Language, education and development : a review of Norad’s support to the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS)

In June/July 2006, Norad commissioned a review of its support to the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), which is a non-profit making trust established in 1997 in Cape Town South Africa. CASAS sets out to promote the use of indigenous African languages as the mother tongue or familiar language in education, cultural empowerment and scientific and technological development in Africa. The purpose of the review was, among other tings, to assess the relevance and impact of CASAS’ work and look into the role CASAS is playing in the field of language of instruction on the African continent. The general impression of the review is a very positive one. In terms of output, impact and relevance, the review team has concluded that CASAS’ activities, in particular its production of scientific and academic materials, have so far been very impressive and indeed significant on the promotion of the use of African languages in education, science and technological development in the continent. Significantly, CASAS has developed a scientific methodology of the harmonization of indigenous African languages; a methodology which is currently being used to produce harmonized orthographies for the cluster of languages and dialects which share a high degree of mutual intelligibility. To date, CASAS has published harmonized orthographies for 9 languages in Africa. Moreover, the harmonization approach employed by CASAS was also observed to be effective in preserving smaller and lesser-used languages from extinction. Furthermore, through its networks of linguists and language specialists CASAS has also stimulated and encouraged academic work in terms of research in African languages. In brief, CASAS activities have laid a foundation whose impact and relevance in Africa is both multidimensional and long term. It represents an indispensable necessary first step towards the implementation of the ADEA and AU policies for the improvement of the quality of education in Africa through the use of African languages. Last, but not least, the technical expertise developed by CASAS will also be useful and needed by ACALAN in its agenda to pursue the promotion of cross border languages in Africa. The main area of concern from the review was the dissemination of the harmonized orthographies and other materials produced by CASAS. In this regard, the report calls on CASAS to develop an effective strategy to reach out to the end users; mainly to identify and work in collaboration with all organisations – public and private, secular and religious, as well as organisations at the local, national and regional/continental level, that have been involved in the promotion of African languages

Optimal economic order quantity for buyer–distributor–vendor supply chain with backlogging derived without derivatives

[[abstract]]In this article, we first complement an inappropriate mathematical error on the total cost in the previously published paper by Chung and Wee [2007, ‘Optimal the Economic Lot Size of a Three-stage Supply Chain With Backlogging Derived Without Derivatives’, European Journal of Operational Research, 183, 933–943] related to buyer–distributor–vendor three-stage supply chain with backlogging derived without derivatives. Then, an arithmetic–geometric inequality method is proposed not only to simplify the algebraic method of completing prefect squares, but also to complement their shortcomings. In addition, we provide a closed-form solution to integral number of deliveries for the distributor and the vendor without using complex derivatives. Furthermore, our method can solve many cases in which their method cannot, because they did not consider that a squared root of a negative number does not exist. Finally, we use some numerical examples to show that our proposed optimal solution is cheaper to operate than theirs.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Explorative study on patterns of same structure in male and female matches from elite spanish soccer

I Brage finner du siste tekst-versjon av artikkelen, og den kan inneholde ubetydelige forskjeller fra forlagets pdf-versjon. Forlagets pdf-versjon finner du på www.ingentaconnect.com / In Brage you'll find the final text version of the article, and it may contain insignificant differences from the journal's pdf version. The definitive version is available at www.ingentaconnect.comThe aim of this study was to explore emergent patterns of game structure in male and female matches from elite soccer by using playing distances measured according to the ball location. Archive data based on carefully selected four male and four female matches from elite Spanish soccer seasons 2002-3, 2003-4 and 2004-5 were collected by help of AMISCO PRO® system. Differences across six ball locations were found in mean playing length (χ2 5=328.1 and 520.9, P<0.001) and playing width (χ2 5=39.6 and 26.9, P<0.001) from male and female matches, respectively. Both sexes displayed similar movements in playing length that vary with stretch-contraction-stretch patterns and in playing width that vary with opposite patterns of contraction-stretch-contraction, but these patterns varied to a significantly greater extent in male matches. For example, male matches (mean=44.93±8.34 m) produced significantly (U=128564.0, z=-8.2, P<0.001) longer playing width during transition phase in midfield compared with female matches (mean=41.80±8.00 m). Results suggest that female matches produced less favourable patterns of game structure with fewer penetration opportunities than male matches. Specific suggestions for coaching intervention were given. This study demonstrates the potential of analysing playing distances according to the ball location for studying patterns of game structure in real soccer matches.Seksjon for coaching og psykologi / Department of Coaching and Psycholog

Filament assembly of the C. elegans lamin in the absence of helix 1A

Lamins are the major constituent of the nuclear lamina, a protein meshwork underlying the inner nuclear membrane. Nuclear lamins are type V intermediate filaments that assemble into ~3.5 nm thick filaments. To date, only the conditions for the in vitro assembly of Caenorhabditis elegans lamin (Ce-lamin) are known. Here, we investigated the assembly of Ce-lamin filaments by cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. We show that Ce-lamin is composed of ~3.5 nm protofilaments that further interact in vitro and are often seen as 6-8 nm thick filaments. We show that the assembly of lamin filaments is undisturbed by the removal of flexible domains, that is, the intrinsically unstructured head and tail domains. In contrast, much of the coiled-coil domains are scaffold elements that are essential for filament assembly. Moreover, our results suggest that Ce-lamin helix 1A has a minor scaffolding role but is important to the lateral assembly regulation of lamin protofilaments. Keywords: C. elegans; cryo-electron tomography; intermediate filaments; lamin

Real-time prediction of breast lesions displacement during Ultrasound scanning using a position-based dynamics approach.

Although ultrasound (US) images represent the most popular modality for guiding breast biopsy, they are sometimes unable to render malignant regions, thus preventing accurate lesion localization which is essential for a successful procedure. Biomechanical models can support the localization of suspicious areas identified on a pre-operative image during US scanning since they are able to account for anatomical deformations resulting from US probe pressure. We propose a deformation model which relies on position-based dynamics (PBD) approach to predict the displacement of internal targets induced by probe interaction during US acquisition. The PBD implementation available in NVIDIA FleX is exploited to create an anatomical model capable of deforming in real-time. In order to account for each patient\u2019s specificities, model parameters are selected as those minimizing the localization error of a US-visible landmark of the anatomy of interest (in our case, a realistic breast phantom). The updated model is used to estimate the displacement of other internal lesions due to probe-tissue interaction. The proposed approach is compared to a finite element model (FEM), generally used in breast biomechanics, and a rigid one. Localization error obtained when applying the PBD model remains below 11 mm for all the tumors even for input displacements in the order of 30 mm. The proposed method obtains results aligned with FE models with faster computational performance, suitable for real-time applications. In addition, it outperforms rigid model used to track lesion position in US-guided breast biopsies, at least halving the localization error for all the displacement ranges considered. Position-based dynamics approach has proved to be successful in modeling breast tissue deformations during US acquisition. Its stability, accuracy and real-time performance make such model suitable for tracking lesions displacement during US-guided breast biopsy

A position-based framework for the prediction of probe-induced lesion displacement in Ultrasound-guided breast biopsy

Although ultrasound (US) images represent the most popular modality for guiding breast biopsy, they are sometimes unable to render malignant regions, thus preventing accurate lesion localization which is essential for a successful procedure. Biomechanical models can support the localization of suspicious areas identified on a pre-operative image during US scanning since they are able to account for anatomical deformations resulting from US probe pressure. We propose a deformation model which relies on position-based dynamics (PBD) approach to predict the displacement of internal targets induced by probe interaction during US acquisition. The PBD implementation available in NVIDIA FleX is exploited to create an anatomical model capable of deforming online. Simulation parameters are initialized on a calibration phantom under different levels of probe-induced deformations, then they are fine-tuned by minimizing the localization error of a US-visible landmark of a realistic breast phantom. The updated model is used to estimate the displacement of other internal lesions due to probe-tissue interaction. The localization error obtained when applying the PBD model remains below 11 mm for all the tumors even for input displacements in the order of 30 mm. This approach outperforms rigid model used to track lesion position in US-guided breast biopsies, at least halving the localization error for all the displacement ranges considered. Position-based dynamics approach has proved to be successful in modeling breast tissue deformations during US acquisition. Its stability, accuracy and real-time performance make such model suitable for tracking lesions displacement during US-guided breast biopsy

A study for evaluation of two protocols comprising of clomiphene citrate, human menopausal gonadotropin with or without follicle stimulating hormone for ovulation induction in patients with infertility for intrauterine insemination

Background: To compare two protocols comprising of FSH/CC/HMG and CC/HMG for ovulation induction and IUI in women with infertility.Methods: 60 women with unexplained infertility were randomized using sequentially numbered opaque envelope method. Group A received inj FSH 150 units on day 2 of menstrual cycle and clomiphene citrate 100 mg from day 3-7, followed by injection HMG 150 units on day 9 of menstrual cycle. Group B received clomiphene citrate 100 mg from day 3-7, and HMG 150 units on day 7 and 9 of the menstrual cycle.  Ovulation triggered with hCG 5000 units when dominant follicle was 18mm. Single IUI was done 36-42 hours afterwards.Results: Pregnancy occurred in 3 out of 30 women in 116 cycles Group A (with FSH) with a pregnancy rate of 10 percent, and 2.8% per cycle. In group B (without FSH) pregnancy occurred in 3 out of 30 women in 117 cycles with pregnancy rate of 10 percent, and 2.6% per cycle. The number of follicles per cycle was 1.36 and follicle size was 18.57 mm in group A. While in Group B numbers of follicles per cycle were 1.22, with average size of 18.9mm. Mean endometrial thickness was 7.7mm in Group A and 6.37 in Group B (p=.01, significant). Mild OHSS was observed in one woman in Group B. No other side effects were observed in both the groups.Conclusions: The controlled ovarian stimulation regimes used in this study are equally effective, easy to administer, require less intensive monitoring and fewer medications, with little risk of OHSS and multiple gestation

Access to the Waterfront: Issues and Solutions Across the Nation

A tide of demographic and economic change is moving through coastal towns, harbors, and communities throughout the United States. As the various regions and states confront the resulting conflicts over access to beaches, shorelines, and waterways, they are recognizing the need to identify and share tools and solutions. In December 2006, Maine Sea Grant, with support from Hawaii Sea Grant and an advisory committee from the National Sea Grant network and Coastal Zone Management programs, surveyed over 140 extension professionals, coastal managers, and other individuals to characterize the scope of coastal access issues nationwide and the effects on coastal communities, and to inventory solutions and tools being implemented by Sea Grant and other programs. Viewed through the eyes of survey respondents, there are no exclusively regional trends—access to and from the coast is a challenge in communities from Alaska and Hawaii to California, Oregon, and Washington, along the Gulf Coast states, around the Florida peninsula, and up the entire East Coast to Maine. With nowhere to swim and nowhere to land, recreational, commercial, and industrial users of the coast are competing for access

Increasing the precision of the biopsy with robots: two case studies

Robotics is a rapidly advancing field and its introduction in healthcare can have a multitude of benefits for clinical practice. Especially applications depending on the radiologist’s accuracy and precision, such as percutaneous interventions, may profit. Percutaneous interventions are relatively simple and the quality of the procedure increases a lot by introducing robotics due to the improved accuracy and precision. This paper provides the description of two robotic systems for percutaneous interventions: breast biopsy and prostate biopsy. The systems presented here are complete prototypes in an advanced state ready to be tested in clinical practice.https://youtu.be/KZxfRtg0afg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB3Qa6LyHP