The burden of unintentional drowning: Global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

__Background:__ Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017. __Methods:__ Unintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning. __Results:__ Globally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes. __Conclusions:__ There has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low-and middle-income countries

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

Dynamically updating the exploiting parameter in improving performance of ant-based algorithms

Lecture Notes in Computer Science3521340-34

A generalized version of graph-based ant system and its applicability and convergence

Advances in Soft ComputingAISC949-95

‘‘Dry-state’’ surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS): toward non-destructive analysis of dyes on textile fibers

In the present work, we report the proof of concept of the possibility to identify natural dyes on textiles using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection by means of a simple "dry-state" SERS approach, i.e., exploiting the interactions between a solid nanometallic substrate and dye molecules present on textiles, thus avoiding any extraction or necessity to remove samples. The challenges associated with instrumental constraints related to SERS analysis of bulk materials and possible contamination of artworks with metallic nanoparticles were approached. Different silver nanosubstrates, i.e., nanoislands and films obtained starting from two different metal colloids, were tested for this aim. The study also investigates different parameters associated with the synthesis of nanosubstrates influencing the enhancement of the "dry-state" SERS signals obtained. SERS spectra of anthraquinone red dyes were successfully recorded from reference wool threads using this simple approach. The results illustrate the usefulness of the practical and rapid "dry-state" SERS approach that could open new opportunities toward the non-destructive analysis of dyes in artefacts

Intelligent Urban Transportation System to Control Road Traffic with Air Pollution Orientation

Enhancing transportation services and reducing vehicle emissions at intersections are main challenges for megacities. In this paper, an Intelligent Urban Transportation System is proposed as smart green traffic lights. In this context, vehicles are detected, and categorised. Furthermore, emission factors of each vehicle category are specified and used as an additional factor to optimize the traffic light cycle. IUTAR dashboard has also been developed and presented in this paper

Phytochemical composition and antibacterial activity of ethanolic extract from trunk of Rothmannia wittii (Craib) Bremek. (Rubiaceae) newly found in Vietnam

Rothmannia wittii, which is found in Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve, Bung Rieng ward, Xuyen Moc District, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Vietnam, is a rare species of Rubiaceae family. The present study aimed to determine the phytochemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the ethanolic extract of the R. wittii trunk. A total of 10 compounds were identified by liquid chromatography-mass spectrophotometry (LC-MS), including 1) benzene, 1-(1,5-dimethyl-4- hexenyl)-4-methyl, 2) diphenylsulfone, 3) 6β-hydroxy-10-O-acetylgenipin, 4) cinnamyl-cinnamate, 5) genipin, 6) megastigmatrienone, 7) ethyl p-methoxy-trans-cinnamate, 8) rothalazepane, 9) 1,3,6-trimethylpyrano[2,3-d ]imidazole-2,5(1H,3H)-dione, and 10) shanzhiol. The extract also exhibited an antibacterial activity against six bacterial strains: Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhimurium and Salmonella enteritidis, as determined via disk diffusion agar method