537 research outputs found
Health-related quality of life and associated factors in adults living with HIV in Rwanda
In Rwanda, as in other sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, life expectancy of people living with
HIV (PLWH) has increased dramatically as a result of combined antiretroviral therapy (cART).
People living with HIV can now live longer but with increasing rates of non-communicable
diseases (NCDs). Thus, prevention of NCD comorbidities in PWLHI is crucial to maintain and
gain health-related benefits and to maximise the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in the
long-term management of PLWH. This study determines the association between physical
and mental health-related dimensions of quality of life (QOL) with behavioural and biological
risk factors, after controlling socio-demographic and HIV-related factors in adults living with
HIV in Rwand
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The geography of British exports: country-level versus firm-level evidence
This study investigates the degree of regionalization of UK exporters. The firm-level findings, based on an original set of primary data of 356 UK exporters, are contrasted with the UK national trade flows as well as with the geographic spread of the UK, European and the world's largest MNEs. The analysis produced consistent findings of regionalization regardless of the classification thresholds or sales matrices employed. The findings also imply that country-level data supports the firm-level findings of regionalization. White the analysis presents relatively strong corroborating evidence of regionalization of UK exports, it also indicates that UK exporters might be more multi-regional and global oriented than previously thought. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. ALL rights reserved
Touchstone Stars: Highlights from the Cool Stars 18 Splinter Session
We present a summary of the splinter session on "touchstone stars" -- stars
with directly measured parameters -- that was organized as part of the Cool
Stars 18 conference. We discuss several methods to precisely determine cool
star properties such as masses and radii from eclipsing binaries, and radii and
effective temperatures from interferometry. We highlight recent results in
identifying and measuring parameters for touchstone stars, and ongoing efforts
to use touchstone stars to determine parameters for other stars. We conclude by
comparing the results of touchstone stars with cool star models, noting some
unusual patterns in the differences.Comment: Proceedings of the 18th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar
Systems, and the Sun, Eds G. van Belle & H. Harri
Co-Creative Action Research Experiments—A Careful Method for Causal Inference and Societal Impact
The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic
that does not seem to go away so easily. The grassroots movement Responsible Research in Business
and Management, for instance, is a very active and prominent advocate of the need to change current
research practices in the management domain, broadly defined. One of its main critiques is that
current research practices are not apt to address day-to-day management challenges, nor do they
allow such management challenges to feed into academic research. In this paper, we address this
issue, and present a research design, referred to as CARE, that is aimed at building a bridge from
rigor to relevance, and vice versa. In so doing, we offer a template for conducting rigorous research
with immediate impact, contributing to solving issues that businesses are struggling with through
a design that facilitates causal inference
The modalities of Iranian soft power: from cultural diplomacy to soft war
Through exploring Iran's public diplomacy at the international level, this article demonstrates how the Islamic Republic's motives should not only be contextualised within the oft-sensationalised, material or ‘hard’ aspects of its foreign policy, but also within the desire to project its cultural reach through ‘softer’ means. Iran's utilisation of culturally defined foreign policy objectives and actions demonstrates its understanding of soft power's potentialities. This article explores the ways in which Iran's public diplomacy is used to promote its soft power and craft its, at times, shifting image on the world stage
Preventing seismic pounding of adjacent structures using viscous wall damper device
Today, a number of researchers are broadly studying the effective implementation of supplemental seismic energy dissipation systems to improve seismic behavior of structures during earthquakes. The current article studies the impacts of employing Viscous Wall Damper devices to couple two adjacent structures on seismic response of the new system. An exclusive finite element algorithm capable of modeling and analyzing structures equipped with special damper systems was used in order to perform a nonlinear time history analysis subjected to seismic excitation. Two ten-story RC framed structures are modeled adjacently in 11 different cases, each representing existence or damping coefficient of the Viscous Wall Damper device. A parametric study has been conducted in each case to assess the effectiveness of implementing Viscous Wall Damper devices on improving seismic behavior of the coupled structure. The considered metrics include rotation and displacement amplitude, plastic hinge formation, and induced element forces. It has been proved that the proposed damper system substantially diminishes and dissipates induced seismic response of the system. Also, it is indicated that the extent to which Viscous Wall Damper device contributes in mitigating seismic responses is highly correlated with the damping coefficient
Enhancing the representation of water management in global hydrological models
This study enhances an existing global hydrological model (GHM), Xanthos, by adding a new water management module that distinguishes between the operational characteristics of irrigation, hydropower, and flood control reservoirs. We remapped reservoirs in the Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD) database to the 0.5∘ spatial resolution in Xanthos so that a single lumped reservoir exists per grid cell, which yielded 3790 large reservoirs. We implemented unique operation rules for each reservoir type, based on their
primary purposes. In particular, hydropower reservoirs have been treated as
flood control reservoirs in previous GHM studies, while here, we determined
the operation rules for hydropower reservoirs via optimization that maximizes long-term hydropower production. We conducted global simulations
using the enhanced Xanthos and validated monthly streamflow for 91 large river basins, where high-quality observed streamflow data were available. A
total of 1878 (296 hydropower, 486 irrigation, and 1096 flood control and
others) out of the 3790 reservoirs are located in the 91 basins and are part of our reported results. The Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE) value (after adding the new water management) is ≥ 0.5 and ≥ 0.0 in 39 and 81 basins, respectively. After adding the new water management module, model performance improved for 75 out of 91 basins and worsened for only 7. To measure the relative difference between explicitly representing hydropower reservoirs and representing hydropower reservoirs as flood control reservoirs (as is commonly done in other GHMs), we use the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) and the coefficient of determination (R2). Out of the 296 hydropower reservoirs, the NRMSE is
> 0.25 (i.e., considering 0.25 to represent a moderate difference) for over 44 % of the 296 reservoirs when comparing both the simulated reservoir releases and storage time series between the two simulations. We suggest that correctly representing hydropower reservoirs in GHMs could have important implications for our understanding and management of freshwater resource challenges at regional-to-global scales. This enhanced global water management modeling framework will allow the analysis of future global reservoir development and management from a coupled human–earth system perspective.</p
A Global Hydrologic Framework to Accelerate Scientific Discovery
With the ability to simulate historical and future global water availability on a monthly time step at a spatial resolution of 0.5 geographic degree, the Python package Xanthos version 1 provided a solid foundation for continuing advancements in global water dynamics science. The goal of Xanthos version 2 was to build upon previous investments by creating a Python framework where core components of the model (potential evapotranspiration (PET), runoff generation, and river routing) could be interchanged or extended without having to start from scratch. Xanthos 2 utilizes a component-style architecture which enables researchers to quickly incorporate and test cutting-edge research in a stable modeling environment prebuilt with diagnostics. Major advancements for Xanthos 2 were also achieved by the creation of a robust default configuration with a calibration module, hydropower modules, and new PET modules, which are now available to the scientific community. Funding statement: This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, as part of research in Multi-Sector Dynamics, Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone
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