Location Of Region Research Articles

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF PRECISION GROUNDNUT DIGGER-INVERTER

Conventional groundnut digger blades are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and have high yield losses (up to 30%). The objective of this study was to adopt a precision groundnut harvesting technology in the country to reduce groundnut harvesting losses and to compare its performance with the conventional digger blade. Agricultural Engineering Institute, NARC, PARC imported a precision groundnut digger-inverter from the USA. This machine was tested at farmer’s fields and its performance was compared with the conventional digger. Data from both machines were collected for total digging losses, viz exposed pod losses, unexposed pod losses, damaged pod losses, and undug pod losses from different locations in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Results revealed that total pod losses using an imported precision digger shaker harvesting machine were 4.76%, whereas the total losses of a conventional digger were 28.26%. The operational cost using a conventional digger was Rs. 4,400/a, which was reduced to Rs. 2,350/a using a precision digger-inverter. The net benefit in terms of recoverable losses was Rs. 14,050 per acre. It is concluded that a significant amount of losses is reduced and farmer profit increases by adopting precision groundnut digger-inverter. There is a need to upscale this technology in the country's groundnut growing areas to reduce harvesting losses.

Physicochemical Analysis of Historical Ordu Taşbaşı Church Mortars and Recommendations for Restoration

Throughout history, the architecture of worship structures has been shaped based on different cultures and belief systems during the Roman, Seljuk, Anatolian Principalities, and Ottoman periods. Additionally, it is understood that the sociocultural and ritual structure in which the worship place is built plays a significant role in church architecture. In province of Ordu, rich in historical and cultural heritage, historical structures outside the city center have not been well preserved. In recent years, neglected historical structures have been restored through various methods with public investments, aiming to reintegrate them into urban life. Through chemical and mineralogical (by microscopy) examinations aimed at determining the types of historical structural materials used for this purpose, the preservation of historical structures in Ordu province and their transfer to future generations is targeted. Church structures, holding a distinct significance in the region’s history, exhibit various characteristics in terms of location, climate, and sociocultural and ritual aspects in the Black Sea region. In this regard, the restoration of the historical Taşbaşı Church in the Altınordu district of Ordu province has been carried out considering scientific techniques and methods, serving as a guide for similar studies in the region in terms of laboratory analysis, studies, planning, project development, and implementation stages.

Analysis of Liquefaction Susceptibility in the Nakdonggang Delta Region via Effective Stress Analysis

During the 2017 M5.4 Pohang earthquake, significant damage occurred because of liquefaction. However, South Korea is located in a stable continental region where earthquakes are rare, and the widely-used simplified liquefaction assessment methods have not been validated domestically. Hence, this study evaluates liquefaction at several locations in the Nakdonggang Delta region via effective stress analysis and compares the results with those of the simplified method of Boulanger and Idriss (2008). For the liquefaction assessment, a hypothetical earthquake scenario with a magnitude of 6.2 on the Dongnae Fault was assumed, and ground motions were generated via broadband hybrid ground motion simulation. The effective stress analysis was performed using OpenSeesPY and a multi-yield plasticity model. The results of the liquefaction assessment revealed significant differences between the two methods. The simplified method indicated that shallow sediments in the Nakdonggang Delta region were more susceptible to liquefaction, whereas the effective stress analysis indicated that loose, shallow sediments were more vulnerable. These results suggest that simplified liquefaction assessment methods must be carefully validated for application in South Korea. Future studies will need to accurately reflect dynamic soil properties based on experimental data to help validate effective stress analysis methods and assess the applicability of simplified methods for practical application in South Korea.

Emergency department visits for alcohol-related incidents in the United States

Alcoholism is the fourth leading cause of preventable death in the United States and was found to be the global leading risk factor for death in persons 15-49 years old. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted in 2021, 29.5 million people aged 12 years and older in the United States (US) were diagnosed with Alcohol Use Disorder thus causing alarm in many communities. This study was aimed to determine if Emergency Department (ED) visits for alcohol-related issues in the US are affected by the type of insurance coverage and regional location while assessing its outcomes on the respective patient demographics and populations. A total of 3236 patients with alcohol-related incidents (ICD-10 Code: F10.2) met the study criteria and were extracted from the 2019 United States National Hospital Ambulatory Care Survey (NHAMCS) tabulated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analyze the data using descriptive analysis and chi-squared tests with an alpha significance of 0.05. The study found that patients visiting the ED in the US for alcohol-related issues were affected by patient demographics, type of insurance, and regional location. Moreover, the clinical and mortality outcomes also vary significantly across patient demographics.

Hourly estimation of water reaching the ground surface in snow-covered regions of Japan using mesoscale meteorological data with the heat balance method

In snow-covered regions, landslides, including debris flows, frequently result from snowmelt and cause significant hazards. Because these snowmelt-induced landslides are triggered by increasing groundwater level and pore-water pressure acting on the slip surface due to infiltration of snowmelt, sometimes mixed with rainwater, accurate estimation of water reaching the ground surface (abbreviated MR in this study) on an hourly basis is essential for developing countermeasures such as an early warning system. This study introduces a model for estimating hourly MR, as well as snow water equivalent and snow depth, using mesoscale meteorological data provided by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The model considers four processes: precipitation, snow accumulation and densification, snowmelt, and infiltration. In the snowmelt process, snowmelt is estimated using the heat balance method. We applied the model to a snow observation station in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, where MR, snow water equivalent, and snow depth were observed during the winter seasons of 2017–18 through 2020–21. Comparisons of observed and calculated values demonstrated that the model successfully reproduced the observations, regardless of the amount of snowfall in individual winter seasons. We propose that this model can estimate hourly MR, snow water equivalent, and snow depth at any location in snow-covered regions where on-site meteorological and snow observations are unavailable.

Healthcare system variability and inpatient maternal mortality in the United States.

To examine the association of inpatient maternal mortality with variability in healthcare services delivery such as hospital size, urban/rural designation, teaching/non-teaching status, regional location, and insurance coverage. This is a pooled, cross-sectional analysis of the National Inpatient Sample (2012-2014). Information on maternal demographics, clinical conditions, and birth outcomes were identified using respective ICD9-CM codes. Bivariate and multivariate analysis using logistic regression models were used to describe maternal characteristics and to calculate the risk of mortality with each independent variable. The weighted sample included 12,409,939 hospital records (82.6% are 18-34-year-old and 49.5% are Caucasians). Maternal death during hospitalization occurred in 1310 cases (12/100,000 live birth). Women with cardiovascular disorders, hemorrhage or sepsis were 33.6, 4.7, and 5.4 times more likely to suffer inpatient maternal mortality. Compared to small-sized hospitals, delivery at medium or large size hospitals is associated with higher mortality, adjusted odds ratios (aOR) 1.8 (1.4-2.3), and 2.2 (1.8-2.8), respectively. Adjusted OR for inpatient maternal mortality in urban non-teaching or urban teaching compared to rural hospitals were 2.2 (1.7-3.0) and 2.9 (2.2-3.9), respectively. Women in the South have higher maternal mortality compared to Northeast, aOR 1.7 (1.5-2.1). Women coved with public insurance experience higher inpatient maternal mortality compared to those with private insurance, aOR: 2.6 (2.1-3.2) and 1.9 (1.6-2.1), respectively. Factors related to variability in healthcare delivery may play a role in inpatient maternal mortality. Some could be explained by the case mix and the clinical conditions affecting birthing outcomes. A qualitative analysis is needed to explore how these factors relate to increased maternal mortality in certain hospital settings.

An Improved YOLOv7 Model for Surface Damage Detection on Wind Turbine Blades Based on Low-Quality UAV Images

The efficient damage detection of the wind turbine blade (WTB), the core part of the wind power, is very improtant to wind power. In this paper, an improved YOLOv7 model is designed to enhance the performance of surface damage detection on WTBs based on the low-quality unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images. (1) An efficient channel attention (ECA) module is imbeded, which makes the network more sensitive to damage to decrease the false detection and missing detection caused by the low-quality image. (2) A DownSampling module is introduced to retain key feature information to enhance the detection speed and accuracy which are restricted by low-quality images with large amounts of redundant information. (3) The Multiple attributes Intersection over Union (MIoU) is applied to improve the inaccurate detection location and detection size of the damage region. (4) The dynamic group convolution shuffle transformer (DGST) is developed to improve the ability to comprehensively capture the contours, textures and potential damage information. Compared with YOLOv7, YOLOv8l, YOLOv9e and YOLOv10x, this experiment’s results show that the improved YOLOv7 has the optimal detection performance synthetically considering the detection accuracy, the detection speed and the robustness.

Whistler echo trains triggered by energetic winter lightning

Lightning generated electromagnetic impulses propagating in the magnetospheric plasma disperse into whistlers – several seconds long radio wave signals with decreasing frequency. Sometimes, multiple reflections form long echo trains containing many whistlers with increasing dispersion. On January 3, 2017, two necessary prerequisites – a pronounced lightning activity and a magnetospheric plasma duct – allowed for observations of a large number of whistler echo trains by the high-latitude station in Kannuslehto, Finland. Our investigation reveals that the duct existed for nearly eight hours. We show that causative lightning sferics arrived to the duct entry from three different winter thunderstorms: a small storm at the Norwegian coast, which produced energetic lightning capable to trigger echo trains in 50% of cases, and two large storms at unexpectedly distant locations in the Mediterranean region. Our results show that intense thunderstorms can repetitively feed electromagnetic energy into a magnetospheric duct and form whistler echo trains after subionospheric propagation over distances as large as 4000 km.

POSITIONING OF RUSSIAN REGIONS IN LONG-TERM AND MEDIUM-TERM ECONOMIC GROWTH RATINGS

In the article the author creates ratings of Russian regions according to criteria — ​long-term and medium-term real economic growth. An indicator of economic growth is the index of the physical volume of gross regional product. By the long-term period we mean the period from 1997 to 2021, by the medium-term period — ​the period from 2016 to 2021. The purpose of the study is to rank the regions according to these periods. Objectives of the study are following: to conduct a comparative analysis of the results of building two ratings; to show the spatial location of regions from the standpoint of long-term economic growth; to show the specialization of the leading regions. Specific research methods are the ranking method, comparative and correlation analyses, and the graphical illustration method. The leaders of both long-term and medium-term economic growth are three regions. These are St. Petersburg, the Moscow region and the Republic of Adygea. The absolute outsider according to both ratings is the Komi Republic. The industry specificity of the leading regions was obtained: all regions are characterized by specialization in manufacturing. Regions leading long-term and medium-term growth also specialize in non-production activities — ​wholesale and retail trade, real estate operations. The leading regions of medium-term growth specialize both in the extractive industry and in the fields of transport and communications.

Triple digital divide and depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older Chinese adults: a disparity analysis

BackgroundThe triple digital divide refers to the lack of internet access, use and knowledge among specific populations. In China, middle-aged and older adults and those living in rural areas or...

Conventional Spinal Chordomas: Investigation of SMARCB1/INI1 Protein Expression, Genetic Alterations in SMARCB1 Gene, and Clinicopathological Features in 89 Patients.

The partial loss of SMARCB1/INI1 expression has recently been reported in skull base conventional chordomas, with possible therapeutic implications. We retrospectively analyzed 89 patients with conventional spinal chordomas to investigate the differences in the immunohistochemical expression of SMARCB1/INI1 and the underlying genetic alterations in the SMARCB1 gene. Moreover, we assessed the correlation of clinicopathological features (age, gender, tumor size, tumor location, surgical margins, Ki67 labelling index, SMARCB1/INI1 pattern, previous surgery, previous treatment, type of surgery, and the Charlson Comorbidity Index) with patient survival. Our cohort included 51 males and 38 females, with a median age at diagnosis of 61 years. The median tumor size at presentation was 5.9 cm. The 5-year overall survival (OS) and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 90.8% and 54.9%, respectively. Partial SMARCB1/INI1 loss was identified in 37 (41.6%) patients with conventional spinal chordomas (27 mosaic and 10 clonal). The most frequent genetic alteration detected was the monoallelic deletion of a portion of the long arm of chromosome 22, which includes the SMARCB1 gene. Partial loss of SMARCB1/INI1 was correlated with cervical-thoracic-lumbar tumor location (p = 0.033) and inadequate surgical margins (p = 0.007), possibly due to the high degree of tumor invasiveness in this site. Among all the considered clinicopathological features related to patient survival, only tumor location in the sacrococcygeal region and adequate surgical margins positively impacted DFS. In conclusion, partial SMARCB1/INI1 loss, mostly due to 22q deletion, was detected in a significant number of patients with conventional spinal chordomas and was correlated with mobile spine location and inadequate surgical margins.

From Maps to Models: A Survey on the Reliability of Small Studies of Task-Based fMRI.

Task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging is a powerful tool for studying brain function, but neuroimaging research produces ongoing concerns regarding small-sample studies and how to interpret them. Although it is well understood that larger samples are preferable, many situations require researchers to make judgments from small studies, including reviewing the existing literature, analyzing pilot data, or assessing subsamples. Quantitative guidance on how to make these judgments remains scarce. To address this, we leverage the Human Connectome Project's Young Adult dataset to survey various analyses-from regional activation maps to predictive models. We find that, for some classic analyses such as detecting regional activation or cluster peak location, studies with as few as 40 subjects are adequate, although this depends crucially on effect sizes. For predictive modeling, similar sizes can be adequate for detecting whether features are predictable, but at least an order of magnitude more (at least hundreds) may be required for developing consistent predictions. These results offer valuable insights for designing and interpreting fMRI studies, emphasizing the importance of considering effect size, sample size, and analysis approach when assessing the reliability of findings. We hope that this survey serves as a reference for identifying which kinds of research questions can be reliably answered with small-scale studies.

Visual localization and quantitative detection method for thermal defects in cable terminals of high-speed trains based on a temperature derivative

Abstract Cable terminal defect detection plays an important role in ensuring the safe and stable operation of high-speed trains (HST). In this paper, a numerical model of the electromagnetic thermal field of overheating defects of cable terminal shielding grids and a method of detecting internal defects of cable terminals - even-order temperature derivative (EOTD) is proposed for quantitative detection of internal defective structures of vehicle-mounted cable terminals. Firstly, a numerical model of the electromagnetic thermal field of cable terminals under the condition of leakage current is constructed, through which the temperature field distribution characteristics of different defective structures are analyzed. Then, the intuitive location of the defective region is obtained by investigating the derivative characteristics of the temperature image, and the depth and intensity of the defects are quantitatively assessed by using the main side peak (MSP) distances and the MSP values extracted from the derivative curves. Finally, the simulation and experimental results achieve the identification of defect structures and the quantitative detection of defect depth and intensity, proving the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method.

AB063. NF2 expression is linked to meningioma location and visual symptoms in Indonesian patients.

Meningioma is the most common type of primary central nervous system tumor. The development of meningioma is often influenced by the neurofibromin-2 (NF2) gene. Studies have demonstrated that the genetic profile of meningioma is linked to their location. However, it is currently unclear whether there is an association between NF2 expression and meningioma location in the Indonesian population. This retrospective cross-sectional analysis included 153 histologically confirmed meningioma patients admitted to Dr. Sardjito General Hospital in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The study utilized immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining to determine the NF2/Merlin expression. Meningioma locations were established using brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computerized tomography (CT) scans before surgery. The data on other variables were collected from medical records. Of all the patients, 118 (77.1%) tested positive for NF2/Merlin expression. The subjects in the study comprised 126 (82.4%) World Health Organization (WHO) grade I tumors and 27 (17.6%) WHO grade II and III tumors. The research showed that 85 (55.6%) of the tumors were located in the spheno-orbital region. The study found a significant association between NF2 positive expression and meningioma location in the spheno-orbital region [odds ratio (OR) 2.51, P=0.02]. Therefore, the patients who tested positive for NF2 had higher chances of visual impairment (P=0.04). This study showed positive NF2 expression is associated with meningioma location in spheno-orbital and patients' visual symptoms.

Primordial odontogenic tumor of the maxilla: A case report

A primordial odontogenic tumor (POT) consists of an ellipsoidal mass of dental papilla-like myxoid connective tissue entirely enveloped in an intricate membrane of the ameloblastic epithelium. This case has been particularly interesting due to its unique identity and rare nature. A 5-year-old boy came to the ENT department of a tertiary care hospital complaining of left facial swelling for the past three months. In contrast with clinical, radiological, and histological investigations and following the WHO definition, it was confirmed as a Primordial odontogenic tumor of the maxilla. The ideology and genetic makeup of this disease are still idiopathic and in the early developing phase. The clinical, radiologic, microscopic, and IHC features in this case suggest POT in an infrequent location of the anterior maxillary region.

Police-issued barring notices in Western Australia: An analysis of the type, seriousness and trajectory of associated offences.

Police-issued barring notices are currently used in Western Australia in response to alcohol-related disorderly and anti-social behaviour. This paper examines the type, severity and trajectory of the offending behaviours associated with served barring notices. WA Police Force de-identified the data for 3815 individuals who had received one or more police-imposed barring notice/s between 2011 and 2020. The offence category associated with each barring notice was examined to explore the overall breakdown and whether/how offending categories change for recipients of subsequent barring notices. For single and multiple barring notice recipients, the most common offence categories were fighting/physical violence and public order offences. Within a subset of the data, non-anti-social offences also spiked. Aggressive behaviours predominate for recipients in metropolitan areas, compared with public order offences in regional locations. For recipients of multiple barring notices, behaviours do not become more serious but neither do they moderate to any notable extent. The low number of repeat barring notices (5%) may suggest an overall beneficial effect on recipient behaviours but more analysis is needed to examine the potential confounding effects of factors, such as fly-in/fly-out workers, policing and locational differences.

Location and access to health courses for rural students: an Australian audit

BackgroundThe undersupply of health professionals in rural areas impacts healthcare access for those living in rural Australia. A strategy to increase the rural health workforce is to recruit and educate rural people. However, long-standing inequities for rural Australians in accessing tertiary education persist. The aim of this study was to audit the 2023 offerings of Australian allied health, nursing, dental and medical university courses to identify geographical availability and those delivered online.MethodsA desktop audit of Australian allied health, nursing, dental and medical courses offered in 2023 was undertaken to identify the courses and delivery modes of those courses offered in regional, rural and remote locations. The audit involved searching lists of professionally accredited courses and university websites, which is publicly available information about health courses. Data were tabulated and descriptive statistics used for data analysis.ResultsThere were marked differences in online and rural course offerings across health professions in Modified Monash (MM) Model category 2–7 locations. Nursing/midwifery had the most courses while pharmacy, podiatry, dental and medicine had few offerings and optometry had none. Social work, nursing/midwifery and psychology also had the most online course offerings. Most courses were offered in MM2 and MM3 locations with few offerings in rural or remote areas. The availability of studying part-time was very limited and often this was only for the early years of the course. Inconsistencies relating to the course information on university websites existed relating to course delivery mode descriptions.ConclusionsThere is a lack of rural on-campus or online course offerings for some allied health disciplines, dentistry and medicine. Provision of end-to-end, flexible courses in rural areas or online is needed to reduce access barriers for rural students and to enable sustainable rural health workforce development.

Implementation of the Gravity Location Models Method in Determining Regional Warehouse Locations to Minimize Goods Transport Costs at PT

Supply Chain is a network of companies that work together to create and deliver a product to the end user. PT X is a company engaged in manufacturing whose products are steel pipes, not only steel pipes are produced. Supply chain management at PT X is considered inefficient because it has to supply four warehouses or depots at once, this can cost a lot of shipping costs in the PT X Supply Chain process. Therefore, supply chain management needs to be carried out using the Gravity Location Model method which aims to minimize the costs of transporting goods at PT X. The aim of this research is to determine the variables needed to determine the location point of PT X regional warehouse using the Gravity Location Model method and to determine the regional warehouse location and optimal shipping costs using the Gravity Location Model method at PT X. From the results of research that has been carried out, the variables used to determine the location points for PT X regional warehouse construction include X and Y, Xn and Yn, dn, Cn, Dn, and TC as well as calculating cost minimization through a comparison of 20 iterations, it was found that the minimum cost was in the 11th iteration, namely IDR 386.955,50. with coordinates X = -4.13 and Y = 115,18.

Prediction of UCS and BTS under freeze-thaw conditions in the NW himalayan rock mass using petrographic analysis and laboratory testing

Repeated freeze-thaw (F&T) cycles substantially harm the durability of rocks, heightening the potential for landslides, rockslides, and avalanches. The current work investigates the effect of the F&T cycle on rock mass (biotite schist) samples. For this purpose, 32 rock samples were prepared and gathered from eight distinct locations in the northwest Himalayan region. For each sample, petrographical analysis and laboratory testing such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS) are investigated at repeated (0th, 10th, 20th, and 30th) F&T cycles. Additionally, machine learning (ML) sequential models such as recurrent neural networks (RNN), gated recurrent units (GRU), and bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) are constructed to estimate the UCS and BTS under F&T conditions. Petrographical results show no change in the mineral indices, while there is a noticeable increase in aspect ratio but a significant decline in mean grain size with each successive 10th cycle, suggesting sample damage. The study also provides a comprehensive assessment of the ML models' performance, highlighting the Bi-LSTM model's superior accuracy among all models in terms of R2 (0.9850) and RMSLE (0.0100) during the TR stage and R2 (0.9020) and RMSLE (0.0170) during the TS stage for UCS prediction. Similarly, BTS prediction also shows superior precision, recording an R2 (0.7543) and RMSLE (0.0345) during TR and R2 (0.7404) and RMSLE (0.0213) during TS stages. The present study also explores the heatmap, line diagram, regression analysis, 2D kernel density plot, Taylor diagram, and DDR criterion for evaluating the model performance more clearly.

Gambaran Karakteristik Dan Pengetahuan Ibu Tentang Pemberian Asi Eksklusif Pada Bayi di Puskesmas Doro I

Mother's milk (ASI) is a source of food for babies which is useful for the growth and development of babies. Providing breast milk for 6 months to newborns is the gold standard for baby feeding recommended by WHO. Even though breastfeeding is very important for babies, mothers also often experience failure in providing exclusive breastfeeding. This research aims to describe the characteristics and knowledge of mothers regarding exclusive breastfeeding for babies aged 0-6 months at the Doro I Community Health Center. This research is a descriptive quantitative study, data collection uses Cluster Sampling where the sample is grouped based on region (Posyandu) or population location by 65 samples. This research instrument uses a Knowledge Questionnaire about Exclusive Breastfeeding adopted from (Septianingrum, 2018) consisting of 19 questions. For favorable questions the "correct" answer is given a score of 1 and "wrong" is given a score of 0, while for unfavorable questions the "correct" answer is given a score of 0 and "wrong" is given a score of 1. The instrument is valid with a correlation number (r-count) > 0.444 so it is said to be valid while the Cronbach's Alpha value and reliability are 0.984. The data analysis used was univariate in the form of a percentage frequency distribution. The results showed that all mothers of babies aged 0-6 months at the Doro I Community Health Center (Puskesmas) were all respondents (100%) aged 15-49 years, 23 respondents (35.4%) had a high school education, 58 respondents (89.2) did not work and 46 respondents (70.8%) had ever breastfed. Mothers' knowledge about giving exclusive breastfeeding to babies aged 0-6 months at the Doro I Community Health Center shows that all 65 mothers (100%) of respondents have good knowledge about giving exclusive breastfeeding to babies aged 0-6 months. The conclusion obtained is that mothers' knowledge about giving exclusive breastfeeding to babies aged 0-6 months at the Doro I Community Health Center shows that all respondents, 65 mothers (100%) have good knowledge about giving exclusive breastfeeding to babies aged 0-6 months.