A novel shape descriptor based on empty morphological skeleton

Los Alamitos, US

Strengthening inclusion, participation, and good governance using Kenya's Community Land Act

In recent years, governments have been granting vast land concessions to national elites and foreign investors for agro-industrial enterprises, forestry, and mineral extraction. The research aimed to improve implementation of the Community Land Act by testing processes for documentation and mapping of community lands to ensure inclusive land governance and local governance work, including resolving land conflicts. Because rising investment in land increases the vulnerability of women’s land rights, the project included a specific focus on protection for women and vulnerable populations. Both the Community Land Act and Kenya’s constitution include strong protections for women’s land rights

The effect of reminiscence therapy on elderly quality of life

Background and aim: Increasing of life span affects on the life quality and the ability of each individual to live independently with requirement of others supporting and thus, use of adequate programming to encounter the situation in aging seems to be necessary. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the effect of reminiscence therapy on elderly life quality. Methods: In this interventional study, a total of 64 elderly referred to retirement center in Shahrekord city during 1358 were selected using random sampling and were divided randomly in two groups of case and control groups. Subsequently, each of the two groups were divided into 8-individual groups. Reminiscence meetings and group meetings were run for experimental and control group, respectively for eight sessions (one hour and a half, each). Quality of life of the individuals before and after the intervention was evaluated using lipid life quality questionnaires. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and paired t tests.. Results: There was no significant difference in educational level, marriage, age, income and life quality dimension between the two groups. Mean of life quality in the case group, pre and post intervention, was 48.26±1.01 and 62.07±1.02, respectively (p<0.05). Also, in this group, mean of post intervention (compared with pre intervention) life quality in the cases of physical activity, depression and anxiety, cognitive activity, social and life satisfaction dimension was increased (p<0/05). However, pre and post intervention, there was no significant difference in the cases of self care dimension in experimental group and in total life quality dimension in control group. Conclusion: Based on the results, group reminiscence is effective on elderly life quality. Therefore, this technique can be used easily and inexpensively at home or elderly nursing homes

Formation flying along libration point orbits using chattering attenuation sliding mode control

This paper studies a control law to achieve formation flying in cislunar space. Utilizing the eigenstructure of the linearized flow around a libration point of the Earth-Moon circular restricted three-body problem, the fuel efficient formation flying controller based on the chattering attenuation sliding mode controller is designed and analyzed. Numerical studies are conducted for the Earth-Moon L 2 point and a halo orbit around it. The total velocity change required to achieve formation as well as to maintain the orbit is calculated. Simulation results show that the chattering attenuation sliding mode controller has good performance and robustness in the presence of unmodeled nonlinearity along the halo orbit with moderate fuel consumption

A respiratory-gated micro-CT comparison of respiratory patterns in free-breathing and mechanically ventilated rats

© 2017 The Authors. Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society. In this study, we aim to quantify the differences in lung metrics measured in free-breathing and mechanically ventilated rodents using respiratory-gated micro-computed tomography. Healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were anesthetized with ketamine/xylazine and scanned with a retrospective respiratory gating protocol on a GE Locus Ultra micro-CT scanner. Each animal was scanned while free-breathing, then intubated and mechanically ventilated (MV) and rescanned with a standard ventilation protocol (56 bpm, 8 mL/kg and PEEP of 5 cm H2O) and again with a ventilation protocol that approximates the free-breathing parameters (88 bpm, 2.14 mL/kg and PEEP of 2.5 cm H2O). Images were reconstructed representing inspiration and end expiration with 0.15 mm voxel spacing. Image-based measurements of the lung lengths, airway diameters, lung volume, and air content were compared and used to calculate the functional residual capacity (FRC) and tidal volume. Images acquired during MV appeared darker in the airspaces and the airways appeared larger. Image-based measurements showed an increase in lung volume and air content during standard MV, for both respiratory phases, compared with matched MV and free-breathing. Comparisons of the functional metrics showed an increase in FRC for mechanically ventilated rats, but only the standard MV exhibited a significantly higher tidal volume than free-breathing or matched MV. Although standard mechanical ventilation protocols may be useful in promoting consistent respiratory patterns, the amount of air in the lungs is higher than in free-breathing animals. Matching the respiratory patterns with the free-breathing case allowed similar lung morphology and physiology measurements while reducing the variability in the measurements

Influence of Air Pollution on Chemical Quality of Wet Atmospheric Deposition: a Case Study in Urmia, Iran

Increased combustion of fossil fuel owing to the energy requirement is a main cause of air pollution throughout the world. Atmospheric precipitation is considered as a major water resource for indoor, municipal, industrial and agricultural uses. This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of air pollution on chemical quality of rain and snow in Urmia, a city in northwest of Iran. Sampling was performed during the wet seasons from October to March at six sampling stations in different locations of the city. Acidity, alkalinity, NO3- , SO42-, Cl- and pH contents of the collected samples were analyzed. All samples showed a pH value of more than 6.8, and lower acidity than alkalinity, therefore, the precipitations were not acidic. Maximum concentrations of SO42- and NO3- in the samples were 5 and 8.8mg/L, respectively. Chloride was varied from 1 to 11.5 mg/L with the highest measures observing in autumn. According to the results, concentrations of the analyzed parameters in wet precipitations in Urmia were within the natural ranges except chloride ions, which was higher than its common level in the atmosphere. This phenomenon may be the result of desert dusts which transfers by wind from the west border to Iran.

Optimization of MicroCT Imaging and Blood Vessel Diameter Quantitation of Preclinical Specimen Vasculature with Radiopaque Polymer Injection Medium

Vascular networks within a living organism are complex, multi-dimensional, and challenging to image capture. Radio-angiographic studies in live animals require a high level of infrastructure and technical investment in order to administer costly perfusion mediums whose signals metabolize and degrade relatively rapidly, diminishing within a few hours or days. Additionally, live animal specimens must not be subject to long duration scans, which can cause high levels of radiation exposure to the specimen, limiting the quality of images that can be captured. Lastly, despite technological advances in live-animal specimen imaging, it is quite difficult to minimize or prevent movement of a live animal, which can cause motion artifacts in the final data output. It is demonstrated here that through the use of postmortem perfusion protocols of radiopaque silicone polymer mediums and ex-vivo organ harvest, it is possible to acquire a high level of vascular signal in preclinical specimens through the use of micro-computed tomographic (microCT) imaging. Additionally, utilizing high-order rendering algorithms, it is possible to further derive vessel morphometrics for qualitative and quantitative analysis