Government Expenditure and Performance of Public Secondary Schools in Zanzibar

The Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction Modelling were used to examine the impact of government expenditure on the performance of public ordinary (Form II and Form IV) and advanced (Form VI) secondary level respectively from the year 1990 to 2019. The results show that increase one value in government expenditure for education (GE) lead to increase the education performance (EDP) of Form II and Form IV by 2.46 and 5.11 values respectively. A satisfactory evidence to the Form VI model shows GE have positive effect with EDP in long and short run. A one value increase in GE promotes the EDP by 4.21 and 3.16 in long and short run correspondingly. The pupil teacher ratio is negative significant with EDP of Form II and Form IV while positive in Form VI. On other hand, the pupil classroom ratio shown to have negative significant effect with EDP in Form IV while it is insignificant for Form II and Form VI. Thus, the study concluded that the more government spending in education sector could promotes the performance of education in all secondary levels. Based on the findings, the study suggests that the allocation of fund should be focused on investing in education materials like books and computers; and employing more teachers in all secondary levels as it was seen to be more efficient in education performance

A Framework for Predicting Haptic Feedback in Needle Insertion in 5G Remote Robotic Surgery

© 2020 IEEE. Robots are being used more and more in surgery due to the many benefits they bring (e.g. reduction of patient discomfort, precision, reliability). Remote robotic surgery is now expected to become a reality due to the emergence of 5G. Needle insertion is a crucial element of many robotic surgical procedures such as biopsies, injections, neurosurgery, and brachytherapy cancer treatment. During needle insertion in remote robotic surgery, there is still no guarantee that the surgeon will obtain the haptic feedback from the patient side within the stringent deadlines, even in 5G settings. This paper proposes a framework for learning by imitation as a way to predict the messages that will eventually fail to reach their destination within the required deadlines. By leveraging expert demonstrations, the Hidden Markov Model is used to encapsulate a set of expert force/torque profiles and corresponding parameters during the off-line training process. A Gaussian mixture regression is then used to reproduce a generalized version of the force/torque profile and corresponding parameters during the prediction. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. They show that our proposed framework is able to execute predictions in much less than the 1ms end-to-end latency requirement of remote robotic surgery

Ensuring Reliability and Low Cost When Using a Parallel VNF Processing Approach to Embed Delay-Constrained Slices

© 2004-2012 IEEE. Slices were introduced in 5G to enable the co-existence of applications with different requirements on a single infrastructure. Slices may be delay-constrained for mission-critical applications such as Tactile Internet applications. When delay-constrained slices are implemented as collections of virtual network function (VNF) chains, a key challenge is to place the VNFs and route the traffic through the chains to meet a strict delay constraint. Parallel VNF processing has been proposed as a promising approach. However, this approach increases the number of physical nodes in the chains, and thus decreases the reliability, which is also critical for Tactile Internet applications. Furthermore, the cost depends upon the specific VNF placement and traffic routing, as nodes and links are heterogeneous. This article tackles the issues of reliability and cost when embedding delay-constrained slices. We model the problem as an optimization problem that minimizes reliability degradation and cost while ensuring the strict delay constraint when a parallel VNF processing approach is used. Due to the complexity of the formulated problem, we also propose a Tabu search-based algorithm to find sub-optimal solutions. The results indicate that our proposed algorithm can significantly improve cost and reliability while meeting a strict delay constraint

Drug Abuse-Induced Cardiac Arrhythmias: Mechanisms and Management

Toxicomania is a worldwide emerging problem threatening young population. Several reports highlighted its hazardous cardiovascular effects. Sudden cardiac death secondary to cardiac arrhythmias is the most occupying issue. Different forms of cardiac rhythm disorders may be induced by illicit drug abuse according to the type of drug and the mechanism involved. In this review, we exposed the main ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmia complicating the common recreational drugs, and we explained their different mechanisms as well as the particularities of management

New horizons in the diagnosis of tuberculosis of the spine : the role of whole genome sequencing

STUDY DESIGN : Prospective study. PURPOSE : To evaluate the utility of whole genome sequencing (WGS) in drug resistance testing, lineage of the organisms, and organism-related factors responsible for bacilli settling in the spine. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE : The workstream for the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) involves isolation and culture of the organism and drug resistance testing using phenotypic methods. Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra is a genetic-based method that detects for Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in the rpoB gene. Meanwhile, WGS is a newer genetic-based method that assesses the whole genome of the bacterium. Very few studies have reported the use of WGS for extrapulmonary TB. Herein, we used WGS to diagnose spinal TB. METHODS : Tissues from 61 patients undergoing surgery for spinal TB underwent histologic examination, Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra, and culture and sensitivity testing. DNA from the cultured bacteria was sent for WGS. The test bacterial genome was compared to a reference strain of pulmonary TB. RESULTS : Acid-fast bacilli were observed in 9/58 specimens. Meanwhile, histology confirmed TB in all the patients. Bacilli were cultured in 28 patients (48.3%), and the average time to culture was 18.7 days. Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra was positive in 47 patients (85%). WGS was performed in 23 specimens. Overall, 45% of the strains belonged to lineage 2 (East Asian). There was one case of multidrug-resistant TB and two cases of non-tuberculous mycobacteria on WGS. We could not confirm any genomic difference between pulmonary and spinal TB strains. CONCLUSIONS : Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra of tissues or pus is the investigation of choice when diagnosing spinal TB. Meanwhile, WGS can diagnose multidrug-resistant TB and non-tuberculous mycobacteria more accurately. No mutations were identified in spinal and pulmonary TB bacteria.https://asianspinejournal.orgOrthopaedic Surger

On the Neoechinorhynchus agilis (Acanthocephala: Neoechinorhynchidae) complex, with a description of Neoechinorhynchus ponticus n. sp. from Chelon auratus in the Black Sea

We recognize four species in the Neoechinorhynchus agilis complex. We studied specimens of Neoechinorhynchus (Hebesoma) personatus Tkach, Sarabeev & Shvetsova, 2014 from Mugil cephalus in the Mediterranean Sea off Tunisia and in the Black Sea, and also specimens of Neoechinorhynchus ponticus n. sp. from Chelon auratus Risso in the Black Sea. Specimens from M. cephalus at both locations were similar. All structures of N. ponticus n. sp. were considerably smaller than those of N. personatus. Two other species of the N. agilis complex are recognized: Neoechinorhynchus agilis (Rudolphi, 1819) sensu stricto from various hosts in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and Neoechinorhynchus yamagutii Tkach, Sarabeev & Shvetsova, 2014 from M. cephalus and Planiliza haematocheila in the Pacific, especially the Sea of Japan. Neoechinorhynchus dimorphospinus Amin & Sey, 1996 from marine fish in the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Ocean off Vietnam may be a candidate for membership in the N. agilis complex. X-ray scans of gallium cut and intact hooks of N. personatus and N. ponticus showed differences in the mineral content of hooks with higher sulfur levels in smaller hooks and in hooks from specimens in the Black Sea compared to specimens from the Mediterranean. The relatively high genetic differences between N. ponticus n. sp. and other species of Neoechinorhynchus using a partial 18S rDNA dataset support its independent status. Neoechinorhynchus ponticus n. sp. and N. personatus have a common ancestor with species of Neoechinorhynchus collected from saltwater fish

Anthracycline and concurrent radiotherapy as adjuvant treatment of operable breast cancer: a retrospective cohort study in a single institution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) after breast surgery was investigated by few authors and remains controversial, because of concerns of toxicity with taxanes/anthracyclines and radiation. This treatment is not standard and is more commonly used for locally advanced breast cancer. The aim of our study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the concomitant use of anthracycline with radiotherapy (RT).</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Four hundred women having operable breast cancer, treated by adjuvant chemotherapy (CT) and RT in concomitant way between January 2001 and December 2003, were included in this retrospective cohort study. The study compares 2 adjuvant treatments using CCRT, the first with anthracycline (group A) and the second with CMF (group B). The CT treatment was repeated every 21 days for 6 courses and the total delivered dose of RT was 50 Gy, divided as 2 Gy daily fractions. Locoregional recurrence free (LRFS), event free (EFS), and overall survivals (OS) were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The log-rank test was used to compare survival events. Multivariate Cox-regression was used to evaluate the relationship between patient characteristics, treatment and survival.</p> <p>In the 2 groups (A+B) (n = 400; 249 in group A and 151 in group B), the median follow-up period was 74.5 months. At 5 years, the isolated LRFS was significantly higher in group A compared to group B (98.7% vs 95.3%; hazard ratio [HR] = 0.258; 95% CI, 0.067 to 0.997; log-rank <it>P </it>= .034). In addition, the use of anthracycline regimens was associated with a higher rate of 5 years EFS (80.4% vs 75.1%; HR = 0.665; 95% CI, 0.455 to 1.016; log-rank <it>P </it>= .057). The 5 years OS was 83.2% and 79.2% in the anthracycline and CMF groups, respectively (HR = 0.708; 95% CI, 0.455 to 1.128; log-rank <it>P </it>= .143). Multivariate analysis confirmed the positive effect of anthracycline regimens on LRFS (HR = 0.347; 95% CI, 0.114 to 1.053; log-rank <it>P </it>= .062), EFS (HR = 0.539; 95% CI, 0.344 to 0.846; <it>P </it>= 0.012), and OS (HR = 0.63; 95% CI, 0.401 to 0.991; <it>P </it>= .046). LRFS, EFS and OS were significantly higher in the anthracycline group where the patients (n = 288) received more than 1 cycle of concurrent CT (<it>P </it>= .038, <it>P </it>= .026 and <it>P </it>= .038, respectively). LRFS and EFS were significantly higher in the anthracycline group within the BCT subgroup (<it>P </it>= .049 and <it>P </it>= .04, respectively). There were more hematologic, and more grade 2/3/4 skin toxicity in the anthracycline group.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>After mastectomy or BCT, the adjuvant treatment based on anthracycline and concurrent RT reduced breast cancer relapse rate, and significantly improved LRFS, EFS and OS in the patients receiving more than 1 cycle of concurrent CT. There were more hematologic and non hematologic toxicities in the anthracycline group.</p

Whole genome sequencing for drug resistance determination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

South Africa remains challenged with a high tuberculosis burden accompanied by an increase in drug resistant cases. We assessed the use of the Illumina MiSeq, a next-generation sequencing platform for whole genome sequencing, followed by bioinformatic analysis using a commercial software package to determine resistance to selected drugs used for Mycobacterium tuberculosis treatment in our setting. Whole genome sequencing shows potential as a diagnostic platform for the detection of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with the provision of information for several drugs simultaneously

Whole genome sequencing for drug resistance determination in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

South Africa remains challenged with a high tuberculosis burden accompanied by an increase in drug resistant cases. We assessed the use of the Illumina MiSeq, a next-generation sequencing platform for whole genome sequencing, followed by bioinformatic analysis using a commercial software package to determine resistance to selected drugs used for Mycobacterium tuberculosis treatment in our setting. Whole genome sequencing shows potential as a diagnostic platform for the detection of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis with the provision of information for several drugs simultaneously.Funding was provided by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, South Africa.The National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, South Africahttp://www.ajlmonline.orgam2020Medical Microbiolog