Facilitators and Barriers to Effective Water and Sanitation Interventions for Characterizing Shigellosis Incidence in Jiangsu, China

AbstractEffective water and sanitation interventions can help to reduce the prevalence of waterborne diseases such as shigellosis, which is a diarrheal disease prevalent in rural areas of China. Water and sanitation interventions can be strengthened or undermined by facilitators and barriers, which are factors that assist or hinder access to safe water and adequate sanitation. Facilitators and barriers can be assessed using a conceptual framework of socioeconomic and water and sanitation determinants to understand the prevalence of shigellosis. Insight into facilitators and barriers can help various stakeholders to strategize with communities to implement a sensible solution to the rural water crisis in China

The need for open data sharing in the era of global pandemics

Since the start of the pandemic, data on different countries’ case counts has been readily available. However, not all data is equally useful. In this post, Bernardo Gutierrez and Sabrina Li, from the Open COVID-19 Data Working Group and the Oxford Martin School, outline the need for much more detailed, open and accessible sharing to inform science and policymaking. The authors argue for open, accessible data sharing and highlight the need for data collection processes to be increasingly homogenised

Spatially resolved dust emission of extremely metal poor galaxies

We present infrared (IR) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of individual star-forming regions in four extremely metal poor (EMP) galaxies with metallicity Z around Zsun/10 as observed by the Herschel Space Observatory. With the good wavelength coverage of the SED, it is found that these EMP star-forming regions show distinct SED shapes as compared to those of grand design Spirals and higher metallicity dwarfs: they have on average much higher f70um/f160um ratios at a given f160um/f250um ratio; single modified black-body (MBB) fittings to the SED at \lambda >= 100 um still reveal higher dust temperatures and lower emissivity indices compared to that of Spirals, while two MBB fittings to the full SED with a fixed emissivity index (beta = 2) show that even at 100 um about half of the emission comes from warm (50 K) dust, in contrast to the cold (~20 K) dust component. Our spatially resolved images further reveal that the far-IR colors including f70um/f160um, f160um/f250um and f250um/f350um are all related to the surface densities of young stars as traced by far-UV, 24 um and SFRs, but not to the stellar mass surface densities. This suggests that the dust emitting at wavelengths from 70 um to 350 um is primarily heated by radiation from young stars.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Detecting Structured Language Alternations in Historical Documents by Combining Language Identification with Fourier Analysis

In this study, we present a generalizable workflow to identify documents in a historic language with a nonstandard language and script combination, Armeno-Turkish. We introduce the task of detecting distinct patterns of multilinguality based on the frequency of structured language alternations within a document.Comment: Accepted to LaTeCH@EACL202

Gauss quadrature for matrix inverse forms with applications

We present a framework for accelerating a spectrum of machine learning algorithms that require computation of bilinear inverse forms u[superscript T] A[superscript −1]u, where A is a positive definite matrix and u a given vector. Our framework is built on Gauss-type quadrature and easily scales to large, sparse matrices. Further, it allows retrospective computation of lower and upper bounds on u[superscript T] > A[superscript −1]u, which in turn accelerates several algorithms. We prove that these bounds tighten iteratively and converge at a linear (geometric) rate. To our knowledge, ours is the first work to demonstrate these key properties of Gauss-type quadrature, which is a classical and deeply studied topic. We illustrate empirical consequences of our results by using quadrature to accelerate machine learning tasks involving determinantal point processes and submodular optimization, and observe tremendous speedups in several instances.Google (Research Award)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER Award 1553284

ZmbZIP60 mRNA is spliced in maize in response to ER stress

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Adverse environmental conditions produce ER stress and elicit the unfolded protein response (UPR) in plants. Plants are reported to have two "arms" of the ER stress signaling pathway-one arm involving membrane-bound transcription factors and the other involving a membrane-associated RNA splicing factor, IRE1. IRE1 in yeast to mammals recognizes a conserved twin loop structure in the target RNA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A segment of the mRNA encoding ZmbZIP60 in maize can be folded into a twin loop structure, and in response to ER stress this mRNA is spliced, excising a 20b intron. Splicing converts the predicted protein from a membrane-associated transcription factor to one that is targeted to the nucleus. Splicing of ZmbZIP60 can be elicited in maize seedlings by ER stress agents such as dithiothreitol (DTT) or tunicamycin (TM) or by heat treatment. Younger, rather than older seedlings display a more robust splicing response as do younger parts of leaf, along a developmental gradient in a leaf. The molecular signature of an ER stress response in plants includes the upregulation of Binding Protein (BIP) genes. Maize has numerous BIP-like genes, and ER stress was found to upregulate one of these, ZmBIPb.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The splicing of ZmbZIP60 mRNA is an indicator of ER stress in maize seedlings resulting from adverse environmental conditions such as heat stress. ZmbZIP60 mRNA splicing in maize leads predictively to the formation of active bZIP transcription factor targeted to the nucleus to upregulate stress response genes. Among the genes upregulated by ER stress in maize is one of 22 BIP-like genes, ZmBIPb.</p

Experimental implementation of fully controlled dephasing dynamics and synthetic spectral densities

Engineering, controlling, and simulating quantum dynamics is a strenuous task. However, these techniques are crucial to develop quantum technologies, preserve quantum properties, and engineer decoherence. Earlier results have demonstrated reservoir engineering, construction of a quantum simulator for Markovian open systems, and controlled transition from Markovian to non-Markovian regime. Dephasing is an ubiquitous mechanism to degrade the performance of quantum computers. However, a fully controllable all-purpose quantum simulator for generic dephasing is still missing. Here we demonstrate full experimental control of dephasing allowing us to implement arbitrary decoherence dynamics of a qubit. As examples, we use a photon to simulate the dynamics of a qubit coupled to an Ising chain in a transverse field and also demonstrate a simulation of non-positive dynamical map. Our platform opens the possibility to simulate dephasing of any physical system and study fundamental questions on open quantum systems.Comment: V2: Added some text and new figur

Facilitators and barriers to safely managed water and sanitation: A spatio-temporal investigation of the association between socioeconomic factors and shigellosis incidence

The lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation worldwide has contributed to the occurrence of shigellosis, a waterborne infectious disease. Previous research has shown that shigellosis can be prevented by access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, however access is facilitated or hindered by socioeconomic conditions. The effects of socioeconomic conditions on shigellosis incidence are unclear in the context of rural China. This thesis explored the spatial patterns of shigellosis over time and the spatio-temporal association between shigellosis incidence and socioeconomic conditions of the rural population in Jiangsu province. Choropleth maps were created to understand the geographic distribution of shigellosis incidence at the county level. Spatial analysis methods such as spatial autocorrelation, Local Moran’s I, and the Getis Ord Gi were used to identify disease clusters, outliers, and hotspots. Based on the findings from the hot spot analysis and evidence from literature, a field visit to the northwestern county of Suining was conducted to further investigate the relationships between water and sanitation access and shigellosis incidence in the rural context. The temporal variability of the association between socioeconomic factors and shigellosis at the county level was investigated using negative binomial and quasi-Poisson regression models. The spatial relationship between socioeconomic factors and shigellosis at the county level was explored using a Bayesian spatial model. Results showed that shigellosis morbidity was characterized by significant declines in most regions from 2011 to 2015; however, high morbidity rates were still evident in the northwestern region of Jiangsu. At the county level, the factors such as the number of hospital beds per capita and the percentage of rural households has shown to be significantly associated with shigellosis incidence for years 2011, 2012, and 2014, respectively. The percentage of rural households was negatively correlated with shigellosis incidence; this relationship was further confirmed by results from the Bayesian spatial model. In addition, results showed that rural employment and the number of hospital beds per capita, respectively, were correlated with a decrease in shigellosis incidence. In contrast, the number of hospitals per capita was positively correlated with an increase in shigellosis incidence. Underreporting of shigellosis in rural areas was suspected to be the cause of the low rate of shigellosis in rural areas. The quality of the rural healthcare system and living conditions may have influenced this underreporting. Thus, a more active surveillance method should be adopted to gauge the real occurrence of shigellosis amongst the rural population

Neuromarketing: Are there certain musical components to successfully transmit brand images through jingles?

Due to the increased complexity in advertising and branding, a shift towards a greater use of emotional branding can be observed. In this context music, especially sogos and jingles, are one of the main elements, which seem to allow organizations to reinforce the transmitted brand image towards the consumers. However, so far no guidelines have been developed, which musical components should be included in the jingle to transmit certain emotions and brand images. The following study examines the fit between 11 brand jingles and the corresponding television commercials and analyses how well the jingles represent the actual and targeted brand image. With the help of a quantitative online survey with 170 participants it could be shown that jingles are indeed powerful tools to transmit certain emotions and the connected brand images. Furthermore, several guidelines for the creation of jingles could be developed in order to create and implement these short and catchy tunes as an extension of the visual advertisement