Formations close to the Permo-Triassic boundary in Tasmania

The Cygnet Coal Measures is a unit of carbonaceous shale, coal and feldspathic sandstone in Tasmania of Upper Permian age. It is overlain gradationally or disconformably by the Springs Sandstone, the lower member of which, Barnetts Sandstone, is a thinly-bedded, fine-grained feldspathic to arkosic sandstone, and the upper, the Mountain Lodge Sandstone and a more thickly-bedded, medium-grained protoquartzite. The upper part of the Springs Sandstone is probably Otoceratan. The Permo-Triassic boundary lies within these gradational non-marine units and cannot yet be fixed accurately. The base of the Mountain Lodge Member is probably the most convenient boundary to use as the Permo-Triassic boundary in local field mapping

Educating and Informing Patients Receiving Psychopharmacological Medications: Are Family Physicians in Pakistan up to the Task?

Introduction: Studies have shown a high prevalence of psychiatric illnesses among Patients in primary health care settings. Family physicians have a fundamental role in managing psychiatric illness with psychopharmacological medications. Providing information about the disease, its management and the potential adverse effects of the medications is an important part of the management of mental illnesses. Our objective was to determine if Patients who were prescribed psychopharmacological drugs by family physicians at a community health center in Karachi, Pakistan were provided adequate education about their disease and its management. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Community Health Centre (CHC), Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi, Pakistan. Details about the prescriptions and Patient education were acquired from the Patients after their consultations. Results: A total of 354 adult Patients were interviewed during 3 days. Among them, 73 (20.6%) were prescribed psychopharmacological medications. Among Patients receiving psychopharmacological medicines, 37 (50.7%) did not know their diagnosis, 50 (68.5%) were unaware of the disease process, 52 (71.2%) were unaware of alternative treatments, 63 (86.3%) were not cautioned about the potential adverse effects of the drugs, 24 (32.9%) were unaware of the duration of treatment and in 60 (82.2%) of the participants an appropriate referral had not been discussed. For all aspects of education, Patients prescribed psychopharmacological medications knew less as compared to those Patients that were prescribed other medications. Discussion: The practice of imparting information to Patients who receive psychopharmacological medications seems to be inadequate in Pakistan. We have hypothesized about the possible reasons for our findings, and identified a need for further research to determine the cause for such findings and to address them accordingly. At the same time there is a need to educate family physicians in Pakistan about the special importance of providing adequate information to such Patients

Time Reversal UWB Communication System: A Novel Modulation Scheme with Experimental Validation

<p/> <p>A new modulation scheme is proposed for a time reversal (TR) ultra wide-band (UWB) communication system. The new modulation scheme uses the binary pulse amplitude modulation (BPAM) and adds a new level of modulation to increase the data rate of a TR UWB communication system. Multiple data bits can be transmitted simultaneously with a cost of little added interference. Bit error rate (BER) performance and the maximum achievable data rate of the new modulation scheme are theoretically analyzed. Two separate measurement campaigns are carried out to analyze the proposed modulation scheme. In the first campaign, the frequency responses of a typical indoor channel are measured and the performance is studied by the simulations using the measured frequency responses. Theoretical and the simulative performances are in strong agreement with each other. Furthermore, the BER performance of the proposed modulation scheme is compared with the performance of existing modulation schemes. It is shown that the proposed modulation scheme outperforms QAM and PAM for <inline-formula> <graphic file="1687-1499-2010-398401-i1.gif"/></inline-formula> in an AWGN channel. In the second campaign, an experimental validation of the proposed modulation scheme is done. It is shown that the performances with the two measurement campaigns are in good agreement. </p

Driver Monitoring System Based on CNN Models: An Approach for Attention Level Detection

Drivers provide a wide range of focus characteristics that can evaluate their attention level and analyze their behavioral states while driving. This information is critical for the development of new automated driving functionalities that support and assist the driver according to his/her state, ensuring safety for them and other users on the road. In this sense, this paper proposes a Driver Monitoring System (DMS) based on image processing and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), that analyzes two important driver distraction aspects: inattention of the road and drowsiness. Our approach makes use of CNN models for detecting the gaze and the head direction, which involves training datasets with different pre-defined labels. Additionally, the system is complemented with the drowsiness level measurement, using face features to detect the time that the eyes are closed or opened, and the blinking rate. Crossing the inference results of these models, the system can provide an accurate estimation of driver attention level. The different parts of the presented DMS have been trained in a Hardware-in-the-loop driving simulator with an eye fish camera. It has been tested as a real-time application recording driver with different characteristics