Kajian Pelaksanaan Program Insiminasi Buatan dalam Mendukung Program Pencapain Sejuta Ekor Sapi Pemerintah Sulawesi Selatan

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui perkembangan populasi sapi, tingkat kelahiran dan hasil pelaksanaan Inseminasi Buatan di Sulawesi Selatan dan sejauh mana optimalisasi pelaksanaan IB di Sulawesi Selatan dalam mendukung program pemerintah Gerakan Pencapaian Populasi Sapi Sejuta Ekor (GPPSS) tahun 2013. Penelitian dilaksanakan mulai bulan Mei 2010 di kabupaten Bantaeng, Bulukumba, Soppeng, Barru, Sidrap, dan Pinrang dengan mengumpulkan data primer dan sekunder yang diperoleh berdasarkan jenis data kualitatif dan data kuantitatif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa trend kelahiran hasil IB dan kawin alam dari ke 6 (enam) kabupaten pada tahun 2006 sampai dengan tahun 2009 rata-rata mencapai 38,89%. Dari acuan tersebut didapatkan asumsi jumlah populasi total pada tahun 2013 ditaksir sebanyak 843.225 ekor sedangkan untuk trend kelahiran hasil IB saja didapatkan dari ke 6 (enam) kabupaten pada tahun 2006 sampai dengan tahun 2009 rata-rata mencapai 38,36% dengan asumsi untuk jumlah populasi total pada tahun 2013 untuk kelahiran IB sebanyak 811.318 ekor. Jika diasumsikan trend kelahiran 50% berdasarkan tingkat kelahiran di negara lain, maka didapatkan jumlah populasi akan mencapai 995.894 ekor, sedangkan prediksi GPPSS 2013 mencapai 1.0167.29 ekor sapi. Penelitian ini dapat disimpulkan bahwa populasi ternak sapi Propinsi Sulawesi Selatan menunjukkan peningkatan dari tahun 2006 yaitu 637.128 ekor menjadi 703.965 pada tahun 2009, dan populasi hasil IB di setiap kabupaten cenderung mengalami peningkatan setiap tahunnya meskipun pertambahannya relatif sedikit sehingga dapat diprediksi bahwa jumlah kelahiran hasil IB tidak dapat mendukung program pemerintah GPPSS 2013 dengan demikian target pemerintah Propinsi Sulawesi Selatan mengenai program sejuta ekor sapi tidak dapat tercapai jika trend kelahiran tetap pada nilai 38,8% sampai tahun 2013

Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in Incarcerated Populations

Alarming disparities in population health and wellness in the United States have led to multi-disciplinary research efforts to create health equity. Identifying disparities, elucidating the etiological bases of disparities, and implementing solutions to eliminate disparities are part of the U.S. national health agenda. Racial and ethnic disparities have been identified throughout the cancer control continuum, in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and a multitude of other conditions. The causes of disparities are complex, condition specific, and conjectured to result from combinations of biological and socio-behavioral factors. Racial and ethnic health disparities within the vast incarcerated communities have been excluded from most studies, yet are of significant ethical and fiscal concern to inmates, governing bodies, and non-incarcerated communities into which inmates return. Importantly, research on racial and ethnic disparities in this unique population may shed light on the relative etiologies of health disparities and solutions for creating health equity throughout the general population in the United States

Is endoanal, introital or transperineal ultrasound diagnosis of sphincter defects more strongly associated with anal incontinence?

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Our aim was to explore the association between anal incontinence (AI) and persistent anal sphincter defects diagnosed with 3D endoanal (EAUS), introital (IUS) and transperineal ultrasound (TPUS) in women after obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASI) and study the association between sphincter defects and anal pressure. METHODS: We carried out a cross-sectional study of 250 women with OASI recruited during the period 2013-2015. They were examined 6-12 weeks postpartum or in a subsequent pregnancy with 3D EAUS, IUS and TPUS and measurement of anal pressure. Prevalence of urgency/solid/liquid AI or flatal AI and anal pressure were compared in women with a defect and those with an intact sphincter (diagnosed off-line) using Chi-squared and Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: At a mean of 23.6 (SD 30.1) months after OASI, more women with defect than those with intact sphincters on EAUS had AI; urgency/solid/liquid AI vs external defect: 36% vs 13% and flatal AI vs internal defect: 27% vs 13%, p < 0.05. On TPUS, more women with defect sphincters had flatal AI: 32% vs 13%, p = 0.03. No difference was found on IUS. Difference between defect and intact sphincters on EAUS, IUS and TPUS respectively was found for mean [SD] maximum anal resting pressure (48 [13] vs 55 [14] mmHg; 48 [12] vs 56 [13] mmHg; 50 [13] vs 54 [14] mmHg) and squeeze incremental pressure (33 [17] vs 49 [28] mmHg; 37 [23] vs 50 [28] mmHg; 36 [18] vs 50 [30] mmHg; p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Endoanal ultrasound had the strongest association with AI symptoms 2 years after OASI. Sphincter defects detected using all ultrasound methods were associated with lower anal pressure

Utilizing of Elemental Sulfur from Oil and Gas Industry for Soil Treatment

The United Arab Emirates produces a large quantity of elemental sulfur from oil and gas industry. Elemental sulfur is widely used as soil treatment technique for reducing pH of alkaline soils than other techniques because it is cheaper and safer during treatment. In this study, different designs mixes were prepared based on its content of sulfur and calcium carbonate. Different application rates of elemental sulfur (0, 1, 2, and 3%S) were added to soils having different amounts of calcium carbonates (i.e., 16.2, 21.2, 26.2, 36.2, 46.2, and 56.2% for basic mix design, and mix designs types I, II, III, IV, and V, respectively. The changes in soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and sulfate concentration were measured at different time intervals (0, 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 days) and statistically analyzed. Furthermore, mineral transformations were quantified via scanning electron microscope, x-ray diffraction analysis and energy depressive x-ray techniques. Mineral transformations were further analyzed in view of possible chemical reactions and thermodynamic modeling. The study concluded that sulfur addition for all treatments of basic mix design, mix design types I, III, IV, and V has no significant influence on pH changes but has high significance on pH changes for mix design type II as determined via statistical analysis. In this mix design, pH decreased by 1.14, 1.22, 1.27, 1.24 and 1.28 units after 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 days, respectively. For all treatment cases, sulfur addition has high influence on EC changes except for mix design type III that indicates no significance. For sulfur oxidation, similar conclusion to EC changes was reached. Furthermore, available water-soluble sulfate was highly correlated with EC. As sulfate increases, EC increases and vice versa

VarSim: A Fast Process Variation-aware Thermal Modeling Methodology Using Green's Functions

Despite temperature rise being a first-order design constraint, traditional thermal estimation techniques have severe limitations in modeling critical aspects affecting the temperature in modern-day chips. Existing thermal modeling techniques often ignore the effects of parameter variation, which can lead to significant errors. Such methods also ignore the dependence of conductivity on temperature and its variation. Leakage power is also incorporated inadequately by state-of-the-art techniques. Thermal modeling is a process that has to be repeated at least thousands of times in the design cycle, and hence speed is of utmost importance. To overcome these limitations, we propose VarSim, an ultrafast thermal simulator based on Green's functions. Green's functions have been shown to be faster than the traditional finite difference and finite element-based approaches but have rarely been employed in thermal modeling. Hence we propose a new Green's function-based method to capture the effects of leakage power as well as process variation analytically. We provide a closed-form solution for the Green's function considering the effects of variation on the process, temperature, and thermal conductivity. In addition, we propose a novel way of dealing with the anisotropicity introduced by process variation by splitting the Green's functions into shift-variant and shift-invariant components. Since our solutions are analytical expressions, we were able to obtain speedups that were several orders of magnitude over and above state-of-the-art proposals with a mean absolute error limited to 4% for a wide range of test cases. Furthermore, our method accurately captures the steady-state as well as the transient variation in temperature.Comment: 15 page

Reconnection of superfluid vortex bundles

Using the vortex filament model and the Gross Pitaevskii nonlinear Schroedinger equation, we show that bundles of quantised vortex lines in helium II are structurally robust and can reconnect with each other maintaining their identity. We discuss vortex stretching in superfluid turbulence and show that, during the bundle reconnection process, Kelvin waves of large amplitude are generated, in agreement with the finding that helicity is produced by nearly singular vortex interactions in classical Euler flows.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure