2015 researcher's mini-symposium

Postgraduate researchers from the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Medicine & Surgery and Health Sciences gathered for a forum to present their research interests. The symposium was held in the afternoon of 30 January 2015 in the Engineering Lecture Theatre. The symposium promoted multi-disciplinary networking between various university faculties. Participants were invited based on research topic diversity and gender balance.peer-reviewe

Smoking as an early risk factor for problematic parenting practices

Parenting among those who use non-illicit and more common drugs such as cigarettes remains an understudied area for investigation. Secondary data analyses were performed in 2015 on a prospective study with parent and twin data available on n=3,009 individual members of female twin pairs born between July 1975 and June 1985 identified from Missouri-state birth records. Maternal smoking when the twins were 3+ years of age remained a significant predictor of offspring report of childhood sexual abuse (OR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.02-1.92) after controlling for key covariates. Given limited public health resources, mothers who smoke during child's preschool years may be targeted for tailored parenting intervention

Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions: An Urban Metabolism Approach to Los Angeles Pincetl et al. Enabling Future Sustainability Transitions

Summary: This synthesis article presents an overview of an urban metabolism (UM) approach using mixed methods and multiple sources of data for Los Angeles, California. We examine electric energy use in buildings and greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, and calculate embedded infrastructure life cycle effects, water use and solid waste streams in an attempt to better understand the urban flows and sinks in the Los Angeles region (city and county). This quantification is being conducted to help policy-makers better target energy conservation and efficiency programs, pinpoint best locations for distributed solar generation, and support the development of policies for greater environmental sustainability. It provides a framework to which many more UM flows can be added to create greater understanding of the study area's resource dependencies. Going forward, together with policy analysis, UM can help untangle the complex intertwined resource dependencies that cities must address as they attempt to increase their environmental sustainability

Integration of external and internal dosimetry in Switzerland

Individual monitoring regulations in Switzerland are based on the ICRP60 recommendations. The annual limit of 20 mSv for the effective dose applies to the sum of external and internal radiation. External radiation is monitored monthly or quarterly with TLD, DIS or CR-39 dosemeters by 10 approved external dosimetry services and reported as Hp(10) and Hp(0.07). Internal monitoring is done in two steps. At the workplace, simple screening measurements are done frequently in order to recognise a possible incorporation. If a nuclide dependent activity threshold is exceeded then one of the seven approved dosimetry services for internal radiation does an incorporation measurement to assess the committed effective dose E50. The dosimetry services report all the measured or assessed dose values to the employer and to the National Dose Registry. The employer records the annually accumulated dose values into the individual dose certificate of the occupationally exposed person, both the external dose Hp(10) and the internal dose E50 as well as the total effective dose E = Hp(10)+E50. Based on the national dose registry an annual report on the dosimetry in Switzerland is published which contains the statistics for the total effective dose, as well as separate statistics for external and internal exposur

Generic and Layered Framework Components for the Control of a Large Scale Data Acquisition System

The complexity of today's experiments in High Energy Physics results in a large amount of readout channels which can count up to a million and above. The experiments in general consist of various subsystems which themselves comprise a large amount of detectors requiring sophisticated DAQ and readout electronics. We report here on the structured software layers to control such a data acquisition system for the case of LHCb which is one of the four experiments for LHC. Additional focus is given on the protocols in use as well as the required hardware. An abstraction layer was implemented to allow access on the different and distinct hardware types in a coherent and generic manner. The hierarchical structure which allows propagating commands down to the subsystems is explained. Via finite state machines an expert system with auto-recovery abilities can be modeled

Few smooth d-polytopes with n lattice points

We prove that, for fixed n there exist only finitely many embeddings of Q-factorial toric varieties X into P^n that are induced by a complete linear system. The proof is based on a combinatorial result that for fixed nonnegative integers d and n, there are only finitely many smooth d-polytopes with n lattice points. We also enumerate all smooth 3-polytopes with at most 12 lattice points. In fact, it is sufficient to bound the singularities and the number of lattice points on edges to prove finiteness.Comment: 20+2 pages; major revision: new author, new structure, new result

A study on laparoscopic sterilisation using 5mm laparoscope and direct trocar entry method

Background: Laparoscopic sterilization is a widely accepted method of permanent contraception. The techniques of abdominal entry are open direct trocar and veress method. The objectives of this study were to performance and practice of 5mm direct trocar entry techniques in Laparoscopic sterilization. To prepare a list of benefits and complications.Methods: Retrospective analysis of patients who underwent direct 5mm trocar entry for laparoscopic sterilization.  Period: 1st April 2017 to 30th November 2017. Patient came on the day of surgery with empty stomach. Intravenous pethedine 50mg and phenergan 12.5mg and antibiotics were given. Injection lignocaine intraumbilically and incision of 5mm was made. 5mm trocar and canula inserted directly. 5mm scope inserted.  After ensuring peritoneal cavity, pneumoperitonium created. Secondary 7mm port made under vision and ring applicator inserted and fallop ring applied on both tubes. Port closure done by N Butyl 2 cyano accrylate. Patient was observed for 6 hours and discharged with analgesics and antibiotics.Results: We operated 220 interval sterilizations and 31 posts MTP.  In 250 cases, the method was successful.  Only in one woman 5mm trocar was insufficient to make peritoneal entry since the patient was morbidly obese. Hence 10mm trocar was used.Conclusions: Laparoscopic tubal sterilization can be done with 5mm laparoscope and direct trocar entry method is safe and saves time