Improved impact performance of marine sandwich panels using through-thickness reinforcement: Experimental results

This paper presents results from a test developed to simulate the water impact (slamming) loading of sandwich boat structures. A weighted elastomer ball is dropped from increasing heights onto rigidly supported panels until damage is detected. Results from this test indicate that honeycomb core sandwich panels, the most widely used material for racing yacht hulls, start to damage due to core crushing at impact energies around 550 J. Sandwich panels of the same areal weight and with the same carbon/epoxy facings but using a novel foam core reinforced in the thickness direction with pultruded carbon fibre pins, do not show signs of damage until above 1200 J impact energy. This suggests that these will offer significantly improved resistance to wave impact. Quasi-static test results cannot be used to predict impact resistance here as the crush strength of the pinned foam is more sensitive to loading rate than that of the honeycomb core

Recent Techniques in Design and Implementation of Microwave Planar Filters

This paper details the techniques and initiatives made recently for improved response and simultaneous development of microwave planar filters. Although the objective of all the techniques is to design low cost filters with reduced dimensions, compact size with better frequency response, the methodological approaches are quite variant. The paper has gone through extensive analysis of all these techniques, their concept and design procedures

Assessing the effects of anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda on HIV prevention, treatment, and care services

Uganda’s response to the HIV epidemic has been lauded for its robustness and achievements. However, a key component of HIV prevention programming has been missing, for men who have sex with men (MSM). The main reason cited has been criminalization of male homosexual behavior. In 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB) was introduced in the parliament to enhance existing anti-homosexuality law. A multi-disciplinary team made a Health Impact Assessment of the proposed AHB. The bill as tabled would severely increase punishments, increased closeting. Social capital of MSM would be eroded by clauses mandating reporting byfriends, relatives, and acquaintances. Health-care professionals would have to inform on homosexuals. Mandatory HIV testing would be a blow to programming. Probable disclosure of HIV status in a public space (court) would also be a deterrent. Heftier punishments for those testing positive increases stigma and hobbles subsequent care. The AHB argues for exclusion, and more discrimination targeting persons living with HIV and sexual minorities. It will exacerbate the negative public healthconsequences of the existing legislation. The government of Uganda should review guidance documents published by authoritative bodies including the World Bank, World Health Organization to develop and bring to scale Human rightsaffirming HIV prevention, treatment, and care responses

Learning in the Public Sector: Evaluation of the SSA Title IV-E Intervention Program of Virginia Department of Social Services

Organizational learning has attracted both scholars and practitioners for decades, but the public sector has rarely been the focus for empirical investigation. We conducted a summative evaluation of the Social Security Act Title IV-E program to take stock of organizational learning in local level public sector service organizations in Virginia. We chose this case for scholarly investigation because it affords an opportunity to uniquely contribute to discovering learning constraints in public sector organizations. We used mixed methods to collect quantitative data on the monthly penetration rate (ratio of federal to state funding) from 2001 to 2006 and qualitative data generated from in-depth interviews of seven informants and a focus group. The quantitative analysis could not detect evidence of the learning that should have been institutionalized in the Local Department of Social Services. The qualitative analysis revealed that complex organizational structure, distorted economic incentive system, and rapid staff turnover are some factors inhibiting learning and retention of knowledge in this public sector organization. Generalizing from these results, these findings can contribute to both theory and practice in the public sector by enriching the understanding of public sector organizations’ learning constraints

Weak and strong disjunction in possibilistic asp

Abstract. Possibilistic answer set programming (PASP) unites answer set programming (ASP) and possibilistic logic (PL) by associating certainty values with rules. The resulting framework allows to combine both non-monotonic reasoning and reasoning under uncertainty in a single framework. While PASP has been well-studied for possibilistic definite and possibilistic normal programs, we argue that the current semantics of possibilistic disjunctive programs are not entirely satisfactory. The problem is twofold. First, the treatment of negation-as-failure in existing approaches follows an all-or-nothing scheme that is hard to match with the graded notion of proof underlying PASP. Second, we advocate that the notion of disjunction can be interpreted in several ways. In particular, in addition to the view of ordinary ASP where disjunctions are used to induce a non-deterministic choice, the possibilistic setting naturally leads to a more epistemic view of disjunction. In this paper, we propose a semantics for possibilistic disjunctive programs, discussing both views on disjunction. Extending our earlier work, we interpret such programs as sets of constraints on possibility distributions, whose least specific solutions correspond to answer sets.

Bulk Processing of Multi-Temporal Modis Data, Statistical Analyses and Machine Learning Algorithms to Understand Climate Variables in the Indian Himalayan Region.

Studies relating to trends of vegetation, snowfall and temperature in the north-western Himalayan region of India are generally focused on specific areas. Therefore, a proper understanding of regional changes in climate parameters over large time periods is generally absent, which increases the complexity of making appropriate conclusions related to climate change-induced effects in the Himalayan region. This study provides a broad overview of changes in patterns of vegetation, snow covers and temperature in Uttarakhand state of India through bulk processing of remotely sensed Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, meteorological records and simulated global climate data. Additionally, regression using machine learning algorithms such as Support Vectors and Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) network is carried out to check the possibility of predicting these environmental variables. Results from 17 years of data show an increasing trend of snow-covered areas during pre-monsoon and decreasing vegetation covers during monsoon since 2001. Solar radiation and cloud cover largely control the lapse rate variations. Mean MODIS-derived land surface temperature (LST) observations are in close agreement with global climate data. Future studies focused on climate trends and environmental parameters in Uttarakhand could fairly rely upon the remotely sensed measurements and simulated climate data for the region

Incidence of intrapartum stillbirth and associated risk factors in tertiary care setting of Nepal: a case-control study

Background: Each year, 1.2 million intrapartum stillbirths occur globally. In Nepal, about 50% of the total number of stillbirths occur during the intrapartum period. An understanding of the risk factors associated with intrapartum stillbirth will facilitate the development of preventative strategies to reduce the burden of death. This study was conducted in a tertiary-care setting with the aim to identify the risk factors associated with intrapartum stillbirth. Methods: A case-control study was completed from July 2012 to September 2013. All women who had an intrapartum stillbirth during the study period were included as cases, and 20% of women with live births were randomly selected on admission to make up the referent population. Information from the clinical records of case and referent women was retrieved. In addition, interviews were completed with each woman on their demographic and obstetric history. Results: During the study period, 4,476 women with live births were enrolled as referents and 136 women with intrapartum stillbirths as cases.  The following factors were found to increase the risk for intrapartum stillbirth: poor familial wealth quintile (Adj OR 1.8, 95% CI-1.1-3.4); less maternal education (Adj OR, 3.2 95% CI-1.8-5.5); lack of antenatal care (Adj OR, 4.8 95% CI 3.2-7.2); antepartum hemorrhage (Adj OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.1-4.2); multiple births (Adj. OR-3.0, 95% CI- 1.9-5.4); obstetric complication during the labor period (Adj. OR 4.5, 95% CI-2.9-6.9); lack of fetal heart rate monitoring per protocol (Adj. OR-1.9, 95% CI 1.5-2.4); no partogram use (Adj. OR-2.1, 95% CI 1.1-4.1); small weight for gestational age (Adj. OR-1.8, 95% CI-1.2-1.7); premature birth (Adj. OR-5.4, 95% CI 3.5-8.2); and being born premature and with small weight for gestational age (Adj. OR-9.0, 95% CI 7.3-15.5). Conclusion: Inadequate Fetal heart rate monitoring and partogram use are risk factors associated with intrapartum stillbirth and increasing the adherence to the interventions that can reduce the risk of intrapartum stillbirth. Preterm birth and small weight for gestational age were the factors that had the highest risk for intrapartum stillbirth, which indicates that adequate antenatal care can improve the health and growth of the baby and prevent premature death