Nexus of imports in influencing exports, domestic demand and services amongst ASEAN-5 countries

There has been growing concern that trade-dependent ASEAN-5 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) countries are losing their grip as trading nations due to the weaker contribution of net exports to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with domestic demand contribution to GDP improving. This casts doubts on the Export-Led Growth Strategy (ELGS) with the growing perception that the Domestic Demand-Led Growth Strategy (DDLGS) is gaining prominence. The main aim of this study is to determine the connection between import and export components on private consumption, public consumption, gross fixed capital formation, exports, imports and services. Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) and Pedroni’s Panel cointegration techniques were applied to the data covered from the year 1996 to 2015. The results explain that import components significantly influence domestic demand variables and exports. The results also support that the domestic demand contribution to GDP is being overestimated while net exports contribution to GDP is underestimated due to the impact of imported components. At the same time, the results unveil a significant and positive impact of imported components on services which indicate the overestimating services contribution to GDP. The results demonstrate a significant positive impact of export components on domestic demand and net exports. Finally, the estimates of export components reveal positive and significant impact on the services sector. The main policy implication that can be deduced is that both import and export components significantly influence domestic demand, net exports and services. These components benefit from the ASEAN-5 integration and from their respective country’s policies. The authorities should design their policies by taking into consideration the impact of these components and regional integration to ensure they benefit in a more effective and efficient manner

THE INFLUENCE OF AERATED DRINKS ON THE BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEART RATE OF YOUNG ADULTS

Objective: To study the relationship of aerated drink (soft drink) consumption on the blood pressure and heart rate of student population. Methods: 50 medical students (25 male and 25 female) volunteered to participate in this study. The blood pressure and heart rate of the student was taken and recorded as initial blood pressure (pre-test, control). The student was then given 250 ml of aerated drink. After 20 min* the blood pressure (BP) and heart rate of the student was taken once again (post-test) and the reading was recorded. Results: The statistical analysis suggest that, there was 0.88±0.10 mm/Hg increase in the mean arterial pressure, subsequent to the consumption of the aerated drink in the male student population and 2.85±0.18 mm/Hg in the female student population. Similarly, 0.76±0.03 beats/minute increase in the heart rate in male population and 1.2±0.05 beats/minute was observed in female population. Conclusion: In our study aerated drink have not shown a significant effect on mean arterial pressure and heart rate in both males and females. Chronic consumption may have the effect on mean arterial pressure and heart rate but random consumption may not have significant effect

Inter-Satellite Link Channel Management For Mobile Satellite Systems

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations are foreseen as appropriate alternatives to the geostationary satellite systems for providing global personal communications services (PCS). Compared to geostationary satellites, these constellations offer a significantly smaller round trip delay between earth and space segments. Furthermore, the use of inter-satellite links (ISLs) has been identified as a means to provide global connectivity in space, thereby enhancing system autonomy and flexibility, and has been retained in the design of systems like Teledesic and SkyBridge. From a network point of view, a major benefit of a ISL subnetwork in space lies in the possibility to transport long distance traffic over reliable and high capacity connections, thus forming a good base for ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) operation. With the development of the third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) wireless networks, ATM is regarded as one of the potential promising candidates for providing QoS guaranteed broadband telecommunication services. It is possible to integrate the mobile satellite and A TM by applying the inter/intra satellite links (ISLs) as the physical layer of WATM and considering a connection between two satellites as a virtual path connection (VPC) in ATM

Channel management for WATM mobile satellite systems

This paper presents a dynamic channel allocation scheme for wireless asynchronous transfer mode (WATM) satellite systems. Handoff schemes of WATM are utilized to deal with handoff issues in a WATM mobile satellite system. Here we investigate and simulate a dynamic channel allocation scheme for handoff in WATM mobile satellite networks, which improves the network resource utilization, by measuring the network performance in terms of new call blocking probability (NCBP) and handoff call blocking probability (HCBP). Arriving calls are given channels based on their priority and calls are subdivided into real time and non real time calls. Highest priority is given to real time handoff calls, followed by non real time handoff calls, then real time new calls and finally non real time new calls

Modelling of handover of multimedia traffic in mobile satellite communication

This paper presents the handover management in mobile satellite communications with multimedia traffic. Multimedia traffic is becoming the next hop in mobile satellite communication, due to its demand. The coverage of the satellite network knows no boundary and with the concept of the broadband satellite network, communication for multimedia and high-data rate multimedia communications can be provided. The handover initiation and execution is proposed with a queuing algorithm in the on-board processing (OBP) technique. The traffic is generated according to its nature of burstiness to represent the traffic behaviour on variation of the channels. The modelling could benefit network operators to fully conserve the frequency spectrum and to increase capacity

Injury outcome among helmeted and non-helmeted motorcycle riders and passengers at a tertiary care hospital in north-western Tanzania

Motorcycle helmets have been reported to reduce the risk of death and head injuries following motorcycle accidents. The aim of this descriptive prospective study was to determine the injury outcome among helmeted and non-helmeted motorcyclists and passengers at a tertiary hospital in north-western Tanzania. A total of 654 patients involved in the motorcycle accident were studied. Of these, 468 (71.6%) were motorcyclists (riders) and the remaining 186 (28.4%) were passengers. The median age of patients at presentation was 26 years.  Male outnumbered females by a ratio of 4.5: 1. Helmet use was reported in 312 (47.7%) patients. Non-helmeted patients were young compared with helmeted patients and this was statistically significant (p=0.021). The rate of helmet use was significantly higher among motorcyclists than among passengers (p=0.004).  History of alcohol consumption prior to the accident was reported in 212 (32.4%) patients. The rate of helmet use was significantly low among alcohol consumers compared with non-alcohol consumers (p=0.011). Lack of helmet use was significantly associated with abnormal head Computed Tomography scans, admission to the Intensive care unit, severe trauma, and worse traumatic brain injury severity (p<0.001). Helmet use was significantly associated with shorter period of hospitalization and reduced mortality rate (p<0.001). Motorcycle helmet use is still low in this part of Tanzania and this poses a great impact on injury outcome among motorcycle injury patients. This observation calls for action to implement more widespread injury prevention and helmet safety education and advocacy

Open X-Embodiment:Robotic learning datasets and RT-X models

Large, high-capacity models trained on diverse datasets have shown remarkable successes on efficiently tackling downstream applications. In domains from NLP to Computer Vision, this has led to a consolidation of pretrained models, with general pretrained backbones serving as a starting point for many applications. Can such a consolidation happen in robotics? Conventionally, robotic learning methods train a separate model for every application, every robot, and even every environment. Can we instead train "generalist" X-robot policy that can be adapted efficiently to new robots, tasks, and environments? In this paper, we provide datasets in standardized data formats and models to make it possible to explore this possibility in the context of robotic manipulation, alongside experimental results that provide an example of effective X-robot policies. We assemble a dataset from 22 different robots collected through a collaboration between 21 institutions, demonstrating 527 skills (160266 tasks). We show that a high-capacity model trained on this data, which we call RT-X, exhibits positive transfer and improves the capabilities of multiple robots by leveraging experience from other platforms. The project website is robotics-transformer-x.github.io

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030