FLAGCAL:A flagging and calibration package for radio interferometric data

We describe a flagging and calibration pipeline intended for making quick look images from GMRT data. The package identifies and flags corrupted visibilities, computes calibration solutions and interpolates these onto the target source. These flagged calibrated visibilities can be directly imaged using any standard imaging package. The pipeline is written in "C" with the most compute intensive algorithms being parallelized using OpenMP.Comment: 15 Pages, 6 figures, 2 Tables, Accepted for publication in the Experimental Astronomy Journa

Quality of ultrasound biometry obtained by local health workers in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border.

Objective: In a refugee camp on the Thai–Burmese border, accurate dating of pregnancy relies on ultrasound measurements obtained by locally trained health workers. The aim of this study was to substantiate the accuracy of fetal biometry measurements performed by locally trained health workers by comparing derived reference equations with those published for Asian and European hospitals. Methods: This prospective observational study included 1090 women who had a dating crown–rump length (CRL) scan and one study-appointed ultrasound biometry scan between 16 and 40 weeks of gestation. The average of two measurements of each of biparietal diameter, head circumference, abdominal circumference and femur length was used in a polynomial regression model for the mean and SD against gestational age (GA). The biometry equations obtained were compared with published equations of professional sonographers from Asian and European hospitals by evaluation of the SD and Z-scores of differences between models. Results: Reference equations of biometric parameters were found to fit cubic polynomial models. The observed SD values, for any given GA, of fetal biometric measurements obtained by locally trained health workers were lower than those previously reported by centers with professional sonographers. For nearly the entire GA range considered, the mean values of the Asian and European equations for all four biometric measurements were within the 90% expected range (mean ± 1.645 SD) of our equations. Conclusion: Locally trained health workers in a refugee camp on the Thai–Burmese border can obtain measurements that are associated with low SD values and within the normal limits of published Asian and European equations. The fact that the SD values were lower than in other studies may be explained by the use of the average of two measurements, CRL dating or motivation of the locally trained sonographer

Simulation Analysis Impact of Transaction Cost on Economic Behavior of Cattle-Coconut Farmers’ Household in Bolaang Mongondow

Beef cattle farming in Bolaang Mongondow are the source of household income which is in fact still run traditionally and hiring family members. The problem faced is the price received by the farmers is less than the selling price minus transaction cost. This research aimed to analyze the impact of transaction cost, input and output prices on economic behavior of cattle-coconut farmers’ household. This research applied survey method and the collected data were data cross section and data time series. Purposive sampling and simple random sampling were used to determine the research location and respondents (233 households), respectively.  Data analysis was simulation analysis using SAS 9.0 program, served in 6 scenarios with combination of transaction cost, output price, input price and wage. Model validation was done prior to the simulation to find the correct model. The result showed that the model applicable for long term was scenario 4.  Broker cost, copra shipping cost combined with output price also decline of cow shipping cost, administration cost, retribution and copra shipping cost combined with output price gave significant impact towards income and welfare of cattle-coconut farmers’ household in Bolaang Mongondow. Keywords: simulation analysis, transaction cost, beef cattle farming, coconut Animal Production 14(2):123-13

Chemotherapy drug regimen optimization using deterministic oscillatory search algorithm

Purpose: To schedule chemotherapy drug delivery using Deterministic Oscillatory Search algorithm, keeping the toxicity level within permissible limits and reducing the number of tumor cells within a predefined time period.Methods: A novel metaheuristic algorithm, deterministic oscillatory search, has been used to optimize the Gompertzian model of the drug regimen problem. The model is tested with fixed (fixed interval variable dose, FIVD) and variable (variable interval variable dose, VIVD) interval schemes and the dosage presented for 52 weeks. In the fixed interval, the treatment plan is fixed in such a way that doses are given on the first two days of every seven weeks such as day 7, day 14, etc.Results: On comparing the two schemes, FIVD provided a higher reduction in the number of tumor cells by 98 % compared to 87 % by VIVD after the treatment period. Also, a significant reduction in the number was obtained half way through the regimen. The dose level and toxicity are also reduced in the FIVD scheme. The value of drug concentration is more in FIVD scheme (50) compared to VIVD (41); however, it is well within the acceptable limits of concentration. The results proved the effectiveness of the proposed technique in terms of reduced drug concentration, toxicity, tumor size and drug level within a predetermined time period.Conclusion: Artificial intelligent techniques can be used as a tool to aid oncologists in the effective treatment of cancer through chemotherapy.Keywords: Deterministic Oscillatory Search, Chemotherapy scheduling, Drug schedule, Artificial intelligenc

Hysteresis phenomenon in turbulent convection

Coherent large-scale circulations of turbulent thermal convection in air have been studied experimentally in a rectangular box heated from below and cooled from above using Particle Image Velocimetry. The hysteresis phenomenon in turbulent convection was found by varying the temperature difference between the bottom and the top walls of the chamber (the Rayleigh number was changed within the range of $10^7 - 10^8$). The hysteresis loop comprises the one-cell and two-cells flow patterns while the aspect ratio is kept constant ($A=2 - 2.23$). We found that the change of the sign of the degree of the anisotropy of turbulence was accompanied by the change of the flow pattern. The developed theory of coherent structures in turbulent convection (Elperin et al. 2002; 2005) is in agreement with the experimental observations. The observed coherent structures are superimposed on a small-scale turbulent convection. The redistribution of the turbulent heat flux plays a crucial role in the formation of coherent large-scale circulations in turbulent convection.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, REVTEX4, Experiments in Fluids, 2006, in pres

Estimating Depth from RGB and Sparse Sensing

We present a deep model that can accurately produce dense depth maps given an RGB image with known depth at a very sparse set of pixels. The model works simultaneously for both indoor/outdoor scenes and produces state-of-the-art dense depth maps at nearly real-time speeds on both the NYUv2 and KITTI datasets. We surpass the state-of-the-art for monocular depth estimation even with depth values for only 1 out of every ~10000 image pixels, and we outperform other sparse-to-dense depth methods at all sparsity levels. With depth values for 1/256 of the image pixels, we achieve a mean absolute error of less than 1% of actual depth on indoor scenes, comparable to the performance of consumer-grade depth sensor hardware. Our experiments demonstrate that it would indeed be possible to efficiently transform sparse depth measurements obtained using e.g. lower-power depth sensors or SLAM systems into high-quality dense depth maps.Comment: European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) 2018. Updated to camera-ready version with additional experiment

The Underestimation Of Egocentric Distance: Evidence From Frontal Matching Tasks

There is controversy over the existence, nature, and cause of error in egocentric distance judgments. One proposal is that the systematic biases often found in explicit judgments of egocentric distance along the ground may be related to recently observed biases in the perceived declination of gaze (Durgin & Li, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, in press), To measure perceived egocentric distance nonverbally, observers in a field were asked to position themselves so that their distance from one of two experimenters was equal to the frontal distance between the experimenters. Observers placed themselves too far away, consistent with egocentric distance underestimation. A similar experiment was conducted with vertical frontal extents. Both experiments were replicated in panoramic virtual reality. Perceived egocentric distance was quantitatively consistent with angular bias in perceived gaze declination (1.5 gain). Finally, an exocentric distance-matching task was contrasted with a variant of the egocentric matching task. The egocentric matching data approximate a constant compression of perceived egocentric distance with a power function exponent of nearly 1; exocentric matches had an exponent of about 0.67. The divergent pattern between egocentric and exocentric matches suggests that they depend on different visual cues

The role of aspirin in the prevention of ovarian, endometrial and cervical cancers

Drug repurposing is the application of an existing licenced drug for a new indication and potentially provides a faster and cheaper approach to developing new anti-cancer agents. Gynaecological cancers contribute significantly to the global cancer burden, highlighting the need for low cost, widely accessible therapies. A large body of evidence supports the role of aspirin as an anti-cancer agent, and a number of randomized trials are currently underway aiming to assess the potential benefit of aspirin in the treatment of cancer. This review summarizes the evidence underpinning aspirin use for the prevention of the development and recurrence of gynaecological cancers (ovarian, endometrial and cervical) and potential mechanisms of action

Health impacts of ambient biomass smoke in Tasmania, Australia

The island state of Tasmania has marked seasonal variations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations related to wood heating during winter, planned forest fires during autumn and spring, and bushfires during summer. Biomass smoke causes considerable health harms and associated costs. We estimated the historical health burden from PM2.5 attributable to wood heater smoke (WHS) and landscape fire smoke (LFS) in Tasmania between 2010 and 2019. We calculated the daily population level exposure to WHS- and LFS-related PM2.5 and estimated the number of cases and health costs due to premature mortality, cardiorespiratory hospital admissions, and asthma emergency department (ED) visits. We estimated 69 deaths, 86 hospital admissions, and 15 asthma ED visits, each year, with over 74% of impacts attributed to WHS. Average yearly costs associated with WHS were of AUD$293 million and AUD$ 16 million for LFS. The latter increased up to more than AUD$ 34 million during extreme bushfire seasons. This is the first study to quantify the health impacts attributable to biomass smoke for Tasmania. We estimated substantial impacts, which could be reduced through replacing heating technologies, improving fire management, and possibly implementing integrated strategies. This would most likely produce important and cost-effective health benefits

Acoustic Inspection of Coated Steel Bar in Reinforced Concrete Structure

Bridges with reinforcement corrosion problems are now under careful inspection in Taiwan. Costly maintenance programs are underway and raising serious safety concern. There are various engineering solutions to salt-induced corrosion. Among them epoxy-coated reinforcing bars, commonly referred to as rebar, are frequently used in marine environment and other areas due to its durability, reasonable cost, and convenience. However, coated rebar has lower bond strength and is less ductile than uncoated rebar. Thus it could result in larger crack width during pull-out tests [1,2]. The bond strength between coated steel bars and covered concrete results from the adhesion at the steel-concrete boundary, the factional force, and the interlocking force provided by the raised ribs at the steel bar surface. The interlocking force is much stronger than the other two, while the factional force occurs only if the adhesion vanishes after delamination or disbonding starts