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Abstract Young people’s sexual and reproductive health (SRH) continues to be a major challenge in low and middle-income countries, with implications for public health now and in the future. Fortunately there is a growing array of evidence-based interventions, and commitments from governments, development partners and donors, to support programmes that aim to improve young people’s SRH. However, in some situations, the technical assistance that governments feel that they need to strengthen and implement national policies and strategies, to move from words to action, is not available. The WHO Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (AYSRHR) Technical Assistance (TA) Coordination Mechanism was initiated to help fill this technical assistance gap; to respond to TA requests from ministries of health in ways that are timely, efficient, effective and contribute to strengthening capacity. This paper describes the process of developing the Technical Assistance Coordination Mechanism (TA Mechanism) and the outcomes, experiences and lessons learned after three years of working. It triangulates the findings from a preliminary review of the literature and discussions with selected key informants; the outcomes from a series of structured review meetings; and the documented processes and results of the technical assistance provided to countries. The lessons learned focus on three aspects of the TA Mechanism. How it was conceptualized and designed: through listening to people who provide and receive AYSRHR TA and by reviewing and synthesizing past experiences of TA provision. What the TA Mechanism has achieved: a standardized process for TA provision, at different stages for a range of AYSRHR issues in ten countries in three geographic regions. And what worked well and what did not: which common challenges was the TA Mechanism able to address and which ones persisted despite efforts to avoid or resolve them. The paper ends with the implications of the lessons learned for future action.

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of month of the year on postsurgical outcomes after primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and to specifically analyze for a December effect. Material and methods: The National Inpatient Sample was used to identify all patients older than 40 years undergoing primary TKA and THA between 2006 and 2015. Patients were stratified based on the month of the year of surgery. In-hospital complication, disposition, and economic outcomes were comparatively analyzed. Results: There were statistically significant differences in outcomes based on month of the year. When comparing December to the other months, both TKA and THA patients had significantly lower rates of any complication, postoperative anemia, and genitourinary complications, while there were significantly higher rates of home than rehab discharge and shorter average length of stay in December. THA patients additionally had significantly lower rates of cardiac and respiratory complications during December. Conclusion: Postoperative outcomes are significantly associated with the month in which arthroplasty is performed. This study provides evidence of a positive “December effect” of improved in-hospital complications and economic outcomes for surgeries performed in December. Future research should direct attention to the impact that social factors may have on outcomes after elective surgical procedures and how these factors may be translated to other months.

We report threshold collision induced dissociation experiments on protonated water clusters thermalized at low temperature for sizes n = 19–23. Fragmentation cross sections are recorded as a function of the collision energy and analyzed with a statistical model. This model allows us to account for dissociation cascades and provides values for the dissociation energies of each cluster. These values, averaging around 0.47 eV, are in good agreement with theoretical predictions at various levels of theory. Furthermore, the dissociation energies show a trend for the n = 21 magic and n = 22 anti-magic numbers relative to their neighbours, which is also in agreement with theory. These results provide further evidence to resolve the disagreement between previously published experimental values. A careful quantitative treatment of cascade dissociation in this model introduces interdependence between the dissociation energies of neighboring sizes, which reduces the number of free fitting parameters and improves both reliability and uncertainties on absolute dissociation energies deduced from experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and autoethnographically analyzes three key sites in which the author—a Lebanese "Arabo-Muslim man"—failed to interpellate the lifeworlds of Lebanese "Arabo-Muslim" female participants during a research project in Lebanon: the public-private divide, gender, and the autonomous subject. Specifically, the article identifies key forces that produce this failure, including education, presence in the Westernized university, Westernized secularization, social class, family background, and urbanity, all situated within the larger structures of modernity/coloniality. Doing this, the article grates against the assumption that researchers who share a "race," citizenship, language, or ethnicity and who are "from" the Arab region are de facto well placed to pursue decolonial knowledge production alongside the region and its dwellers. The article consequently posits the possibility of unlearning and relearning—disrupting this failure—through immersive embodied listening fieldwork within the material space of the Arab world, undoing the formation of an alienated, fractured, Westernized self. Moving beyond the cognitive and theoretical to the material, experiential, and embodied, the article accordingly underlines reflexive listening fieldwork's potential as a generative site (among others) from which alternative knowledges of/with/on the global South(s) can emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Transplantation is a field with unique medical and administrative challenges that involve an equally diverse array of stakeholders. Expectantly, the litigation stemming from this field should be similarly nuanced. There is a paucity of comprehensive reviews characterizing this medicolegal landscape. Design: The Caselaw Access Project Database was used to collect official court briefs of 2053 lawsuits related to kidney, liver, heart, lung, and pancreas transplantation. A thematic analysis was undertaken to characterize grounds for litigation, defendant type, and outcomes. Cases were grouped into policy, discrimination, poor or unsuccessful outcome, or other categories. Results: One hundred sixty-four court cases were included for analysis. Cases involving disputes over policy coverage were the most common across all organ types (N = 55, 33.5%). This was followed by poor outcomes (N = 51, 31.1%), allegations of discrimination against prison systems and employers (N = 37, 22.6%) and other (N = 21, 12.8%). Defendants involved in discrimination trials won with the greatest frequency (N = 29, 90.62%). Defendants implicated in policy suits won 65.3% (N = 32), poor outcomes 62.2% (N = 28), and other 70% (N = 14). Of the 51 cases involving poor outcomes, plaintiffs indicated lack of informed consent in 23 (45.1%). Conclusion: Reconsidering the informed consent process may be a viable means of mitigating future legal action. Most discrimination suits favoring defendants suggested previous concerns of structural injustices in transplantation may not be founded. The prevalence of policy-related cases could be an indication of financial burden on patients. Future work and advocacy will need to substantiate these concerns and address change where legal recourse falls short. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that inflammatory processes in the vicinity of bone often induce osteoclast formation and bone resorption. Effects of inflammatory processes on bone formation are less studied. Therefore, we investigated the effect of locally induced inflammation on bone formation. Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2 agonists LPS from Porphyromonas gingivalis and PAM2 were injected once subcutaneously above mouse calvarial bones. After five days, both agonists induced bone formation mainly at endocranial surfaces. The injection resulted in progressively increased calvarial thickness during 21 days. Excessive new bone formation was mainly observed separated from bone resorption cavities. Anti- RANKL did not affect the increase of bone formation. Inflammation caused increased bone formation rate due to increased mineralizing surfaces as assessed by dynamic histomorphometry. In areas close to new bone formation, an abundance of proliferating cells was observed as well as cells robustly stained for Runx2 and alkaline phosphatase. PAM2 increased the mRNA expression of Lrp5, Lrp6 and Wnt7b, and decreased the expression of Sost and Dkk1. In situ hybridization demonstrated decreased Sost mRNA expression in osteocytes present in old bone. An abundance of cells expressed Wnt7b in Runx2-positive osteoblasts and ß-catenin in areas with new bone formation. These data demonstrate that inflammation, not only induces osteoclastogenesis, but also locally activates canonical WNT signaling and stimulates new bone formation independent on bone resorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the remarkable properties and potential applications of III-nitride (III-N) semiconductors have sparked a significant interest in the field of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Traditionally, III-N MEMS are fabricated through a process involving the epitaxial growth of III-N epilayers on a silicon substrate followed by etching the handle wafer to generate free-standing structures. In this study, we explore the potential of a relatively simple approach based on the two-dimensional (2D) material-based liftoff and transfer to fabricate III-N mechanical resonators. The methodology involves van der Waals epitaxy of III-N layers on 2D hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN), which leverages the weak van der Waals adhesion between h-BN layers to lift off and transfer these layers from their original growth substrate to an alternative host substrate. The employed method is demonstrated by fabricating 600 nm thick GaN/AlGaN and 2.5 μm thick h-BN micro-resonators onto pre-patterned cavities etched in silicon substrates. These devices are characterized using laser Doppler vibrometry, enabling the observation of well-defined modes of vibration and resonant frequencies. Furthermore, finite element method simulations are performed to gain insights into the experimental observations and the mechanical properties of the transferred layers. This approach could be extended to transfer high-quality III-N MEMS devices onto various host substrates, including flexible substrates, and could be used to assess the mechanical properties of emerging III-N semiconductor materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of achieving the desired goal of the educational learning process, it was necessary to devote attention to educational means and employ them in this field because of their great role in overcoming the difficulties facing the learning process and providing an educational environment that keeps abreast of the scientific developments. This is the goal of the research in which the researchers wanted to know the effect of the educational techniques in the development of apprentice students' skills in teaching. The research consisted of the problem of the research which is: what is the impact of educational techniques on developing the apprentice students' teaching skills in the Faculty of Fine Arts? In addition to its importance, objectives and hypotheses, and the definition of the terms in the title. The theoretical framework dealt with the educational techniques, their importance and their effective role in the educational process. The procedures used by the researchers included the methodology and the random sample which consisted of (40) students who were distributed equally into two controlling and experimental groups. The two researchers, after conducting the analysis, reached a set of results, the most important of which are the results that confirm the clear effect of the educational techniques on the students, and the researchers reached at the following conclusions: There are no differences in the assessment of teaching skills between the form approved by the college and the form used by the researchers. The educational techniques used by the researchers had the same effect in developing the teaching skills of the experimental group.

visibly Muslim women in Lebanon, a small country on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, experience significant anti-Muslim racism. Thinking through their anti-racist work, this article identifies and examines a refusal – a pre-emptive move away from power rather than against it that works to make it obsolete and survive despite it. Analysing this movement away, I argue, reveals it as a movement towards a neoliberal 'civilized', 'cultured', and consumer subject assimilating into Eurocentric modernity/coloniality while surviving in the materiality of its Muslimness. The article accordingly posits this as a form of 'messy refusal' – implicated in the cultural and epistemic reproduction of Eurocentric modernity/coloniality – and complexifies refusal's growing celebration across anti/post/decolonial and indigenous scholarship. In doing this, it contributes to rethinking anti-Islamophobia from the so-called Middle East rather than Euro-America and examining it as a longer process rather than exclusively focusing on the racist moment and site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on qualitative phenomenological research alongside village dwellers in Lebanon, this article identifies village-ness – an experience of being labelled as 'non-urban' with an upbringing and habitus considered to be 'of the village' – as difference and lack. I accordingly argue for the recognition of a hierarchization between those considered 'city people' and 'village people' in mainstream Lebanese imaginary that establishes experiences of discrimination, prejudice, and assault. Developing this, the article explores participants' understandings of transformation improving these conditions. (Western-style) education, (capitalist) employment, (modern) technology, and a deepened connectivity to the city emerge as key variables in this respect. This change, my analysis shows, is conceptualised as 'becoming urban' understood as 'becoming modern', where Modernity is specifically framed as a Western-centric formation with discourses of 'civility', linear time, 'development', and 'progress' dominant. Accordingly, the article posits that the construction, inferiorisation, and assault of village-ness is a key site of the establishment and (re)production of a Eurocentric 'urban modernity' at the level of everyday lived experiences. Recognising that this phenomenon extends far beyond Lebanon, I posit the need to seriously bring the 'urban question' into anti/post/decolonial thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) has been proven to be causally associated to genetically defined and metabolically produced changes in lipid metabolism, as seen in numerous kinds of dyslipidemia. Objective: The aim of the present study was to assess the lipid profile in patients with chronic coronary syndrome. Patients and Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted at Sohag University Hospital and included 100 patients with chronic coronary syndrome. The examined if our patients could achieve the target lipid profile level of their group according to 2019 ESC/EAS Guidelines for the management of dyslipidaemia. History of CAD and family history were taken. Clinical presentation and body mass index (BMI) were assessed. Finally, lifestyle, drug history (lipid lowering drug, anti HTN drug and anti-platelets drugs), dietary intake assessment and physical exercise were evaluated. Results: Patients had a mean HDL-C level of 39.4 91mg/dL, a mean total cholesterol level of 188.91mg/dL, a mean LDL-C level of 119.67mg/dL and a mean triglyceride level of 149.15mg/dL. HDL-C was significantly lower for nonstatin therapy group compared to statin therapy group (P<0.001), while triglycerides and vLDL were significantly higher non-statin therapy group compared to statin therapy group (P<0.001). Only 8% of patients achieved target LDL-C according to 2019 ESC/EAS guidelines. Conclusion: Most of patients at Sohag University Hospital are not reaching the target LDL-C. Thus, more strict application of guidelines and investigating the predisposing factors for uncontrolled lipid profile, especially in patients with CAD, are urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An irreversible conversion process is a dynamic process on a graph where a one-way change of state (from state 0 to state 1) is applied on the vertices if they satisfy a conversion rule that is determined at the beginning of the study. The irreversible k -threshold conversion process on a graph G = V , E is an iterative process which begins by choosing a set S 0 ⊆ V , and for each step t t = 1 , 2 , ⋯ , , S t is obtained from S t − 1 by adjoining all vertices that have at least k neighbors in S t − 1 . S 0 is called the seed set of the k -threshold conversion process, and if S t = V G for some t ≥ 0 , then S 0 is an irreversible k -threshold conversion set (IkCS) of G. The k -threshold conversion number of G (denoted by ( C k G ) is the minimum cardinality of all the IkCSs of G. In this paper, we determine C 2 G for the circulant graph C n 1 , r when r is arbitrary; we also find C 3 C n 1 , r when r = 2 , 3. We also introduce an upper bound for C 3 C n 1 , 4 . Finally, we suggest an upper bound for C 3 C n 1 , r if n ≥ 2 r + 1 and n ≡ 0 mod 2 r + 1 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has led to a catastrophic shortage of ICU beds. This has resulted in the need to identify patients that can be discharged early before full clinical recovery. We designed this study to determine if in changes routine tests like CBCD and CRP can be a useful complement to clinical status when deciding to discharge patients from ICU. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in Rafic Hariri University Hospital. Levels of biomarkers measured at admission (T1) and within 3 days of outcome (T2) were collected and ratios (T2/T1) were calculated. The Odds Ratios of association between the changes in these biomarkers and outcome were estimated. Multivariate analysis and AUC for the performance of these biomarkers were also conducted. Results: We found on multivariate analysis that reduction in counts of lymphocyte and platelets and elevation in counts of neutrophils and level of CRP (T2/T1 ratio > 1) are strongly associated with mortality with respective ORs estimated at 6.74, 3.26, 5.65 and 4.34 [p-values < 0.001]. AUCs were found to lie in a range of 0.68 to 0.81 indicating fair to good performance. Other factors found to impact survival were AKI, AF and ACS [p-values < 0.01]. In contrast to other studies, risk factors didn't show an association with survival when adjusted for effects of complications and changes in biomarker levels. Conclusions: Our results confirm that inexpensive tests like lymphocyte count and CRP can be reliably used to follow COVID-19 patients in ICU and to support the decision to discharge patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Starting December 2019, the world has been devastated by the rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Many risk factors have been associated with worse outcomes and death from Covid-19 pneumonia including having diabetes mellitus. To date, it is not clear if all group of diabetics share the same risk of complications with COVID-19 infection. This study aims to compare disease severity and mortality rate in insulin users versus non-insulin users. Methods: In this retrospective case–control study conducted at the largest health care network in New York state, we included adult, diabetic patients admitted from March 2020 to October 2020 with Covid-19 pneumonia. We compared the baseline characteristics in addition to outcomes of diabetic patients on home insulin (cases) and non-insulin user diabetics (controls). In addition, to determine if home insulin use is associated with an increased mortality, we conducted a cox regression analysis. Results: We included 696 patients in the study period with a median age of 57 years, interquartile range [IQR] 51–62, and median body mass index 29.9 (IQR: 26–34.7). The majority (476 [68%]) were males. We identified 227 cases (33%) and 469 controls (67%). More cases than controls were hypertensive (74% vs 67%, p = 0.03), on ACE/ARB (50% vs 42%, p = 0.05), and had a hemoglobin A1c > 8.1 (71% vs 44%, p < 0.001). More cases had AKI (52% vs 38%, p < 0.001), however no significant differences were found in intubation rates (26% vs 24%, p = 0.54), detection of pulmonary embolism (4% vs 6%, p = 0.19) or death rate (15% vs 11%, p = 0.22) comparing cases and controls. In a multivariate analysis, we found that home insulin use was independently associated with increased risk of death: Hazard ratio: 1.92, 95% confidence interval (1.13–3.23). Conclusion: We showed herein that diabetic patients on home insulin with COVID-19 pneumonia, have worse outcomes and increased mortality compared to diabetics on oral antihyperglycemic agents. Close monitoring of insulin-dependent type II diabetic patients is needed in the current pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an exercise of decolonial listening, this article works with hijab-wearing women in Lebanon, a small Arab-majority confessional country, to voice, conceptualise, and analyse their lived experience within 'mainstream Lebanese society'. Investigating their 'social form', it advances this lived experience as a belated Arabo-Islamic difference in excess, with a 'wounded habitus'. Accordingly, it argues that a racialisation due to wearing the hijab is experienced through exclusion from citizenry, modernity, and, most violently, humanity. The article thus showcases religion (Islam) as a persistent key nexus of exclusion where imagined national identities, global coloniality, and Empire entwine to enforce a pervasive experience of dehumanising subordination for the erasure of modernity's (religious, Muslim) Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on in-depth reflexive and qualitative fieldwork conducted in 2018 thinking alongside visibly Lebanese Muslim women. Based on participants' shared experiences, the paper argues that visibly Muslim women are excluded from employment in the Lebanese banking sector in line with this sector's pursuit and larger alignment with Eurocentric modernity. It identifies powerful narratives of development, progress, and the Lebanese nation-state with its post-colonial imaginary as key forces underlying this exclusion as well as key horizons it pursues. Accordingly, it posits that private capitalist financial institutions such as Lebanese banking function as apparati of Eurocentric Modernity's contemporary hegemonic establishment and reproduction through everyday lived experiences. Challenging the dominant representations of Lebanese banking as emancipatory and progressive, it examines contemporary national banking ‘from below’ as a contribution to emerging decolonial research in political economy, international political economy (IPE), everyday IPE, and cultural IPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by the theorization of the modernity/(de)coloniality studies collective, this paper thinks alongside hijabi women in Lebanon – a small Arab Mediterranean country – and their lived experiences in "mainstream Lebanese society". Drawing on six-months of qualitative fieldwork through in-depth interviews and focus groups with photo-elicitation, the paper documents and analyses lived experiences of discrimination, exclusion and erasure. Identifying dehumanization, civility and progress, and a present potent wider rejection of Islam in Lebanon, it argues for a framing of participant's shared experiences as anti-Muslim racism under modernity/coloniality and highlights the need to de-exceptionalize the region and the analytical tools mobilized to understand it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this sense, I propose a distinction between decolonizing sociology and politics as necessary labour in order to disrupt and reconceptualize the extant canon, and I non-colonial i sociology and politics that would develop (as) separately (as possible) from the western canon. Epistemic strides: from decolonizing politics and sociology to non-colonial politics and sociology: Ali Meghji, Decolonizing Sociology: An Introduction. In doing this, Meghji argues that decolonial southern sociology in many ways does not mean a sociology that "burns the canon" but rather one that makes visible its limitations and offers the needed contributions to rework it in the pursuit of a "better sociology". Conceptualizing the canon itself as "colonial sociology", Meghji consequently introduces a "decolonial challenge" through, specifically, a serious engagement with southern "indigenous" sociologies that resist, critique and counter the work of colonial sociology. [Extracted from the article]

An eternal dominating set of a graph G is a set of guards distributed on the vertices of a dominating set so that each vertex can be occupied by one guard only. These guards can defend any infinite series of attacks, an attack is defended by moving one guard along an edge from its position to the attacked vertex. We consider the "all guards move" of the eternal dominating set problem, in which one guard has to move to the attacked vertex, and all the remaining guards are allowed to move to an adjacent vertex or stay in their current positions after each attack in order to form a dominating set on the graph and at each step can be moved after each attack. The "all guards move model" is called the m -eternal domination model. The size of the smallest m -eternal dominating set is called the m -eternal domination number and is denoted by γ m ∞ G . In this paper, we find the domination number of Jahangir graph J s , m for s ≡ 1 , 2 mod 3 , and the m -eternal domination numbers of J s , m for s , m are arbitraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An eternal dominating set of a graph G is a set of guards distributed on the vertices of a dominating set so that each vertex can be occupied by one guard only. These guards can defend any infinite series of attacks; an attack is defended by moving one guard along an edge from its position to the attacked vertex. We consider the "all guards move" of the eternal dominating set problem, in which one guard has to move to the attacked vertex and all the remaining guards are allowed to move to an adjacent vertex or stay in their current positions after each attack in order to form a dominating set on the graph and at each step can be moved after each attack. The "all guards move model" is called the m -eternal domination model. The size of the smallest m -eternal dominating set is called the m -eternal domination number and is denoted by γ m ∞ G . In this paper, we find γ m ∞ P n , 1 and γ m ∞ P n , 3 for n ≡ 0 mod 4 . We also find upper bounds for γ m ∞ P n , 2 and γ m ∞ P n , 3 when n is arbitrary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]