Study of a signal processor employing a synthetic phase isolator

Evaluation of signal data processor employing synthetic phase isolator techniqu

A feasibility study of signal processing to improve antenna gain Final report

Feasibility of signal processor with phase isolator for adaptive antenna arra

What does transit oriented development mean in a South African context? A multiple stakeholder perspective from Johannesburg

Car dependency is increasing in South African cities, and apartheid spatial patterns continue to be observed in the accommodation of public transport captive communities at low densities on the fringes. It has been argued in many contemporary plans and strategies that Transit Oriented Development (TOD) offers a potentially useful concept to drive the restructuring of South African socio-spatial patterns. The 2011 National Development Plan, in particular, calls for ?the internationally accepted principles? of TOD to be employed. The concept of TOD is rooted in North American attempts to overcome the predominant use of private cars, and the inefficiencies of urban sprawl. This paper aims to explore what TOD means in a South African context. It is argued that identifying and adopting internationally accepted principles of TOD design is fairly straight forward, and it is clear that South African TOD strategies have largely been informed by these. However, the international experience highlights that the implementation of these principles encounters many complex challenges, amongst which divergent stakeholder interests are particularly important. Adopting narrow physical and urban design principles, without paying attention to attendant complex implementation challenges, is unlikely to achieve success. Drawing from (n=11) qualitative practitioner interviews in Johannesburg, the paper highlights that local TOD stakeholders often have contradictory and competing interests and understandings. This poses a risk to achieving TOD objectives. It is concluded that greater effort is required to understand local TOD stakeholder dynamics, and that local governments need to provide frameworks and associated strategies through which competing interests can be resolved.Paper presented at the 34th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 6-9 July 2015 "Working Together to Deliver - Sakha Sonke", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.The Minister of Transport, South AfricaTransportation Research Board of the US

Let\u27s talk about antibiotics: A randomised trial of two interventions to reduce antibiotic misuse

BACKGROUND: Children with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) receive ≈11.4 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions annually. A noted contributor is inadequate parent-clinician communication, however, efforts to reduce overprescribing have only indirectly targeted communication or been impractical. OBJECTIVES: Compare two feasible (higher vs lower intensity) interventions for enhancing parent-clinician communication on the rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. DESIGN: Multisite, parallel group, cluster randomised comparative effectiveness trial. Data collected between March 2017 and March 2019. SETTING: Academic and private practice outpatient clinics. PARTICIPANTS: Clinicians (n=41, 85% of eligible approached) and 1599 parent-child dyads (ages 1-5 years with ARTI symptoms, 71% of eligible approached). INTERVENTIONS: All clinicians received 20 min ARTI diagnosis and treatment education. Higher intensity clinicians received an additional 50 min communication skills training. All parents viewed a 90 second antibiotic education video. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Inappropriate antibiotic treatment was assessed via blinded medical record review by study clinicians and a priori defined as prescriptions for the wrong diagnosis or use of the wrong agent. Secondary outcomes were revisits, adverse drug reactions (both assessed 2 weeks after the visit) and parent ratings of provider communication, shared decision-making and visit satisfaction (assessed at end of the visit on Likert-type scales). RESULTS: Most clinicians completed the study (n=38, 93%), were doctors (n=25, 66%), female (n=30, 78%) and averaged 8 years in practice. All parent-child dyad provided data for the main outcome (n=855 (54%) male, n=1043 (53%) CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Rate of inappropriate prescribing was low in both arms. Clinician education coupled with parent education may be sufficient to yield low inappropriate antibiotic prescribing rates. The absence of a significant difference between groups indicates that communication principles previously thought to drive inappropriate prescribing may need to be re-examined or may not have as much of an impact in practices where prescribing has improved in recent years. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03037112

Listening for policy change: How the voices of disabled people shaped Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme

Voice has become an important yet ambivalent tool for the recognition of disability. The transformative potential of voice is dependent on a political commitment to listening to disabled people. To focus on listening redirects accountability for social change from disabled people to the ableist norms, institutions and practices that structure which voices can be heard in policy debates. In this paper, I use disability theory on voice and political theory on listening to examine policy documents for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in light of claims made by the disability movement. Although my study finds some evidence of openness in the policy development stage, the scheme falls short of valuing the diverse voices of disabled people as partners in shared dialogue

Influence of diurnal variation in mesophyll conductance on modelled 13C discrimination: results from a field study

Mesophyll conductance to CO2 (gm) limits carbon assimilation and influences carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) under most environmental conditions. Current work is elucidating the environmental regulation of gm, but the influence of gm on model predictions of Δ remains poorly understood. In this study, field measurements of Δ and gm were obtained using a tunable diode laser spectroscope coupled to portable photosynthesis systems. These data were used to test the importance of gm in predicting Δ using the comprehensive Farquhar model of Δ (Δcomp), where gm was parameterized using three methods based on: (i) mean gm; (ii) the relationship between stomatal conductance (gs) and gm; and (iii) the relationship between time of day (TOD) and gm. Incorporating mean gm, gs-based gm, and TOD-based gm did not consistently improve Δcomp predictions of field-grown juniper compared with the simple model of Δ (Δsimple) that omits fractionation factors associated with gm and decarboxylation. Sensitivity tests suggest that b, the fractionation due to carboxylation, was lower (25‰) than the value commonly used in Δcomp (29‰) and Δsimple (27‰). These results demonstrate the limits of all tested models in predicting observed juniper Δ, largely due to unexplained offsets between predicted and observed values that were not reconciled in sensitivity tests of variability in gm, b, or e, the day respiratory fractionation

Knowledge-Based Synthesis of Distributed Systems Using Event Structures

To produce a program guaranteed to satisfy a given specification one can synthesize it from a formal constructive proof that a computation satisfying that specification exists. This process is particularly effective if the specifications are written in a high-level language that makes it easy for designers to specify their goals. We consider a high-level specification language that results from adding knowledge to a fragment of Nuprl specifically tailored for specifying distributed protocols, called event theory. We then show how high-level knowledge-based programs can be synthesized from the knowledge-based specifications using a proof development system such as Nuprl. Methods of Halpern and Zuck then apply to convert these knowledge-based protocols to ordinary protocols. These methods can be expressed as heuristic transformation tactics in Nuprl.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Logic for Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Reasoning LPAR 2004, pp. 449-46

DNA barcoding and a precise morphological comparison revealed a cryptic species in the Nippolachnus piri complex (Hemiptera: Aphididae: Lachninae)

Nippolachnus is a small Palaearctic-Oriental genus of very characteristic aphids that live on the leaves of woody Rosaceae. One species, N. piri, has hitherto been regarded to be widely distributed and relatively polyphagous. Members of this genus are considered to be easy to recognize due to the absence of the ocular tubercle and triommatidia on the head. We conducted research on the morphology and generic characters of Nippolachnus piri complex using scanning electron microscopy (for the first time) and DNA barcoding. We analyzed N. piri populations on Pyrus and other plants (Eriobotrya, Rhaphiolepis and Sorbus) in Japan and the Republic of Korea. Specifically, a high genetic divergence value was found between the N. piri populations associated with different host plants. SEM investigation of the head capsule revealed that a triommatidium is present under the compound eye, despite their lack of an ocular tubercle. We propose Nippolachnus micromeli Shinji, 1924 stat. nov. as a cryptic species in the N. piri complex based on a morphological comparison, DNA barcoding and different host-plant associations. Illustrations and descriptions of studied species are given. Morphological keys to the apterae and alatae of all known species of the genus Nippolachnus are also provided

Drowning is an apparent and unexpected recurrent cause of mass mortality of Common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris

Drowning is infrequently reported as a cause of death of wild birds and such incidents typically involve individual, rather than multiple, birds. Over a 21-year period (1993 to 2013 inclusive), we investigated 12 incidents of mortality of multiple (2 − 80+) Common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in Great Britain that appeared to be due to drowning. More than ten birds were affected in ten of these reported incidents. These incidents always occurred during the spring and early summer months and usually involved juvenile birds. In all cases, circumstantial evidence and post-mortem examinations indicated drowning to be the most likely cause of death with no underlying disease found. A behavioural explanation seems likely, possibly related to the gregarious nature of this species combined with juvenile inexperience in identifying water hazards. A review of data from the ringed bird recovery scheme across Great Britain (1909–2013 inclusive) of both starlings and Common blackbirds (Turdus merula), also a common garden visitor, identified additional suspected drowning incidents, which were significantly more common in the former species, supporting a species predisposition to drowning. For each species there was a marked seasonal peak from April to August. Drowning should be included as a differential diagnosis when investigating incidents of multiple starling mortality, especially of juveniles