Parity Data Research Articles

Use of MALDI-TOF to characterize staphylococcal intramammary infections in dairy goats

The most common pathogens causing intramammary infections (IMI) in dairy goats are staphylococci. Gene sequencing has been the reference method for identification of staphylococcal species, but MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry could represent a rapid and cost-effective alternative method. The objectives were to evaluate the typeability and accuracy of partial gene sequencing and MALDI-TOF for identifying staphylococci isolated from caprine milk samples, and to evaluate the relationship between staphylococcal species IMI, milk somatic cell score (SCS), and milk yield (MY). A composite (goat-level) milk sample was collected from all 940 lactating goats in a single herd. Dairy Herd Information Association test-day data for parity, days in milk, SCS, and MY were retrieved from Dairy Herd Information Association records. Milk samples were cultured on Columbia blood agar, and isolates from samples that yielded a single colony type of a presumptively identified Staphylococcus spp. were identified by PCR amplification and partial sequencing of rpoB, tuf, or 16S-rRNA, and MALDI-TOF. Mixed linear models were used to evaluate the relationship between staphylococcal IMI, SCS, and MY. The goat-level prevalence of staphylococcal IMI based on isolation of a single colony type was 24.4% (213/874). Seventeen goats had a contaminated sample. Among the remaining goats (n = 857), the most common species causing single colony-type IMI were Staphylococcus simulans (7.9%), Staphylococcus xylosus (3.5%), Staphylococcus caprae (3.6%), Staphylococcus chromogenes (2.9%), and Staphylococcus epidermidis (2.2%). The typeability of staphylococcal isolates with partial housekeeping gene sequence analysis (rpoB, complemented by tuf and 16S as needed) was 97.7%. The typeability and accuracy of MALDI-TOF were 84 and 100%, respectively. Overall, only Staphylococcus chromogenes IMI was associated with a higher SCS than goats with no growth. After adjusting for parity and stage of lactation, staphylococcal IMI status was not significantly associated with MY. For the staphylococci isolated from goats in this herd, MALDI-TOF proved an accurate method of speciation with a relatively high typeability. An association between staphylococcal IMI, SCS, and MY was not defined using goat-level data with the exception of S. chromogenes IMI, which was associated with a higher SCS than goats with no growth.

A fault-tolerant and energy-efficient continuous data protection system

Storage reliability of massive amounts of data is the basis for deep learning, and continuous data protection (CDP) technology is an effective means of ensuring it. The method of storing CDP historical data, represented by TRAP-Array parity logs, effectively reduces the overheads of storage capacity, but it increases the risk of historical data loss due to the absence of the RAID protection mechanism for the parity data. This paper proposes a design method for a fault-tolerant and energy-efficient continuous data protection system (FTEECDP), which is composed of SSD mirror array, TRAP parity generation logic and S-RAID disk array. Taking the SSD mirror array as the source data volume of the system to provide the I/O service of the upper applications, FTEECDP improves the throughput of the system. This method also takes S-RAID as the CDP log volume to store the TRAP parity logs. When the disk data error occurs, the error data will be recovered from the data redundancy information of S-RAID, thus protecting the TRAP parity chain from being destroyed and improving the reliability of the TRAP parity logs. The experiment shows that in the continuous data protection system, the CDP logs stored as the TRAP parity can greatly reduce the storage space overheads and reduce the system energy consumption. In addition, with the disk scheduling algorithm, S-RAID shifts the disk grouping without any data requests into a standby state, thus further reducing the energy consumption of the system.

Coop-U: A Cooperative Update Scheme for Erasure-Coded Storage Systems

The erasure code improves the data reliability by encoding the original data into the redundant data, which shows higher storage efficiency compared with the replication. However, the update of the erasure-coded data brings large complexity due to the complicated operations of data transmission and data computation, especially at the context of multiple updates. This poses a new challenge for adopting the erasure codes in distributed storage systems: how to timely and efficiently update the erasure-coded data. However, existing update schemes of erasure codes are inadequate to meet the requirement of efficiency and adaptivity, since their serial and independent update techniques lead to a low update throughput and high overhead. In this paper, we propose a cooperative update scheme for multiple updates with erasure codes, called Coop-U, which updates the data block eagerly and cooperatively updates the parity blocks in bulk. Specifically, we propose a three-layer update structure to ensure the generality, which could support the update with diverse data sizes and coding parameters. For efficiency, we propose a workload-aware grouping algorithm to group the nodes to be updated and dynamically adjust the group size according to the update workload. Moreover, a cooperative data processing algorithm is proposed to organize the data transmission and computation among layers. Furthermore, a time-aware prediction algorithm is proposed to trigger the update for parity data in bulk at a given threshold. For adaptivity, we propose a cache-based failure processing algorithm to reconstruct the failed data and restore the paused update. To evaluate the performance of Coop-U, we implement Coop-U on HDFS-RAID and conduct testbed experiments on different update schemes. Extensive experiments confirm that Coop-U reduces the update time by 47 and 35% on average compared with the typical update schemes Data-R and Full-W, respectively.

Genetic parameter estimation for milk β-hydroxybutyrate and acetone in early lactation and its association with fat to protein ratio and energy balance in Korean Holstein cattle.

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters for milk β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), acetone (Ac), fat protein ratio (FPR), and energy balance (EB) using milk test day records and investigate the effect of early lactation FPR and EB on milk ketone body concentrations.MethodsTotal 262,940 test-day records collected from Korea Animal Improvement Association during the period of 2012 to 2016 were used in this study. BHBA and Ac concentrations in milk were measured by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). FPR values were obtained using test day records of fat and protein percentage. EB was calculated using previously developed equation based on parity, lactation week, and milk composition data. Genetic parameters were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood procedure based on repeatability model using Wombat program.ResultsElevated milk BHBA and Ac concentrations were observed during the early lactation under the negative energy balance. Milk FPR tends to decrease with the decreasing ketone body concentrations. Heritability estimates for milk BHBA, Ac, EB, and FPR ranged from 0.09 to 0.14, 0.23 to 0.31, 0.19 to 0.52, and 0.16 to 0.42 respectively at parity 1, 2, 3, and 4. The overall heritability for BHBA, Ac, EB and FPR were 0.29, 0.32, 0.58, and 0.38 respectively. A common pattern was observed in heritability of EB and FPR along with parities.ConclusionFPR and EB can be suggested as potential predictors for risk of hyperketonemia. The heritability estimates of milk BHBA, Ac, EB, and FPR indicate that the selective breeding may contribute to maintaining the milk ketone bodies at optimum level during early lactation.

PP163 The Cost-Reimbursement Mismatch For Heart Transplant In Brazil

Introduction:There is an important mismatch in the number of heart transplants performed and the patients in need of a new heart in Brazil, despite a large public transplant program providing universal health coverage for organ transplantation. It is unclear whether the limited number of heart transplants could be related to the high costs of the procedure and potential underpayment from public agencies. We sought to investigate costs of heart transplant in Brazil from the perspective of a transplant center and to compare results to the values reimbursed by the public health system.Methods:All adult heart transplants performed in an academic center from Jul/2015-Jul/2017 were reviewed. Both absorption costing and time driven activity based costing techniques were used to detail costs related to the transplant index admission. Patients’ electronic records were reviewed, involved professionals were interviewed, and the hospital electronic system was queried. Costs associated with infrastructure, personnel, surgical materials, medications, laboratory and imaging were calculated. Brazilian Reais were converted to US Dollars using 2016 purchasing power parity data from OECD.Results:All 27 patients who underwent heart transplants in the time period were included. Survival at 30 days was 94 percent. Average and median cost for the transplant admission was USD 62,336.27 and USD 47,105.52, respectively, while the current reimbursement value is USD 29,675. The lowest cost accrued by the hospital was USD 21,568.90, while the highest was over USD 300,000. Almost 70 percent of costs were related to personnel and hospital structure and not to direct consumption of medications, exams or materials. Total cost was highly dependent on the length-of-stay, particularly days spent in intensive care units.Conclusions:The value currently reimbursed by the public system in Brazil for heart transplants is below the average costs for the procedure in a reference center. This large cost-reimbursement mismatch might limit the increase in the number of transplants that is needed to meet current demands.

Rate of caesarean sections according to the Robson classification: Analysis in a French perinatal network – Interest and limitations of the French medico-administrative data (PMSI)

IntroductionThe objective of our study was to determine, in accordance with WHO recommendations, the rates of Caesarean sections in a French perinatal network according to the Robson classification and determine the benefit of the medico-administrative data (PMSI) to collect this indicator. This study aimed to identify the main groups contributing to local variations in the rates of Caesarean sections. Material and methodsA descriptive multicentric study was conducted in 13 maternity units of a French perinatal network. The rates of Caesarean sections and the contribution of each group of the Robson classification were calculated for all Caesarean sections performed in 2014. The agreement of the classification of Caesarean sections according to Robson using medico-administrative data and data collected in the patient records was measured by the Kappa index. We also analysed a 6 groups simplified Robson classification only using data from PMSI, which do not inform about parity and onset of labour. ResultsThe rate of Caesarean sections was 19% (14.5–33.2) in 2014 (2924 out of 15413 deliveries). The most important contributors to the total rates were groups 1, 2 and 5, representing respectively 14.3%, 16.7% and 32.1% of the Caesarean sections. The rates were significantly different in level 1, 2b and 3 maternity units in groups 1 to 4, level 2a maternity units in group 5, and level 3 maternity units in groups 6 and 7. The agreement between the simplified Robson classification produced using the medical records and the medico-administrative data was excellent, with a Kappa index of 0.985 (0.980–0.990). ConclusionTo reduce the rates of Caesarean sections, audits should be conducted on groups 1, 2 and 5 and local protocols developed. Simply by collecting the parity data, the excellent metrological quality of the medico-administrative data would allow systematisation of the Robson classification for each hospital.

Hubungan Paritas Dengan Tingkat Kecemasan Ibu Hamil Trimester III Dalam Menghadapi Persalinan

At each stage of pregnancy , pregnant women will experience different psychological processes . In the third trimester approaching delivery day there will be a new turmoil to deal with childbirth . With the approach of the time of delivery , a mother haunted by face anxiety the birth process . Birth experience is different from one woman to another , as well as between the first delivery with the next labor in women at the same or different women. Psychological changes dealing labor influenced by several factors , one of which is a factor that can be determined prior experience of parity . The purpose of this study was to determine is there a relationship between parity with the level of anxiety in the third trimester pregnant women facing childbirth . This study uses cross-sectional correlation research design . The sample used by 30 respondents third trimester pregnant women with quota sampling technique . While the variables studied were parity using parity data collection table and anxiety levels using a questionnaire ( Scale HARS ) . The data were analyzed using the Spearman correlation test with 95% confidence intervals . From the results of the study found the majority of respondents nullipara status ( 43.33 % ) and their level of anxiety experienced third trimester pregnant women were mostly anxiety ( 43.33 % ) . After analysis of data by using the Spearman correlation test results obtained by the relationship between parity with the level of anxiety in the third trimester pregnant women facing childbirth.

A reliable IoT system for Personal Healthcare Devices

Healthcare applications in IoT systems have been receiving increasing attention because they help facilitate remote monitoring of patients. In this paper, we propose a reliable oneM2M-based IoT system for Personal Healthcare Devices. In order to use a Personal Healthcare Device as an Application Dedicated Node in the proposed system, a protocol conversion between ISO/IEEE 11073 protocol messages and oneM2M protocol messages is performed in gateways located between Personal Healthcare Devices and the PHD management server. The proposed oneM2M-based IoT system for Personal Healthcare Device is constructed, and evaluated in various experiments. The experiments show that the protocol conversion performs effectively, and that the conversion process does not cause the system to suffer serious performance degradation, even when the number of Application Dedicated Node is quite large.Some Personal Healthcare Device data is too precious to lose due to system failures under u-healthcare environments. However, until now, few studies have focused on fault-tolerant health data services. Therefore, we also propose a fault-tolerant algorithm for the reliable IoT system in which gateways on the same layer in the system are linked to form a daisy chain for fault tolerance at the level, and a gateway stores the backup copy of the previous gateway positioned immediately ahead of the gateway in the daisy chain. The upper-layered gateway stores the parity data of the daisy chain as well. In this manner, as many as two gateway faults occurred at the same time can be recovered. For experiments, the resource trees of the oneM2M-based IoT system were expanded to store information on daisy chains, backup copies, and parity. Our experiments reveal that the proposed algorithm can recover from faults on gateways in the oneM2M-based IoT system.

PCS: a parity-based personal data recovery service in cloud

As more and more data are generated in an electronic format, the necessity of a data recovery service has increased, and the development of more efficient data backup and recovery technology has been an important issue during the past decade. While lots of effective backup and recovery technologies have been developed for enterprise level, little work has been done for convenient and inexpensive personal data recovery service, i.e., cloud storage service is still inadequate or expensive for backing up tera-scale HDDs. Furthermore, since privacy protection is a crucial issue for providing a personal data recovery service, a plain data backup-based recovery service is not adequate for public service. Users are reluctant to upload their data to internet backup servers until they can fully trust the service provider in terms of privacy protection. We propose a novel data recovery service framework on cloud infrastructure, a parity cloud service, which provides privacy-protected personal data recovery service while requiring a small storage space in the cloud. The proposed framework does not require any user data to be uploaded to the server, but only parity data are uploaded to the server for user data recovery. Also, the necessary server-side resources for providing the service are within a reasonable bound, depending on the data recoverability and recovery time.

A decentralized redundancy generation scheme for codes with locality in distributed storage systems

SummaryThe increasing data volume in a large number of applications presents a dire need for supporting the reliable data management in distributed storage systems. Existing classical erasure codes, such as the Reed‐Solomon codes and locally reconstruction codes, are widely adopted by many distributed storage systems. However, existing researches mainly focus on proposing new optimized codes, ignoring the optimization of the encoding process with the classical codes, where inefficient encoding process greatly degrades the encoding performance of the distributed storage systems. Thus, how to complete the encoding process in an efficient way has become the challenge for adopting the classical codes. In this paper, we propose a decentralized redundancy generation scheme on the basis of the codes with locality, called D2CP, where a 2‐step framework is proposed to support both the data patterns (replication to encoding and direct encoding) and codes with locality with any parameter set. For improving the insertion throughput, D2CP adopts a data placement technique with consistent hashing to guide the selection of nodes. For reducing the network traffic cost, D2CP adopts a data sending scheduling technique to schedule the transmission of the source nodes and a cooperative parity generation technique to generate the parity data cooperatively. To evaluate the performance of D2CP, we conduct experiments on our RAID distributed storage system under various parameter settings with both 30 physical and 200 virtual servers. Extensive experiments confirm that D2CP can improve the encoding throughput by 20% and 32% and reduce the network traffic cost by 16% and 33% compared with the typical approaches on average for the 2 data patterns respectively.

Grandmultiparity: The Reasons Women Give for High Parity in South-South Nigeria

Background: The Total Fertility Rates have declined below the replacement rates globally and in the industrialized countries. The rates are still high in Nigeria and most other poorer countries. Too much childbirth is associated with increased adverse obstetric outcomes and socioeconomic implications. There has been profuse literature on high parity but limited data on the reasons for high parity. We set out to explore the reasons the women have for high parity in Nigeria. Aim: To investigate the reasons women have for high parity in order to improve reproductive health services. Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study on 288 grandmultiparas (para≥5) in South-south Nigeria between 2012 and 2016. EPI INFO software was used for analysis with statistical significance set at P<.05. Results: The mean age of respondents was 35.3±4.2 years. About 85% and 12% were in first marriage and remarried relationship respectively. The mean parity was 5.95±1.3 and ranged 5-11births. Respondents leading reasons for high parity were mistake (unplanned) 30.9%, desire for specific gender 22% (male child 15.6%) and personal desire for more children 15.3%. Over 90% was aware of contraception, only 29.2% ever used any method. The younger (OR=4.9, P=0.02), less educated (OR=0.39, P=0.01) and employed (OR=0.23, P=0.02) and (OR=6.9, P= 0.04) respondents significantly cited spouse desire, desire of male child, child loss and contraception failure for high parity respectively. Conclusion: Mistake, desire for male child and large family were the leading reasons women gave for high parity. Maternal age, education and employment significantly influenced the reasons for high parity. There was high contraceptive awareness but poor utilization among the respondents; a huge unmet need of contraception in this population.

56 Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome and cerebral vasoconstriction in eclamptic and pre-eclamptic patients

Introduction Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is frequently observed in patients with eclampsia, and some of them also develop cerebral vasoconstriction. These radiological changes have been suggested as an essential component of eclampsia-mediated primary central nervous system injury. On the other hand, it is also reported that some pre-eclamptic patients with neurological symptoms develop PRES and cerebral vasoconstriction; however, the incidence is still unclear. Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of PRES and cerebral vasoconstriction in pre-eclamptic and eclamptic patients and to assess whether these two patient groups share similar pathophysiological backgrounds by comparing clinical and radiological characteristics. Materials & methods This was a retrospective cohort study of 4849 pregnant patients. A total of 49 eclamptic and pre-eclamptic patients with neurological symptoms underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance angiography; 10 patients were excluded from further analysis because of a history of epilepsy or dissociative disorder. The age, parity, blood pressure, and routine laboratory data at the onset of symptoms were also recorded. For data that were considered to be normally distributed, unpaired t test or Welch’s test was used based on the homogeneity of variances. Otherwise, the Mann–Whitney U test was used for continuous data. Results Among 39 patients with neurological symptoms, 12 out of 13 (92.3%) eclamptic patients and 5 out of 26 (19.2%) pre-eclamptic patients developed PRES. Among PRES patients, 4 out of 12 (33.3%) eclamptic patients and 2 out of 5 (40.0%) pre-eclamptic patients developed cerebral vasoconstriction. Whereas age and systolic and diastolic blood pressure at onset were not different between PRES and non-MRI abnormality patients, hematocrit, serum creatinine, aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and lactate dehydrogenase were higher in patients with PRES than those without MRI abnormalities. In contrast, eclamptic patients with PRES did not show any significant differences in clinical and laboratory data compared with pre-eclamptic patients with PRES. In addition to the parieto-occipital regions, atypical regions such as the frontal and temporal lobes, and basal ganglia were also involved in both eclamptic and pre-eclamptic patients with PRES. Finally, intraparenchymal hemorrhage was detected in one eclamptic patient, and subarachnoid hemorrhage was observed in one pre-eclamptic patient. Both of them developed PRES and cerebral vasoconstriction. Conclusion Although the incidence of PRES was high in eclamptic patients, nearly 20% pre-eclamptic patients with neurological symptoms also developed PRES. The similarities in clinical and radiological findings of PRES between the two groups indicate a shared pathophysiological background. Similar incidence of cerebral vasoconstriction in eclamptic and pre-eclamptic patients with PRES also supports this hypothesis. PRES was not benign and reversible disease, and coincidence of PRES and cerebral vasoconstriction might be a high-risk group of hemorrhagic complications. Therefore, MRI studies should be considered for patients with the recent onset of neurological symptoms regardless of the development of eclampsia.

Effect of milk fat to protein ratio on genetic variance for milk yield in Thai tropical Holstein cattle

The objective of this research was to investigate the optimum fat to protein ratio (FPR) in Thai tropical Holstein dairy cattle. First parity data consisting of 20 492 milk yields (MY) records for 24 891 cows for the period 2001 and 2011, were used in the analysis. The analysis used a random regression test-day animal model of third-order Legendre polynomials through the creation of a covariance function based on different FPRs. Variance components were estimated using the Bayesian method via the Gibbs sampling. The estimated heritability of MY in relation to FPR ranged from 0.19 to 0.27 with the pattern being similar to the genetic variances. Genetic correlations of MY at different FPRs were high at consecutive FPRs and then declined to negative in response to greater differences in FPR. Based on the results, it is concluded that the optimum FPR is in the range of 0.9 to 1.9, corresponding to the genetically controlled energy balance for MY in tropical Holsteins.

Genomic selection for tolerance to heat stress in Australian dairy cattle

Temperature and humidity levels above a certain threshold decrease milk production in dairy cattle, and genetic variation is associated with the amount of lost production. To enable selection for improved heat tolerance, the aim of this study was to develop genomic estimated breeding values (GEBV) for heat tolerance in dairy cattle. Heat tolerance was defined as the rate of decline in production under heat stress. We combined herd test-day recording data from 366,835 Holstein and 76,852 Jersey cows with daily temperature and humidity measurements from weather stations closest to the tested herds for test days between 2003 and 2013. We used daily mean values of temperature-humidity index averaged for the day of test and the 4 previous days as the measure of heat stress. Tolerance to heat stress was estimated for each cow using a random regression model with a common threshold of temperature-humidity index=60 for all cows. The slope solutions for cows from this model were used to define the daughter trait deviations of their sires. Genomic best linear unbiased prediction was used to calculate GEBV for heat tolerance for milk, fat, and protein yield. Two reference populations were used, the first consisted of genotyped sires only (2,300 Holstein and 575 Jersey sires), and the other included genotyped sires and cows (2,189 Holstein and 1,188 Jersey cows). The remainder of the genotyped sires were used as a validation set. All animals had genotypes for 632,003 single nucleotide polymorphisms. When using only genotyped sires in the reference set and only the first parity data, the accuracy of GEBV for heat tolerance in relation to changes in milk, fat, and protein yield were 0.48, 0.50, and 0.49 in the Holstein validation sires and 0.44, 0.61, and 0.53 in the Jersey validation sires, respectively. Some slight improvement in the accuracy of prediction was achieved when cows were included in the reference population for Holsteins. No clear improvements in the accuracy of genomic prediction were observed when data from the second and third parities were included. Correlations of GEBV for heat tolerance with Australian Breeding Values for other traits suggested heat tolerance had a favorable genetic correlation with fertility (0.29–0.39 in Holsteins and 0.15–0.27 in Jerseys), but unfavorable correlations for some production traits. Options to improve heat tolerance with genomic selection in Australian dairy cattle are discussed.

Incidence of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome in eclamptic and patients with preeclampsia with neurologic symptoms

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome is observed frequently in patients with eclampsia; however, it has also been reported in some patients with preeclampsia. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence ofposterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome in patients with preeclampsia and eclampsia and to assess whether these 2 patient groups share similar pathophysiologic backgrounds by comparing clinical and radiologic characteristics. This was a retrospective cohort study of 4849 pregnant patients. A total of 49 patients with eclampsia and preeclampsia and with neurologic symptoms underwent magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance angiography; 10 patients were excluded from further analysis because of a history of epilepsy or dissociative disorder. The age, parity, blood pressure, and routine laboratory data at the onset of symptoms were also recorded. Among 39 patients with neurologic symptoms, 12 of 13 patients with eclampsia (92.3%) and 5 of 26 patients with preeclampsia (19.2%) experienced the development of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. Whereas age and blood pressure at onset were not significantly different between patients with and without encephalopathy, hematocrit, serum creatinine, aspartate transaminase, alanine transaminase, and lactate dehydrogenase values were significantly higher in patients with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome than in those without magnetic resonance imaging abnormalities. In contrast, patients with eclampsia with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome did not show any significant differences in clinical and laboratory data compared with patients with preeclampsia with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. In addition to the parietooccipital regions, atypical regions (such as the frontal and temporal lobes), and basal ganglia were also involved in patients with eclampsia and patients with preeclampsia with posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. Finally, intraparenchymal hemorrhage was detected in 1 patient with eclampsia, and subarachnoid hemorrhage was observed in 1 patient with preeclampsia. Although the incidence of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome was high in patients with eclampsia, nearly 20% of the patients with preeclampsia with neurologic symptoms also experienced posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome. The similarities in clinical and radiologic findings of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome between the 2 groups support the hypothesis that these 2 patient groups have a shared pathophysiologic background. Thus, magnetic resonance imaging studies should be considered for patients with the recent onset of neurologic symptoms, regardless of the development of eclampsia.

Error Detection in 2-bit and 4-bit Multiplier using Parity Predictor Circuit in QCA

Error detection is the detection of errors caused by noise or other impairments during the transmission of signal from transmitter to receiver. Logic design errors may occur during simulation and synthesis due to increase in the complexity of CMOS and VLSI circuits. Error detection method can be either systematic or non-systematic. In systematic method, the transmitter sends the original data unit, and a fixed number of check bits or Parity data is been attached to it, which are derived from the same input data unit. In this work, we describe a method of error detection in 4-bit multiplier with parity predictor circuit in QCA tool. 4-bit multiplier is used as a logic in which we detect error according to its input data. The outputs of logic used and the parity predictor are then compared using comparator. If the values do not match, error has occurred. The technique we used is Concurrent error detection using parity predictor circuit.

Energy-aware and intelligent storage features for multimedia devices in smart classroom

With the recent big-data processing in multimedia devices becoming a popular application, a fast and energy efficient storage area network system for smart classroom is required. Traditional storage management system for smart classroom show low performance when small read and write operations are executed. This paper proposes a smart classroom storage management system (SCSMS) which consists of new adaptive chunking and XOR reference matrix based erasure coding techniques for multimedia devices with higher input/output performance and low energy consumption. The SCSI initiator is installed in multimedia devices such as smart TVs, smart phones and personal computers. The proposed adaptive chunking and exclusive-or (XOR) reference matrix-redundant array of inexpensive disks (XRM-RAID)are provided at a target server based on flash array storage, respectively. Adaptive chunking differs from traditional chunking in that it reduces the number of read and write operations by merging small files into a united chunk. XRM-RAID differs from existing RAID in that it reduces the number of XOR operations to generate parity data in the RAID system. This paper provides web based monitoring application of the proposed SCSMS. Experimental results show that the energy consumption of the proposed SCSMS is improved by 32 %, 42 % and 58 % compared to Huang et al., Kim et al. and Scott et al. with respect to file size and buffer size. In terms of the average write throughput, the proposed SCSMS has higher performance by 22 %, 32 % and 56 % compared to Huang et al., Kim et al. and Scott et al. with respect to file size and buffer size.

What Determines Purchasing Power Parity Exchange Rates?

In an effort to provide a better understanding of the large variation in price levels between countries, we report on a cross-country analysis of national price levels, using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) data on 168 economies from the most recent 2011 round of the International Comparison Program (ICP). PPPs are used for many purposes, including to set international poverty lines and allocate IMF quotas. The well-known Balassa-Samuelson income effect is not the only factor affecting PPPs, particularly for low- and middle income countries. Structural and policy factors make a difference. Small island states are relatively costly for their income level as are sparsely populated countries. Countries with large subsidy programs – as measured by fuel subsidies – tend to have lower price levels than predicted on the basis of income. More open labor policies – as measured by a higher share of migrants in the labor force – are associated with lower price levels in higher-income countries. The proposition that very poor governance is associated with both low income and high prices receives some modest support. Aid inflows and a negative current account balance are correlated with higher price levels (the latter less strongly), but FDI and remittances are not. We also observe a strong association between inequality and higher price levels, which provides some support for the proposition that the ICP may over-weight globally comparable goods. Our results confirm the tendency for African countries to be more expensive than countries with similar incomes in other parts of the world. We fail to fully explain this phenomenon but offer a number of explanations that together could account for it, including low agricultural productivity. Finally, we confirm the relationship between low PPP price levels and greater competitiveness in manufactures, especially for low and middle-income countries.

A Capabilities-based Gender Equality Policy for Higher Education: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations

The complex transformative intent of policy goals is often marginalized in favour of tangible, measurable outcomes. Such a pattern is evident in the tracking of global social justice goals, such as gender equality, where sole reliance on numerical parity data to track progress has led to the simplification of the concept for the sake of measurement. This intensifies the need to focus both on conceptual and methodological considerations in policy development and evaluation to enhance human development and promote the transformation of inequalities towards social justice. Through reporting on a mixed-methods process to inform and develop a capabilities-based gender equality policy at a South African university, the paper asks what gender equality should look like conceptually, and identifies empirically valued functionings and capabilities which could act as transformative policy evaluation indicators. The paper reports on diverse student data from 57 qualitative interviews and 843 survey respondents, which indicate differences between what social groups value and where interventions are needed. The paper suggests that the capabilities approach could be an important evidence-based policy driver in higher education, with the possibility to combine both a rich conceptual approach and methodological considerations in operationalization so that social justice goals and outcomes result.

Abstract P6-08-08: Postpartum breast cancer demonstrates increased liver and brain metastasis with a proposed role for postpartum involution

Abstract Background: Postpartum breast cancer, which we have defined as a breast cancer diagnosis within 5 years of giving birth (PPBC), has a 3-fold increased risk for metastasis and death when compared to nulliparous women that is independently significant when age at diagnosis, tumor stage, receptor status and year at diagnosis are accounted for. Models of postpartum breast cancer developed by our group have shown that the process of breast involution after lactation ceases or after pregnancy if lactation does not occurs is a key event that drives tumors toward increase metastasis. To further investigate the increased metastatic potential of postpartum involution, we performed a nested cohort study of metastatic young women’s breast cancer. We have also developed an immune-competent mouse model of postpartum breast cancer to fully characterize the metastatic capacity of the postpartum involution milieu. Hypothesis: The reduced survival of postpartum breast cancer is due, in part, to an altered pattern of metastatic spread to the liver driven by postpartum involution. Methods: Two independent cohorts from the University of Colorado (UC) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) were utilized to identify a nested cohort of women with first presentation of systemic metastasis. Location of metastasis was verified and frequency of end organ involvement recorded for the pre-determined targets of liver, bone, brain and lungs. The cohort was compared by parity status of nulliparous or PPBC. For determining the contribution of postpartum involution to metastatic spread and investigate mechanism, an intracardiac immune-competent mouse model of postpartum breast cancer metastasis was developed. Results: Cases of young women diagnosed ≤45 that had documented metastatic disease and for which site of metastasis could be identified were included (n=79). Cases with missing parity data or for whom site specific information was not available were excluded. Overall, the dominant organ for metastatic involvement at first presentation of metastatic disease was the bones. In PPBC, liver was the second most common site of metastasis (35%) and higher than in nulliparous women (24%) where lung metastases were the second most frequent. Individual organs were evaluated by parity status and a notable skewing of frequency of liver and brain metastasis to PPBC was seen. 63% versus 37% of the cases with liver mets and 73% versus 27% of cases with brain involvement were PPBC versus nullipara at first metastatic presentation. No differences were seen in lung or bone metastasis between the parity groups. To test whether the postpartum involution supports increased liver metastasis, mice were injected with mammary tumor cells into the left ventricle. Similar to the human data, significantly increased liver metastasis, but not bone or lung was observed in the postpartum group compared to age-matched nulliparous controls. Conclusion: PPBC demonstrates enrichment for liver and brain metastasis that is in part confirmed through an animal model and supports the role of postpartum involution in increased metastasis and death. Further studies into the mechanism by which increased liver metastasis occur in postpartum breast cancer patients are underway. Citation Format: Virginia F Borges, Erica Goddard, Ann H Partridge, Pepper Schedin. Postpartum breast cancer demonstrates increased liver and brain metastasis with a proposed role for postpartum involution [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-08-08.