The impact of new reporting requirements on local charities in the Waikato region

Charities play a significant role in society. Over 27,000 charities work in New Zealand for the welfare of the community. Prior to 2015, there was no mandatory requirements for financial reporting; however, some charities used “the for-profits standards”. But there was evidence of poor accounting standards. Since 2015, there was a significant change in reporting requirements issued by XRB. The main purpose of new reporting standards was to improve transparency, accountability and public trust. The new accounting standards brought more transparency and disclosure of non-financial information. There were a few negative impacts of this new regime as charities had insufficient knowledge about new standards, which resulted in deficient quality of reports. This research seeks to investigate the impacts of new reporting requirements on local charities in the Waikato Region. The method carried out for the research was semi-structured interviews. Under this method the accountants of three different charities in the Waikato Region were interviewed. The findings of the study were arrived at based on the analysis conducted. Some of major findings of the study criticised the new changes as they increased the workload of charities and created other related issues. There were some issues related to revenue recognition, and the outcomes were long term. It was a mixed review by the charities on the effectiveness of the “Charity Services”. The study concluded that the aim of new regime was for increased accountability, which may not have eventuated, as according to the research the charities instead face issues of workload, outcomes and revenue recognition

Vanishing Carleson measures and power compact weighted composition operators

In this paper, we characterize Carleson measure and vanishing Carleson measure on Bergman spaces with admissible weights in terms of {\it t-Berezin transform} and {\it averaging function} as key tools. Moreover, power bounded and power compact weighted composition operators are characterized as application of Carleson measure and vanishing Carleson measure respectively on Bergman spaces with admissible weights

Towards the development of a cost-effective Image-Sensing-Smart-Parking Systems (ISenSmaP)

Finding parking in a busy city has been a major daily problem in today’s busy life. Researchers have proposed various parking spot detection systems to overcome the problem of spending a long time searching for a parking spot. These works include a wide variety of sensors to detect the presence of a vehicle in a parking spot. These approaches are expensive to implement and ineffective in extreme weather conditions in an outdoor parking environment. As a result, a cost-effective, dependable, and time-saving parking solution is much more desirable. In this thesis, we proposed and developed an image processing-based real-time parking-spot detection system using deep-learning algorithms. In this regard, we annotated the images using the Visual Geometry Group (VGG) annotator and preprocessed the dataset using the image contrast enhancement technique that attempts to solve the illumination changes in pictures captured in an open space, followed by training the model using the Mask-R-CNN (Region-Based Convolutional Neural Network) and Faster-RCNN algorithms. ROIs (Regions of interest) are used later to determine the vacancy status of each parking spot. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our developed parking systems as we achieved a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 0.999 for the PKLot dataset and a mAP of 0.9758 for custom datasets. Furthermore, as part of the smart parking application, we developed an Android App that can be used by the end users. Our proposed intelligent parking system is scalable, cost-effective, and to the best of our knowledge, it offers higher parking spot detection accuracy than any other solutions in this domain

Placental abruption at 18 weeks of gestation: a rare case report

Placental abruption is one of several notable obstetrical entities that may be complicated by massive and sometimes torrential hemorrhage. Hypovolemic shock is caused by maternal blood loss. Delayed or incomplete treatment of hypovolemia with severe placental abruption can cause acute kidney injury, disseminated intravascular coagulation. Placental abruption is most commonly seen after 24 weeks of pregnancy and it is very rare before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Here, we report a case of life-threatening placental abruption at 18 weeks of gestation.

A Cross-Sectional Study to Assess Awareness and Practices Related to Prevention of COVID-19 Amongst Local Vendors around Medical and Dental Establishments

INTRODUCTION: Even as the world is returning to normalcy after COVID-19, there is still a need to be cautious and adopt proper hygiene practices and social distance norms. AIM: To assess the awareness and practices related to prevention of Covid-19 amongst local vendors around medical and dental establishments in Northern India. MATERIALS AND METHOD: This cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of  one month using a pre-tested and pre-validated questionnaire. Vendors near ten medical and dental establishments in north India were contacted by standardized volunteers to prevent bias. They were located within the range of 250 meters on both sides of these facilities through convenience sampling.  Data was coded, entered in MS excel, descriptive statistics were applied. Statistical tests included the student’s independent t-test and multiple logistic regression. P value was kept significant at <0.5 and software used was SPSS version 23.0. RESULTS: Most vendors were males (76.7%), were operating shops on rent (47.7%) and had passed middle school (40.2%). A Majority of them were aware of common symptoms (99.4%), while 90.1% were aware about the mode of transmission. All vendors knew about the availability of the vaccine (100%). and 78.2% of the vendors were fully vaccinated, while 04 (1.3%) were not vaccinated yet. However, only 60% (p=0.03) of the vendors practised hand washing, distancing from sick, no handshake, use a cloth while coughing/sneezing as preventive measures. CONCLUSION: There is still a need for continuous education of the food vendors regarding proper and hygienic practices as well as mask wearing to fight off this dreaded pandemic and return to normalcy as soon as possible

Stress mitigation strategies of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria: Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria mechanisms

One of the major challenges that the world is facing currently is the inadequate amount of food production with high nutrient content in accordance with the increase in population size. Moreover, availability of cultivable area with fertile soil is reducing day by day owing to ever increasing population. Further, water scarcity and expensive agricultural equipment have led to the use of agrochemicals and untreated water. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers to increase crop yield have resulted in deleterious effects on the environment, health and economy, which can be overcome to a great extent by employing biological fertilizers. There are various microbes that grows in the rhizospheric region of plants known as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). PGPR act by direct and indirect modes to stimulate plant growth and improve stress reduction in plants. PGPRs are used for potential agriculture practices having a wide range of benefits like increase in nutrients content, healthy growth of crops, production of phytohormones, prevention from heavy metal stress conditions and increase in crop yield. This review reports recent studies in crop improvement strategies using PGPR and describes the mechanisms involved. The potential mechanisms of PGPR and its allies pave the way for sustainable development towards agriculture and commercialization of potential bacteria

Impact of cropping systems on physico-chemical characteristics of surface water during different seasons in Shimla region of Himachal Pradesh

The present investigations were carried out in the year 2014 with an objective to find out the impact of different cropping systems on nearby surface water resources in Shimla region of Himachal Pradesh. The aim of the study was to monitor the surface water bodies for pollution caused by nearby cropping systems in the Shimla area. In this study fruit, fruit + vegetable, vegetable and cereal based cropping systems were selected along with control (uncultivated land) and sampling was done during winter, summer and rainy seasons. The estimated water quality parameters revealed very less organic pollution and pH values were within the BIS prescribed limits of 6.5-8.5. Under vegetable based cropping system EC (500.23 µS cm?1), TDS (329.17 mg/l), BOD (1.48 mg/l), COD (31.09 mg/l), Cl- (25.66 mg/l), Ca (75.59 mg/l) and Mg (11.14 mg/l) were in high concentration, whereas No3- content were high under fruit + vegetable based cropping system. DO were maximum (8.61mg/l) under uncultivated land. Calcium and COD were high in some samples, which could be from anthropogenic sources, rest of the parameters were within the desirable limits prescribed by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The experimental data were statistically analysed through Analysis of variance (two way classification of data) indicated positive correlation among most of the physical and chemical parameters. Study reveals that cropping systems as well as seasonal changes has affected the water quality. The study carried out for water quality parameters, revealed the correlation of each parameter with one another under different cropping systems

Serine/threonine protein phosphatase PstP of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is necessary for accurate cell division and survival of pathogen

Protein phosphatases play vital roles in phosphorylation-mediated cellular signaling. While there are 11 serine/threonine protein kinases in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, only one serine/threonine phosphatase, PstP, has been identified. Although PstP has been biochemically characterized and multiple in vitro substrates identified, its physiological role has not yet been elucidated. In this study we have investigated the impact of PstP on cell growth and survival of the pathogen in the host. Overexpression of PstP led to elongated cells and partially compromised survival. We find that depletion of PstP is detrimental to cell survival, eventually leading to cell death. PstP depletion results in elongated multiseptate cells, suggesting a role for PstP in regulating cell division events. Complementation experiments performed with PstP deletion mutants revealed marginally compromised survival, suggesting that all the domains including extracellular domain are necessary for complete rescue. On the other hand, the catalytic activity of PstP is absolutely essential for the in vitro growth. Mice infection experiments establish a definitive role for PstP in pathogen survival within the host. Depletion of PstP from established infections causes pathogen clearance, indicating the continued presence of PstP is necessary for pathogen survival. Taken together, our data suggests an important role for PstP in establishing and maintaining infection, possibly via the modulation of cell division events

Systematic analyses with genomic and metabolomic insights reveal a new species, Ophiocordyceps indica sp. nov. from treeline area of Indian Western Himalayan region

Ophiocordyceps is a species-rich genus in the order Hypocreales (Sordariomycetes, Ascomycota) depicting a fascinating relationship between microbes and insects. In the present study, a new species, Ophiocordyceps indica sp. nov., is discovered infecting lepidopteran larvae from tree line locations (2,202–2,653 m AMSL) of the Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, Indian Western Himalayan region, using combinations of morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses. A phylogeny for Ophiocordyceps based on a combined multigene (nrSSU, nrLSU, tef-1α, and RPB1) dataset is provided, and its taxonomic status within Ophiocordycipitaceae is briefly discussed. Its genome size (~59 Mb) revealed 94% genetic similarity with O. sinensis; however, it differs from other extant Ophiocordyceps species based on morphological characteristics, molecular phylogenetic relationships, and genetic distance. O. indica is identified as the second homothallic species in the family Ophiocordycipitaceae, after O. sinensis. The presence of targeted marker components, viz. nucleosides (2,303.25 μg/g), amino acids (6.15%), mannitol (10.13%), and biological activity data, suggests it to be a new potential source of nutraceutical importance. Data generated around this economically important species will expand our understanding regarding the diversity of Ophiocordyceps-like taxa from new locations, thus providing new research avenues