RFI Mitigation and Testing Employed at GGAO for NASA's Space Geodesy Project (SGP)

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Mitigation at Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) has been addressed in three different ways by NASA's Space Geodesy Project (SGP); masks, blockers, and filters. All of these techniques will be employed at the GGAO, to mitigate the RFI consequences to the Very Long Baseline Interferometer

Design and Characterization of 1.8-3.2 THz Schottky-based Harmonic Mixers

A room-temperature Schottky diode-based WM-86 (WR-0.34) harmonic mixer was developed to build high-resolution spectrometers, and multi-pixel receivers in the THz region for applications such as radio astronomy, plasma diagnostics, and remote sensing. The mixer consists of a quartz-based Local Oscillator (LO), Intermediate-Frequency (IF) circuits, and a GaAs-based beam-lead THz circuit with an integrated diode. Measurements of the harmonic mixer were performed using a 2 THz solid-state source and 2.6906 THz QCL. A conversion loss of 27 dB for the 3rd harmonic mixing and a conversion loss of 30 dB for the 4th harmonic mixing was achieved. This is the first development of a wideband WM-86 (WR-0.34) harmonic mixer with planar Schottky diode integrated on a beam-lead THz circuit that uses a lower LO harmonic factor for 1.8-3.2 THz RF frequency. Furthermore, this result represents the best Schottky-based mixer in this frequency range

Phase Locking Of A 2.5 THz Quantum Cascade Laser To A Microwave Reference Using THz Schottky Mixer

The frequency of a 2.5 THz QCL are stabilized to sub-hertz accuracy by phase-locking to a stable 100 MHz microwave reference, using a 2.3–3.2 THz room temperature Schottky diode based harmonic mixer. The down-converted phase locked beat note is stable over a long term test

Review on Viral Metagenomics and Its Future Perspective in Zoonotic and Arboviral Disease Surveillance

Viral metagenomics or full-length genome sequencing of enriched viral particle preparations has been frequently applied for viral discovery resulting in the genetic characterization of numerous human and animal viruses. The  non- specific nature of viral metagenomics endows it with great potential as a unversal virus detection assay. Historical methods includes, electron microscopy, cell culture, inoculation in suckling mice and serology. Many viruses cannot be cultivated, excluding the use of cell line isolation and serologic techniques, and can only be characterized by molecular methods. The molecular-based techniques provide sensitive and rapid means of virus detection and identification. Most of these tests are designed to be virus-specific that makes them unsuitable for detection of unexpected and/or completely new viruses, as well as novel viral variants that poses great challenge due their re-emrgince property. The recently developed approaches of viral metagenomics provide an effective novel way to screen samples and detect viruses without previous knowlege of the infectious agent, thereby enabling a better diagnosis and disease control. The basic steps involved in viral metagenomics include preparation of viral nucleic acid that is free from host and contaminating nuceic acids, sequence-independent amplification of viral nucleic acid,sequencing and use of bioinformatics tools for analysis of sequnce generated. Viral metagenomics aims to provide the genetic composition of the complete viral population of a sample in an unbiased and culture-independent manner. Viral metagenomics has been successfully used to investigate viral populations in different environments such as seawater, gastreointestinal tracts, and respiratory samples and have demonstrated that there is a high diversity among viruses. Many potential emerging viruses of concern might already be infecting humans, domestic animals or wlidlife but awailt their detection by disease surveilla-nce which can be possible through application of viral metagenomics. This review aims to de-scribes the different possible steps of a viral metagenomics and its future application in viral zonootic and arboviral disease surveillance. Keywords: Arboviral disease, Bioinformatics,  Emerging infectious disease, Sequencing, Surveillance, Viral metagenomics.Begna Bulch

The Role of Civics and Ethical Education in Shaping Attitudes of Students: The Case of Jimma College of Teachers Education

Civics education services as a tool to increase knowledge and participation of students in their community The role of civics in production of effective citizens is high practically seen to improve in many countries especially the civilized world But its understanding and implementation decreases as someone moves towards developing countries Today it is observed and easy to hear comments of individuals on inefficiency of civics education to achieve the desired goals in Ethiopia Moreover the concern of schools in teaching and practice of civics education is not as hot issue as the years 1990 s i e the time when the current government sized power The aim of the study is to investigate to what extent civics training is being conducted in JCTE and stay reliable to shape children at primary schools The students knowledge on civics and ethical values was assessed and internalized only some of them practiced while trainees stay in the Jimma College of teachers education Although few students and teachers responded negatively to the questionnaires and interview but majority of them confirmed the progress achieved in civics teaching The result found confirms the vital role civics can play in teaching and curriculum revision Respondents have indicated that the following possible solutions to causes of lower level of civic knowledge and practices The need for continues training on civic and ethical education for student-teachers as far as maximum behavioral change achieved The other method to be employed should be formation of civics club in colleges so as to promote students participation Finally college instructors should arrange varied methods and resources to update their training style

Salient-Object-Based Image Query by Visual Content

The rise in the intense utilization of images in our daily life resulted in a high volume of images produced from different sectors of human endeavor. This resulted in the need for an efficient management of image data. Recently, Content-based image retrieval has attracted much attention from the research community. As exact matching is not possible with image retrieval, the approach is to use similarity-based matching. Much of the works on similaritybased image retrieval use the global features (color, shape, texture, etc) of the entire image to compute similarity score between two images. Equally important to using the entire image is the use of salient-objects; objects in an image that are of particular interest to the user, as the basis of similarity-based computation. The current works on content-based image retrieval do not address very well the issues related to salient-objects based image retrieval. In this work, we have proposed an extension to a previous work on image database modeling and query processing. To support salient object based image retrieval, we have proposed an extension of the data repository model so that spatial features of contained salient objects are captured. Moreover, we proposed an extension to the similarity-based selection operator defined earlier so that salient object based selection operation be part of image database systems for similarity-based image retrieval. We have also proposed spatial operators that can be used to compute spatial relation between an image and contained salient objects. We have reviewed and presented refined formulations of previous works on spatial relations between objects in 2D space to compute spatial relation between salient objects. To demonstrate the viability of salient-objects-based image retrieval, we have extended a previous work named EMIMS, to develop a system named EMIMS-S (Extended Medical Image Management System to support Salient objects). We have also used this prototype to experimentally show the retrieval effectiveness of salient-objects-based image queries

A place for integration : refugee experiences in two English cities

This paper seeks to inject an appreciation of place into analysis of refugee integration. A framework of integration sensitive to interactions between people and places is operationalised to facilitate the systematic comparison of the refugee integration process in different places. In particular, this paper explores variations in key indicators of integration within a cohort of refugees arriving into the UK from the same country of origin (Iraq), at the same time, granted the same legal status and afforded a similar package of support and assistance but settled in two cities in England (Hull and Sheffield). Variations in the integration experiences of refugees in the two cities are spotlighted and related to the contextual, compositional and collective aspects of the places into which they were settled. The findings highlight the importance of recognising that refugee integration is grounded and embodied in space and place and that despite proceeding under the same general operative processes can evolve in distinctive ways in different places

Therapeutic efficacy of mefloquine and sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine for the treatment of uncomplicated pasmodium falciparum malaria in children, Metehara town, Southeast Ethiopia

Background: The development of resistance by P. falciparum to most drugs used in prophylaxis and therapeutics underscores the need to investigate the sensitivity of local parasite isolates to the currently available standard antimalarial drugs. Objective: To assess parasitological resistance and therapeutic efficacy of mefloquine (MQ) and sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine (SP) in children with uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Metehara town, southeast Ethiopia. Methods: The therapeutic responses to MQ and SP were examined using the World Health Organization 14-day in vivo test protocol. A total of 119 children that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were assigned to the MQ (n=59) or SP (n=50) treatment group. The patients were followed up for 14 days, and clinical and parasitological outcomes were assessed. Results: The 14-day clinical and parasitological cure rates in children treated with MQ were found to be 100% (55/55) with no recrudescence until day 14. In the SP group, the clinical cure and failure rates were found to be 78.9 % (45/57) and 12% (7/57) respectively. Out of the patients with clinical failure in the SP group, one child was classified as early treatment failure and six had late treatment failure. The incidence of parasitological resistance was 21.1 % (8 patients with RI and, 4 patients with RII). MQ was faster in fever and parasite clearance rate by day 2 (76.4%) and day 3 (98.2%) than in the SP group (64.9% day 2 and 91.2% day 3). Gametocyte carrier rate following therapy was significantly lower in those treated with MQ than in those receiving SP; 1.8% with MQ had gametocytes by day 14 compared to 50.9 % with SP (P