Alien Registration- Gilbert, Frank (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/29903/thumbnail.jp

Using primary health care (PHC) workers and key informants for community based detection of blindness in children in Southern Malawi.

BACKGROUND: There is great interest in providing primary eye care (PEC) through integration into primary health care (PHC). However, there is little evidence of the productivity of PHC workers in offering primary eye care after training and integration, and there is need to compare their effectiveness to alternative methods. The current study compared the effectiveness of trained Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) versus trained volunteer Key Informants (KIs) in identifying blind children in southern Malawi. METHODS: A cluster community based study was conducted in Mulanje district, population 435 753. Six clusters each with a population of approximately 70 000 to 80 000, 42% of whom were children were identified and randomly allocated to either HSA or KI training. From each cluster 20 HSAs or 20 KIs were selected for training. Training emphasized the causes of blindness in children and their management, and how to identify and list children suspected of being blind. HSAs and KIs used multiple methods (door to door, school screening, health education talks, village announcements, etc.) to identify children. Using the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates (eight blind children per 10 000 children); approximately 144 to 162 blind children were expected in the chosen clusters. Listed children were brought to a centre within the community where they were examined by an ophthalmologist and findings recorded using the WHO form for examining blindness in children. RESULTS: A total of 59 HSAs and 64 KIs were trained. HSAs identified five children of whom two were confirmed as blind (one blind child per 29.5 HSAs trained). On the other hand, the KIs identified a total of 158 children of whom 20 were confirmed blind (one blind child per 3.2 KIs trained). More blind boys than girls were identified (77.3% versus 22.7%) respectively. CONCLUSION: Key Informants were much better at identifying blind children than HSAs, even though both groups identified far fewer blind children compared with WHO estimates. HSAs reported lack of time as a major constraint in identifying blind children. Based on these findings using HSAs for identifying blind children would not be successful in Malawi. Gender differences need to be addressed in all childhood blindness programs to counteract the imbalance

Auger electron spectroscopy and secondary emission in semiconductors

Ph.D.Edwin J. Scheibne

Selection for Catalytic Function with Nucleic Acids

For in vitro selection of catalytic polynucleotides, each new protocol must be designed to harness the desired catalytic activity to help propel the selection process itself. This unit gives guidelines for design of in vitro selection experiments for catalytic function. It outlines several representative protocols as examples of successful selection experiments, providing a conceptual basis for the design and implementation of new selective‐amplification protocols for nucleic acids.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143687/1/cpnc0904.pd

Do Not Forget About Smart Towns - How to Bring Customized Digital Innovation to Rural Areas

To date, research on smart cities has primarily focused on urban congested areas. As this paper points out, it is becoming ever more important to look at intermediate and thinly populated regions like towns and rural areas as arenas for digital innovation. By following a multi-phase research process, the authors examine towns’ highly individual needs in an exploratory way, derive key aspects from recent literature that can serve to mitigate or solve their problems, and present an open innovation process by way of integrating local context factors, local stakeholders, and suitable information and communication technology solutions. The objective is to develop a first digital innovation approach in a field that has so far been scarcely considered. The authors conduct a case study, which demonstrates the applicability and effectiveness of their innovation approach in a small town in southern Germany and derive first important lessons learned. Thereby, the concept of an innovation ecosystem reveals a promising solution to face the challenges of the investigated town

Discrete Analysis of a Composite Video Signal

In this paper the problem of representing the composite video signal for monochromatic T. V. transmission is examined and a method for computing the required spectral bandwidth is devised suitable for computer applications. The results obtained numerically are compared to measured results and to analytical solutions for a determinate signal for special cases. Comparison is made with some maximum horizontal resolution methods with a resulting decrease in bandwidth requirements for most applications