema e que vem obtendo sucesso ´e o uso do algoritmo da Otimização por Colônia de Formigas. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) . O presente trabalho apresenta uma estratégia de gerência istribuída baseada em inteligência coletiva, que permite a descoberta e a disseminação de novidades em redes de topologia dinâmica. Uma novidade, também chamada de evento, é definida como a mudança de estado de um nodo ou enlace da rede. Um nodo que detecta um evento em sua vizinhança dispara a disseminação das novidades pela rede. O algoritmo simula o comportamento das colônias de formigas da natureza em busca de alimento. Através de “marcas” deixadas no meio, chamadas feromônios, as formigas guiam-se indiretamente umas as outras em direção ao alimento através das melhores rotas. No lgoritmo proposto, as formigas são representadas por agentes móveis que circulam e disseminam as novidades pela rede. O uso do ACO apresenta a vantagem de não necessitar de uma entidade central para controlar a disseminação de informações, característica de interesse no contexto do trabalho. Um estudo empírico foi realizado, comparando a estratégia proposta com a disseminação por inundação (flooding) e a disseminação epidêmica (gossip). Resultados permitem observar que o algoritmo apresenta uma solução de compromisso entre o tempo necessário para a disseminação e a sobrecarga em ermos do número de mensagens utilizadas