Secession of South Sudan : the voluntary and enforced social exclusion

Sudan has recently separated into two states after a long history of conflict that transformed into severe war lasted for fifty years interrupted with few years of fragile peace. Sudan, as a multicultural, multi-religions, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic, country, has its unique complexity with different social relations between these different components. With special regard to the recent humanitarian crisis took place only few years before secession in Darfur, which has been described as genocide. A prime aim of the this research is to assess and to determine whether the separation of Sudan into two countries is related to social exclusion and/or related social practices that took place among the peoples of Sudan. This research is based on literature review. Primary and secondary have been analyzed and discussed. Literature studied and data compared to assess the exclusion and inequalities. I have found that the selected dimensions of social exclusion, namely; social, socio-economic and political dimensions have a significant impact on the social exclusion processes in Sudan. All factors of social dimension of religion, language, ethnicity, stigma and slavery have a key role in increasing the social distance between Southern and Northern Sudan people. Comparison of reach, distribution and efficiency of education and health services between the two parts of the country showed a considerable variation between citizenship status of both Southerners and Northerners. The research findings showed that identity, power and wealth are closely connected with regard to social exclusion and they have a degree contributing to social exclusion processes. In conclusion, the overlapping and relational causes, factors, dynamics, indicators, forms and dimensions of social exclusion have influenced individuals in the end manifestation of social exclusion to vote in favor of secession instead of unity, which led to the secession of the country.Master in International Social Welfare and Health Polic

Assessing the Quality of Annotations in Asthma Gene Expression Experiments

Background: The amount of data deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) has expanded significantly. It is important to ensure that these data are properly annotated with clinical data and descriptions of experimental conditions so that they can be useful for future analysis. This study assesses the adequacy of documented asthma markers in GEO. Three objective measures (coverage, consistency and association) were used for evaluation of annotations contained in 17 asthma studies. Results: There were 918 asthma samples with 20,640 annotated markers. Of these markers, only 10,419 had documented values (50% coverage). In one study carefully examined for consistency, there were discrepancies in drug name usage, with brand name and generic name used in different sections to refer to the same drug. Annotated markers showed adequate association with other relevant variables (i.e. the use of medication only when its corresponding disease state was present). Conclusions: There is inadequate variable coverage within GEO and usage of terms lacks consistency. Association between relevant variables, however, was adequate

High gain of UWB planar antenna utilising FSS reflector for UWB applications

In this paper, a high gain and directional coplanar waveguide (CPW)- fed ultra-wideband (UWB) planar antenna with a new frequency selective surface (FSS) unit cells design is proposed for UWB applications. The proposed UWB antenna was designed based on the Mercedes artistic-shaped planar (MAP) antenna. The antenna consisted of a circular ring embedded with three straight legs for antenna impedance bandwidth improvement. The modelled FSS used the integration of a two parallel conductive metallic patch with a circular loop structure. The FSS provided a UWB stopband filter response covering a bandwidth of 10.5 GHz, for frequencies from 2.2 to 12.7 GHz. The proposed FSS had a compact physical dimension of 5 mm × 5 mm × 1.6 mm, with a printed array of 19 × 19 FSS unit cells. The FSS unit cells were printed on only one side of the dielectric FR4 substrate and placed as a sandwich between the antenna and the reflector ground plane. An equivalent circuit configuration (ECC) was used to verify the FSS unit cell structure’s performance. The simulated results indicated that the UWB MAP antenna and FSS reflector provided a fractional bandwidth of 136% and a high gain of 11.5 dB at 8.5 GHz with an acceptable radiation efficiency of 89%. Furthermore, the gain was improved across the operating band and kept between 8.3 and 11.5 dB. The proposed antenna was in good agreement between theoretical and experimental results and offered a wide enough bandwidth for UWB and vehicle applications

Sex difference and intra-operative tidal volume: Insights from the LAS VEGAS study

BACKGROUND: One key element of lung-protective ventilation is the use of a low tidal volume (VT). A sex difference in use of low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) has been described in critically ill ICU patients.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a sex difference in use of LTVV also exists in operating room patients, and if present what factors drive this difference.DESIGN, PATIENTS AND SETTING: This is a posthoc analysis of LAS VEGAS, a 1-week worldwide observational study in adults requiring intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals in 29 countries.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Women and men were compared with respect to use of LTVV, defined as VT of 8 ml kg-1 or less predicted bodyweight (PBW). A VT was deemed 'default' if the set VT was a round number. A mediation analysis assessed which factors may explain the sex difference in use of LTVV during intra-operative ventilation.RESULTS: This analysis includes 9864 patients, of whom 5425 (55%) were women. A default VT was often set, both in women and men; mode VT was 500 ml. Median [IQR] VT was higher in women than in men (8.6 [7.7 to 9.6] vs. 7.6 [6.8 to 8.4] ml kg-1 PBW, P < 0.001). Compared with men, women were twice as likely not to receive LTVV [68.8 vs. 36.0%; relative risk ratio 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.1), P < 0.001]. In the mediation analysis, patients' height and actual body weight (ABW) explained 81 and 18% of the sex difference in use of LTVV, respectively; it was not explained by the use of a default VT.CONCLUSION: In this worldwide cohort of patients receiving intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery, women received a higher VT than men during intra-operative ventilation. The risk for a female not to receive LTVV during surgery was double that of males. Height and ABW were the two mediators of the sex difference in use of LTVV.TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01601223

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Modeling of Water and Wastewater Treatment Units

Abstract This paper outlines the significance of computer modeling as a vital part of the practice of environmental engineering. To meet this goal, the examples herein were constructed as computer software applications that demonstrate how to transform an environmental engineering problem into a working computer model that can be manipulated and edited. The models were written using Microsoft Visual Basic.NET 10 programming language. The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used was Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition. Examples were test-ran under Microsfot Windows XP and 7 workstations, although the pre-compiled code should run on other platforms with .NET 4.x support, such as Linux with MonoDevelop installed

Assessing the quality of annotations in asthma gene expression experiments

BACKGROUND:The amount of data deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) has expanded significantly. It is important to ensure that these data are properly annotated with clinical data and descriptions of experimental conditions so that they can be useful for future analysis. This study assesses the adequacy of documented asthma markers in GEO. Three objective measures (coverage, consistency and association) were used for evaluation of annotations contained in 17 asthma studies.RESULTS:There were 918 asthma samples with 20,640 annotated markers. Of these markers, only 10,419 had documented values (50% coverage). In one study carefully examined for consistency, there were discrepancies in drug name usage, with brand name and generic name used in different sections to refer to the same drug. Annotated markers showed adequate association with other relevant variables (i.e. the use of medication only when its corresponding disease state was present).CONCLUSIONS:There is inadequate variable coverage within GEO and usage of terms lacks consistency. Association between relevant variables, however, was adequate.This item is part of the UA Faculty Publications collection. For more information this item or other items in the UA Campus Repository, contact the University of Arizona Libraries at [email protected]

Assessing the quality of annotations in asthma gene expression experiments

Abstract Background The amount of data deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) has expanded significantly. It is important to ensure that these data are properly annotated with clinical data and descriptions of experimental conditions so that they can be useful for future analysis. This study assesses the adequacy of documented asthma markers in GEO. Three objective measures (coverage, consistency and association) were used for evaluation of annotations contained in 17 asthma studies. Results There were 918 asthma samples with 20,640 annotated markers. Of these markers, only 10,419 had documented values (50% coverage). In one study carefully examined for consistency, there were discrepancies in drug name usage, with brand name and generic name used in different sections to refer to the same drug. Annotated markers showed adequate association with other relevant variables (i.e. the use of medication only when its corresponding disease state was present). Conclusions There is inadequate variable coverage within GEO and usage of terms lacks consistency. Association between relevant variables, however, was adequate.</p

Underwater acoustic noise characteristics of shallow water in tropical seas

In the underwater communication and target locating, the biggest challenge is to reduce the effect of underwater acoustic noise (UWAN). An experimental model is presented in this paper to characterize noise in the acoustic underwater channel in shallow water. Data is measured from different depths located in the Tanjung Balau, Johor, Malaysia. Most applications assume the UWAN as additive and Gaussian. However, the UWAN is not just thermal noise but a combination of turbulence, shipping and wind noises. Site-specific noise in shallow water often contains significant non-Gaussian components. Thus, it is appropriate to assume UWAN as colored rather than white with non-Gaussian probability density function (pdf). The real-time noise data are analyzed for different depths to determine the statistical properties such as power spectral density (PSD), autocorrelation function and pdf. The results show the UWAN has a non-Gaussian pdf, and is colored with a power spectral density that decays at a rate of approximately 20 dB/decade. Also, the power decreases with increasing depth as the distance from the surface at approximately 10 dB