Spin observables for pion photoproduction on the deuteron in the Δ\Delta(1232)-resonance region

Spin observables for the three charge states of the pion for the pion photoproduction reaction on the deuteron, $\gamma d\to\pi NN$, with polarized photon beam and/or oriented deuteron target are predicted. For the beam-target double-spin asymmetries, it is found that only the longitudinal asymmetries $T_{20}^{\ell}$ and $T_{2\pm 2}^{\ell}$ do not vanish, whereas all the circular and the other longitudinal asymmetries do vanish. The sensitivity of spin observables to the model deuteron wave function is investigated. It has been found that only $T_{21}$ and $T_{22}$ are sensitive to the model deuteron wave function, in particular in the case of $\pi^0$-production above the $\Delta$-region, and that other asymmetries are not.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phy

Challenges of soil carbon sequestration in the NENA region

The Near East North Africa (NENA) region spans over 14&thinsp;% of the total surface of the Earth and hosts 10&thinsp;% of its population. Soils of the NENA region are mostly highly vulnerable to degradation, and future food security will much depend on sustainable agricultural measures. Weather variability, drought and depleting vegetation are dominant causes of the decline in soil organic carbon (SOC). In this work the status of SOC was studied, using a land capability model and soil mapping. The land capability model showed that most NENA countries and territories (17 out of 20) suffer from low productive lands (&gt;&thinsp;80&thinsp;%). Stocks of SOC were mapped (1:5 000 000) in topsoils (0–0.30&thinsp;m) and subsoils (0.30–1&thinsp;m). The maps showed that 69&thinsp;% of soil resources are shown to have a stock of SOC below the threshold of 30&thinsp;tons&thinsp;ha−1. The stocks varied between  ≈ 10&thinsp;tons&thinsp;ha−1 in shrublands and 60&thinsp;tons&thinsp;ha−1 for evergreen forests. Highest stocks were found in forests, irrigated crops, mixed orchards and saline flooded vegetation. The stocks of soil inorganic carbon (SIC) were higher than those of SOC. In subsoils, the SIC ranged between 25 and 450&thinsp;tons&thinsp;ha−1, against 20 to 45&thinsp;tons&thinsp;ha−1 for SOC. Results highlight the contribution of the NENA region to global SOC stock in the topsoil (4.1&thinsp;%). The paper also discusses agricultural practices that are favorable to carbon sequestration such as organic amendment, no till or minimum tillage, crop rotation and mulching and the constraints caused by geomorphological and climatic conditions. The effects of crop rotations on SOC are related to the amounts of above and belowground biomass produced and retained in the system. Some knowledge gaps exist, especially in aspects related to the impact of climate change and effect of irrigation on SOC, and on SIC at the level of the soil profile and soil landscape. Still, major constraints facing soil carbon sequestration are policy-relevant and socioeconomic in nature, rather than scientific.</p

Predicting Online Islamophobic Behavior after #ParisAttack

The tragic Paris terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 sparked a massive global discussion on Twitter and other social media, with millions of tweets in the first few hours after the attacks. Most of these tweets were condemning the attacks and showing support for Parisians. One of the trending debates related to the attacks concerned possible association between Muslims and terrorism, which resulted in a world-wide debate between those attacking and those defending Islam. In this paper, we use this incident as a case study to examine using online social network interactions prior to an event to predict what attitudes will be expressed in response to the event. Specifically, we focus on how a person’s online content and network dynamics can be used to predict future attitudes and stance in the aftermath of a major event. In our study, we collected a set of 8.36 million tweets related to the Paris attacks within the 50 hours following the event, of which we identified over 900k tweets mentioning Islam and Muslims. We then quantitatively analyzed users’ network interactions and historical tweets to predict their attitudes towards Islam and Muslims. We provide a description of the quantitative results based on the tweet content (hashtags) and network interactions (retweets, replies, and mentions). We analyze two types of data: (1) we use post-event tweets to learn users’ stated stance towards Muslims based on sampling methods and crowd-sourced annotations; and (2) we employ pre-event interactions on Twitter to build a classifier to predict post-event stance. We found that pre-event network interactions can predict attitudes towards Muslims with 82% macro F-measure, even in the absence of prior mentions of Islam, Muslims, or related terms

Improved energy aware cluster based data routing scheme for WSN

Wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of several tiny devices that are dispersed randomly for gathering network field. Clustering mechanism divides the WSN into different sub-regions called clusters. Individual cluster is consisting of cluster head (CH) and member nodes. The main research challenges behind clustering mechanism are to optimize network overheads with efficient data delivery. Sensor nodes are operated by batteries and practically it is not feasible to replace them during sensing the environment so energy should be effectively utilized among sensors for improving overall network performance. This research paper presents an improved energy aware cluster based data routing (i-ECBR) scheme, by dividing the network regions into uniform sized square partitions and localized CH election mechanism. In addition, consistent end-to-end data routing is performed for improving data dissemination. Simulation results illustrate that our proposed scheme outperforms than existing work in terms of different performance metrics

The Effect of Chinese Propolis Supplementation on Ross Broiler Performance and Carcass Characteristics

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of Ether Extract of Propolis (EEP) on Ross (308) broiler performance and carcass characteristics. This experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design with 5 treatments (different levels of propolis including 0, 100, 250, 500 and 750 mg/kg diet) for 6 weeks. The mean weight gain, feed consumption and feed conversion ratio were recorded weekly. In addition At 42 days old the total body weight, total body weight gain, carcass and some internal organs relative weights were recorded. The results clarified that, the weight gain was significantly reduced in the 4th and 6th week (P&lt;0.05), while the feed consumption, feed efficiency were non significantly (P&gt;0.05) reduced for propolis fed birds in comparison to those fed control diet, Furthermore, inclusion of 100, 250, 500 and 750 mg/kg diet Propolis significantly reduced body weight at 42 days old and total body weight gain in comparison to control diet (P &lt; 0.05). Under the condition of this experiment, prolonged use of propolis had adverse effect on performance of broilers. Also, all doses of propolis had non-significant negative effect on liver, heart, gizzard and carcass relative weight. In conclusion, EEP has no beneficial effect on performance and Carcass characteristics of Broilers

A Time-Space Tradeoff for Triangulations of Points in the Plane

In this paper, we consider time-space trade-offs for reporting a triangulation of points in the plane. The goal is to minimize the amount of working space while keeping the total running time small. We present the first multi-pass algorithm on the problem that returns the edges of a triangulation with their adjacency information. This even improves the previously best known random-access algorithm

Does gum chewing affect the timing of return of intestinal motility after elective cesarean section?

Background: The aim is to evaluate the effect of gum chewing on the return of intestinal motility after elective CS.Methods: Study period was from September 2017 to March 2018 at the Assiut Women Health University Hospital. The study was registered as a prospective cohort study (Clinicaltrial.gov   NCT03355378). Women planned for elective CS according to selection criteria randomized to two groups: Group 1: included 100 patients who received intraoperative and postoperative non-sugary gum chewing as 15 minutes every 2 hours post-operatively for 6 hours with regular care and Group 2: included 100 patients who received regular care without gum chewing.Results: No statistically significant difference regarding the baseline criteria of both groups. There was a statistically significant lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure in gum chewing group. Hospital stay of gum chewing group was 7.33±0.73 hours versus in non-gum chewing group 20.28 ± 9.92 (p=0.000). Passage of flatus of gum chewing group was 8.54±0.98 hours versus in non-gum chewing group 13.22 ± 3.75 (P= 0.000).Conclusions: Gum chewing during elective CS improves gut motility in a safe way resulting in early passage of flatus, less hospital stay, and minimal pain score less cost on hospitals

The Effect of Heat Stress on Blood Picture of Japanese Quail

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of heat stress on quail hematological parameters. A total number of 300 Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix Coturnix japonica) of 28 days old were exposed to different levels of raising temperatures (22, 29, 34, 36 and 40 ºC) for 15 days. At 42 days old, blood samples were collected from 14 birds (7 males + 7 females) that were randomly selected. The samples were used for determining red blood cells count, hemoglobin concentration, packed cell volume, total and differential white blood cells count, heterophils/ lymphocyte (H/L) ratio, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. The obtained results indicated that, rearing quail birds under high environmental conditions during fattening period has a great adverse effect on these blood parameters

Dynamic collision avoidance system for a manipulator based on RGB-D data

The new paradigms of Industry 4.0 demand the collabora- tion between robot and humans. They could help and collaborate each other without any additional safety unlike other manipulators. The robot should have the ability of acquire the environment and plan (or re-plan) on-the- y the movement avoiding the obstacles and people. This paper proposes a system that acquires the environment space, based on a kinect sensor, performs the path planning of a UR5 manipulator for pick and place tasks while avoiding the objects, based on the point cloud from kinect. Results allow to validate the proposed system.Project ”TEC4Growth - Pervasive Intelligence, Enhancers and Proofs of Concept with Industrial Impact/NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000020” is financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational. Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, and through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This work is also financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation -COMPETE 2020 Programme within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961, and by National Funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) as part of project UID/EEA/50014/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Negative information seeking experiences of long-term prostate cancer survivors

Purpose Many prostate cancer survivors have lasting symptoms and disease-related concerns for which they seek information. To understand survivors’ information seeking experiences, we examined the topics of their information searches, their overall perceptions of the search, and perceptions of their health information seeking self-efficacy (i.e., confidence in their ability to obtain information). We hypothesized that negative search experiences and lower health information seeking self-efficacy would be associated with certain survivor characteristics such as non-white race, low income, and less education. Methods This was a retrospective study using data from the Michigan Prostate Cancer Survivor Study (state-based survey of long-term prostate cancer survivor outcomes, N=2,499, response rate = 38%). Participants recalled their last search for information and reported the topics and overall experience. We conducted multivariable regression to examine the association between survivor characteristics and the information-seeking experience. Results Nearly a third (31.7%) of prostate cancer survivors (median age of 76 years and 9 years since diagnosis) reported having negative information seeking experiences when looking for information. However, only 13.4% reported having low health information seeking self-efficacy. Lower income and less education were both significantly associated with negative information seeking experiences. Conclusions Our findings suggest that many long-term prostate cancer survivors have negative experiences when searching for information, and lower income and less education were survivor factors related to negative information seeking experiences. Implications for cancer survivors We advocate for ongoing, information needs assessment at the point-of-care as the survivorship experience progresses to assess and potentially improve survivors’ quality of life