Implication on Our Universe of Pressure Exerted By Multiverses in Multiple Dimensions

Recent experiments have provided scientific basis for the existence of multiverses - multiple physical universes located in space. String theory coupled with experiments with the quantum machine experiment further position multiverses not just as multiple universes in space, but also in time. While many papers have debated the scientific foundations for these concepts, few have evolved theories about the implications on earth of the existence of multiverses in space and time. In this paper, the author discusses the possible implications of multiverses due to pressure exerted by them in multiple dimensions. The author explores different effects of multiverses on physical phenomena experienced on earth such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and climate change, categorized by the levels of multiverse and the multiple dimensions in which pressure would be exerted

Explosive Risk Assessment for Hydrogen Use in Domestic Applications

The UK government aims to shift towards hydrogen-based energy for domestic applications between 2028-2035. While hydrogen is a carbon neutral resource, it has a very low ignition energy (0.019mJ) and high flammability range (4-75% in air). This project aims to understand the use of hydrogen in the natural gas network as a replacement for methane and especially assess the explosive threat posed by this. More specifically, the project focuses on the simulation (and experimental validation) of hydrogen gas flow in pipes and enclosed spaces (such as boiler cabinets) to enable visualisation of the explosive threat (including deflagration-to-detonation transition) in case of an accident. Mathematical and computational simulations were used to estimate the pressure loss of gases in pipes of different diameters (0.01m - 1m) and materials (Polyethylene and X52 steel). Simulations for the turbulent flow of hydrogen and methane in pipes of different diameters showed that hydrogen has to be transported at approximately 2.5-2.7 times the velocity used for methane, to replicate the pressure loss per meter. From the mathematical models, it was noted that different pipe materials influence the pressure loss in turbulent gas flow due to the relationship between absolute roughness of the material and friction factor. While the mathematical model and computational model have slightly different approaches to estimate turbulent flow, the results from the two are largely in agreement with an approximate error of 10%.DN

Looking For A Solution: Social Justice Education and Its Impact on Adolescent Empowerment

Schooling can often function as a mechanism of oppression specifically for low-income and minority youth. This study is an exploration of how a social justice education impacts adolescent empowerment. It is an attempt to gain a deeper knowledge into the ways participants were influenced by this form of schooling, a pedagogy derived in response to silenced youth to be agents of social change. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between social justice education and empowerment, and to investigate their lived experiences during high school and the ways in which empowerment emerged in their lives, I conducted a narrative inquiry research study with five participants who were alumni of a social justice high school. In this study these participants shared their stories of lived experiences before, during and post high school. This study also focused on the impact of the surrounding school community, participants\u27 neighborhoods, and community organizations on their empowerment during the time participants attended high school. This theoretical lens, social reconstructionism, enabled an examination of empowerment. The findings were analyzed for commonality and five themes emerged from the data including: personal strength, social connectedness, critical consciousness, action, and hope. The results of this study suggest a more cohesive and multidimensional definition of youth empowerment. Additionally, this study also shows how the unique social justice education experienced by the five participants and the lived experiences in their surrounding community together empowered them and enabled participants to transform their lives and re-envision their identities. The relationship between the individual, community, and the school was integral. In addition, this research makes it clear that empowerment happens simultaneously and synergistically with individuals and in collective units such as communities (including school communities); empowerment in this sense is overlapping and synergistically linked, a contrast to US based empowerment literature which posits more linear, unidirectional models

An Unusual ED Case: Spontaneous Necrotizing Fasciitis Presenting as Hypoxic Pneumonia

We present a case of necrotizing fasciitis initially presenting as septic hypoxic pneumonia, and discuss imaging modalities and diagnostic evaluation. Necrotizing soft tissue infection (NSTI) is a rapidly progressive surgical emergency with a mortality rate of 30%. In approximately 80% of cases, it is introduced through a break in the skin. It can also occur after any invasive procedure or surgery. It is most commonly associated with skin flora including staph and strep, though polymicrobial infections are most common. It usually presents with signs of systemic infection, including fever, chills, sepsis, altered mental status - and signs of cutaneous involvement on physical exam, including erythema / discoloration, sloughing and blistering, and pain out of proportion to exam, and crepitus. The crepitus or findings of subcutaneous emphysema on imaging are due to gas-producing bacteria from polymicrobial infection. Blood work can help support the diagnosis of a systemic infection, including things like elevated white blood cell count, elevated lactic acidosis, and other systemic inflammatory markers. Imaging can show signs of free air, particularly on x-ray, ultrasound, or CT. Poor prognosis is associated with comorbidities, advanced age, immunocompromised state, shock. The definitive treatment is early surgical debridement of the necrosed tissue, and antibiotics. Surgical exploration usually confirms the diagnosis, with foul gray fluid expressed, necrosis and gangrene of underlying tissues and muscles, and friability of muscles on dissection. Hypoxia and tachypnea can have a broad differential diagnosis, including but not limited to reactive airway disease, heart failure, pneumonia, pulmonary emboli. In the setting of fever and cough, a working clinical diagnosis of pneumonia can be considered

Exploring learning implications of the distance secondary school teacher training in Malawi: a case study of Mzuzu University and Domasi College of Education.

Doctoral Degrees. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.This study is an interpretive-qualitative case study grounded in the literature regarding institutional organisation of distance education founded on the industrial education theory. In regard to the differences in adoption and enactment of distance education amongst institutions, it was important to understand the learning implications of the distance teacher training in Malawi.Within the interpretive parameters, the study blends tenets of the industrial education (Peters, 1973), conversational learning (Holmberg, 2003) and phenomenology (van Manen, 1995) theories in a single theoretical framework. Globally, distance education founded on dual mode institutions is enacted parallel to traditional education requiring the establishment of a distinct system with sub-systems within the traditional parameters to serve the distance mode. This thesis explores the nature of institutional organisation of the Mzuzu University and Domasi College of Education as dual mode institutions in Malawi using industrial aspects of planning, coordination,specialisation, division of labour, and mass production of instructional materials. The study further employs real and mediated aspects of conversational learning, and lived and shared experiences from phenomenology to explore student teachers learning experiences and implications. Data was generated through semi-structured interviews, organisational and academic documents while Miles and Huberman (1994) framework of qualitative data analysis and Moustakas (1994) psychological data analysis procedure guided its analysis. The study revealed that there are challenges with the one-size-fits-all approach in the enactment of distance teacher training in Malawi. The study presents a distance education system for Malawi teacher training for an in-depth understanding of open and distance education in theory and practice within the one-size-fits-all philosophy. The study thus, modifies the industrial education theory to incorporate conversational learning and phenomenology so as to change the rigidity of industrial education by employing mediated and real conversation and promoting sharing of lived experiences

Estimating Numbers without Regression

Despite recent successes in language models, their ability to represent numbers is insufficient. Humans conceptualize numbers based on their magnitudes, effectively projecting them on a number line; whereas subword tokenization fails to explicitly capture magnitude by splitting numbers into arbitrary chunks. To alleviate this shortcoming, alternative approaches have been proposed that modify numbers at various stages of the language modeling pipeline. These methods change either the (1) notation in which numbers are written (\eg scientific vs decimal), the (2) vocabulary used to represent numbers or the entire (3) architecture of the underlying language model, to directly regress to a desired number. Previous work suggests that architectural change helps achieve state-of-the-art on number estimation but we find an insightful ablation: changing the model's vocabulary instead (\eg introduce a new token for numbers in range 10-100) is a far better trade-off. In the context of masked number prediction, a carefully designed tokenization scheme is both the simplest to implement and sufficient, \ie with similar performance to the state-of-the-art approach that requires making significant architectural changes. Finally, we report similar trends on the downstream task of numerical fact estimation (for Fermi Problems) and discuss reasons behind our findings.Comment: Workshop on Insights from Negative Results in NLP at EACL 202

Effect of herbal combination of triphala and garcinia cambogia extracts on anthropometric measurements and lipid profile in high fat diet induced obesity in rats

Background: Obesity, occurring at epidemic rates globally, is a major risk factor for DM and CVD. Despite advances in understanding its pathogenesis, the pharmacotherapy for obesity remains limited for achievable weight loss, safety and tolerability of the medicines. Almost all approved medications for long term use in obesity treatment result in health issues. Due to the ADRs associated with many antiobesity drugs, the drug trials have focused on screening herbal medicines that are reportedly used in the treatment of obesity and which have minimal side effects.Methods: In this study rats were divided into eight groups of six rats each. In the first approach, the rats were first made obese by feeding HFD for three weeks. In the second, treatment with the herbal extracts was given simultaneously with the HFD to the experimental rats. Rat were fed HFD for six weeks along with treatment of herbal extracts and the effect on their body weight, daily food intake and lipid-profile were evaluated.Results: Results showed that rats fed HFD for a six week period, supplemented with herbal preparations of triphala and G. cambogia presented with significant reduction in body weight, energy intake, and improved the lipid-profile as compared to the rats fed with HFD group.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that triphala and G. cambogia can counter the effects of HFD intake and have the potential for use as antiobesity agents with desirable body weight, food intake, fluid intake, and lipid-profile modulating properties

Multifocal Tubercular Osteomyelitis: A Case with Atypical Manifestations

Skeletal tuberculosis (TB) accounts for about 1–2% of all TB cases and 10% of extrapulmonary TB cases. We present a 19-year-old male with multifocal tubercular osteomyelitis, who presented with progressively worsening back pain, weight loss, fatigue, anorexia, decreased mobility, low-grade fever, and night sweats—but without pulmonary involvement

Factors Associated with Coverage and Usage of Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets in Madagascar

In October 2007, long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) were distributed in 59 of the 111 districts in Madagascar as part of a nationwide child survival campaign. A community-based cross-sectional survey was conducted six months post-campaign to evaluate net ownership, use and equity. Here, we examined the effects of socioeconomic factors on LLIN ownership and usage in districts with and without net distribution during the campaign. Our data demonstrated that in districts with LLIN distribution, LLIN ownership was similar across all wealth groups in households with at least one child under the age of five years (90.5% versus 88.6%); in districts without net distribution, 57.8% of households in the poorest tertile compared to 90.1% of households in the least poor tertile owned at least one LLIN. In contrast, in LLIN-owning households, both in districts with and without net distribution, higher socio-economic status was not associated with use among children under five years. These findings suggest that socio-economic status contributes to the household net ownership but once a household owns a net, socio-economic status is not associated with net use

Factors associated with increased survival after surgical resection of glioblastoma in octogenarians.

Elderly patients with glioblastoma represent a clinical challenge for neurosurgeons and oncologists. The data available on outcomes of patients greater than 80 undergoing resection is limited. In this study, factors linked to increased survival in patients over the age of 80 were analyzed. A retrospective chart review of all patients over the age of 80 with a new diagnosis of glioblastoma and who underwent surgical resection with intent for maximal resection were examined. Patients who had only stereotactic biopsies were excluded. Immunohistochemical expression of oncogenic drivers (p53, EGFR, IDH-1) and a marker of cell proliferation (Ki-67 index) performed upon routine neuropathological examination were recorded. Stepwise logistic regression and Kaplan Meier survival curves were plotted to determine correlations to overall survival. Fifty-eight patients fit inclusion criteria with a mean age of 83 (range 80-93 years). The overall median survival was 4.2 months. There was a statistically significant correlation between Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) and overall survival (P < 0.05). There was a significantly longer survival among patients undergoing either radiation alone or radiation and chemotherapy compared to those who underwent no postoperative adjuvant therapy (p < 0.05). There was also an association between overall survival and lack of p53 expression (p < 0.001) and lack of EGFR expression (p <0.05). In this very elderly population, overall survival advantage was conferred to those with higher preoperative KPS, postoperative adjuvant therapy, and lack of protein expression of EGFR and p53. These findings may be useful in clinical decision analysis for management of patients with glioblastoma who are octogenarians, and also validate the critical role of EGFR and p53 expression in oncogenesis, particularly with advancing age