Locating the poor: Spatially disaggregated poverty maps for Sri Lanka

poverty / mapping / Sri Lanka

Neglected Dimensions of Global Security: The Global Health Risk Framework Commission

The world has experienced global health crises ranging from novel influenzas (H5N1 and H1N1) and coronaviruses (SARS and MERS) to the Ebola and Zika viruses. In each case, governments and international organizations seemed unable to react quickly and decisively. Health crises have unmasked critical vulnerabilities— weak health systems, failures of leadership, and political overreaction and underreaction. The Global Health Risk Framework Commission, for which the National Academy of Medicine served as the secretariat, recently set out a comprehensive strategy to safeguard human and economic security from pandemic threats

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE OF CARDIORESPIRATORY FITNESS PARAMETERS TO EXERCISE IN PREDIABETIC POPULATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL PRE- POST DESIGN

Background: The cardiorespiratory fitness in prediabetic population at pre- and post-interventional stage after 8 weeks of moderate intensity exercise was determined. This study is part of PhD project and carried out in Physiology department, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, Pakistan. Methods: It was an experimental study design. Adult prediabetics (n=50), 22 females and 28 males of 18 to 35y age group were included in the study. Diagnosis of prediabetes was made with HbA1c falling in the range of 5.7– 6.4%, and fasting blood glucose (100-125mg/dL). Cardiorespiratory fitness parameters (Ventilation, oxygen consumed during exercise VO2, carbon dioxide exhaled VCO2, metabolic equivalents (ME), heart rate (HR), heart rate reserve (HRR), rate of carbohydrate oxidation (RCHO), fat oxidation (RFO) and energy expenditure (EE)) were determined at pre- and post-exercise intervention using breath-by-breath analyzer. The participants performed moderate exercise protocol of 30 min with HRmax% of 70 ± 5% for 5 days a week for 8 weeks during their leisure time, monitored with pedometers. Results: The results showed a significant improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness parameters at post exercise analysis.  Similar changes were observed for fasting blood glucose (P value < 0.001)  and HbA1c (P value < 0.001).Conclusion: Moderate physical activity for 8 weeks showed significant Improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness parameters and glycemic status of patients with prediabetes

Benefit of irrigation water transfers in the National River Linking Project: a case study of the Ken-Betwa link

River basin managementRiver basin developmentDevelopment projectsWater transferIrrigation waterCrop productionCrop managementLivestock

An overview of sustainable practices in food processing supply chain environments

Climate change has been a great challenge that the world is facing, it is a menace to the society and it is causing more damage than expected. The researchers are working tirelessly to reduce its impact on the planet in order to save the future. Mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and other sustainable practices is encouraged every day to make the world a better place to live Sustainable practice has been identified as one of the major tools to control this greenhouse gas emission especially in the emergent nations where industrialization is now growing rapidly. This paper discusses and analyzes the food security and food processing industry in the emergent nations. It also reviews literature on food processing, supply chain environments, sustainability and sustainable practices in relation to how these could help in promoting the sustainable development and environmental protection goals in the emergent nations

Ultrafast Magnetization Dynamics in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors

We present a dynamical model that successfully explains the observed time evolution of the magnetization in diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum wells after weak laser excitation. Based on the pseudo-fermion formalism and a second order many-particle expansion of the exact p-d exchange interaction, our approach goes beyond the usual mean-field approximation. It includes both the sub-picosecond demagnetization dynamics and the slower relaxation processes which restore the initial ferromagnetic order in a nanosecond time scale. In agreement with experimental results, our numerical simulations show that, depending on the value of the initial lattice temperature, a subsequent enhancement of the total magnetization may be observed within a time scale of few hundreds of picoseconds.Comment: Submitted to PR

Sleep-induced amaurosis fugax

Amaurosis fugax is a manifestation of retinal ischemia, commonly described in the setting of carotid atherosclerotic disease. Thromboembolic, and less frequently, hemodynamic mechanisms have been described as responsible for producing negative symptoms of transient monocular vision loss during periods of wakefulness. We report an unusual presentation in which the patient became symptomatic during sleep. Initially, photopsias-positive symptoms were experienced, which caused the patient to awaken; this was immediately followed by transient monocular vision loss. Carotid endarterectomy was curative

A framework for energy based performability models for wireless sensor networks

A novel idea of alternating node operations between Active and Sleep modes in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has successfully been used to save node power consumption. The idea which started off as a simple implementation of a timer in most protocols has been improved over the years to dynamically change with traffic conditions and the nature of application area. Recently, use of a second low power radio transceiver to triggered Active/Sleep modes has also been made. Active/Sleep operation modes have also been used to separately model and evaluate performance and availability of WSNs. The advancement in technology and continuous improvements of the existing protocols and application implementation demands continue to pose great challenges to the existing performance and availability models. In this study the need for integrating performance and availability studies of WSNs in the presence of both channel and node failures and repairs is investigated. A framework that outlines and characterizes key models required for integration of performance and availability of WSN is in turn outlined. Possible solution techniques for such models are also highlighted. Finally it is shown that the resulting models may be used to comparatively evaluate energy consumption of the existing motes and WSNs as well as deriving required performance measures