Observational study of adult respiratory infections in primary care clinics in Myanmar: understanding the burden of melioidosis, tuberculosis and other infections not covered by empirical treatment regimes.

BACKGROUND: Lower respiratory infections constitute a major disease burden worldwide. Treatment is usually empiric and targeted towards typical bacterial pathogens. Understanding the prevalence of pathogens not covered by empirical treatment is important to improve diagnostic and treatment algorithms. METHODS: A prospective observational study in peri-urban communities of Yangon, Myanmar was conducted between July 2018 and April 2019. Sputum specimens of 299 adults presenting with fever and productive cough were tested for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (microscopy and GeneXpert MTB/RIF [Mycobacterium tuberculosis/resistance to rifampicin]) and Burkholderia pseudomallei (Active Melioidosis Detect Lateral Flow Assay and culture). Nasopharyngeal swabs underwent respiratory virus (influenza A, B, respiratory syncytial virus) polymerase chain reaction testing. RESULTS: Among 299 patients, 32% (95% confidence interval [CI] 26 to 37) were diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB), including 9 rifampicin-resistant cases. TB patients presented with a longer duration of fever (median 14 d) and productive cough (median 30 d) than non-TB patients (median fever duration 6 d, cough 7 d). One case of melioidosis pneumonia was detected by rapid test and confirmed by culture. Respiratory viruses were detected in 16% (95% CI 12 to 21) of patients. CONCLUSIONS: TB was very common in this population, suggesting that microscopy and GeneXpert MTB/RIF on all sputum samples should be routinely included in diagnostic algorithms for fever and cough. Melioidosis was uncommon in this population

Intelligent control of an autonomous vehicle

Reinforcement Learning is the learning methodology whereby a learner develops its knowledge through the trial-and-error interactions with the dynamic environment. Based on how the learner reacts to the environment, the leaner will only receive “reward” of “punishment” instead of “instructive” information. Among the reinforcement learning concepts, Q-Learning is the most popular algorithm due to its simplicity and well-developed theory. But, Q-Learning is not able to address to generalize large states and actions space. The practical learning agent requires a compact representation to generalize experiences in the continuous domain. Many research works have been done on the generalization issue of Q-Learning. Fuzzy Q-Learning (FQL) approach was proposed in [18] for the representation of Q-Learning to address the continuous domain. The greatest achievement of FQL is that it can enable the original Q-Learning to handle continuous states and actions by means of fuzzy logic, which is regarded as a systematic mathematical approach to emulate human way of thinking. A fuzzy system can be decomposed into two phases; namely structure identification phase and parameter identification phase. Structure identification phase concerns about partitioning the input space and determining the number of fuzzy rules while the parameter identification phase involves determining the parameter of premises and consequents. The FQL approach is only well-defined in parameter identification and does not focus on structure identification.Master of Science (Computer Control and Automation

ANALYSIS ON IMPROVEMENT OF AIRPORT SERVICE AFTER LIBERALIZATION IN AVIATION INDUSTRY OF MYANMAR (Case Study: Customer Perspective at Yangon International Airport)

Transportation has vitally important role for the economic development and regarding important development in the liberalization of air transport services was the emergence and subsequent expansion of bilateral agreements. This study aims to determine the dominant aspects of airport services and examine the customers’ perceived satisfaction on the implementation of service liberalization process in air transport. Both quantitative and qualitative case study research design and descriptive method are used for this study. The descriptive method is used gathering data from 200 randomly selected passengers at the Yangon International Airport and key informant interviews are conducted to heads of the Department of Civil Aviation in Myanmar. This study found that the respondents were more satisfied with the Webpage and Booking section, Check-in section, Security and Immigration section, Boarding section and usually liked that customer satisfaction. It also found that the respondents got more variety in the flight options and the respondents who had booked their online tickets had done their reservation by themselves, especially from Yangon International Airport. The respondents satisfied that the airport staff is informed and helpful when it comes to finding out about the timings, locations, counters, gates of arrivals or departures of different airlines taking place at the airport for boarding. Findings of this study provide relevance information for airlines, airport, airport ground staff and other airport staff because of needing to do the more services higher than now for the customer satisfactions

Effectiveness of men in maternity health (MiM) intervention on male involvement in maternal health care to improve maternal health outcomes in Naypyitaw, Myanmar

Myanmar recorded 1,700 maternal fatalities in 2020, indicating one of the highest maternal mortality ratios (MMR). The provision of adequate maternal health care (MHC) is crucial to reducing maternal mortality in Myanmar, but the prevalence of low institutional delivery (ID) contributes to avoidable deaths. While Myanmar has made recent efforts to enhance the utilization of MH services, there are still existing gaps that need attention. The concept of male involvement (MI) in maternal health (MH) has emerged as a strategy to improve MHC outcomes in Myanmar. To assess the efficacy of male involvement in maternal health in Myanmar, a research study will be conducted. This study aims to investigate the impact of Men in Maternity Health (MiM) education specifically designed for husbands and male partners of pregnant women in Myanmar. Thus, the research aims to determine the effectiveness of Men in Maternity Health (MiM) education intervention to improve husband involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness for safe motherhood in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar.</p