Minimum Number Of Years Research Articles

Evaluation of MCP Correlation Algorithms Applied to Wind Data Series

This work aimed to develop methodologies for analysing statistical correlations among wind data series using various Measure-Correlate-Predict (MCP) methods, with the goal of selecting the most suitable method for extrapolating long-term data with minimal associated uncertainty. It was analysed the minimum time required for a wind measurement campaign when applying this methodology. Fifteen local wind measurement stations were selected. The long-term wind data reanalysis series that exhibited the strongest correlation with the measured wind data at each station was then chosen. Multiple tests were conducted with different simultaneous periods between the measured data series and the long-term series. Fifteen correlation algorithms were tested for each concurrent period. The performance of each model was evaluated using the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) and MBE (Mean Bias Error) associated with each MCP. Analysis of the errors identified measurement periods with the lowest associated error ranging from 1 to 5 years and a single-factor ANOVA analysis was conducted. Finally, t-significance tests were performed. The study concluded that the Neural Network was the most effective MCP method. Additionally, it was determined that the minimum number of years required for a local measurement campaign should be between 2 and 3 years.

Working More Years In Spain Has to Start from a Young Age: Lessons from the Labour Market Exit of People Aged from 50 to 65 in the Last Decade

Since 2013, retirement age in Spain has been rising slowly from 65 to an expected 67 in 2027 and, with it, the minimum number of years of National Insurance contributions from 35 to 38. This policy is justified by sustainability of the social security system since the number of older people is increasing faster than the number of contributors. However, the policy has been criticised for not taking into account the diversity of working lives. The labour market and social construction of work differ with occupations and with gender, thus creating pluralities of working lives. Hence, the ways of leaving the labour market should take this diversity into account. Since the present wholesale policy of equally postponing retirement age for everyone overlooks the actual state of retirements, the aim of this study is to ascertain who has retired earlier or later in the last decade, the causes of exits from the labour market, and the repercussions on the number of years of National Insurance contributions. Premature exits from the labour market of people aged between 50 and 65 during the decade from 2010 to 2020 are analysed using data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives (CSWL) taken from Spanish Social Security records. These are people who were born between 1945 and 1954. The results show that women work later than men, that people in Routine occupations tend to leave the labour market early, and that the number of years worked between the ages of 50 and 59 are a good predictor of prolongation of working life after the age of 60, although there are differences between the sexes.

Greening of Public Transport in Pune – A Feasibility Study

India's commitment to Electric Vehicles (EV) is a prime program furthering the country's achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7. However, in spite of the much-needed policy push, EV adoption in India has been slow, both in private ownership and in public mobility. The average Indian commuter still depends heavily on public transport such as public buses, railways and rickshaws. Thus, the success of the EV transition in India lies in the speed with which e-vehicles can be developed and adopted in public transport solutions. This study assesses the feasibility of converting the public transport fleet (buses and 3 wheelers) into e-vehicles for the city of Pune. Pune records high per capita private vehicle ownership, resulting in high traffic congestion, traffic indiscipline issues and high vehicular fatalities. It is thus imperative that not only should public transport usage increase in the city, but it should also be electric, such that sustainability goals are achieved. This study presents a techno-economic analysis of greening Pune's public transport fleet. This paper begins with section 1, which introduces the EV landscape in India. Section 2 details the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) framework, which evaluates financial costs associated with EVs in public transport fleets. Section 3 presents model results from the TCO analysis. Payback calculations are also presented to understand the minimum number of years to realise EV investment payback. Section 4 finally concludes this paper by presenting demand-side and supply-side interventions for a speedy EV transition for public transport fleets in Pune Metro Region.

Required number of years of rainfall data to determine the design rainfall depth of source control in sponge city construction

Study Region: ChinaStudy Focus: In sponge city construction in China, rainfall data is the key to determining the rainwater source control scale. However, changes in rainfall characteristics can reduce the representativeness of the data. To obtain stable volume capture ratios (VCRs) of the annual rainfall through as little rainfall data as possible, this paper compares daily rainfall data from 159 cities in China in recent decades and finds the minimum number of years required to maintain stable VCRs under different design rainfalls. Finally, it gives the recommended observation periods (OPs) for different regions. New Hydrological Insights for the Region: For the last 35 years, the variation of daily rainfall in 75% of cities in China has been less than 0.66 mm, and the variation of skewness is less than 0.62. In general, the longer the observation period, the smaller the calculated VCR anomaly value and variation gradient will be. About 10% of cities cannot achieve stable VCRs by increasing the number of years of data. The denser urban distributed area needs larger OPs to determine the stable VCR; with the increase in design rainfall, the required OPs will also be lowered; in most cities, the VCR calculation does not require 30 years of rainfall data.

A whole-population approach is required for dementia risk reduction

A whole-population approach is required for dementia risk reduction

Finding Connections in Policies Covering Electronic Laboratory Notebook Retention and Transferal

Objective: As electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) capability continues to expand, more researchers are turning to this digital format. The University of Massachusetts Medical School developed new guidelines to outline the retention and transferal of ELNs. How do other universities approach the retention and transferal of laboratory notebooks, including ELNs? Methods: The websites of 25 universities were searched for policies or guidelines on laboratory notebook retention and transferal. A textual analysis of the policies was performed to find common themes. Results: Information on the retention and transferal of laboratory notebooks was found in record retention and research data policies/guidelines. Out of the 25 institutional websites searched, 16 policies/guidelines on research notebook retention were found and 10 institutions had policies/guidelines on transferring research notebooks when a researcher leaves the university. Only one policy had a retention recommendation for storage location specific to electronic media, including laboratory notebooks, that did not apply to its paper counterparts, the remaining policies either explicitly include multiple forms and media or do not mention multiple formats for research records at all. The minimum number of years of retention for research notebooks ranged from immediately after report completion to 7 years after completing the research with the possibility of extension depending on a wide range of external requirements. Most research notebook transferal policies and guidelines required associated researchers and students to request permission from their principal investigator (PI) before taking a copy of the notebook. Most institutions with policies also seek to retain access to research notebooks when a PI leaves an institution to protect intellectual property and respond to any cases of scientific misconduct or conflict of interest. Conclusions: Other universities have a range of approaches for the retention and transferal of laboratory notebooks, but most provide the same recommendations for both electronic and physical laboratory notebooks in their research data or record retention policies/guidelines.

The impact of research intercalation during medical school on post-graduate career progression

BackgroundMedical students at The University of Manchester have the option of research intercalation on the Master of Research programme. There is a paucity of evidence for the benefits of research intercalation. However, we hypothesised that research intercalation would accelerate post-graduate career progression and aimed to objectively measure the career enhancing impact, quantify the benefits and determine the alumni perception of research intercalation.MethodsData was collected retrospectively by electronic questionnaire (in 2018) from those commencing research intercalation between 2005 and 2012.ResultsParticipants (n=52) returned questionnaires (68% response), demonstrating that the cohort had completed 67 postgraduate qualifications, published 304 manuscripts (median 3 publications per person (PP); range: 0–53) and made 430 presentations (median 7 PP; range: 0–37). Alumni had been awarded 49 research grants; funding disclosed on 43% totalled £823,000. Career progression of 73% of alumni had taken the minimum number of years; 27% took longer due to time spent working abroad or to gain additional experience prior to specialty training. Fifty-five publications and 71 presentations were directly related to MRes projects.ConclusionResearch intercalation provides graduates with an opportunity to learn valuable transferrable skills, contribute to translational research, and objectively enhances medical career progression.

The value of time‐series data for conservation planning

Abstract Protected areas (PAs) are increasingly being used world‐wide for the conservation and management of wildlife. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) aims at ensuring biodiversity persistence while minimizing the threats faced by the species and/or the economic costs related to protection. To account for spatio‐temporal interactions between species and human threats, conservation planning for mobile wildlife requires time‐series data derived from monitoring of species and human threats, a process that is costly and technically challenging. Therefore, assessments of the monitoring period needed to ensure sufficient data input in the design of efficient, adequate and representative networks of PAs are crucial. We demonstrated the value of time‐series data in conservation planning by implementing SCP and data from different monitoring periods to identify priority conservation areas for highly mobile marine megafauna accounting for their main threat: commercial fishing. Two analyses of 10 reserve‐design scenarios each, replicated as many times as the data composing each scenario permitted were run in Marxan. The best solutions of the planning scenarios were statistically compared using the Cohen's Kappa test. We also assessed differences in spatial similarity among and within scenarios using the Wilcoxon nonparametric test and a non‐metric multidimensional scaling analysis. Finally, we compared the necessary cost and the area selected for each scenario. Our study highlights the importance of time‐series ecological and socioeconomic data for the robust selection of priority conservation areas. The results revealed different thresholds of the minimum temporal data required to design efficient networks of PAs for highly mobile species, demonstrating that the incorporation of data covering longer periods to the scenarios produce a more robust selection of priority conservation areas. Conservation plans using data covering <3 years were missing important priority areas. Synthesis and applications. We provide a method for estimating the minimum number of years of monitoring required to design efficient networks of protected areas that ensure the persistence of highly mobile species such as cetaceans and seabirds. This method can be used within an adaptive management framework to evaluate whether a network of protected areas performs as planned, and to test whether management strategies should be altered or adjusted in response to local and global changes.

Appraising Commercial Expenditure Efficiency of General Medical Education and Residency Programmes in Nigeria

Purpose: The purpose of the research is to establish the standard period taken in full recovery of cost outlays, rate of returns for general physicians and marginal returns to consultants, and appropriate profitability indices. Mixed ex-post “facto” data and primary data-sets pertaining medical education expenditure across levels and lifecycle career earnings of Nigerian physicians in public service were employed. The longitudinal secondary and primary data-set were obtained from cohorts of physicians that participated in the two stages of medical education, published programmes charges posted in brochures of some public universities’ medical schools and gazette consolidated medical salaries scheme of scale for medical workers in the public service. Method of Analysis: Break-even analysis was applied to determine minimum number of years required to fully invested capital; “elaborate (full cash flows) discounting” with internal rate of return method was used for calculation of the private and marginal rate of returns. Then, profitability ratio approach was applied to determine the level of viability of medical education across levels. Cost construction indicates that about N30 million and N69.5 million are committed as investments on general medical education and residency training of the licensed general physicians and consultant-physicians respectively. The lifecycle career earnings estimates of the general practice physicians and consultant-physicians employed in the public service worth N356 million and 814 million. Results: The break-even period for full recovery of investments in general practice physicians is 5.25 around the thirteenth years of medical education and 6.33 years for residency-trained consultants, occurring in the 21st period of this layer of vocational training respectively. Individual rate of returns on investments in general medical education of average licensed general physicians is 32 percent and 32 percent marginal rate of returns to additional investment expenditures on residency training (earnings premium of consultant-physicians). This combined rate of returns of consultant-doctors (general medicine plus residency training) is 64 percent. Net present value of cash-flows of the average general physician and consultant-doctors in Nigeria is worth N326 million and N744 million respectively. Whilst the profitability index derived from the present value of net cash-flows is 1.32 for general physicians and 1.69 for the specialist. Conclusion: The paper concludes that investments to medical education in Nigeria are worth-while; but more rewarding for residency training. Timing of education (age-range when doctors get certified) influences the earnings and rate returns to investments and value of one’s intellectual capital and net-worth (statistical financial value of life). Contribution to Knowledge: The results of assessment of individual’s expenditure efficiency in medical/higher education confirm that investment in medical education is worthwhile. The findings enhance rational decision for individuals, private sector and government organizations respectively and veritable information for policy formulation. Originality: This research is an exploratory assessment of individual participants’ spending efficiency in medical education in Nigeria and other developing country establishes tentative pay-back period of such investments, unit rates of returns across levels and profitability indices.

The eligibility criteria, training content, and scope of practice for prescriptive authority for midwives: a modified Delphi study†

Abstract Objective To investigate the necessary eligibility criteria for prescriptive authority for midwives, gather suggestions from experts on training content for prescriptive authority for midwives, and explore the scope of practice of their prescriptive authority in certain circumstances. The results of this study could serve as a reference for the development of policies on prescriptive authority for midwives. Methods Based on a literature search and semistructured interviews, a modified Delphi method was first used to conduct 2 rounds of expert consultation on eligibility criteria and training content for prescriptive authority for midwives. This stage included nursing experts (20) and medical experts (16) engaged in midwifery in many tertiary Grade A hospitals in China. Subsequently, consultation on the scope of practice of prescriptive authority for midwives was conducted with nursing experts (18) and medical experts (14) engaged in midwifery in many tertiary Grade A hospitals in China. The suggestions from the experts were analyzed using statistical methods to confirm the eligibility criteria for prescriptive authority, training content, circumstances, scope of practice for prescriptive authority, and the prescription forms. Results Among the consulted experts, 70.59% (the highest acceptance rate) considered an undergraduate degree to be the minimum educational requirement for midwives to be eligible for prescriptive authority, 85.29% (the highest acceptance rate) considered the supervisor nurse to be the minimum technical position experience necessary for midwives to be eligible for having prescriptive authority, and 50% (the highest acceptance rate) considered 5 years to be the minimum number of years of experience in the specialty for midwives to be eligible for prescriptive authority. The applicants should at least be practicing at Grade C hospitals, which was the consensus among 91.18% of the consulted experts. Among the consulted experts, 100%, 100%, 97.06%, 94.12%, and 94.12% agreed that the applicants should have knowledge in pharmacology, laws and ethics, nursing, diagnostics, and midwifery, respectively. The consulted experts confirmed 22 related course topics and identified 6 specific circumstances in which the midwives could partially practice prescriptive authority, including uterine atony, excessive uterine contraction, postpartum hemorrhage, premature rupture of fetal membranes, normal labor, and neonatal asphyxia. Under these 6 circumstances, the consulted experts commonly agreed that there were 20 medication prescriptions and 13 auxiliary examination prescriptions that could be prescribed by midwives. Of these prescriptions, 51.5% were independent prescriptions, 30.3% were protocol prescriptions, and the remaining 18.2% were both independent and protocol prescriptions. Conclusions Midwives who have an undergraduate degree, supervisor nurse position, and 5 years of practice in Grade C hospitals are considered eligible to apply for prescriptive authority. Partial prescriptive authority could be granted after regulated training in fundamental theories and practices, which could improve the independence and professionalism of midwifery.

Retinal Complications in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Treated with Antimalarial Drugs.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and chloroquine (CQ) are key drugs in systemic lupus (SLE) and related diseases. Retinal toxicity remains the most worrisome complication. We studied factors potentially associated with retinal toxicity, using case-control analyses. Within our SLE clinic cohort, we identified patients with retinal changes using the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics Damage Index. We confirmed HCQ/CQ retinopathy with chart review, and selected up to 3 SLE controls for each case, matched by age at SLE diagnosis and SLE duration. Over an average 12.8 years of followup, within 326 patients exposed to antimalarial drugs, 18 (5.5%) developed retinal toxicity. The minimum number of years of HCQ/CQ exposure before retinopathy developed was 8 years (maximum 33 yrs). Median HCQ/CQ duration was statistically similar in cases [19 yrs, interquartile range (IQR) 14-20] and controls (16 yrs, IQR 11-22), likely due to our matching on SLE duration. Versus controls, cases tended to have more renal disease (cases 22.2%, controls 14.8%) and were slightly less likely to be white (cases 61.1%, controls 74.1%), but neither variable reached statistical significance. Among patients with retinal toxicity, the number previously exposed to CQ was more than 3 times that in controls. Just over 5% of patients developed antimalarial retinal complications, over an average of 12.8 years. No cases were detected in the first 5 years of therapy. Past CQ use was more common in cases versus controls. Future studies using larger cohorts are under way to better define the roles of therapy duration, race/ethnicity, and other factors.

Educational attainment and cardiovascular disease in the United States: A quasi-experimental instrumental variables analysis.

BackgroundThere is ongoing debate about whether education or socioeconomic status (SES) should be inputs into cardiovascular disease (CVD) prediction algorithms and clinical risk adjustment models. It is also unclear whether intervening on education will affect CVD, in part because there is controversy regarding whether education is a determinant of CVD or merely correlated due to confounding or reverse causation. We took advantage of a natural experiment to estimate the population-level effects of educational attainment on CVD and related risk factors.Methods and findingsWe took advantage of variation in United States state-level compulsory schooling laws (CSLs), a natural experiment that was associated with geographic and temporal differences in the minimum number of years that children were required to attend school. We linked census data on educational attainment (N = approximately 5.4 million) during childhood with outcomes in adulthood, using cohort data from the 1992–2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; N = 30,853) and serial cross-sectional data from 1971–2012 waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; N = 44,732). We examined self-reported CVD outcomes and related risk factors, as well as relevant serum biomarkers. Using instrumental variables (IV) analysis, we found that increased educational attainment was associated with reduced smoking (HRS β −0.036, 95%CI: −0.06, −0.02, p < 0.01; NHANES β −0.032, 95%CI: −0.05, −0.02, p < 0.01), depression (HRS β −0.049, 95%CI: −0.07, −0.03, p < 0.01), triglycerides (NHANES β −0.039, 95%CI: −0.06, −0.01, p < 0.01), and heart disease (HRS β −0.025, 95%CI: −0.04, −0.002, p = 0.01), and improvements in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (HRS β 1.50, 95%CI: 0.34, 2.49, p < 0.01; NHANES β 0.86, 95%CI: 0.32, 1.48, p < 0.01), but increased BMI (HRS β 0.20, 95%CI: 0.002, 0.40, p = 0.05; NHANES β 0.13, 95%CI: 0.01, 0.32, p = 0.05) and total cholesterol (HRS β 2.73, 95%CI: 0.09, 4.97, p = 0.03). While most findings were cross-validated across both data sets, they were not robust to the inclusion of state fixed effects. Limitations included residual confounding, use of self-reported outcomes for some analyses, and possibly limited generalizability to more recent cohorts.ConclusionsThis study provides rigorous population-level estimates of the association of educational attainment with CVD. These findings may guide future implementation of interventions to address the social determinants of CVD and strengthen the argument for including educational attainment in prediction algorithms and primary prevention guidelines for CVD.

Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis by Dirk van Zyl Smit &amp; Catherine Appleton

Reviewed by: Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis by Dirk van Zyl Smit & Catherine Appleton Roger S. Clark (bio) Dirk van Zyl Smit & Catherine Appleton, Life Imprisonment: A Global Human Rights Analysis (Harvard University Press, 2019), ISBN 9780674980662, 447 pages. I. INTRODUCTION At a couple of random times in my professional life, I have, as a matter of drafting, confronted a human rights issue involving life imprisonment. These experiences whetted my appetite for more information on the general issue. Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton1 have assuaged that appetite beyond my wildest dreams. With the plethora of factual and legal ammunition of their book in hand, I would have felt far more comfortable on these random occasions. The first of my experiences came in the late 1980s, when I was a member of the former UN Committee on Crime Prevention and Control during the development of the UN Model Treaty on Extradition.2 We devised an optional ground for extradition refusal wherein "the offence for which extradition is requested carries the death penalty under the law of the requesting State, unless that State gives such assurance as the requested State considers sufficient that the death penalty will not be imposed, or, if imposed, will not be carried out."3 Some [End Page 1022] determined person in the group insisted on a footnote to the model to the effect that "[s]ome countries may wish to apply the same restriction to the imposition of a life, or indeterminate, sentence."4 I remember it being explained that, while life imprisonment (even without the possibility of parole) was taken for granted (at least for homicide) in places like the United Kingdom and the United States, this was not the case in several European and Latin American jurisdictions, where objections had both constitutional and nascent human rights dimensions. Portugal was given as an example,5 and I discovered around then that Venezuela had insisted on including an extradition-denying exclusion on grounds both of the death penalty and life imprisonment in its 1922 Extradition Treaty with the United States6 (I know of none earlier than that). The second occasion on which I was faced with addressing life imprisonment was in negotiating the penalties provision of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The relevant language as finally adopted provides for "(a) [i]mprisonment for a specified number of years, which may not exceed a maximum of 30 years; or (b) [a] term of life imprisonment when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person."7 The compromise here is apparent. For the most part, sentences must be for a fixed term of years, with a maximum of thirty. States like Portugal could live with this. However, there were still States who wanted something more symbolically ultimate for the worst of the worst, especially some who had reluctantly come to accept that there would be no death penalty for offenses within the Court's jurisdiction. They insisted on including life imprisonment, albeit with a strong hint ("justified by the extreme gravity of the crime and the individual circumstances of the convicted person"8) that it would not be the norm. Unlike domestic sentencing structures, where sentencing [End Page 1023] rules are typically provided for each offense, the structure of the ICC applies across the board from serial génocidaires to relatively low-level war criminals that would not deserve the maximum. Inevitably, a rich debate took place about the definition of life imprisonment and what it means in practice across the globe. Does it mean that the convicted person will spend the remaining years of life incarcerated with no possibility of relief, apart perhaps from some mitigation by the executive branch? Does it mean that a certain minimum number of years must elapse before someone (e.g., a judge or an agency) may make a discretionary determination in favor of release? What is to be made of a sentence of, perhaps, 100 years, which no human is likely able to live beyond?9 Is such a term of years in reality a whole life sentence? How does this translate to an...

The social wasp Vespula germanica (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) population dynamics in England over 39 years.

1. Yearly records of worker Vespula germanica (Fabricius) taken in suction traps at Silwood Park (28 years) and at Rothamsted Research (39 years) are examined. 2. Using the autocorrelation function (ACF), a significant negative 1-year lag followed by a lesser non-significant positive 2-year lag was found in all, or parts of, each data set, indicating an underlying population dynamic of a 2-year cycle with a damped waveform. 3. The minimum number of years before the 2-year cycle with damped waveform was shown varied between 17 and 26, or was not found in some data sets. 4. Ecological factors delaying or preventing the occurrence of the 2-year cycle are considered.

Migrating towards Using Electric Vehicles in Campus-Proposed Methods for Fleet Optimization

Managing a fleet efficiently to address demand within cost constraints is a challenge. Mismatched fleet size and demand can create suboptimal budget allocations and inconvenience users. To address this problem, many studies have been conducted around heterogeneous fleet optimization. That research has not included an examination of different vehicle types with travel distance constraints. This study focuses on optimizing the University of Tennessee (UT) motor pool which has a heterogeneous fleet that includes electric vehicles (EVs) with a travel distance and recharge time constraint. After assessing UT motor pool trip patterns as a case study, a queuing model was used to estimate the maximum number of each vehicle type needed to minimize the expected customer wait time to near zero. The break-even point is used for the optimization model to constrain the minimum number of years that electric vehicles should be operated under the no-subsidy assumption. The results show that the fleet has surplus vehicles. In addition to reducing the number of vehicles, total fleet costs could be minimized by using electric vehicles for all trips less than 100 miles. The models are flexible and can be applied and help fleet managers make decisions about fleet size and EV adoption.

Annual growth zones in stems of Hypericum irazuense (Guttiferae) in the Costa Rican páramos

The high peaks of the Cordillera de Talamanca in Costa Rica support shrub- and grass-dominated páramo ecosystems that experience stand-replacing wildfires. The dry season that facilitates these fires results in dormancy in plant growth and provides an opportunity to use dendrochronological analyses to determine ages of plants in burn sites to support studies of fire history and postfire vegetation recovery. This study investigates the formation of annual growth zones in stems of the common shrub Hypericum irazuense. Unlike other páramo shrubs, H. irazuense rarely resprouts following fire, instead recovering through seedling recruitment following seed dispersal from the unburned periphery. Laboratory analysis of 19 prepared cross sections from 15 stems shows that samples of H. irazuense from burned areas can provide an estimate of the minimum number of years since the previous fire, supporting earlier work based on field examination of stems. Including a time lag for seedling recruitment or resprouting refines that estimate. Counts of growth zones in most sections coincided with dates of the last known fires. The presence of annual growth zones in H. irazuense places the species within a relatively small group of woody Neotropical species for which annual rings or growth zones have been demonstrated.

The usefulness of NI 43-101 technical reports for financial analysts

This paper uses interviews to examine the practices and perceptions of financial analysts related to their use of mining company technical reports prepared under Canadian National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. The results suggest that the information contained in the reports is used and useful for financial analysis, and demonstrate how they use it as an input to their valuation models. The analysts do, however, identify some concerns with the reports. These concerns relate to three areas: the experience of the “qualified person” with specific minerals; the independence of third-parties who provide assurance over the report; and the frequency of the reports. The implications of these results for future policy amendments include changes to the definition of a “qualified person” that should state a minimum number of years’ experience with specific minerals reported on, standards to disclose the relationship between third party assurance providers and the companies that engage them, and specific guidance over the materiality of events that trigger an updated report. Consideration of such policy amendments is relevant for accounting standard setters attempting to harmonize standards over the extractive industries, and for regulators that use mining disclosure codes that share similar “competent person”, independence, and technical reporting requirements.

Cardiovascular outcome trials of glucose‐lowering drugs in type 2 diabetes: 10 frequently asked questions

Cardiovascular outcome trials of glucose‐lowering drugs in type 2 diabetes: 10 frequently asked questions

ASSESSMENT OF INDOOR AIR QUALITY LEVEL AND SICK BUILDING SYNDROME ACCORDING TO THE AGES OF BUILDING IN UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

This study was conducted to assess the indoor air quality (IAQ) level of buildings in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The buildings were randomly selected and represent the old building (&gt;10years) and new building (&lt;10 years). The IAQ physical parameters assessed are temperature, relative humidity and air velocity. Meanwhile, the IAQ chemical contaminants studied are carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), formaldehyde (HCHO) and total volatile organic compound (TVOC). The results indicate that the old building has good IAQ level compared to the new buildings. The statistical test shows, there is an association between some IAQ physical parameters and the buildings’ ages (p&lt;0.05). On the chemical contaminants, the measurement shows that the concentration of CO2 and HCHO for all studied buildings exceeds the Malaysian acceptable exposure limits. The results also show there is no association between demographic factors and sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms. The level of workplace condition and SBS symptoms existed in each selected faculty’s buildings was also analyzed. The recommendations for the minimum number of years for maintenance of the indoor conditions have also been suggested based on the indoor air quality guidelines from Malaysia and Singapore. Finally, the appropriate technical and management approach has been suggested based on the some concepts.

Homogeneidade espacial da precipitação pluvial na bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vacacaí, RS

O objetivo, neste trabalho, foi determinar o número mínimo de anos com observações necessários para a obtenção de valores médios dos totais mensais de precipitação pluvial consistentes e a área de abrangência das estações pluviométricas, localizadas na bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vacacaí, estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Foram utilizadas as séries históricas de dados dos totais mensais de 13 estações pluviométricas localizadas na área e no entorno da referida bacia hidrográfica. O número mínimo de anos foi calculado pela relação entre o número de anos com observações e a estabilidade dos coeficientes de determinação. A abrangência das estações foi determinada pela relação dos coeficientes de determinação dos totais mensais de precipitação pluvial entre cada estação e a estação base, no caso Santa Maria, e as distâncias lineares entre a estação base e essas estações. A partir dessas equações, foram determinadas as distâncias entre estações em que há 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% e 99% de concordância dos valores. Constatou-se que, para ter uma razoável precisão nos totais mensais de precipitação pluvial na área da bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vacacaí, são necessários em torno de 30 a 40 anos de observação e que, nos meses de dezembro, janeiro e fevereiro, a abrangência das estações pluviométricas é menor do que 1,0km e nos outros meses uma concordância de 99% é obtida para distâncias de 1,3 a 2,2km, de 95% para distâncias de 6,3 a 11,1km e de 90% para distâncias de 12,5 a 22,2km.