Assessment of livestock marketing associations in arid and semi-arid lands in northern Kenya

United States Agency for International Developmen

Evaluation of the Effects of Powder Coating Cure Temperatures on the Mechanical Properties of Aluminum Alloy Substrates

The effects of curing temperature, based on new, low-temperature powder coating methods and traditional high-temperature powder coating methods, were studied. Heat-sensitive aluminum alloys (2024-T3, 6061-T6, and 7075-T6) were subjected to two different heat-treatment cycles, which were based on temperatures of 121 and 204 degrees C. Findings indicate that although both cure temperatures achieved powder coatings adhesion and thickness appropriate for industrial uses, the high-temperature cure treatment negatively affected the mechanical properties

The Global Alliance for Infections in Surgery : defining a model for antimicrobial stewardship-results from an international cross-sectional survey

Background: Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs (ASPs) have been promoted to optimize antimicrobial usage and patient outcomes, and to reduce the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant organisms. However, the best strategies for an ASP are not definitively established and are likely to vary based on local culture, policy, and routine clinical practice, and probably limited resources in middle-income countries. The aim of this study is to evaluate structures and resources of antimicrobial stewardship teams (ASTs) in surgical departments from different regions of the world. Methods: A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted in 2016 on 173 physicians who participated in the AGORA (Antimicrobials: A Global Alliance for Optimizing their Rational Use in Intra-Abdominal Infections) project and on 658 international experts in the fields of ASPs, infection control, and infections in surgery. Results: The response rate was 19.4%. One hundred fifty-six (98.7%) participants stated their hospital had a multidisciplinary AST. The median number of physicians working inside the team was five [interquartile range 4-6]. An infectious disease specialist, a microbiologist and an infection control specialist were, respectively, present in 80.1, 76.3, and 67.9% of the ASTs. A surgeon was a component in 59.0% of cases and was significantly more likely to be present in university hospitals (89.5%, p <0.05) compared to community teaching (83.3%) and community hospitals (66.7%). Protocols for pre-operative prophylaxis and for antimicrobial treatment of surgical infections were respectively implemented in 96.2 and 82.3% of the hospitals. The majority of the surgical departments implemented both persuasive and restrictive interventions (72.8%). The most common types of interventions in surgical departments were dissemination of educational materials (62.5%), expert approval (61.0%), audit and feedback (55.1%), educational outreach (53.7%), and compulsory order forms (51.5%). Conclusion: The survey showed a heterogeneous organization of ASPs worldwide, demonstrating the necessity of a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach in the battle against antimicrobial resistance in surgical infections, and the importance of educational efforts towards this goal.Peer reviewe

Phase-dependent spin polarization of Cooper pairs in magnetic Josephson junctions

© 2019 American Physical Society. Superconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures (SF) have attracted much interest in the past decades, due to a variety of interesting phenomena predicted and observed in these structures. One of them is the so-called inverse proximity effect. It is described by a spin polarization of Cooper pairs, which occurs not only in the ferromagnet (F), but also in the superconductor (S), yielding a finite magnetic moment MS inside the superconductor. This effect has been predicted and experimentally studied. However, interpretation of the experimental data is mostly ambiguous. Here, we study theoretically the impact of the spin polarized Cooper pairs on the Josephson effect in an SFS junction. We show that the induced magnetic moment MS does depend on the phase difference φ and, therefore, will oscillate in time with the Josephson frequency 2eV/â., if the current exceeds a critical value. Most importantly, the spin polarization in the superconductor causes a significant change in the Fraunhofer pattern, which can be easily accessed experimentally

Phase-dependent spin polarization of Cooper pairs in magnetic Josephson junctions

© 2019 American Physical Society. Superconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures (SF) have attracted much interest in the past decades, due to a variety of interesting phenomena predicted and observed in these structures. One of them is the so-called inverse proximity effect. It is described by a spin polarization of Cooper pairs, which occurs not only in the ferromagnet (F), but also in the superconductor (S), yielding a finite magnetic moment MS inside the superconductor. This effect has been predicted and experimentally studied. However, interpretation of the experimental data is mostly ambiguous. Here, we study theoretically the impact of the spin polarized Cooper pairs on the Josephson effect in an SFS junction. We show that the induced magnetic moment MS does depend on the phase difference φ and, therefore, will oscillate in time with the Josephson frequency 2eV/â., if the current exceeds a critical value. Most importantly, the spin polarization in the superconductor causes a significant change in the Fraunhofer pattern, which can be easily accessed experimentally

SnSe2 island films investigation

In this paper, heterostructures with self-organized quantum dots have been produced using incongruent evaporation. Island films on the basis of the intermediate phases forming in the Sn–Se have been grown. The surface morphology of the structures has been studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM). A certain change of the band gap confirms the presence of quantum states in the electron spectrum of the structures. We have found that for obtaining structures with a homogeneous distribution of islands the process of incongruent evaporation should be carried out at high condensate selection rates. By varying the rate of incongruent evaporation of the film material one can achieve directed growth of islet films with a preset islet size distribution

Robust GNC approach for quantised compressed sensing

Practical acquisition of compressed sensing measurements involves a finite-range finite-precision quantisation step. To solve the sparse recovery problem and handle the quantisation distortion, this Letter proposes a non-smooth graduated-non-convexity approach that follows a path of gradually improved solutions along a sequence of non-smooth non-convex optimisation problems that progressively promote quantisation consistency (QC) and sparsity. We consider two classes of multi-scale continuous approximation functions to depict intermediate QC degrees and sparsity-inducing strengths, respectively, and apply recent proximal splitting methods to solve the resulting subproblem at each refinement scale. The simulations demonstrate the convergence of intermediate solutions to a nearly optimal estimation, in terms of accuracy and support recovery.Scopu

Urinary bladder melanosis with complete resolution case report

Abstract Background Melanosis of the bladder is a rare condition characterized by multifocal, diffuse melanin pigmentation of the urothelial mucosa or lamina propria without any proliferation of melanocytes. Less than 25 cases have been reported so far of which only four patients had concurrent urothelial carcinoma. Case presentation We are reporting a case of melanosis of the bladder in a 58-year-old female associated with pTaG1 transitional urothelial cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder who presented with symptoms of recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI). Cystoscopy and biopsy results confirmed benign melanosis. Conclusion Our case is unique because bladder melanosis associated low grade TCC with complete resolution of both conditions within one year