PPS Method Research Articles

Experience and insights from the emergency multiday take-home dose methadone dispensing in Ho Chi Minh City in context of COVID-19

Introduction: We aimed to assess the uptake of the pilot multiday take-home dose methadone program during COVID-19 by the patients and document the experience with this novel approach to Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) in Vietnam through this operational research. Materials and methods: A total of 10 clinics were identified randomly using the PPS method. A total of 502 patients were selected from the clinics using a simple randomization technique. The information was collected from the administrative and treatment records and direct face-to-face interview with the patients. Results: None of the clinics reported an incidence of overdose. A large majority of the patients reported that take home methadone program as being convenient (79.6%) and agreed that they shall like to join the multiday take-home dose in future (98.7%). Conclusions: The findings of the current study suggested that the multiday take-home methadone program was feasible and well accepted by the patients in Ho Chi Minh City. It helped ensure continuity of care to patients on MMT during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An assessment of sustainable supply chain initiatives in Indian automobile industry using PPS method

An assessment of sustainable supply chain initiatives in Indian automobile industry using PPS method

Pattern and Implication of Youth Migration in the Garhwal Division of Uttarakhand, India

This study examines the youth migration patterns, driving forces, reasons, factors of migration and consequences of out-migration in the Garbwal division of Uttarakhand. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources .The district Tehri Garbwal comprises of nine blocks out of them two blocks Chamba and Thauldhar were chosen. Four villages Kainchu, Jaspur, Kot and Bhainskoti were selected for the study. Sample of 120 respondents was selected through PPS method. We used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to conduct this study. Data was gathered from both primary and secondary sources. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents (40.83%) belonged to 24-32 age groups, (73.33%) were men, 40.84 per cent had intermediate education, (67.50%) belonged to general category, 55.00% had medium family size, majority 40.00 per cent of the respondents were in service, 54.16% had moderate level of achievement motivation, 59.16 per cent had moderate mass media exposure, had less than 1 acre land holding (64.16%), 63.33 per cent had medium level of change proneness. Majority of the respondents (92.50%) had migrated for non – agricultural purpose, (53.33%) had migrated from village to nearby town, (81.66%) had up to 2 migrants in their family, and (69.16%) had medium term of migration (6 to 10 years). Majority of the respondents (64.16%) had high level of push factors of migration, majority of the respondents (59.16%) had medium level of pull factors of migration. The study concludes that the high rate of rural-urban migration is driven by the various forces such as poor socioeconomic conditions, climate, education, unemployment and overall lacking in infrastructural facilities. It was observed that rural-urban migration has several implications both in sending and receiving areas. Development of rural areas through implementing various innovative programmes may control rural-urban migration and develop Suitable strategy for reducing out-migration was suggested.

The Use of Business Model Canvas in the Design and Classification of Product-Service Systems Design Methods

The implementation of Product-Service Systems (PSS) calls for the modification of existing business models. The goal of the paper is to work out an analysis and a classification of PSS design methods used in the development of new business models. Using a systematic review method, we identified 60 PSS design methods. Following the examination of the major business model templates, we selected the Business Canvas Model for further studies. Then, coding rules were adopted to specify what elements of the Business Model Canvas impacts individual PSS design methods and an analysis was performed. In the final stage, methods were broken down by Business Model Canvas domains. Various PSS design methods presented in the literature address different areas of Business Model Canvas. The available PPS methods can be classified into three main groups: Group 1—including infrastructure and offering; Group 2—including infrastructure, offering and customers; and Group 3—including infrastructure, offering, customers and finance. Very few methods consider areas such as Key Partners, Customer Segments, Cost Structure and Revenue Streams. Nevertheless, there is no PPS design method that would address all of Business Model Canvas building blocks. The paper discusses PSS design in business model context. Classification of PSS design methods was proposed together with new possibilities to develop business models based on this classification. The proposed approach illustrates the combination of PSS design methods applied in food processing and agricultural machines industry.

Status of knowledge regarding school health services among school teachers: a cross sectional study from a northern Indian state

Background: School-age children spend one-third of their time in schools. Teachers are key personnel to look after the health of school children. Teachers can provide health education to school children, assess the school environment for better health outcomes, provide health care services and help in the maintenance of school health records. Aim of the study was to assess the status of knowledge of school health services (SHS) among school teachers.Methods: Government and private schools in a Northern Indian state. A community-based cross-sectional study. It includes 50 randomly selected designated schoolteachers for SHS by the PPS methods from the schools which were functional since at least five years in the study area. A pre-tested self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge regarding SHS. Percentage, proportion and χ2 test were used as statistical methods. The p-value 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: 38% participants were of 41-50 years of age group, 54% were females and 48% had an experience of ≤10 years. 22% participants had training regarding SHS. 40% participants had moderately adequate knowledge (p-value=0.04). It was observed to be more among participants of rural, government, age group of 31-40 years, with experience of 21-30years, female and among trained teachers for school health.Conclusions: School teachers were lacking in knowledge regarding environment and sanitation; communicable and non-communicable diseases; and health education for school children. We also observed that training regarding SHS was a majorly missing component which could be the reason behind poor level knowledge among schoolteachers.

Distribution of hypertension subtypes in a hill tribe of Mizoram, Northeast India

ObjectiveHypertension is a potential risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. With increasing age there is differential rise of systolic and diastolic blood pressure leading to development of various hypertension subtypes which have its own clinical implications. Present study assessed distribution and risk factors of hypertensive subtypes in the hill tribe of Mizoram. MethodsThe present study was a community-based cross-sectional study carried out in Aizawl, Mizoram representing both rural (fourteen villages) and urban (six wards) population and which were selected by PPS method. Individuals aged 18 years and above providing informed verbal consent were included for collection of sociodemographic and clinical data including blood pressure. Of the total 12,313 subjects (Urban: 5853, Rural: 6460) & (Male: 5459, Female: 6854) surveyed, 549 hypertensive subjects who were under antihypertensive treatment were excluded. Hypertension subtype was defined as per standard guidelines. ResultsOut of 11,764 study individuals, 88.03% (CI: 87.43–88.61) were normotensive and 11.97% (CI: 11.39–12.57) individuals were hypertensive. Prevalence of ISH, IDH and SDH were 241(2.05%), 403 (3.43%) and 764 (6.49%) respectively. Older age, unmarried participants, physical inactivity and obesity are found to be associated with ISH. Male gender, older age, higher educational status, physical inactivity, consumption of extra salt, alcohol consumption, use of tuibur and high BMI were significantly associated with SDH. ConclusionsThe overall prevalence of hypertension with its subtypes specifically isolated systolic hypertension are low in this hill tribe of Mizoram. It is the right time for initiating intervention programme to modify the risk factors associated with hypertension.

2034. Standardized Point Prevalence Survey on Antibiotic Use to Inform Antimicrobial Stewardship Strategies in the Caribbean

BackgroundInappropriate use of antimicrobials is one of the core contributors to antimicrobial resistance. While hospitals create high selection pressures on bacteria due to the high quantity and broader spectrum of antibiotics used, information on antimicrobial use at the patient level in the Caribbean is sparse. In response, PAHO implemented a standardized WHO methodology to engage national leaderships, build local capacity, and facilitate the use of data to inform antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) in the Caribbean.MethodsPoint prevalence surveys (PPS) were performed in four acute care hospitals in Barbados, Guyana and Saint Lucia between June and July 2018. Medical records of all inpatients were reviewed to collect information on antibiotic use, indications and use of laboratory services (Figure 1). A hospital questionnaire was used to assess hospital infrastructure, policy and practices, and monitoring and feedback systems (Figure 2). Training on PPS methods and electronic data collection tool in REDCap™ were provided to build local capacity and identify potential ASP leaderships. A standardized data validation, analysis and reporting system was built in R to streamline the process. Results and recommendations were disseminated to national authorities and stakeholders to support hospital and national decision-making and training for healthcare providers (Figure 3).ResultsA total of 60 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, and infection control specialists were trained and participated in the PPS. The survey collected records of 816 patients in which 442 (54%) were females and 374 (46%) were males. In total, 356 (44%) patients received 551 antibiotics. Overall, 300 (75%) of 398 indications for antibiotic use were treatment and 72 (18%) were prophylaxis. A higher use of parenteral antibiotics (79%) was observed compared with oral antibiotics (21%). Antibiotic prescribing patterns differed across hospitals. The most commonly used antibiotics were metronidazole (12%) and amoxicillin/clavulanate (11%).ConclusionThe PPS method provided a feasible and effective way to collect baseline data and identify target areas for interventions. Engaging national leaderships and building local capacity offered a sustainable way in optimizing antimicrobial use in resource-limited settings. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Analysis of basic medical literacy status and influencing factors of Chongqing residents in 2016

Objective To understand the basic medical literacy status of Chongqing residents in 2016 and it’s influencing factors. Methods From August to December of 2016, multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling and PPS method were used to extract 15-69 years permanent residents from 34 counties in Chongqing to investigate residents' status and influencing factors of basic medical literacy by paper questionnaire survey, and SPSS 21.0 software was adopted for data analysis, and multi-factor logistic regression analysis was used for main result. Results The basic medical literacy level of Chongqing residents was 10.59% in 2016. 8 217 people were surveyed and 8 214 valid questionnaires for this analysis were completed. The ratio of urban and rural population was 0.43∶1 and sex ratio was 1.02∶1. Multi-factor logistic regression analysis showed that education level was an important factor affecting the basic medical literacy of residents. Conclusion The basic medical literacy level of Chongqing residents in 2016 is still at a low level, and the education and region are the main influencing factors, so it is necessary to carry out targeted health educational and health promotion activities. Key words: Investigation; Chongqing; Basic medical literacy; Influencing factors

Factors Impacting the Oral Health-related Quality of Life in Chinese Adults: Results from the 4th National Oral Health Survey.

To explore the clinical and socio-demographic factors influencing oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of Chinese adults in the 4th National Oral Health Survey. Multistage stratified cluster sampling and PPS method were used in sampling and 4720 adults aged 35 to 44 years were recruited. The study subjects completed a structured questionnaire in an interview and underwent a clinical examination. The questionnaire was a Putonghua version of the General Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI) and was completed by the interviewer on the site of the 4th National Oral Health Survey. Clinical examination was performed using the criteria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The mean GOHAI score of the subjects was 54.42 (SD 6.01). Result of Poisson regression showed that subjects with a higher household income per capita, had lower DMFT, fewer missing teeth, had no unrepaired missing teeth, or not wearing a partial denture had higher GOHAI scores indicating better OHRQoL. The OHRQoL of the adults in China was fair and was mainly influenced by dental caries, integrity of dentition and restoration of lost teeth. With limited resources and dental manpower in China, higher priority should be given to the prevention and treatment of the main cause leading to losing teeth.

Positive Definite and Semi-Definite Splitting Methods for Non-Hermitian Positive Definite Linear Systems

In this paper, we further generalize the technique for constructing the normal (or positive definite) and skew-Hermitian splitting iteration method for solving large sparse nonHermitian positive definite system of linear equations. By introducing a new splitting, we establish a class of efficient iteration methods, called positive definite and semi-definite splitting (PPS) methods, and prove that the sequence produced by the PPS method converges unconditionally to the unique solution of the system. Moreover, we propose two kinds of typical practical choices of the PPS method and study the upper bound of the spectral radius of the iteration matrix. In addition, we show the optimal parameters such that the spectral radius achieves the minimum under certain conditions. Finally, some numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the considered methods.

Risk Factors associated with unsafe neonatal practices in rural area of Nadia district of West Bengal

Introduction: Neonatal mortality is the main barrier to reduction of infant mortality in West Bengal. Home based simple newborn care by mothers in the neonatal period can reduce neonatal mortality. The practices of mothers in this aspect in Nadia are not known. A cross sectional survey of mothers of Nadia with the objectives of describing their neonatal care practices, determine factors associated with it. Methods: Nadia district has a population of 5 million and estimated pregnancies of 74000. We used PPS method cluster sampling technique. We needed 575 mothers in 23 clusters assuming 52% prevalence at 5% precision, 95% Confidence interval and design effect 1.48.Structured questionnaire was used for data collection on different socio-demographic and health system related factors and mothers’ newborn care practices. Data was analysed using Epi info 3.5 software. Results: Among 575 mothers, 518 (90.1%) kept the neonates cord stump clean. Delaying the first bath of the neonate was least practiced 292 (50.8%). Only 39 (6.8%) mothers had all safe practices. Living below poverty line (Adjusted OR 5.2, C.I. 3.4-7.8), not registering in the first trimester (Adjusted OR 2.6, C.I 1.6-4.2), maternal education not more than secondary level (Adjusted OR 2.3, C.I. 1.3-3.9) and having home delivery(Adjusted OR 3.2, C.I. 1.5-6.8) were significant factors for non-adoption of at least five safe practices. The overall neonatal morbidity rate was 57 per 1000 live births (33 /575) and neonatal mortality rate was 10 per 1000 live birth (6/575). Median contacts with the health system in the mothers having unsafe practices was 6 (range 0-11) compared to 10(range 1-11) in the other group. Out of 33 sick neonates 26(78.8%) were from mothers with unsafe practices. Conclusion: Poor and uneducated were unaware of safe newborn care practices especially for hypothermia. They had more neonatal sickness and deaths. They had less contact with the health system. There is a need to reach out to such vulnerable group and improve their coverage in existing facilities. Training of ASHA in Home based newborn care and educating mothers can be cost effective option for this section to save neonates by promoting best neonatal practices. Keywords: Risk factors, Unsafe practices, Neonatal morbidity, ASHA, Rural Nadia, West Bengal

Presentation of Functional, PPS and Hall’s Methods in Comparison with other Research on Space Quality / Prezentacja Metod: Funkcjonalnej, Pps I Hall’A Na Tle Innych Badań Jakości Przestrzeni

The end of the twentieth century was a period in which the need for quality control was developing in all areas of life in post-industrial countries. The impulse for the development of numerous methods of evaluating the quality in architecture and construction was "Green Paper" and "Agenda 21" concerning the idea of sustainable development. First of all, creation of a system of evaluation criteria is the basis for elaboration of any system of quality control. Several years of cooperation between J. Serdyńska and the author resulted in a cycle of studies on urban public space (squares in the city of Katowice) based upon functional, Hall’s and PPS methods. This study aims to embed them in a typology of other studies of space quality.

Cutting edges with high hardness made of nanocrystalline cemented carbides

This article presents comparative results of investigations of cutting edges made of nanocrystalline and standard cemented carbides. The cutting edges made of nanocrystalline cemented carbides were sintered by the PPS method at various values of temperature (1320–1560K) for 500s in a vacuum of 0.05Pa and under a load of 60MPa. The results of investigations showed considerable variation in the structure of the nanocrystalline cemented carbides depending on the applied sintering parameters. The nanocrystalline cemented carbides obtained by the PPS method were characterized by considerably higher hardness than the standard cemented carbides with similar chemical composition. The PPS is a new method of producing sintered materials elaborated at Warsaw University of Technology.

English

Access to accurate, timely and reliable information plays a crucial role in the adoption of appropriate agriculture technology. Although, women contribute significantly in the farming operations, their contribution is not yet fully recognised and acknowledged. In order to improve agriculture productivity and production efficiency, there is an urgent need to identify their agriculture information needs. The present study was undertaken to find out the agriculture information needs of farm women in a Himalayan State of North India. The study adopted a descriptive research design and the study sample included 120 farm women selected from eight randomly selected villages using PPS method. The findings indicate that farm women expressed the need for information regarding disease control/management, weed control/management, high yielding variety crops, fertilizer requirement, use of improved farm implements, and information related to marketing. An appropriate information dissemination strategy can be developed on the basis of their information seeking and information sharing behaviour. The study has policy and programming implications for devising appropriate extension strategies for fulfilling the information needs of farm women for enhancing agriculture productivity and production efficiency. Key words: Information needs, farm women, information seeking behavior.

Sequential algorithm analysis to facilitate selective biliary access for difficult biliary cannulation in ERCP: a prospective clinical study

BackgroundNumerous clinical trials to improve the success rate of biliary access in difficult biliary cannulation (DBC) during ERCP have been reported. However, standard guidelines or sequential protocol analysis according to different methods are limited in place. We planned to investigate a sequential protocol to facilitate selective biliary access for DBC during ERCP.MethodsThis prospective clinical study enrolled 711 patients with naïve papillae at a tertiary referral center. If wire-guided cannulation was deemed to have failed due to the DBC criteria, then according to the cannulation algorithm early precut fistulotomy (EPF; cannulation time > 5 min, papillary contacts > 5 times, or hook-nose-shaped papilla), double-guidewire cannulation (DGC; unintentional pancreatic duct cannulation ≥ 3 times), and precut after placement of a pancreatic stent (PPS; if DGC was difficult or failed) were performed sequentially. The main outcome measurements were the technical success, procedure outcomes, and complications.ResultsInitially, a total of 140 (19.7%) patients with DBC underwent EPF (n = 71) and DGC (n = 69). Then, in DGC group 36 patients switched to PPS due to difficulty criteria. The successful biliary cannulation rate was 97.1% (136/140; 94.4% [67/71] with EPF, 47.8% [33/69] with DGC, and 100% [36/36] with PPS; P < 0.001). The mean successful cannulation time (standard deviation) was 559.4 (412.8) seconds in EPF, 314.8 (65.2) seconds in DGC, and 706.0 (469.4) seconds in PPS (P < 0.05). The DGC group had a relatively low successful cannulation rate (47.8%) but had a shorter cannulation time compared to the other groups due to early switching to the PPS method in difficult or failed DGC. Post-ERCP pancreatitis developed in 14 (10%) patients (9 mild, 1 moderate), which did not differ significantly among the groups (P = 0.870) or compared with the conventional group (P = 0.125).ConclusionsBased on the sequential protocol analysis, EPF, DGC, and PPS may be safe and feasible for DBC. The use of EPF in selected DBC criteria, DGC in unintentional pancreatic duct cannulations, and PPS in failed or difficult DGC may facilitate successful biliary cannulation.

Sampling schemes for price index construction: a performance comparison across the classification of individual consumption by purpose food groups

Five sampling schemes (SS) for price index construction – one cut-off sampling technique and four probability-proportional-to-size (pps) methods – are evaluated by comparing their performance on a homescan market research data set across 21 months for each of the 13 classification of individual consumption by purpose (COICOP) food groups. Classifications are derived for each of the food groups and the population index value is used as a reference to derive performance error measures, such as root mean squared error, bias and standard deviation for each food type. Repeated samples are taken for each of the pps schemes and the resulting performance error measures analysed using regression of three of the pps schemes to assess the overall effect of SS and COICOP group whilst controlling for sample size, month and population index value. Cut-off sampling appears to perform less well than pps methods and multistage pps seems to have no advantage over its single-stage counterpart. The jackknife resampling technique is also explored as a means of estimating the standard error of the index and compared with the actual results from repeated sampling.

Service Guaranteed Scheduling Model of the MPMS Packet Switching Fabric

In this paper, the service guaranteed scheduling model was proposed for the MPMS switching fabric. Firstly, the service distribution characteristic of each cell flow was analyzed in the MPMS switching fabric. Then, the service guaranteed distributed architecture was designed, and the scheduling model is proposed for demultiplexors, multiplexors, input switching units, middle switching units and output switching units in the MPMS fabric, respectively. Finally, we evaluated the proposed service guaranteed scheduling model ( SGS - MPMS ) under ON - OFF burst traffic. Simulation results show that SGS - MPMS can overcome the problem of delay divergence for traditional iSLIP , and PPS method, and provide delay guaranteed performance under ON - OFF burst traffic, and converge to the optimal delay curve with only four switching planes and four iterations.

Integrated SDS Removal and Peptide Separation by Strong-Cation Exchange Liquid Chromatography for SDS-Assisted Shotgun Proteome Analysis

We report an improved shotgun method for analyzing proteomic samples containing sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). This method is based on the use of strong-cation exchange (SCX) liquid chromatography (LC) for SDS removal that can be integrated with peptide separation as the first dimension of the two-dimensional LC tandem mass spectrometry workflow. To optimize the performance of SDS removal, various experimental conditions, including the concentrations of chemical reagents and salts in the sample, the SDS concentration, and the SCX mobile phase composition, were investigated. It was found that a peptide recovery rate of about 90% could be achieved while removing SDS efficiently. One key finding was that, by increasing the SDS concentration to a certain level (0.5%) in the digested peptide sample, the sample recovery rate could be increased. The peptide recovery rate of BSA digests was found to be 90.6 ± 1.0% (n = 3), and SDS in the SCX fractions collected was not detectable by pyrolysis GC-MS, i.e., below the detection limit of 0.00006% for the undesalted SCX fractions. The peptide recovery rates were found to be 90.9% ± 2.7 (n = 3) and 89.5% ± 0.5% (n = 3) for the digests of the membrane-protein-enriched fractions of E. coli cell lysates and the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line, respectively. Compared to the methods that use acid-labile surfactants, such as RapiGest and PPS, for the MCF-7 membrane fraction sample, the SDS method identified, on average (n = 3), more peptides (∼5%) and proteins (∼16%) than the RapiGest method, while the RapiGest method identified more peptides (∼21%) and proteins (∼7%) from the E. coli membrane fraction than the SDS method. In both cases, the two methods identified more peptides and proteins than the PPS method. Since SCX is widely used as the first dimension of 2D-LC MS/MS, integration of SDS removal with peptide separation in SCX does not add any extra steps to the sample handling process. We demonstrated the application of this method for 2D-LC MS/MS profiling of the MCF-7 membrane protein fraction and identified 6889 unique peptides, corresponding to 2258 unique proteins or protein groups from two replicate experiments with a false peptide discovery rate of ∼0.8%, compared to 5172 unique peptides and 1847 unique proteins identified by the RapiGest method.

W/steel joint fabrication using the pulse plasma sintering (PPS) method

The paper presents application of pulse plasma sintering method (PPS), developed at the Faculty of the Materials Science and Engineering of Warsaw University of Technology. Unlike other electric-field assisted sintering methods, the PPS method employs pulse high-current electric discharges for heating and activating the material to be sintered. The phenomena, taking place during the high-current pulses, which heat the powder during the PPS treatment and activate the sintering process, are similar to those occurring in SPS technique. However, in PPS, thanks to much higher energy the pulse discharge, these phenomena run much more intensively. The aim of the present study was to fabricate by the PPS a joint between tungsten and Eurofer 97 steel. Because of the large difference in thermal expansion coefficients of the joined materials, stresses are induced at the joint interfaces. To reduce these stresses a thin interlayer was incorporated between the joined materials. Four different materials were tested. The experiments allowed to establish the optimal PPS sintering parameters. It was shown that the interlayers between W and Eurofer 97 steel fabricated at 1000 °C for 10 min were highly dense and no delamination at joint interfaces occurred. The results of the thermocycle tests proved a high strength of the joints produced by PPS.

Evaluation of Cutting Edges Made of Nanocrystalline Cemented Carbides Sintered by the Pulse Plasma Method

Abstract In our investigations, nanocrystalline WC-5 wt % Co was consolidated by the pulse plasma sintering method at various temperatures between 1320 and 1560 K under a pressure of 60 MPa for 300 s. The cemented carbides sintered at 1520 K have a relative density of 100 %, hardness of 2100 HV30, and tungsten carbides (WC) crystallite size of about 150–300 nm. An increase of the sintering temperature to 1560 K results in the increase of the WC crystallite size to about 300–500 nm and the hardness being decreased to 1980 HV30. The tool life of the cutting edges made of nanocrystalline cemented carbides sintered by the pulse plasma method is increased about two times in comparison with cutting edges made of standard and fine-grained cemented carbides during the turning of EN1.45.40 (1H18N9T) austenitic steel.