One of the challenging tasks of requirement engineering is to choose which among the set of requirements are more advantageous than others and ought to be viewed as first for execution. Years of ...research has established it is vital to capture, analyze and prioritize requirements, which to a great extent relies on acknowledgment acceptance of stakeholder’s requirements, concerns and criteria’s. Proposed method provides interactive support for eliciting stakeholders and developer’s initial ranking decision in collaborative manner. Intuitionistic Fuzzy Approach (IFS) is used to support stakeholders view; whereas analysis of inter relationships, requirement slicing and backtracking are used to support developers view using weighted page rank algorithm. Finally a ranking is generated in a collaborative manner to support requirement prioritization. The feasibility of the approach is illustrated through an experimental proof of concept by comparing results of proposed approach with state of art, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Interactive Genetic Algorithm (IGA) prioritization techniques. Results of experimentation conclude that presented approach is capable of producing accurate and comparable results by handling technical constraints of dependency, tradeoffs of collaboration and scope of inclusion of initial multi-criteria preferences expressed as priority values to support reliability and robustness to errors.
The success of requirement prioritization process largely depends upon how well different constraints and influential factors are handled by stakeholders and developers while prioritization. The main ...goal of this research is to present a semi-automated dependency based collaborative requirement prioritization approach (CDBR), which uses linguistic values, execute-before-after (EBA) relation among requirements and machine learning algorithm to minimize the difference of opinion between stakeholder and developers for effective collaboration and for better approximation of final prioritization results, acceptable to both. The presented approach targets three major constraints rarely addressed in existing work, namely dependencies among requirements, communication among stakeholder and developers and the issue of scalability. Results of performance assessment conducted on several different requirement sets and on a case study by comparing CDBR with other state of the art approaches namely, AHP and IGA. The results are accurate and comparable in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, scalability and disagreement concerns among stakeholder and developers which in turn provides robustness to decision making process of awarding more importance to some requirements over others. CDBR overpowers AHP and IGA in terms of efficiency and processing time respectively.
Formate/nitrite transporters (FNTs) selectively transport monovalent anions and are found in prokaryotes and lower eukaryotes. They play a significant role in bacterial growth and act against the ...defense mechanism of infected hosts. Because FNTs do not occur in higher animals, they are attractive drug targets for many bacterial diseases. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that they can be classified into eight subgroups, two of which belong to the uncharacterized YfdC-α and YfdC-β groups. Experimentally determined structures of FNTs belonging to different phylogenetic groups adopt the unique aquaporin-like hourglass helical fold. We considered the formate channel from Vibrio cholerae, the hydrosulphide channel from Clostridium difficile, and the uncharacterized channel from Escherichia coli (EcYfdC) to investigate the mechanism of transport and selectivity. Using equilibrium molecular dynamics and umbrella sampling studies, we determined temporal channel radius profiles, permeation events, and potential of mean force profiles of different substrates with the conserved central histidine residue in protonated or neutral form. Unlike the formate channel from V. cholerae and the hydrosulphide channel from C. difficile, molecular dynamics studies showed that the formate substrate was unable to enter the vestibule region of EcYfdC. Absence of a conserved basic residue and presence of acidic residues in the vestibule regions, conserved only in YfdC-α, were found to be responsible for high energy barriers for the anions to enter EcYfdC. Potential of mean force profiles generated for ammonia and ammonium ion revealed that EcYfdC can transport neutral solutes and could possibly be involved in the transport of cations analogous to the mechanism proposed for ammonium transporters. Although YfdC members belong to the FNT family, our studies strongly suggest that EcYfdC is not an anion channel. Absence or presence of specific charged residues at particular positions makes EcYfdC selective for neutral or possibly cationic substrates. Further experimental studies are needed to get a definitive answer to the question of the substrate selectivity of EcYfdC. This provides an example of membrane proteins from the same family transporting substrates of different chemical nature.
Background: Spinal anesthesia is the most common neuraxial anesthesia for infraumblical surgeries. The use of various adjuvants has become popular in today’s scenario to enhance its quality.
Aims and ...Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the onset, duration of sensory and motor block, hemodynamic effects (if any), duration of post-operative analgesia, and adverse effects of fentanyl or magnesium given intrathecally with 0.5% bupivacaine heavy in patients undergoing hysterectomy.
Materials and Methods: This prospective randomized double-blinded study was conducted in total sixty patients undergoing hysterectomy, divided into two groups of 30 patients each. Group F received 25 μg fentanyl with 3 mL 0.5% bupivacaine heavy and Group M received 100 mg magnesium sulfate with 3 mL 0.5% bupivacaine heavy. The onset and duration of sensory and motor blockade, duration of analgesia, hemodyamics, and side effects were assessed.
Results: The mean time of onset of sensory and motor block was less in fentanyl (P<0.001). Duration of sensory, motor block, and duration of analgesia was more in fentanyl group (P<0.001), whereas incidence of side effects such as bradycardia, hypotension, and shivering was less in magnesium.
Conclusion: Our study concluded that addition of fentanyl as adjuvant effectively augmented the quality of spinal anesthesia, but magnesium provided stable hemodynamics and lesser side effects as compared to fentanyl.
Maternally inherited endosymbionts of arthropods are one of the most abundant and diverse group of bacteria. These bacterial endosymbionts also show extensive horizontal transfer to taxonomically ...unrelated hosts and widespread recombination in their genomes. Such horizontal transfers can be enhanced when different arthropod hosts come in contact like in an ecological community. Higher rates of horizontal transfer can also increase the probability of recombination between endosymbionts, as they now share the same host cytoplasm. However, reports of community‐wide endosymbiont data are rare as most studies choose few host taxa and specific ecological interactions among the hosts. To better understand endosymbiont spread within host populations, we investigated the incidence, diversity, extent of horizontal transfer, and recombination of three endosymbionts (Wolbachia, Cardinium, and Arsenophonus) in a specific soil arthropod community. Wolbachia strains were characterized with MLST genes whereas 16S rRNA gene was used for Cardinium and Arsenophonus. Among 3,509 individual host arthropods, belonging to 390 morphospecies, 12.05% were infected with Wolbachia, 2.82% with Cardinium and 2.05% with Arsenophonus. Phylogenetic incongruence between host and endosymbiont indicated extensive horizontal transfer of endosymbionts within this community. Three cases of recombination between Wolbachia supergroups and eight incidences of within‐supergroup recombination were also found. Statistical tests of similarity indicated supergroup A Wolbachia and Cardinium show a pattern consistent with extensive horizontal transfer within the community but not for supergroup B Wolbachia and Arsenophonus. We highlight the importance of extensive community‐wide studies for a better understanding of the spread of endosymbionts across global arthropod communities.
This manuscript characterizes incidence, diversity, extent of horizontal transfer, and recombination of three different endosymbionts (Wolbachia, Cardinium, and Arsenophonus) in a soil arthropod community. We utilized multilocus strain typing system (MLST) for Wolbachia and 16S rRNA gene for Cardinium and Arsenophonus to answer whether endosymbionts are being transferred within an ecological community first and then spreading through different arthropod communities across the world.
The paper reviews the entire spectrum of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mental health and its positive role in mental health. AI has a huge number of promises to offer mental health care and this ...paper looks at multiple facets of the same. The paper first defines AI and its scope in the area of mental health. It then looks at various facets of AI like machine learning, supervised machine learning and unsupervised machine learning and other facets of AI. The role of AI in various psychiatric disorders like neurodegenerative disorders, intellectual disability and seizures are discussed along with the role of AI in awareness, diagnosis and intervention in mental health disorders. The role of AI in positive emotional regulation and its impact in schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and mood disorders is also highlighted. The article also discusses the limitations of AI based approaches and the need for AI based approaches in mental health to be culturally aware, with structured flexible algorithms and an awareness of biases that can arise in AI. The ethical issues that may arise with the use of AI in mental health are also visited.
Measuring for change/Mobile Creches Vohra, Chavi; Shah, Minal; Mishra, Atishi ...
Frontiers in public health,
01/2024, Letnik:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Research spanning decades across fields such as psychology, education, and neuroscience consistently highlights the crucial role of social-emotional skills in various aspects of personal, academic, ...and professional development (1-3). The fact that UNESCO recognises social-emotional learning (SEL) as essential not just for meeting its educational objectives but also for accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals highlights the crucial role robust social-emotional development plays in establishing sustainable societies. Whilst various studies highlight the importance of SEL, there is limited attention on how organizations can contribute to building such development by consciously including SEL in their work practice.
Our case study presents the process of integrating SEL into organizational practice over a period of 9 months. The selected constructs of SEL were determined by the organisation's needs and values. The Measurement for Change approach was used to frame and implement the intervention, with interactive discussions being the key methodology. Data were collected via surveys, reflective sharing, and observations.
A shift in the selected constructs of SEL was recorded, with data highlighting individual differences.
The process of co-design and continual reflective practice was key to achieving change within the subset of the organisation rather than the specific content of the materials used.
Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation is a third-line treatment for overactive bladder and urgency urinary incontinence. During the procedure, a needle is inserted cephalad to the medial malleolus ...and posterior to the tibia. In recent years, permanent implants and leads have been developed for insertion into the medial ankle via a small incision. There are many important structures present in the medial compartment of the ankle, including the great saphenous vein, saphenous nerve, tibial nerve, posterior tibial vessels, and tendons of the posterior compartment leg muscles.
The primary objective of this study was to identify the proximity of the percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation needle placed per Food and Drug Administration–approved device instructions to nearby important anatomic structures. The secondary objectives were to identify the proximity of the tibial nerve to the needle site, identify clinically relevant ankle anatomic structures, and confirm the tibial nerve and posterior tibial vasculature by histologic analysis.
Detailed medial ankle dissections were performed bilaterally on 10 female lightly embalmed anatomic donors (cadavers) obtained from the Willed Body Program at the University of Louisville. A pin was inserted at the percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation needle site, and the medial ankle was minimally dissected so the surrounding anatomic structures were visible but not disrupted. The shortest distance from the pin to the selected structures of the medial ankle region was measured. On completion of each dissection and set of measurements, tissue was harvested for histologic examination. The distances between the pin and each structure were assessed using means and standard deviations. A paired t test was used to assess the difference in the locations between the left and right ankles. Statistical analysis was performed on left-sided, right-sided, and combined measurements. An 80% prediction interval was found to represent the expected range of values for the measurement of a new cadaver or patient, and the 95% confidence interval of the mean was computed to characterize the average distance across all cadavers or patients.
The medial ankle of 10 adult female lightly embalmed cadavers were examined bilaterally. Dissections were completed from October 2021 to July 2022. Of note, 80% prediction intervals for the tibial nerve, the posterior tibial artery or vein, and the flexor digitorum longus tendon had a lower range of 0.0 mm from the pin and extending to 12.1, 9.5, and 13.9 mm, respectively. Moreover, 2 of the structures were found to be asymmetrical between the right and left ankles. The great saphenous vein was further from the pin on the left (20.5 mm standard deviation of 6.4 mm on the left vs 18.1 mm standard deviation of 5.3 mm on the right; P=.04). The calcaneal (Achilles) tendon was further from the pin on the right side (13.2 mm standard deviation of 6.8 mm vs 7.9 mm standard deviation of 6.7 mm; P=.04). Tibial neurovascular structures were confirmed with microscopic analysis.
The anatomic structures within the medial ankle lie unexpectedly close to the percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation needle site as noted per Food and Drug Administration–approved device instructions. There is a possibility that some medial ankle structures are not symmetrical. It is crucial that practitioners understand medial ankle anatomy when performing percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation or permanent device insertion.
Fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) has significantly affected maize crop yields, production efficiency, and farmers' incomes in the Indian Eastern Gangetic Plains region since it ...was first observed in India in 2018. A lack of awareness by maize growers of the appropriate selection, method, and timing of insecticide application not only creates a barrier to sustainable FAW control but also contributes to increased environmental pollution, reduced human health and increased production costs. We demonstrated that FAW inflicted the most damage in early whorl growth stage of maize, regardless of whether chemical insecticides were applied. FAW egg masses and larvae collected from maize fields in which no insecticides had been sprayed showed high parasitism rates by parasitoid wasps; in contrast fields that had been sprayed had much lower rates of parasitism on FAW. Ten hymenopteran parasitoids were observed in maize fields across the study region, suggesting a diversity of natural methods to suppress FAW in maize at different growth stages. These included two FAW egg parasitoids and eight FAW larval parasitoids. Microplitis manilae Ashmead was the most abundant FAW larval parasitoid species, and Telenomus cf. remus was the dominant FAW egg parasitoid species. Endemic FAW parasitoids such as those observed in this study have great potential as part of a sustainable, cost-effective agroecological management strategy, which can be integrated with other methods to achieve effective control of FAW.
The workflow of this research is based on numerous hypotheses involving the usage of pre-processing methods, wheat canopy segmentation methods, and whether the existing models from the past research ...can be adapted to classify wheat crop water stress. Hence, to construct an automation model for water stress detection, it was found that pre-processing operations known as total variation with L1 data fidelity term (TV-L1) denoising with a Primal-Dual algorithm and min-max contrast stretching are most useful. For wheat canopy segmentation curve fit based K-means algorithm (Cfit-kmeans) was also validated for the most accurate segmentation using intersection over union metric. For automated water stress detection, rapid prototyping of machine learning models revealed that there is a need only to explore nine models. After extensive grid search-based hyper-parameter tuning of machine learning algorithms and 10 K fold cross validation it was found that out of nine different machine algorithms tested, the random forest algorithm has the highest global diagnostic accuracy of 91.164% and is the most suitable for constructing water stress detection models.
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