Antenatal care (ANC) contacts have long been considered a critical component of the continuum of care for a pregnant mother along with the newborn baby. The latest maternal mortality survey in ...Bangladesh suggests that progress in reducing maternal mortality has stalled as only 37% of pregnant women have attended at least four ANC contacts. This paper aims to determine what factors are associated with ANC contacts for women in Bangladesh. We analysed the data, provided by Bangladesh demographic and health survey 2014, covering a nationally representative sample of 17,863 ever married women aged 15-49 years. A two-stage stratified cluster sampling was used to collect the data. Data derived from 4,475 mothers who gave birth in the three years preceding the survey. Descriptive, inferential, and multivariate statistical techniques were used to analyse the data. An overall 78.4% of women had ANC contacts, but the WHO recommended ≥8 ANC contacts and ANC contacts by qualified doctors were only 8% for each. The logistic regression analysis revealed that division, maternal age, women's education, husband's education, wealth index and media exposure were associated with the ANC contacts. Likewise, place of residence, women's education, religion, and wealth index were also found to be associated with the WHO recommended ANC contacts. Furthermore, the husband's education, division, religion and husband's employment showed significant associations with ANC contacts by qualified doctors. However, Bangladeshi women in general revealed an unsatisfactory level of ANC contacts, the WHO recommended as well as ANC contacts by qualified doctors. In order to improve the situation, it is necessary to follow the most recent ANC contacts recommended by the WHO and to contact the qualified doctors. Moreover, an improvement in education as well as access to information along with an increase of transports, care centres and reduction of service costs would see an improvement of ANC contacts in Bangladesh.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how city dependence and city social bonding determine city brand love. In addition, the study examines whether there are different resident segments that ...exhibit distinct behaviour in relation to city brand formation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on primary responses collected from 595 residents from Khulna city in Bangladesh. The research model is tested using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling. The resident segments were identified using PLS prediction-oriented segmentation method.
Findings
Results show that city dependence (i.e. dependence on urban facilities and services provided by the city) and city social bonding (i.e. social interactions amongst residents in the city) lead to city brand love through city satisfaction and city identification. In addition, the study finds that city social bonding and city satisfaction are important for the relationship-reliant residents, whereas city dependence and city identification are important for the resource-reliant residents.
Research limitations/implications
Future research can investigate the relationship between the length of residence and native vs non-native residents’ influence on city brand love formation.
Practical implications
The city brand managers and planners should adopt a resident-inclusive approach that considers the different needs of the residents to engender city brand love.
Originality/value
The study contributes to city branding literature by empirically investigating the under-researched topic of city brand love by identifying the key constructs and their role in determining city brand love. Further, it shows that the route to city brand love formation is different based on residents’ needs.
Vessel diseases are often accompanied by abnormalities related to vascular shape and size. Therefore, a clear visualization of vasculature is of high clinical significance. Ultrasound color flow ...imaging (CFI) is one of the prominent techniques for flow visualization. However, clutter signals originating from slow-moving tissue are one of the main obstacles to obtain a clear view of the vascular network. Enhancement of the vasculature by suppressing the clutters is a significant and irreplaceable step for many applications of ultrasound CFI. Currently, this task is often performed by singular value decomposition (SVD) of the data matrix. This approach exhibits two well-known limitations. First, the performance of SVD is sensitive to the proper manual selection of the ranks corresponding to clutter and blood subspaces. Second, SVD is prone to failure in the presence of large random noise in the dataset. A potential solution to these issues is using decomposition into low-rank and sparse matrices (DLSM) framework. SVD is one of the algorithms for solving the minimization problem under the DLSM framework. Many other algorithms under DLSM avoid full SVD and use approximated SVD or SVD-free ideas which may have better performance with higher robustness and less computing time. In practice, these models separate blood from clutter based on the assumption that steady clutter represents a low-rank structure and that the moving blood component is sparse. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of ultrasound clutter suppression techniques and exploit the feasibility of low-rank and sparse decomposition schemes in ultrasound clutter suppression. We conduct this review study by adapting 106 DLSM algorithms and validating them against simulation, phantom, and in vivo rat datasets. Two conventional quality metrics, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), are used for performance evaluation. In addition, computation times required by different algorithms for generating clutter suppressed images are reported. Our extensive analysis shows that the DLSM framework can be successfully applied to ultrasound clutter suppression.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Rice bakanae, a devastating seed-borne disease caused by Fusarium species requires a more attractive and eco-friendly management strategy. The optimization of plant-mediated silver nanoparticles ...(AgNPs) as nanofungicides by targeting Fusarium species may be a rational approach. In this study, Azadirachta indica leaf aqueous extract-based AgNPs (AiLAE-AgNPs) were synthesized through the optimization of three reaction parameters: A. indica leaf amount, plant extract-to-AgNO3 ratio (reactant ratio), and incubation time. The optimized green AgNPs were characterized using ultraviolet–visible light (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The optimal conditions for producing spherical, unique, and diminutive-sized AgNPs ranging from 4 to 27 nm, with an average size of 15 nm, were 2 g AiLAE at a 1:19 ratio (extract-to-AgNO3) and incubated for 4 h. Fusarium isolates collected from infected soils and identified as F. fujikuroi (40) and F. proliferatum (58 and 65) by PCR were used for seed infestation. The AgNPs exhibited concentration-dependent mycelial growth inhibition with EC50 values ranging from 2.95 to 5.50 μg/mL. The AgNPs displayed exposure time-dependent seed disinfectant potential (complete CFU reduction in F. fujikuroi (40) and F. proliferatum (58) was observed at a concentration of 17.24 μg/mL). The optimized green AgNPs were non-toxic to germinating seeds, and completely cured bakanae under net-house conditions, suggesting their great nano-fungicidal potency for food security and sustainable agriculture.
Display omitted
•Plant-based green AgNPs synthesized through the optimization of reaction parameters.•Spherical, tiny, unique, highly crystalline, and long-term stable AgNPs were formed.•Fusarium sp. mycelial growth inhibition of AgNPs exhibited a dose-dependent manner.•AgNPs exerted exposure time-dependent seed disinfectant potential at very low doses.•Non-toxic to germinating seeds and fully cured rice bakanae in net-house conditions.
Problem
Intraoperative tracking of surgical instruments is an inevitable task of computer-assisted surgery. An optical tracking system often fails to precisely reconstruct the dynamic location and ...pose of a surgical tool due to the acquisition noise and measurement variance. Embedding a Kalman filter (KF) or any of its extensions such as extended and unscented Kalman filters (EKF and UKF) with the optical tracker resolves this issue by reducing the estimation variance and regularizing the temporal behavior. However, the current KF implementations are computationally burdensome and hence takes long execution time which hinders real-time surgical tracking.
Aim
This paper introduces a fast and computationally efficient implementation of linear KF to improve the measurement accuracy of an optical tracking system with high temporal resolution.
Methods
Instead of the surgical tool as a whole, our KF framework tracks each individual fiducial mounted on it using a Newtonian model. In addition to simulated dataset, we validate our technique against real data obtained from a high frame-rate commercial optical tracking system. We also perform experiments wherein a diffusive material (such as a drop of blood) blocks one of the fiducials and show that KF can substantially reduce the tracking error.
Results
The proposed KF framework substantially stabilizes the tracking behavior in all of our experiments and reduces the mean-squared error (MSE) by a factor of 26.84, from the order of
10
-
1
to
10
-
2
mm
2
. In addition, it exhibits a similar performance to UKF, but with a much smaller computational complexity.
Time delay estimation (TDE) between two radio-frequency (RF) frames is one of the major steps of quasi-static ultrasound elastography, which detects tissue pathology by estimating its mechanical ...properties. Regularized optimization-based techniques, a prominent class of TDE algorithms, optimize a nonlinear energy functional consisting of data constancy and spatial continuity constraints to obtain the displacement and strain maps between the time-series frames under consideration. The existing optimization-based TDE methods often consider the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{2} </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm of displacement derivatives to construct the regularizer. However, such a formulation over-penalizes the displacement irregularity and poses two major issues to the estimated strain field. First, the boundaries between different tissues are blurred. Second, the visual contrast between the target and the background is suboptimal. To resolve these issues, herein, we propose a novel TDE algorithm where instead of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{2} </tex-math></inline-formula>-, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-norms of both first- and second-order displacement derivatives are taken into account to devise the continuity functional. We handle the non-differentiability of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm by smoothing the absolute value function's sharp corner and optimize the resulting cost function in an iterative manner. We call our technique Second-Order Ultrasound eLastography (SOUL) with the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-norm spatial regularization (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-SOUL). In terms of both sharpness and visual contrast, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-SOUL substantially outperforms GLobal Ultrasound Elastography (GLUE), tOtal Variation rEgulaRization and WINDow-based time delay estimation (OVERWIND), and SOUL, three recently published TDE algorithms in all validation experiments performed in this study. In cases of simulated, phantom, and in vivo datasets, respectively, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-SOUL achieves 67.8%, 46.81%, and 117.35% improvements of contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) over SOUL. The <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{L}{1} </tex-math></inline-formula>-SOUL code can be downloaded from http://code.sonography.ai .
The roles and responsibilities of state-led organizations have remained the primary focus of disaster risk governance (DRG) literature. While integration of NGOs into formal disaster risk reduction ...(DRR) has been persistently promoted by the recent United Nations’ DRG frameworks to support state interventions, the low uptake of embracing core principles of DRR by NGOs is noted. Tension within network governance of DRG, including state and non-governmental actors, is also reported by several scholars, particularly in developing countries, but has not been investigated empirically with greater details. To contribute to this research agenda, the study aims to explore how NGOs perceive and value their contributions to DRG. Based on a structured questionnaire survey with development activists (DAs) from NGOs in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh, the study found that reactive interventions (emergency response and post-disaster support) by them was perceived to be the most critical focus of DRG despite changing theoretical and global perspectives towards pre-disaster preparedness and mitigative measures. Vertical network governance was favoured within NGOs’ own networks outside the state’s direct supervision, identifying a critical role played by local NGOs. The capacity of leadership of NGOs was promoted by the respondents who worked in decision-making positions within their organizations, whilst professionals with lack of experience within the NGO sector tended to favour state actors. The findings could be critical in understanding local capacities and in co-creating hazard specific plans using various stakeholders.
Time delay estimation (TDE) between two radio-frequency (RF) frames is one of the major steps of quasi-static ultrasound elastography, which detects tissue pathology by estimating its mechanical ...properties. Regularized optimization-based techniques, a prominent class of TDE algorithms, optimize a nonlinear energy functional consisting of data constancy and spatial continuity constraints to obtain the displacement and strain maps between the time-series frames under consideration. The existing optimization-based TDE methods often consider the Formula Omitted-norm of displacement derivatives to construct the regularizer. However, such a formulation over-penalizes the displacement irregularity and poses two major issues to the estimated strain field. First, the boundaries between different tissues are blurred. Second, the visual contrast between the target and the background is suboptimal. To resolve these issues, herein, we propose a novel TDE algorithm where instead of Formula Omitted-, Formula Omitted-norms of both first- and second-order displacement derivatives are taken into account to devise the continuity functional. We handle the non-differentiability of Formula Omitted-norm by smoothing the absolute value function’s sharp corner and optimize the resulting cost function in an iterative manner. We call our technique Second-Order Ultrasound eLastography (SOUL) with the Formula Omitted-norm spatial regularization (Formula Omitted-SOUL). In terms of both sharpness and visual contrast, Formula Omitted-SOUL substantially outperforms GLobal Ultrasound Elastography (GLUE), tOtal Variation rEgulaRization and WINDow-based time delay estimation (OVERWIND), and SOUL, three recently published TDE algorithms in all validation experiments performed in this study. In cases of simulated, phantom, and in vivo datasets, respectively, Formula Omitted-SOUL achieves 67.8%, 46.81%, and 117.35% improvements of contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) over SOUL. The Formula Omitted-SOUL code can be downloaded from http://code.sonography.ai .
Aim
In Bangladesh, 36% of children under the age of 5 are moderately or severely stunted, impeding the country’s overall public health outcomes. Some differences have been found in the associations ...of risk factors and two forms of stunting; therefore, investigating why these differences exist is necessary. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and risk factors for moderate and severe stunting in Bangladeshi children < 5 years old.
Methods
Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2014 (BDHS 2014) data were analyzed in this study; the information of 7131 mother-child pairs was available. Height-for-age z-scores (HFAz) according to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2006 growth standards were used to define moderate (HFAz <−2 SD) and severe stunting (HFAz<−3 SD). The associations between selected independent factors and nutritional status were assessed using chi-square tests, and potential risk factors were explored using multiple multinomial logistic regression analyses.
Results
The multinomial analysis demonstrated that child age (0–11 months), small size at birth, fever and diarrhea within 2 weeks before the survey, maternal height ≤ 145 cm, and maternal body mass index (BMI) ≤18.50 kg/m
2
were significant risk factors for both moderate and severe childhood stunting. The area of residence (rural), mother’s exposure to television, father’s engagement in agricultural work, and residence in Chittagong and Sylhet were associated with severe stunting, whereas residence in Rajshahi, maternal BMI (18.51–25.00 kg/m
2
), and maternal primary or secondary education level were associated with moderate stunting.
Conclusion
A low number of children under the age of 5 had fever and diarrhea, but these factors were significantly associated with developing moderate or severe stunting and demand further study. Along with ongoing nutritional programs, the government should make comprehensive targeted efforts to change the nutritional status of mothers and children.
Since there have been more and more incidents of women being harassed in the recent past, girls need to think twice before going out of their houses. Sometimes, they are not even safe in their house ...or workplace. These circumstance does not change for children of all genders who stay alone because of their working parents or for other reasons. Also, there is no such organized procedure to ensure safety and take women and children out of such violence and harassment. To address this problem, the authors of this paper developed an Android-based automated system to detect danger for women and children using audio from the surroundings. As the Android phone is available to everyone nowadays, they focused on using this device rather than developing a system on some external hardware. Different signal processing methods with deep learning techniques are used for this work. This work also addresses noise from the environment for any chaos and nullifies them using different noise reduction techniques such as Reduce Energy Noise, Reduce Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) up Noise, Reduce Median Noise, Reduce Centroid Noise, Audio DeNoise, Noisereduce by Sainburf et al. & Butterworth high pass filter. The Noisereduce by Sainburg et al. along with the InceptionV3 model architecture turns out to be the best to classify audio with 95.51% accuracy. A new model called AudioViT is introduced. It uses a Visual Transformer and Residual Network to identify the audio signal. The Android application also takes necessary action when any unfavorable situation is detected. Android device users can use this application without any cost, which will pave the way to ensure the safety of women and children.
•Taking help from technology to ensure our family member’s security.•A self-sufficient application to detect danger from audio signals.•Uses Android and Python to collect, process, and analyze audio and take action.•Tried several deep learning and noise reduction models to reach the best combination.
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