Percentage Points Research Articles

Energy-saving mechanism and dynamic characteristics of blade angle adjustment in low head pumping system

To investigate the energy-saving mechanisms and dynamic characteristics of blade angle adjustment, this study proposes a novel research method via simulations, prototype and model testing. For stable conditions, the internal field, the external and energy characteristics of the pumping system with different blade angle are examined. The dynamic characteristics of the pumping system and the blade force characteristics during the adjustment process are also studied. The research results show that, under a certain net head, an appropriate impeller blade angle improves the flow state in the pump and conduits, decreasing the entropy production and providing suitable inlet circulation to reduce the hydraulic loss of outlet conduit, thereby improving the pumping system efficiency by 5–10 percentage points. During the adjustment process, there is an approximate 20-s delay in dynamic characteristics. Additionally, with the increase of the blade angle, the hydraulic torques for blade axis and pump shaft increase, thus increasing the blade adjustment force and shaft power. The adjusting force is found to be underestimated in the adjustment processes of decreasing the blade angle. Achievements of this paper contribute to high efficiency of pumping system and high reliability of blade adjustment devices and pump units.

Effect of replacing ground corn with cactus pear Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) on feed intake and digestibility, water intake, milk production and composition in Holstein × Gyr cows.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the intake and digestibility of nutrients, production and composition of milk, and water intake of lactating dairy cows fed standard diets in which ground corn (C) was replaced by up to 100% in the diet by cactus pear (CP). Eight Girolando cows (½ Gyr x ½ Holstein), 3rd calf multiparous, with 60 to 80 days of lactation and an average weight of 450.0 ± 30.0kg, were randomly distributed in a double Latin square (4 × 4). Four experimental diets were evaluated: (100% C + 0% CP), (66.6% C + 33.3% CP), (33.3% C + 66.6% CP), and (0% C + 100% CP). There was a difference (P < 0.05) in the intake of CP and EE (kg.day- 1), with a quadratic effect and a linear reduction, respectively, with substitution. The maximum CP intake of 3.05kg.day- 1 was found at 46.07% and EE intake fell by 3.81g for each percentage unit of cactus pear added to the diet. There was a quadratic difference (P < 0.05) for DM intake in %BW and g.kg BW0,75, with maximum values of 3.97%BW and 186.8g.kg BW0,75 with the substitution of 54.83 and 53.17%, respectively. There was a quadratic effect (P < 0.05) for the intake of NDF in %BW, with the maximum intake of 1.3% at the 74.69% substitution level. There was a linear reduction (P < 0.05) in the digestibility of DM, NDF, and TDN, and for the other nutrients there was no substitution effect (P > 0.05). There was no difference (P > 0.05) in milk production and composition. There was a linear reduction (P < 0.05) in water intake. Cactus pear can be used in a promising way to replace ground corn up to 100% in the diet of lactating dairy cows.

Lightweight Detection of Broccoli Heads in Complex Field Environments Based on LBDC-YOLO

Robotically selective broccoli harvesting requires precise lightweight detection models to efficiently detect broccoli heads. Therefore, this study introduces a lightweight and high-precision detection model named LBDC-YOLO (Lightweight Broccoli Detection in Complex Environment—You Look Only Once), based on the improved YOLOv8 (You Look Only Once, Version 8). The model incorporates the Slim-neck design paradigm based on GSConv to reduce computational complexity. Furthermore, Triplet Attention is integrated into the backbone network to capture cross-dimensional interactions between spatial and channel dimensions, enhancing the model’s feature extraction capability under multiple interfering factors. The original neck network structure is replaced with a BiFPN (Bidirectional Feature Pyramid Network), optimizing the cross-layer connection structure, and employing weighted fusion methods for better integration of multi-scale features. The model undergoes training and testing on a dataset constructed in real field conditions, featuring broccoli images under various influencing factors. Experimental results demonstrate that LBDC-YOLO achieves an average detection accuracy of 94.44% for broccoli. Compared to the original YOLOv8n, LBDC-YOLO achieves a 32.1% reduction in computational complexity, a 47.8% decrease in parameters, a 44.4% reduction in model size, and a 0.47 percentage point accuracy improvement. When compared to models such as YOLOv5n, YOLOv5s, and YOLOv7-tiny, LBDC-YOLO exhibits higher detection accuracy and lower computational complexity, presenting clear advantages for broccoli detection tasks in complex field environments. The results of this study provide an accurate and lightweight method for the detection of broccoli heads in complex field environments. This work aims to inspire further research in precision agriculture and to advance knowledge in model-assisted agricultural practices.

Air quality and wheeze symptoms in a rural children's cohort near a drying saline lake

BackgroundIn California, climate change and competing water demands are intensifying the desiccation of the Salton Sea, a large land-locked “sea” situated near the southeastern rural US-Mexico border region known as the Imperial Valley. MethodsTo examine the possible effects of living near a saline lake on children's respiratory health, we analyzed the relationship between respiratory health symptoms and ambient PM concentrations among a predominantly Latino/Hispanic cohort of 722 school age children. Guardians completed a survey of their child's wheeze and respiratory health symptoms over the past 12 months, adapted from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC). Exposure to dust storm hours (hourly concentrations >150 μg/m3 for PM10) was estimated using a network of regulatory monitors. ResultsBetween 2017 and 2019, children were exposed to 98 to 395 dust event hours annually. We observed disparate effects for dust events and wheeze among children living near the Salton Sea. Every additional 100 dust storm hours per year among children living near the Sea (<11 km) was associated with a 9.5 percentage point increase in wheeze (95% CI: 3.5, 15.4), a 4.6 percentage point increase in bronchitic symptoms (95% CI: 0.18, 10.2) and a 6.7 percentage point increase in sleep disturbance due to wheeze (95% CI: 0.96, 12.4). Similarly, increases in PM10 were also associated with greater reported wheeze and bronchitic symptoms among those living near the Sea, compared to children living ≥11 km from the Sea. There was no association of dust storms or PM10 with wheeze or bronchitic symptoms among the children residing farther from the Sea. ConclusionWe observed stronger adverse impacts of PM10 and dust events on respiratory health among those living closer to the drying Salton Sea, compared to children living farther away. In this community of predominantly low-income residents of color, these impacts raise environmental justice concerns about the effects of the drying Salton Sea on public health.

The fattening speed: Understanding the impact of internet speed on obesity, and the mediating role of sedentary behaviour

We examine the impact of access to high-speed internet on obesity. Using 14 waves of longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey and a newly constructed dataset on the rollout and adoption rate of the National Broadband Network (NBN) across Australian postcodes, we find that access to high-speed internet has a positive effect on obesity. Specifically, our preferred instrumental variable estimates, which predict the variation in timing and location of internet access upgrades, suggest that a 1 % increase in the proportion of a postcode that has access to NBN is associated with a 1.573 increase in Body Mass Index and a 6.6 percentage point increase in the probability of being obese. These results are robust to several checks and alternative specifications. We also find that sedentary behaviour and inactivity are mechanisms through which access to high-speed internet transmits to obesity.

Estimating the Effectiveness of Public Versus Private Distribution Systems: Insights from a Fertilizer Policy Reform in Malawi

Throughout much of the world, critical goods and services are provided by parallel public and private distribution systems. However, it is often difficult to causally differentiate the performance of these two channels. In this article, we utilize a policy change in Malawi to estimate the relative efficiency of public and private channels in distributing inputs to smallholder farmers. In the 2015/16 agricultural season, the government allowed a group of private-sector fertilizer dealers to distribute subsidized fertilizer in nine of the country’s 28 districts. We use a panel dataset and a difference-in-differences (DID) strategy to estimate the impact of the pilot reform on a set of variables encompassing the entire process of subsidized fertilizer acquisition and appropriate utilization. We find that households in districts where the private sector distributed subsidized fertilizer were 11 percentage points more likely to acquire it earlier in the planting season (p < 0.01). We also find that households in pilot districts were six percentage points more likely to apply inorganic fertilizer (p < 0.10), but this effect was no longer statistically significant after using household fixed-effects and correcting for multiple hypothesis testing. Additionally, the reform did not affect other outcomes such as timely fertilizer application or maize yields.

Projecting the impact of COVID-19 on education and intergenerational mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa

AbstractUsing microsimulations, we project the effect of instructional losses caused by COVID-19 on secondary school completion rates and intergenerational mobility of education in eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. On average, secondary school completion rates could decrease by 12 percentage points overall and by 16 points for children with low-educated parents. Interestingly, in most countries the gender gap diminishes because, for men, the projected decrease in secondary school completion is higher. A small additional impact on girls’ education due to the potential rise in teenage pregnancy is observed in some countries. Intergenerational mobility of education in the eight Sub-Saharan countries in our sample is expected to decrease, on average, by 10%.

Electronic Nudges to Increase Influenza Vaccination in Patients With Chronic Diseases

Despite strong worldwide guideline recommendations, influenza vaccination rates remain suboptimal among young and middle-aged patients with chronic diseases. Effective scalable strategies to increase vaccination are needed. To investigate whether electronically delivered letter-based nudges informed by behavioral science could increase influenza vaccination uptake among patients aged 18 to 64 years with chronic diseases. Nationwide pragmatic registry-based randomized clinical implementation trial conducted between September 24, 2023, and May 31, 2024, enrolling all Danish citizens aged 18 to 64 years who met criteria for free-of-charge influenza vaccination in light of preexisting chronic disease. All trial data were sourced from nationwide administrative health registries. Randomized in 2.45:1:1:1:1:1:1 ratio to no letter (usual care) or 6 different behaviorally informed electronic letters. The primary end point was receipt of influenza vaccination on or before January 1, 2024, assessed in 7 prespecified coprimary comparisons (all intervention groups pooled vs usual care and each individual intervention group vs usual care). Absolute risk difference in proportions and a crude relative risk were calculated for each comparison. A total of 299 881 participants (53.2% [159 454] female, median age, 52.0 [IQR, 39.8-59.0] years) were randomized. Compared with usual care, influenza vaccination rates were higher among those receiving any intervention letter (any intervention letter, 39.6% vs usual care, 27.9%; difference, 11.7 percentage points; 99.29% CI, 11.2-12.2 percentage points; P < .001). Each individual letter type significantly increased influenza vaccination with the largest effect sizes observed with a repeated letter sent 10 days after the initial letter (repeated letter, 41.8% vs usual care, 27.9%; difference, 13.9 percentage points; 99.29% CI, 13.1-14.7 percentage points; P < .001) and a letter emphasizing potential cardiovascular benefits of vaccination (cardiovascular gain, 39.8% vs usual care, 27.9%; difference, 11.9 percentage points; 99.29% CI, 11.1-12.7 percentage points; P < .001). Vaccination rates were improved across major subgroups. In a nationwide randomized clinical implementation trial, electronically delivered letter-based nudges markedly increased influenza vaccination compared with usual care among young and middle-aged patients with chronic diseases. The results of this study suggest that simple, scalable, and cost-efficient electronic letter strategies may have substantial public health implications. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT06030739.

The Impact of Tele-Stewardship on Rural Antibiotic Prescribing Practices

Abstract Background Antibiotic prescribing for children is highest in rural areas. Tele-stewardship allows for implementation of antimicrobial stewardship (AS) via telecommunication with providers. There has been limited research on the effectiveness of tele-stewardship in the outpatient setting. In this study, we address the need for better AS in rural areas by developing, implementing, and evaluating AS interventions using tele-stewardship. Methods We employed bundled outpatient AS implementation strategies in rural pediatric primary care (PC) clinics and emergency departments (EDs) affiliated with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) using tele-stewardship. The bundle includes (1) patient/guardian educational materials, (2) antibiotic use commitment posters (3) provider education through quarterly teaching pearls on common pediatric infections, communication skills training (DART modules), app-based microlearning modules (QuizTime), and implicit/explicit bias education and (4) quarterly audit and feedback with peer comparison on guideline-concordant antibiotic use. Participants are pediatric prescribers (physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner). We compared antibiotic prescription data for children &amp;lt;18 years collected during the “baseline” period (Jan-Dec 2022) to the intervention period (Jan-Sept 2023). Two academic urban primary care clinics and one academic urban ED at which the interventions were not implemented were included as “control” sites. The primary outcome is percent of all encounters that result in an antibiotic prescription. Pre- and post-intervention data were analyzed in aggregate (not at the provider-level). Significance was determined via calculating a 95% confidence interval (CI) for the difference of proportions. Results To date, there have been 140,077 PC patient encounters (98,409 baseline and 41,065 intervention) and 94,205 ED encounters (61759 baseline and 32,446 intervention) across all sites. Change from baseline to intervention periods in academic PC sites was 0.9 percentage points (95% CI 0.556 to 1.243; 6.6% baseline, 7.5% intervention) while change in rural intervention sites was -1.05 percentage points (95% CI -0.409 to -1.667; 11.8% baseline, 10.75% intervention; Figure 1a). Only 1 of 3 rural EDs had a decrease in percent of encounters with an antibiotic prescription (Figure 1b). Overall the academic ED showed a 3.1 percentage point increase (95% CI 2.430 to 3.769; 18.0% baseline, 21.1% intervention) while the rural sites showed a 1.0 percentage point increase (95% CI -0.817 to 2.817; 24.2% baseline, 25.2% intervention). Conclusion Interim analysis shows that bundled implementation strategies using tele-AS led to significantly decreased overall antibiotic use in rural primary care clinics compared to urban academic control sites. The study is ongoing and will continue to evaluate outcomes over a longer intervention period to reduce seasonal bias.

Use of free preventive dental programme for children: 10 years of Lov'U'r Teeth, France.

Lov'U'r Teeth is a French oral health prevention programme targeting children. The programme offers an appointment with a dentist for oral examination and individual oral health advice. It covers any necessary primary dental care resulting from that examination. Despite being free, it was under-utilised at its previous evaluation 10 years ago. The study aims to identify the determinants of participation and their evolution since 2009. We worked on the General Beneficiary Sample, a medico-administrative database representative of the French population, including health-care consumption data. We selected individuals aged 6 to 15. We performed descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regressions to analyse and compare the determinants of participation between 2009 and 2019. The final sample included 26 288 children. Lov'U'r Teeth participation rate increased by 4.2 percentage points from 2009 to 2019. Participation was highest at age 6 and declined as age increased. Children from households facing financial difficulties have a 72% lower probability of participating than other children. Over the study period, increasing poverty rates were consistently associated with lower participation. Children living in the areas with the highest poverty rates were up to 46% less likely to participate than those in areas with the lowest poverty rates. Participation in Lov'U'r Teeth has improved over the past 10 years, but the programme continues to reproduce social inequalities, as the determinants of using free preventive dental care mirror those of non-preventive care. Lov'U'r Teeth should enhance communication strategies to reach those in need and clarify the programme's benefits.

Replicating “Language Matters”: Taking Baselines into Account

Abstract This study evaluates the visibility of French-speaking scholars in Canadian political science by analyzing the reading materials assigned in Canadian politics courses. Extending Daoust et al.'s (2022) research, we establish a baseline for their calculations and build an original dataset gathered from all political science departments’ websites and Google Scholar. Our analysis based on three assumptions about the expected academic representation of francophones—Canada's linguistic composition, the makeup of political science departments and faculty members’ productivity—reveals a discrepancy favouring anglophone scholars by up to four percentage points. Our findings extend Daoust et al.'s (2022) contribution by highlighting a similar language-based bias in overall citation practices among Canadian scholars, with French-speaking authors being significantly under-cited compared to their English-speaking counterparts despite demonstrating higher levels of overall productivity. Implications for the future of the discipline are also discussed.

Development and Validation of a Machine Learning Model for Early Detection of Untreated Infection.

Early diagnostic uncertainty for infection causes delays in antibiotic administration in infected patients and unnecessary antibiotic administration in noninfected patients. To develop a machine learning model for the early detection of untreated infection (eDENTIFI), with the presence of infection determined by clinician chart review. Three thousand three hundred fifty-seven adult patients hospitalized between 2006 and 2018 at two health systems in Illinois, United States. We validated in 1632 patients in a third Illinois health system using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Using a longitudinal discrete-time format, we trained a gradient boosted machine model to predict untreated infection in the next 6 hours using routinely available patient demographics, vital signs, and laboratory results. eDENTIFI had an AUC of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.79-0.81) in the validation cohort and outperformed the systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria with an AUC of 0.64 (95% CI, 0.64-0.65; p < 0.001). The most important features were body mass index, age, temperature, and heart rate. Using a threshold with a 47.6% sensitivity, eDENTIFI detected infection a median 2.0 hours (interquartile range, 0.9-5.2 hr) before antimicrobial administration, with a negative predictive value of 93.6%. Antibiotic administration guided by eDENTIFI could have decreased unnecessary IV antibiotic administration in noninfected patients by 10.8% absolute or 46.4% relative percentage points compared with clinicians. eDENTIFI could both decrease the time to antimicrobial administration in infected patients and unnecessary antibiotic administration in noninfected patients. Further prospective validation is needed.

The Real-World Effectiveness of Antifungals in People with Cystic Fibrosis and Aspergillus-Positive Cultures.

The pathogenicity of Aspergillus in the cystic fibrosis (CF) airway is debated, leading to unclear clinical benefit of antifungal therapy for Aspergillus infection. To determine the real-world effectiveness of antifungal use in people with CF (PwCF) with Aspergillus species in the United States. We conducted a retrospective cohort study evaluating the association of antifungal use and respiratory outcomes in PwCF and Aspergillus positive cultures using the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation patient registry. Marginal structural models using inverse-probability treatment weighted estimators were used to test if antifungal exposure was associated with forced expiratory volume in one second percent predicted (FEV1pp) and pulmonary exacerbation rate, while controlling for fixed and time-varying confounders. We conducted sensitivity analyses on individuals with persistent Aspergillus and without concomitant allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA). A total of 14,754 individuals with Aspergillus positive cultures between 2006 and 2019 were identified. Antifungals were prescribed to 3,575 (24.2%) unique PwCF during the study period. Antifungal use was not associated with FEV1pp (adjusted estimate -0.96 percentage points, 95% CI -2.21,0.29). Antifungal use was associated with 29% increased rate of pulmonary exacerbations requiring intravenous (IV) antibiotics (adjusted IRR=1.29, 95% CI 1.22, 1.37). In sensitivity analyses limited to individuals without ABPA< antifungals were associated with 1.88 lower FEV1pp (95% CI -3.35, -0.41) and an increased rate of pulmonary exacerbations (adjusted IRR= 1.30, 95% CI 1.21,1.40). Whereas, in patients with persistent Aspergillus and persistent Aspergillus without concomitant ABPA, antifungals were not associated with FEV1pp. Antifungal therapy in PwCF and Aspergillus positive cultures was not associated with improvements in FEV>1pp. While antifungal therapy was associated with increased risk for pulmonary exacerbations, this could reflect confounding by severity of disease. Randomized clinical trials examining the clinical efficacy of antifungals in Aspergillus infections are warranted.

Beta-Blocker Interruption or Continuation after Myocardial Infarction

BackgroundThe appropriate duration of treatment with beta-blocker drugs after a myocardial infarction is unknown. Data are needed on the safety and efficacy of the interruption of long-term beta-blocker treatment to reduce side effects and improve quality of life in patients with a history of uncomplicated myocardial infarction.MethodsIn a multicenter, open label, randomized, noninferiority trial conducted at 49 sites in France, we randomly assigned patients with a history of myocardial infarction, in a 1:1 ratio, to interruption or continuation of beta-blocker treatment. All the patients had a left ventricular ejection fraction of at least 40% while receiving long-term beta-blocker treatment and had no history of a cardiovascular event in the previous 6 months. The primary end point was a composite of death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for cardiovascular reasons at the longest follow-up (minimum, 1 year), according to an analysis of noninferiority (defined as a between-group difference of <3 percentage points for the upper boundary of the two-sided 95% confidence interval). The main secondary end point was the change in quality of life as measured by the European Quality of Life–5 Dimensions questionnaire.ResultsA total of 3698 patients underwent randomization: 1846 to the interruption group and 1852 to the continuation group. The median time between the last myocardial infarction and randomization was 2.9 years (interquartile range, 1.2 to 6.4), and the median follow-up was 3.0 years (interquartile range, 2.0 to 4.0). A primary-outcome event occurred in 432 of 1812 patients (23.8%) in the interruption group and in 384 of 1821 patients (21.1%) in the continuation group (risk difference, 2.8 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], <0.1 to 5.5), for a hazard ratio of 1.16 (95% CI, 1.01 to 1.33; P=0.44 for noninferiority). Beta-blocker interruption did not seem to improve the patients’ quality of life.ConclusionsIn patients with a history of myocardial infarction, interruption of long-term beta-blocker treatment was not found to be noninferior to a strategy of beta-blocker continuation. (Funded by the French Ministry of Health and ACTION Study Group; ABYSS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03498066; EudraCT number, 2017-003903-23.)

Does decentralization boost electoral participation? Revisiting the question in a non-western context

Since the late 1970s, intergovernmental relationships worldwide have undergone an unequivocal transformation, with powers increasingly shifting toward subnational governments. One of the expected outcomes of decentralization reforms is a (re)vitalization of participation in subnational decision-making. If available empirical evidence tends to support this claim, it has remained primarily restricted to Western countries. This article leverages asymmetric decentralization arrangements in Ukraine to re-examine the effect of decentralization on voter turnout in a diverging setting. It conducts matching and regression analyses using an original city-level dataset that combines electoral, census, administrative, financial and geospatial data. The results converge on a significantly positive effect on voter turnout in local elections of more than 4 percentage points. Additional analyses concerning the mechanisms suggest that the effect might be driven by citizens’ awareness of electoral stakes. Interestingly, the increase in voter turnout appears concomitant with lower perceived local government performance.

Design and performance evaluation of a reversible bladeless turbo machine

It is well known that bladeless or Tesla turbomachinery idea was proposed by Nikola Tesla over a century ago, and it has several distinct features, such as reversibility of operation, which includes expander and compressor operations obtained by reversing the rotational speed, provided that the statoric channels are purposely designed.The main objective of this paper is to design a reversible Tesla or bladeless machine with optimal design parameter choice that can operate both in compressor and expander modes. As a consequence of the high losses due to rotor and stator interactions, statorless (volute) configurations are investigated here, showing superior performance in both compressor and expander modes of operation. Numerical study has been conducted for both compressor and expander modes of this machine using air as working fluid. In compressor mode, numerical results have been validated with experimental data, while results for expander mode will be validated in the near future. The numerical results predict peak isentropic efficiencies of 57.5 % and 63.5 %, for the compressor and expander modes of operation excluding assembly losses, respectively, while rotor efficiency is quite high > 90 % at very low mass flow rates. Tests on Tesla machine prototype have shown an experimental isentropic efficiency of maximum 32.4 % when operating in compressor mode. The overall assembly efficiency is reduced, compared to numerical predictions, due to leakage and end wall losses. The CFD simulations could match the experimental results at high pressure ratio and low mass flow, with less than 2 % error on pressure ratio. Through the improvement of the sealing system and the reduction of losses (leakage and end wall friction), it is expected that overall prototype efficiency could improve by at least 10 percentage points.

A Geometric Model of Elections in Five Federal Democracies

Abstract In an analysis of 1,825 state or provincial election outcomes in five federal democracies the rate of decay of incumbency (K) serves to partition the distribution of the vote for the incumbent party, the party of the head of government, between those who win a subsequent term and those who do not. In conjunction with the mean and standard deviation of the distribution, the weighted mean of the vote in re-election and defeat is identified. The model’s predictions are generally within 2–3 percentage points of the actual outcome.

HSP-UNet: An Accuracy and Efficient Segmentation Method for Carbon Traces of Surface Discharge in the Oil-Immersed Transformer

Restricted by a metal-enclosed structure, the internal defects of large transformers are difficult to visually detect. In this paper, a micro-robot is used to visually inspect the interior of a transformer. For the micro-robot to successfully detect the discharge level and insulation degradation trend in the transformer, it is essential to segment the carbon trace accurately and rapidly from the complex background. However, the complex edge features and significant size differences of carbon traces pose a serious challenge for accurate segmentation. To this end, we propose the Hadamard production-Spatial coordinate attention-PixelShuffle UNet (HSP-UNet), an innovative architecture specifically designed for carbon trace segmentation. To address the pixel over-concentration and weak contrast of carbon trace image, the Adaptive Histogram Equalization (AHE) algorithm is used for image enhancement. To realize the effective fusion of carbon trace features with different scales and reduce model complexity, the novel grouped Hadamard Product Attention (HPA) module is designed to replace the original convolution module of the UNet. Meanwhile, to improve the activation intensity and segmentation completeness of carbon traces, the Spatial Coordinate Attention (SCA) mechanism is designed to replace the original jump connection. Furthermore, the PixelShuffle up-sampling module is used to improve the parsing ability of complex boundaries. Compared with UNet, UNet++, UNeXt, MALUNet, and EGE-UNet, HSP-UNet outperformed all the state-of-the-art methods on both carbon trace datasets. For dendritic carbon traces, HSP-UNet improved the Mean Intersection over Union (MIoU), Pixel Accuracy (PA), and Class Pixel Accuracy (CPA) of the benchmark UNet by 2.13, 1.24, and 4.68 percentage points, respectively. For clustered carbon traces, HSP-UNet improved MIoU, PA, and CPA by 0.98, 0.65, and 0.83 percentage points, respectively. At the same time, the validation results showed that the HSP-UNet has a good model lightweighting advantage, with the number of parameters and GFLOPs of 0.061 M and 0.066, respectively. This study could contribute to the accurate segmentation of discharge carbon traces and the assessment of the insulation condition of the oil-immersed transformer.

Persistent ethnic disparities in authorship within top European and North American medical journals: a serial cross-sectional analysis

ObjectivesWe examined the ethnic origin of authors who published research articles in leading medical journals over the past 2 decades. Study Design and SettingWe carried out a serial cross-sectional analysis of first and last authors who published original research articles in the British Medical Journal, Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, and New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, 2012, and 2022. The main outcome was the change in proportion of authors over time according to ethnic origin (Anglo, North/West European, South/West European, Asian, Arab and Middle Eastern, African), gender (male, female), and institutional affiliation in percentage points. ResultsMost authors were of Anglo descent (44%), although the proportion of non-European authors grew between 2002 and 2022. East Asian, South Asian, and Arab and Middle Eastern last authors accounted for a greater proportion of authors over time, gaining between 3 and 6 percentage points, while African authors made no gains. Gains were gender-specific, with non-European men gaining 8 points as first and last authors, but non-European women gaining 5 points as last authors only. Most non-European authors were affiliated with North American (42.9%) or European (22.4%) institutions, while non-European authors from other institutions did not make meaningful gains over time. ConclusionEthnic diversity of authors in leading medical journals has increased somewhat over time, but non-European men account for most of the gains. Non-European women have yet to make comparable advancement as authors.

Co-resident grandparent and maternal employment. A Northern Ireland cross-sectional administrative data analysis

The trade-off between the costs of childcare provision and the benefits of having an increased proportion of women, particularly women with dependent children, in employment is one of the most taxing social issues for Western governments. In countries like Northern Ireland, the limited subsidised childcare provision for preschool and primary school children has been partially offset by a rise in informal childcare though this has been considerably hard to assess both in terms of magnitude and effect. Using the entire 2011 Census cohort of mothers with children aged 1 to 16 years of age, we argue that co-resident grandparents have a substantial positive impact on maternal labour force participation in Northern Ireland. The presence of a co-resident grandparent was associated with an increase of 3.7 percentage points in employment for single-parent mothers and 2 percentage points for mothers in two-parent households. Mothers with co-resident grandparents report an increase of 2.7 percentage points for a single mother and of 3.7 percentage points for a mother in a two-parent household being in full-time employment than mothers without. Overall, the presence of a co-resident grandparent was associated with at least a 3.2 percentage point increase in labour force participation among mothers with primary-school-age children.