Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

BACKGROUND: Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. METHODS: The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries-Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODEm), to generate cause fractions and cause-specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised

INNOVATION AND PERFORMANCE DURING THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEMENTARY TECHNOLOGIES

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Analysis of optimal reconfiguration of shipboard power systems

In power system reconfiguration, the status (ON/OFF) of switches are optimized such that maximum power is delivered to loads after the occurrence of a fault. The optimized reconfiguration is achieved by prioritizing power delivered to vital loads over semi-vital and nonvital loads. The formulation presented in this paper considers a new balanced hybrid (AC and DC) shipboard power system (SPS). Analysis of the nonconvex reconfiguration formulation is done by an appropriate nonconvex solver and by convex approximation. Unlike the nonconvex solution that is based on branch-and-bound methods, convex approximation significantly reduces complexity. It is shown that for the hybrid SPS reconfiguration problem, low complexity convex approximations are effective in finding optimal solutions. Cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the power delivered to loads is presented to showcase the system robustness against random fault scenarios. A combined objective of maximizing power delivery and minimizing the number of switching actions is included in the analysis. Tradeoff between power delivered and number of switching operations after reconfiguration has been discussed at steady state. A separate analysis is also included to observe the intermediate dynamic switch states while the reconfiguration is in progress to capture the tradeoff more prominently

Fintech and banks as complements in microentrepreneurship

10.1002/sej.1470Strategic Entrepreneurship Journa

Saving for Microenterprises

This project investigates the role of fintech in encouraging saving for microenterprise. The article is published as open access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sej.147

Sister cities, cross-national FDI, and the subnational FDI location decision

We investigate how intergovernmental ties at subnational levels between home and host countries influence the intensity and location of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. We focus on an intriguing type of subnational tie, namely, International Friendship (Sister) Cities. A sister city is a decentralized form of intergovernmental relationship that provides a platform by which a multinational corporation (MNC) can approach a local government, customers, and clients to acquire localized information and political capabilities. We argue that cities with a sister-city relationship attract more FDIs than other similar cities within a host country. The benefit extends to the national level as MNCs have higher FDI levels in host countries with a greater number of sister cities with their home country. We further investigate whether the effect of sister cities on an MNC’s country selection is greater when host-country subnational governments have a higher degree of autonomy relative to the national government, and lesser when governments have a higher level of policy uncertainty. Using data from the 1990–2009 period, we find consistent support for our ideas as tested at two levels of analysis: a city-level matched sample analysis on Japanese FDI inflows, and a country-level analysis on Japanese MNCs’ country selectio

Learning Relational Structure for Temporal Relation Extraction

Recently there has been a lot of interest in using Statistical Relational Learning (SRL) models for Information Extraction (IE). One of the important IE tasks is extraction of temporal relations between events and time expressions (timex). SRL methods that use hand-written rules have been proposed for various IE tasks. In contrast, we propose an approach that employs structure learning in SRL to learn such rules. Although not required, our method can also incorporate expert advice either as features or initial theory to learn a more accurate model. We present preliminary results on the TempEval-2 task of classifying relations between events and timexes.

Partial digeorge syndrome with hypertrophied arytenoids in a neonate: Expanding the clinical phenotype

Background: DiGeorge Syndrome (DGS) is caused by the 22q11 deletion. There is wide variation in the phenotypic presentation due to incomplete penetrance. Since dysmorphism is subtle in neonates, a high index of suspicion should be kept. Clinical Description: A 2.8 kg term baby girl born of a cesarean section developed stridor and respiratory distress and was referred to our hospital at 14 days for the persistence of symptoms. The manifestations were severe, requiring respiratory support, and not explainable by clinical findings, radiological atelectasis, and normal echocardiography. The baby had hypocalcemia (that had been noted and treated earlier), hypoparathyroidism and Vitamin D deficiency, for which standard therapy was started. Airway endoscopy revealed hypertrophied arytenoids which have not been reported in DGS before. Management: The presence of abnormal laryngeal with hypocalcemia prompted us to consider DGS. The likelihood became stronger when a chest ultrasonogram detected athymia. The identification of 22q microdeletion by fluorescence in situ hybridization confirmed the diagnosis. It was decided to perform supraglottoplasty to avoid the postoperative complications associated with direct vocal cord repair. The postoperative period was uneventful. The immunological profile was normal, besides a low count of normal CD4+ naïve cells. The final diagnosis was partial DGS. Conclusion: Genetic testing for 22q11 deletion should be done in the presence of laryngeal pathology and any of the following: congenital cardiopathy, velopharyngeal insufficiency, thymic hypoplasia, and neonatal hypocalcemia

BiVO₄ As a Sustainable and Emerging Photocatalyst: Synthesis Methodologies, Engineering Properties, and Its Volatile Organic Compounds Degradation Efficiency

Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is one of the best bismuth-based semiconducting materials because of its narrow band gap energy, good visible light absorption, unique physical and chemical characteristics, and non-toxic nature. In addition, BiVO4 with different morphologies has been synthesized and exhibited excellent visible light photocatalytic efficiency in the degradation of various organic pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Nevertheless, the commercial scale utilization of BiVO4 is significantly limited because of the poor separation (faster recombination rate) and transport ability of photogenerated electron–hole pairs. So, engineering/modifications of BiVO4 materials are performed to enhance their structural, electronic, and morphological properties. Thus, this review article aims to provide a critical overview of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), various semiconducting nanomaterials, BiVO4 synthesis methodologies, engineering of BiVO4 properties through making binary and ternary nanocomposites, and coupling with metals/non-metals and metal nanoparticles and the development of Z-scheme type nanocomposites, etc., and their visible light photocatalytic efficiency in VOCs degradation. In addition, future challenges and the way forward for improving the commercial-scale application of BiVO4-based semiconducting nanomaterials are also discussed. Thus, we hope that this review is a valuable resource for designing BiVO4-based nanocomposites with superior visible-light-driven photocatalytic efficiency in VOCs degradation