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SUMMARY: This study examines how the combination of layer breeder age and oxygen concentration in the incubator impacts Chorioallantoic (CAM) vascularization, embryo and chick organs, blood profiles, and organ histology at hatch. Nine hundred (900) eggs from 33 to 50 wk ISA breeders were incubated at different O2 levels (15%, 17%, and 21%). Results showed significant interactions between breeder age and oxygen levels, affecting liver and heart weights, blood indices, and CAM vascularity. Hypoxic conditions led to adaptive changes in embryonic organs, with notable differences between breeder age groups, suggesting that mild hypoxia can influence compensatory growth, depending on exposure stages.

Thermal degradation of acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR)-graphene oxide (GO)/reduced graphene Oxide (G) composites (NBR-GO/G) was studied in air O2(g) and nitrogen N2(g) media at ∼800°C, using Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA/DTG). The char yield of the composites was high the in N2(g) medium. This was associated with lower weight loss (%) and higher maximum degradation temperatures, Tmax(°C). Doyle simple kinetic approach was used for the first time to estimate the degradation kinetics of the NBR-GO/G composites and large amounts of activation energy Ea (KJ/mol) was observed, particularly for the NBR-GO composites. In O2(g) medium, severe degradation of NBR occurred irrespective of the GO/G-filler content. This suggested that insignificant char yield was produced to protect the scission of the NBR backbone, as decomposition of the main chain seemed to have been accelerated by the high oxygenated moieties (C–O–C, –O–C=O and O–H) decorating GO/G-sheets. For instance, NBR showed ∼89, ∼21 and ∼86 % weight residue, Wr (%) than G0.1, G0.5 and G1 respectively and ∼154, ∼350, ∼92 % higher than the respective GO0.1, GO0.5 and GO1 samples. Although, NBR-G recorded higher Wr(%) than NBR-GO, NBR-GO generally slowed the degradation of NBR than NBR-G composites, possibly due to the presence of high concentration of interactions (NBR—Sx—GO—S—NBR and NBR—O—Hσ+—N σ−—C—NBR) which raised the Ea (KJ/mol) barrier for decomposition. The high thermal stability and compression set (%) properties of NBR-GO/G composites obtained as compared to pure NBR indicated that solution processing techniques used in this current work was very effective than those compounded with melt mixing methods or with GO/G-functionalized nanoparticles. Therefore, this present study provides insights on tailoring rubber-graphene based materials for thermally harsh and high pressure applications such as; oil/gas drilling hose, oil/gas seals, gasket and tire tread materials.

Green roughages are the primary ruminant livestock feeds across a wide range of African farming systems; therefore, the nutritional profiling of some of these feeds is necessary as a first step to diversifying the ruminant feed basket. For this purpose, this study sought to evaluate the nutritive value of the leaves of Oxytenanthera abyssinica (OA), Bambusa balcooa (BB), Moringa oleifera (MO), Terminalia catappa (TC), Blighia sapida (BS) and Mangifera indica (MI) using three analytical methods; proximate analysis, detergent analysis and in vitro gas production. Other nutritional characteristics were estimated using their chemical compositions and in vitro gas production. The results showed that the leaves of MO recorded the highest (p

Ethylene-propylene grafted-maleic anhydride (EPR-g-MA) and a pure maleic anhydride (MA) were separately used to compound carboxylated acrylonitrile butadiene-rubber (XNBR) together with reduced graphene oxide (G) to form nanocomposites, by using melt compounding technique. The G-sheets in the presence of MA (GA samples) or EPR-g-MA (GB samples) generally increased the physico-mechanical properties including; crosslinking density, tensile strength and thermal degradation resistance etc., when compared with sample without MA or EPR-g-MA (GAO) and the virgin matrix. For the thermal degradation resistance measured by the char residue (%), by using thermal gravimetric analysis technique; GA1 (0.1 ph G and 0.5 ph MA) was 106.4% > XNBR and 58% > GAO (0.1 ph G) while that of GB1 (0.1 ph G and 0.5 ph EPR-g-MA) was 60% > XNBR and 22.2% > GAO respectively. Although, homogeneous dispersions of the G-sheets assisted by MA or EPR-g-MA was a factor, but the strong bonding (covalent, hydrogen and physical entanglements) occurring in GA and GB was observed to be the main contributing factor for these property enhancements. Thus, these nanostructured materials have exhibited multifunctional capabilities and could be used for advanced applications including high temperature (heat sinks), flame retardants, and structural applications.

The paper investigates the role of board dynamics in explaining the effect of payout policy on shareholders’ wealth creation at the market and bank levels. The study employs the 2SLS estimation of a panel dataset of 528 banks from 29 African countries from the year 2006 to 2018. The study finds that board dynamics enhance payout policy. The study shows that board dynamics create market and bank-level wealth to shareholders. Further, payout policy reduces shareholders’ wealth creation in the market but increases bank-level wealth of shareholders. The study finds that payout policy can be utilized as a substitute control device in the presence of board governance mechanism in order to protect shareholders’ wealth. In general, the marginal effect of payout policy on shareholders’ wealth creation conditioned on board dynamics is relatively stronger at the market level compared to the bank level.

The COVID-19 pandemic is posing significant challenges to public transport operators by drastically reducing demand while also requiring them to implement measures that minimize risks to the health of the passengers. While the collective scientific understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 pandemic are rapidly increasing, currently there is a lack of understanding of how the COVID-19 relates to public transport operations. This article presents a comprehensive survey of the current research on COVID-19 transmission mechanisms and how they relate to public transport. We critically assess literature through a lens of disaster management and survey the main transmission mechanisms, forecasting, risks, mitigation, and prevention mechanisms. Social distancing and control on passenger density are found to be the most effective mechanisms. Computing and digital technology can support risk control. Based on our survey, we draw guidelines for public transport operators and highlight open research challenges to establish a research roadmap for the path forward.

Aims: To explore the impact of diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMT2) on the vestibular system by differing in vestibular function (VF) results between people with and without DMT2. Methods: Relevant studies were identified through databases, including adults with DMT2 and controls. Only studies using objective VF tests were selected. For cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP), ocular VEMP (oVEMP) and video Head Impulse Test (vHIT), results of both populations were compared using the random effects model. The prevalence of vestibular dysfunction (VD) was also considered. Results: 13 and 8 studies for qualitative and quantitative analysis were included. Prevalence of VD ranged from 7.7% to 84% in DMT2 individuals and 0%–15% in controls. VHIT and most VEMP-parameters yielded non-significant differences, except for n-amplitudes during oVEMP testing (-2.44 µV; 95%CI:-4.15 to -0.74; p = 0.005), interamplitude values in both cVEMP (-1.18; 95%CI:-2.28 to -0.09; p = 0.034) and oVEMP tests (-0.74; 95%CI:-1.24 to -0.23; p = 0.004; (subgroup-analysis)), although high heterogeneity was present (I² > 75%). Conclusion: There is evidence of higher VD prevalence in people with DMT2 compared to controls, independently of the presence of symptoms. More standardized measuring methods is needed to draw firmer conclusions regarding detection of subclinical VD.

Summary: Differential privacy allows quantifying privacy loss resulting from accession of sensitive personal data. Repeated accesses to underlying data incur increasing loss. Releasing data as privacy-preserving synthetic data would avoid this limitation but would leave open the problem of designing what kind of synthetic data. We propose formulating the problem of private data release through probabilistic modeling. This approach transforms the problem of designing the synthetic data into choosing a model for the data, allowing also the inclusion of prior knowledge, which improves the quality of the synthetic data. We demonstrate empirically, in an epidemiological study, that statistical discoveries can be reliably reproduced from the synthetic data. We expect the method to have broad use in creating high-quality anonymized data twins of key datasets for research. The bigger picture: Open data are a key component of open science. Unrestricted access to datasets would be necessary for the transparency and reproducibility that the scientific method requires. So far, openness has been at odds with privacy requirements, which has prohibited the opening up of sensitive data even after pseudonymization, which does not protect against privacy breaches using side information. A recent solution for the data-sharing problem is to release synthetic data drawn from privacy-preserving generative models. We propose to interpret privacy-preserving data sharing as a modeling task, allowing us to incorporate prior knowledge of the data-generation process into the generator model using modern probabilistic modeling methods. We demonstrate that this can significantly increase the utility of the generated data.

The Pra river catchment in Ghana is adversely affected by perennial flooding from high-intensity rainfall events. To aid in flood management at the catchment, the Gumbel extreme value distribution has been used to estimate the return periods of maxima rainfall, flood, and consecutive dry and wet days (CDD and CWD) for a period of 5 to 100 years. The results revealed an expected increase in maxima rainfall, CDD and CWD. Maxima rainfall favours the south of the catchment while the CDD decreases northward. Furthermore, an increase in the magnitude of CWD observed at the centre of the catchment had a maximum of approximately 30 days for the 100 year return period, while lower flood volumes had a higher recurrence of 50% to 100% for 1 to 2 year return periods. The inclusion of a projected increase in anthropogenic activities and climate factors at the catchment will slightly affect the magnitude of these variables for the various return periods. Nonetheless, the findings in this study will be of essential input to policy implementation of the Integrated Water Resource Management Plan for river catchments in Ghana, West Africa.

Street vegetation has been found to have both positive and negative impacts on pedestrian-level air quality, but the net effect has remained unclear. In this study, the effect of street trees on aerosol mass (PM10 and PM2.5) and number in a boulevard-type street canyon with high traffic volumes in Helsinki is examined using the large-eddy simulation model PALM. Including a detailed aerosol module and a canopy module to comprise permeable trees, PALM allows to examine the effect of street trees in depth. The main aim is to understand the relative importance of dry deposition and the aerodynamic impact of street trees on the different aerosol measures at pedestrian-level and to find a suitable street-tree layout that would minimise the pedestrian-level aerosol particle concentrations over the boulevard pavements. The layout scenarios were decided together with urban planners who needed science-based knowledge to support the building of new neighbourhoods with boulevard-type streets in Helsinki. Two wind conditions with wind being parallel and perpendicular to the boulevard under neutral atmospheric stratification are examined.Adding street trees to the boulevard increases aerosol particle concentrations on the pavements up to 123%, 72% and 53% for PM10, PM2.5 and total number, respectively. This shows decreased ventilation to be more important for local aerosol particle concentrations than dry deposition on vegetation. This particularly for PM10 and PM2.5 whereas for aerosol number, dominated by small particles, the importance of dry deposition increases. Therefore the studied aerosol measure is important when the effect of vegetation on pedestrian-level air quality is quantified. Crown volume fraction in the street space is one of the main determining factors for elevated mass concentrations on the pavements. The lowest pedestrian-level mass concentrations are seen with three rows of trees of variable height, whereas the lowest number concentrations with four rows of uniform trees. The tree-height variation allows stronger vertical turbulent transport with parallel wind and largest volumetric flow rates with perpendicular wind. Introducing low (height < 1 m) hedges under trees between the traffic lanes and pavements is found to be a less effective mitigation method for particle mass than introducing tree-height variability, and for particle number less effective than maximising the tree volume in the street canyon.The results show how street trees in a boulevard-type street canyon lead to decreased pedestrian-level air quality with the effect being particularly strong for larger aerosol particles. However, with careful planning of the street vegetation, significant reductions in pedestrian-level aerosol particle concentrations can be obtained.

During a conversation or when listening to music, auditory and visual information are combined automatically into audiovisual objects. However, it is still poorly understood how specific type of visual information shapes neural processing of sounds in lifelike stimulus environments. Here we applied multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigate how naturally matching visual input modulates supratemporal cortex activity during processing of naturalistic acoustic speech, singing and instrumental music. Bayesian logistic regression classifiers with sparsity-promoting priors were trained to predict whether the stimulus was audiovisual or auditory, and whether it contained piano playing, speech, or singing. The predictive performances of the classifiers were tested by leaving one participant at a time for testing and training the model using the remaining 15 participants. The signature patterns associated with unimodal auditory stimuli encompassed distributed locations mostly in the middle and superior temporal gyrus (STG/MTG). A pattern regression analysis, based on a continuous acoustic model, revealed that activity in some of these MTG and STG areas were associated with acoustic features present in speech and music stimuli. Concurrent visual stimulus modulated activity in bilateral MTG (speech), lateral aspect of right anterior STG (singing), and bilateral parietal opercular cortex (piano). Our results suggest that specific supratemporal brain areas are involved in processing complex natural speech, singing, and piano playing, and other brain areas located in anterior (facial speech) and posterior (music-related hand actions) supratemporal cortex are influenced by related visual information. Those anterior and posterior supratemporal areas have been linked to stimulus identification and sensory-motor integration, respectively.

Summary: Background: A dose of 30 mg/kg of azithromycin is recommended for treatment of yaws, a disease targeted for global eradication. Treatment with 20 mg/kg of azithromycin is recommended for the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem. In some settings, these diseases are co-endemic. We aimed to determine the efficacy of 20 mg/kg of azithromycin compared with 30 mg/kg azithromycin for the treatment of active and latent yaws. Methods: We did a non-inferiority, open-label, randomised controlled trial in children aged 6–15 years who were recruited from schools in Ghana and schools and the community in Papua New Guinea. Participants were enrolled based on the presence of a clinical lesion that was consistent with infectious primary or secondary yaws and a positive rapid diagnostic test for treponemal and non-treponemal antibodies. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either standard-dose (30 mg/kg) or low-dose (20 mg/kg) azithromycin by a computer-generated random number sequence. Health-care workers assessing clinical outcomes in the field were not blinded to the patient's treatment, but investigators involved in statistical or laboratory analyses and the participants were blinded to treatment group. We followed up participants at 4 weeks and 6 months. The primary outcome was cure at 6 months, defined as lesion healing at 4 weeks in patients with active yaws and at least a four-fold decrease in rapid plasma reagin titre from baseline to 6 months in patients with active and latent yaws. Active yaws was defined as a skin lesion that was positive for Treponema pallidum ssp pertenue in PCR testing. We used a non-inferiority margin of 10%. This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02344628. Findings: Between June 12, 2015, and July 2, 2016, 583 (65·1%) of 895 children screened were enrolled; 292 patients were assigned a low dose of azithromycin and 291 patients were assigned a standard dose of azithromycin. 191 participants had active yaws and 392 had presumed latent yaws. Complete follow-up to 6 months was available for 157 (82·2%) of 191 patients with active yaws. In cases of active yaws, cure was achieved in 61 (80·3%) of 76 patients in the low-dose group and in 68 (84·0%) of 81 patients in the standard-dose group (difference 3·7%; 95% CI −8·4 to 15·7%; this result did not meet the non-inferiority criterion). There were no serious adverse events reported in response to treatment in either group. The most commonly reported adverse event at 4 weeks was gastrointestinal upset, with eight (2·7%) participants in each group reporting this symptom. Interpretation: In this study, low-dose azithromycin did not meet the prespecified non-inferiority margin compared with standard-dose azithromycin in achieving clinical and serological cure in PCR-confirmed active yaws. Only a single participant (with presumed latent yaws) had definitive serological failure. This work suggests that 20 mg/kg of azithromycin is probably effective against yaws, but further data are needed. Funding: Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Livestock farmers in Sweden usually grow feed grains for livestock but import protein feed from outside Sweden. Aside from the economic implications, some environmental issues are associated with this practice. We used life cycle assessment to evaluate the impact of local protein feed production on land use and greenhouse gas emissions, compared with the use of imported protein feed, for pig meat and dairy milk produced in Sweden. Our results showed that local production reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 4.5% and 12%, respectively, for pigs and dairy cows. Land use for feed production in Sweden increased by 11% for pigs and 25% for dairy cows, but total land use decreased for pig production and increased for dairy milk production. Increased protein feed cultivation in Sweden decreased inputs needed for animal production and improved some ecological processes (e.g. nutrient recycling) of the farm systems. However, the differences in results between scenarios are relatively small and influenced to an extent by methodological choices such as co-product allocation. Moreover, it was difficult to assess the contribution of greenhouse emissions from land use change. The available accounting methods we applied did not adequately account for the potential land use changes and in some cases provided conflicting results. We conclude that local protein feed production presents an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but at a cost of increasing land occupation in Sweden for feed production.

Water covers most of the Earth’s surface and is nowhere near a good ecological or recreational state in many areas of the world. Moreover, only a small fraction of the water is potable. As climate change-induced extreme weather events become ever more prevalent, more and more issues arise, such as worsening water quality problems. Therefore, protecting invaluable and useable drinking water is critical. Environmental agencies must continuously check water sources to determine whether they are in a good or healthy state regarding pollutant levels and ecological status. The currently available tools are better suited for stationary laboratory use, and domain specialists lack suitable tools for on-site visualisation and interactive exploration of environmental data. Meanwhile, data collection for laboratory analysis requires substantial time and significant effort. We, therefore, developed an augmented reality system with a Microsoft HoloLens 2 device to explore the visualisation of water quality and status in situ. The developed prototype visualises geo-referenced sensor measurements incorporated into the perspective of the surroundings. Any users interested in water bodies’ conditions can quickly examine and retrieve an overview of water body status using augmented reality and then take necessary steps to address the current situation.

The combined effects of breeder age and oxygen (O2) concentrations on embryo development, hatching events, chick quality, embryonic mortality and hatchability were investigated. A total of 900 hatching eggs of average weight of 53.85 ± 2.40 g and 60.42 ± 2.02 g from 33 to 50 wks ISA layer breeders were incubated for six days at 37.7 °C temperature and 56 % relative humidity (RH) before exposure to hypoxic stimulation of 15 % and 17 % O2 (experimental groups) and 21 % O2 (control group). In a 2 x 3 factorial experiment, air-N2 flushing to reduce O2 was 1 h daily from embryonic day (ED)7–9. The study investigated fresh egg weight before setting, egg weight loss and embryonic parameters at ED11, hatching events, chick quality, embryonic mortality and hatchability. Results showed that regardless of breeder age, early mild hypoxia reduces (P

Faced with challenges like resource depletion and climate change, the cement industry needs sustainable solutions. This study explores the potential of geologically-delinaeated black shale from Apersua, Ghana, as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) to reduce reliance on traditional methods. The researchers analysed the shale's chemical composition and mineralogy, then created laboratory cement formulations with varying black shale content. These were compared to standard formulations without shale. The results show cement with black shale has comparable compressive strength, meeting standard requirements. Even a formulation with only black shale (excluding limestone, a common ingredient) passed strength tests. Overall, the black shale demonstrated good potential as a SCM based on strength, chemical makeup, setting time, and its possible contribution to durability. This research suggests that black shales from Apersua are worth exploring further as a sustainable and potentially cost-effective alternative in cement production.

The paper examines the impact of bank lending behaviour and political events (i.e., election cycles) on the predicted probability of a systemic banking crisis in developing countries. Using an instrumental variable probit regression for a panel dataset of 137 developing countries over the period 2004–2020, the study found that beyond the estimated thresholds for bank lending, which ranged from 0.2804 to 0.6513, a systemic banking crisis is likely to occur. The study shows that average bank lending increases the likelihood of a systemic banking crisis around election episodes, but it decreases the likelihood of a systemic banking crisis a few years before and after an election. Based on marginal effects, the study found that the negative impact of average bank lending on the likelihood of a systemic banking crisis reverses or diminishes during an election year, but the impact amplifies immediately after the election. The study provides evidence to support that the average bank lending behaviour during the upturn phases of political business cycle reduces the likelihood of a systemic banking crisis, while the average bank lending behaviours during the downturn phases of political business cycle lead to a banking crisis over the electoral cycles.

In this extant paper, a multivariate time series model using the seemingly unrelated times series equation (SUTSE) framework is proposed to forecast the peak and short-term electricity demand using time series data from February 2, 2014, to August 2, 2018. Further the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, Gibbs Sampler, together with the Kalman Filter were applied to the SUTSE model to simulate the variances to predict the next day's peak and electricity demand. Relying on the study results, the running ergodic mean showed the convergence of the MCMC process. Before forecasting the peak and short-term electricity demand, a week's prediction from the 28th to the 2nd of August of 2018 was analyzed and it found that there is a possible decrease in the daily energy over time. Further, the forecast for the next day (August 3, 2018) was about 2187 MW and 44090 MWh for the peak and electricity demands respectively. Finally, the robustness of the SUTSE model was assessed in comparison to the SUTSE model without MCMC. Evidently, SUTSE with the MCMC method had recorded an accuracy of about 96% and 95.8% for Peak demand and daily energy respectively.