Transmission Services Research Articles

Effects of COVID-19, control measures, and program adaptation on prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission service uptake in Central Region, Uganda

BackgroundCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) control measures presented impediments for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programming in Uganda. Nationwide control measures implemented April—June 2020 included a public transport ban and mandatory travel permits for pregnant women to access clinics. Program adaptations instituted for continuity of services included community drug delivery and home-based DNA-PCR testing for HIV-exposed infants (HEI). We examined the effect of COVID-19 control measures and program adaptations on PMTCT service uptake in central Uganda.MethodsWe analysed data for pregnant women living with HIV (WLHIV) and HEI receiving PMTCT services in eight districts in central Uganda. We abstracted data from medical records at 96 public clinics for six months pre-lockdown (October 2019–March 2020), three months of lockdown (April–June 2020), and six months post-lockdown (July–December 2020). We measured monthly antiretroviral therapy (ART) refill attendance, health facility deliveries, and timely DNA-PCR testing of HEI for HIV (within two months of birth). We conducted segmented ordinary least squares regression of interrupted time series and adjusted for month-to-month changes using Cumby-Huizinga test. We reported results using coefficients and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).ResultsAt the start of pre-lockdown (October 2019), there were 448 deliveries, 2,676 ART refills and 556 timely HEI tests. The pre-lockdown trend for ART refills increased while deliveries and HEI tests declined. At the start of lockdown (April 2020), all indicators declined, although significantly for facility deliveries (-60; 95% CI: -102, -18). Lockdown monthly trends were positive with 68 more HEI tested per month (95% CI:42, 93) and 51 more deliveries (95% CI: 9, 94) but insignificantly negative for ART refills. At start of post-lockdown (July 2020), HEI testing declined (-28; 95%CI: -48, -8). Post-lockdown HEI testing trend was negative with 70 fewer HEI tested per month (95%CI: -79, -62) while no difference in trend for deliveries and ART refills.ConclusionCOVID-19 control measures had a significant immediate negative impact on pregnancy deliveries at health facilities. During lockdown, all service rates rapidly recovered through program adaptations, significantly for HEI testing and deliveries. Maintaining these adaptations might help restore the positive trend in timely HIV testing for HEI.

Cloud Network Collaborative SFC Deployment Under Heterogeneous Resource Of Power White Box Network

The construction of new electric power systems has led to a multiplication in the number of access nodes for electric power IoT information communication, accompanied by a deepening trend in business cloudification. However, due to the insufficient resource linkage and regulation capabilities of the electric power communication network on the cloud side, network side, and edge side, coupled with the lack of a convenient and unified cloud-network resource convergence and control mechanism, the existing electric power communication architecture is gradually finding it difficult to fully meet the demand for deterministic multi-service bearer. Therefore, it is necessary to evolve the original network equipment within the network toward a white box model, opening up interfaces for fine-grained sensing and full-area control, in order to provide more accurate and controllable network transmission services. In this paper, we first propose a cloud-network cooperative resource scheduling architecture for the electric power white box network. This architecture establishes a bearer network to achieve high consistency and cooperativeness of cloud-side end computing power through white box switches, uniformly schedules the global resources of the cloud-network convergence network, and improves the network service quality between cloud-side and side-side. Furthermore, we design a multi-dimensional re-source scheduling method for cloud-network synergy in the electric power white box network. This involves constructing a white box network virtualized heterogeneous resource (VHR) model and a heterogeneous resource control flow (HRCF) model. We transform the problem of merged deployment of service function chains (SFCs) into an SFC merger deployment problem by jointly controlling heterogeneous information, communication, storage, and arithmetic resources, along with the white box switch-specific pipelining resources in the white box network. We then carry out merger optimization of the same kind of function chains. Additionally, we propose a G-GS algorithm based on heuristic methods. Simulation results demonstrate that the method presented in this paper can significantly reduce the cost consumption of white box pipeline resources in the electric power white box network, thereby reducing the processing delay of SFC and improving the quality of electric power service bearing.

Modelling Method and Meshing Characteristics of a Novel Curve-Surface Conjugate Internal Gear Drive

Space exploration has become a major focus in the field of technology, with gear transmissions in aerospace equipment playing a crucial role. In the extreme environment of space, gear transmissions face challenges like large temperature differentials, deformation and maintenance difficulties, which will severely impact transmission accuracy and service life. To meet the growing demands for high-performance gear transmissions with high transmission efficiency and error adaptability in the aerospace field, this paper proposes a novel curve-surface conjugate internal gear drive consisting of an involute internal gear and a curve-surface gear. The fundamental theory of curve-surface conjugation is introduced, and the construction method for curve-surface gear based on a selected contact path and meshing tube is presented. The analysis models including induced curvature, sliding ratio and tooth contact analysis with errors (ETCA) are simulated to evaluate the meshing characteristics. Additionally, prototypes are manufactured and experimental setups are established to validate the transmission performance. These results indicate that as the rotational speed increases, the transmission efficiency of the curve-surface conjugate internal gear drive improves, which is contrary to the trend observed in involute gear drives. And the transmission efficiency of the curve-surface conjugate internal gear drive surpasses that of the involute gear drive at higher rotational speeds. Moreover, this novel gear drive exhibits excellent error adaptability, maintaining intact contact paths and high transmission efficiency even in the presence of assembly errors. This study provides new ideas for the design and manufacture of high-performance gear transmissions from the perspective of spatial geometric elements.

Driving economic transition: The impact of cross-border e-commerce policy on the upgrading of service industry structure

Cross-border e-commerce, as an innovative format and model of international trade, plays a crucial role in accelerating the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures, and shaping a modern economic framework. Using panel data from 260 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019, this study investigates the impact of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot area (CBECCPA) policy on the upgrading of service industry structure and its mechanisms using the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method. The results show that the CBECCPA policy can significantly promote the upgrading of service industry structure. The mechanism analysis reveals that the CBECCPA policy can promote the upgrading of service industry structure by clustering service industry enterprises, bolstering urban innovation, and increasing the scale of trade. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of the CBECCPA policy on the information transmission, software, and information technology service industry is more pronounced and the policy effect is stronger for those with a lower level of service industry structure and for pilot areas with higher levels of development, developmental foundation, developmental scale, and developmental innovation. Furthermore, the policy effect varies significantly across cities. This study provides empirical evidence and policy insights into the role of the CBECCPA in the upgrading of service industry structure.

How green governance empowers high-quality development: An EKC framework-based analysis of ESG and green total factor productivity.

High-quality development represents a fundamental shift in China's economy from scale and speed to quality and efficiency. In this transition, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices are not only closely integrated with China's development strategy but have also become a core standard for measuring development quality. Nevertheless, research on how ESG practices specifically promote high-quality development in Chinese enterprises remains limited. Based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory framework, this study uses data from the Huazheng ESG Index from 2009 to 2022 and employs fixed effect models, mediation effect models, and heterogeneity analysis to examine the specific impact of China's ESG practices on corporate high-quality development from multiple dimensions. The results show that there is a "U-shaped" relationship between the ESG practices of Chinese listed companies and green total factor productivity (GTFP). Initially, improving ESG practices may temporarily suppress GTFP, but as ESG levels further improve, they exhibit a significant positive impact on GTFP. Corporations significantly boost productivity by alleviating financing constraints and promoting green technological innovation, although the direct impact on technological advancement remains relatively limited. In China's western regions and industries such as manufacturing, electricity, heat, gas, and water production and supply, wholesale and retail, and information transmission, software, and information technology services, the positive effects of ESG on GTFP are particularly evident. Based on these findings, it is recommended that governments and financial institutions collaborate to promote green credit policies and increase support for the research and development of green technologies. Additionally, environmental education and resource use optimization should be strengthened, especially in industries such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries, and the exchange of ESG technologies and experiences between industries should be encouraged.

A lightweight RDMA connection protocol based on post-hoc confirmation

With the increasing scale and complexity of high-performance computing systems, the rising failure rate poses significant challenges for RDMA networks that aim for high bandwidth and low latency. RDMA networks require hardware-level end-to-end reliable data transmission services to avoid the high cost of software failure recovery. Tianhe HPC interconnection network adopts a NIC-based RDMA reliable connection protocol, RCP. RCP establishes a connection for each message that enters the NIC and releases it after the transmission is complete. However, this introduces an additional round-trip time RTT connection overhead for each message, which severely impacts the performance of networks dominated by short messages in high-performance computing systems. We have found that utilization of receiver-side connection resources has been consistently low because maintaining message-grained connections on the NIC results in rapid release of connections. Therefore, we propose a lightweight RDMA connection protocol based on post-hoc confirmation, PCP. PCP assumes the receiver has connection resources by default and eliminates the need for confirmation from the receiver before sending a message, thus reducing the connection overhead of almost all messages by one RTT. At the same time, PCP also includes mechanisms to address the special case where the receiver lacks connection resources. Evaluation results demonstrate that PCP significantly optimizes short messages and applications dominated by short messages. Moreover, PCP further reduces the usage of receiver-side connection resources. Additionally, PCP does not experience performance degradation even under large-scale heavy loads and severe endpoint congestion.

Role of mothers in preventing tuberculosis in children: A scoping review

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant global health challenge, especially for children. The aim of this scoping review was to investigate the role of mothers in preventing childhood TB transmission and highlight effective strategies and associated barriers. A systematic literature search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus, covering articles up to January 17, 2024. The search included keywords like “mother,” “parents,” “care,” “prevention,” and “tuberculosis.” Eligibility criteria included peer-reviewed articles on maternal health interventions for TB prevention in children and published in English. The study selection process involved screening titles and abstracts, followed by full-text reviews by Rayyan Artificial Intelligence (AI). Eighteen studies were analyzed, revealing the crucial roles of mothers and healthcare workers in TB prevention. The results indicated that in South Africa, only 47% of eligible pregnant women underwent Mantoux testing, with lower rates in rural areas. The isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) uptake rate was 79%, with geographical variations. Barriers included insufficient patient information, inadequate screening facilities, and healthcare providers' knowledge gaps. Parental involvement, particularly by mothers, is vital for adherence to TB preventive measures. Challenges in integrating TB case-finding with antenatal care and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services included inconsistent screening and healthcare worker shortages. Enhancing health services, reducing stigma, and integrating TB prevention into existing programs are essential. In conclusion, this review underscores that effective childhood TB prevention requires a coordinated approach that incorporates the efforts of the mother and healthcare worker. Addressing barriers such as contact tracing gaps and diagnostic delays, alongside enhancing maternal health education and support, is essential for improving TB prevention and management. Targeted interventions and collaborative efforts are needed to reduce transmission and improve health outcomes, particularly in bridging rural-urban disparities.

The Current Situation of Japanese Copyright Law Regarding Internet Transmission of Library Materials – The Amendment to the Copyright Act in 2021

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Japan to review Art. 31 of the Copyright Act in 2021, which pertains to limitations on copyright for library usage. As a result, access to library materials via the internet became legally permissible within certain limits. Specifically, the amendment allows (1) the National Diet Library to transmit rare or out-of-print materials to individuals on the internet; and (2) libraries and similar facilities to provide users with public transmission services (transmitting portions of copyrighted works to users for research or study purposes). This article introduces the revisions made to Art. 31 in the 2021 amendment, explains the current situation regarding internet transmission of library materials in Japan, and explores future issues. Transmission via the internet is not subject to physical or locational constraints. The provision of library materials via the internet will thus involve considering how to position and organize the relationship between the individual transmission service for rare or out-of-print library materials by the National Diet Library and public transmission services by individual libraries.

An Authentic and Privacy-Preserving Scheme Towards E-Health Data Transmission Service

An Authentic and Privacy-Preserving Scheme Towards E-Health Data Transmission Service

A comprehensive sliding wear prediction method for planetary roller screw mechanism

The thread-pairs wear has a significant role in the transmission accuracy, operational stability and service life of planetary roller screw mechanism (PRSM). Nevertheless, the previous literatures still lack the investigation on the wear evolution of roller, nut and screw. Hence, an accumulative wear depth (AWD) prediction model is proposed for PRSM with reciprocating motion. The presented model is validated by the measured wear phenomena of thread pairs and the experimental results in the literature. The equivalent sliding wear experiment of PRSM is designed and the sliding wear coefficient of PRSM material is obtained by the equivalent sliding wear experiment. Considering the thread profile error caused by AWD of roller, nut and screw, the load distribution (LD) and sliding velocities on screw-roller (SR) and nut-roller (NR) sides are calculated. More importantly, the interactions between the AWD, LD and sliding velocity are investigated. Furthermore, the effects of axial load on the AWD, sliding velocities in contact regions and load distribution coefficient are analyzed.

Towards Millions of Database Transmission Services in the Cloud

Alibaba relies on its robust database infrastructure to facilitate realtime data access and ensure business continuity despite regional disruptions. To address these operational imperatives, Alibaba developed the Data Transmission Service (DTS), which has become critical for internal applications and public cloud services alike. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the architectural innovations, resource scheduling mechanisms, and performance optimization strategies that have been implemented within DTS to tackle the significant challenges of cross-network, heterogeneous data transmission in a cost-effective manner. We explore the novel Any-to-Any (A2A) architecture, which simplifies the complexity of data paths between diverse databases and mitigates network connectivity issues, thereby significantly reducing development overhead. Additionally, we examine a dynamic network bandwidth scheduling algorithm that effectively maintains Service-Level Objectives (SLOs), complemented by a serverless mechanism that ensures efficient resource utilization. Furthermore, DTS utilizes advanced strategies such as transaction dependency tracking, hot data consolidation, and batching to enhance synchronization performance and efficiency. DTS has distilled the lessons learned from years of serving our customer base and currently supports nearly 1 million public cloud instances annually. Our evaluation results show that DTS can effectively and efficiently handle real-time data transmission in both experimental and production environments.

Assessment of Factors Influencing the Uptake of Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission Services Among Pregnant and Breastfeeding Mothers in Shangombo District, Zambia

Assessment of Factors Influencing the Uptake of Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission Services Among Pregnant and Breastfeeding Mothers in Shangombo District, Zambia

A constructive delay-aware model for opportunistic routing protocol in MANET

Mobile ad-hoc Networks (MANET) with mobile sinks are measured as a practical substitute to the complex deployment of conventional wireless sensing environments. This research concentrates on the high-throughput opportunistic routing with lower delay during the transmission service by the mobile nodes with an arbitrary number of mobile sinks and common network topology. Here a novel opportunistic routing (OR) model known as Delay-Aware Estimated Transmission Rate (DA-ETR) is proposed to evaluate the delay caused due to the intermittent mobile nodes and packet re-transmission process. With the execution of DA-ETR, the work demonstrates the functionality of DA-ETR seamlessly over the ETR. It specifies that the available ETR-based routing protocols for dynamic MANET are extended easily to MANET with minimum modification using the anticipated DA-ETR model. Also, the anticipated DA-ETR model with efficiency measure provides superior throughput and enhances the routing stability of OR. The novelty of the work relies on enhancing the routing performance. Thus, the proposed DA-ETR model seems lightweight and achieves easier deployment with no constant mobility prediction. The DA-ETR model for OR outperforms various existing approaches and shows better performance by achieving scalability, reliability, reduced routing and communication overhead and transmission delay. The proposed model shows a queue length of 6.5 packets, 6.3 packets/node/sec in transmission and reception rate, the delay is 50 ms, storage overhead is 80 packets, communication overhead is 20 packets and 2.5 ms packet loss. The simulation is done in the MATLAB 2020a environment.

A comprehensive study on the romax-based comprehensive shaping method for skewed cylindrical gears

Abstract Tooth profile modification is one of the effective ways to solve the vibration and noise problems in gear transmission. This article is based on the dynamic Romax Designer software for simulation and studies the micro modification problem of helical cylindrical gears in a certain reducer. Based on the analysis of the limitations of tooth profile modification and tooth orientation modification methods, a comprehensive tooth profile modification method is proposed. The simulation results show that the transmission error, load distribution, meshing situation, and service life of the gear have improved after adopting the comprehensive modification method, thereby improving the transmission accuracy, reliability, and durability of the gear. This method can provide reference and reference for gear modification of reducers.

A novel and optimized computational framework for energy efficient data dissemination in wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor network (WSN) is an integral part of internet-of-things (IoT), where a large scale of data transmission and various complex services are identified to be delivered. In order to facilitate these services, energy efficiency is one critical demand for resource-constraint sensor nodes. Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) has been considered for effective traffic management for high-end data delivery services. A review of existing literature on CSMA-based schemes shows that it has not yet achieved an optimal case of energy efficiency. Hence, the proposed study presents a novel computational framework in order to address this research gap. The prime contribution of the proposed study is towards presenting an optimal computational model for maximized fairness in data dissemination services in WSN especially focusing on energy efficiency. The presented study model also contributes towards optimizing route buffer and buffer power, which facilitates towards availability of energy-efficient path information. The study also introduces a mobile auxiliary node that aggregates the data from sensor nodes and delivers it to the sink node considering dynamic location updates for seamless transmission. Scripted in MATLAB, the proposed scheme exhibited 70% energy saving compared to conventional schemes of CSMA in WSN.

Correction: Improving the quality of real-time data transmission service in VANETS by balancing the load on road side units

Correction: Improving the quality of real-time data transmission service in VANETS by balancing the load on road side units

Secure IoT Assistant-Based System For Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer's disease is a neurological condition that gradually impairs a person's capacity for thought and memory. Gradually, it gets worse until it becomes a major hindrance to the way the person with the illness lives and functions in the world. The purpose of this research is to create a prototype for mild to moderate AD that provides safe information transmission and support services, allowing a family member to investigate it and safeguard the AD patient. The wearable prototype can distinguish between family and non-family members in recognized images and give a vocal communication with the individual's name. Additionally, the prototype makes it possible to track the AD person's location. The prototype makes their daily lives easier. Thus far, the prototype follows the individual with AD around and notifies caregivers of their whereabouts so that, if the patient leaves the house, they can securely return them home. Additionally, by detecting dampness, this prototype informs the patient's caregiver of their excrement. So, the prototype will help the patient in their daily life very efficiently.

Estimation of industry-level basic digital capital services in China: A variable depreciation rate estimation method based on DSGE

Accurately measuring the input of digital capital is of great significance for understanding the development pattern of China's digital economy, nurturing new quality productivity, and achieving high-quality development. However, existing representative studies often assume a constant depreciation rate for capital goods, which does not align with reality. In this paper, we address this limitation by introducing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that estimates the variable depreciation rate for each capital good. By setting the depreciation rate as a function of capital maintenance expenditures and utilization rates, we provide a more realistic approach. The empirical results obtained through Monte Carlo simulation demonstrate that the trend of depreciation rates for all types of capital goods aligns with China's economic development. Additionally, we find that investment-specific technology shock plays a significant role in affecting changes in the depreciation rates of capital goods. This shock leads to an increase in capital utilization rates and a decrease in capital maintenance expenditures, resulting in higher depreciation rates. Notably, the depreciation rate of basic digital capital is more sensitive to exogenous shock compared to non-digital capital. Furthermore, the paper estimates the basic digital capital service of 19 industries in China from 1981 to 2020. The results indicate a steady increase in the services provided by basic digital capital, with particularly rapid growth observed in industries such as information transmission, software and information technology services, and the financial sector. When comparing our estimation results with those of representative literature, we find that the national-level productive capital stock and the basic digital capital services estimated using our methodology closely align with existing literature. This validation confirms the effectiveness of our methodology and the reliability of the estimated industry-level basic digital capital services.

Understanding Women's Preferences for Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission Services in Kenya.

Understanding the preferences of women living with HIV (WLH) for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) services is important to ensure such services are person-centered. From April to December 2022, we surveyed pregnant and postpartum WLH enrolled at five health facilities in western Kenya to understand their preferences for PMTCT services. WLH were stratified based on the timing of HIV diagnosis: known HIV-positive (KHP; before antenatal clinic [ANC] enrollment), newly HIV-positive (NHP; on/after ANC enrollment). Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine associations between various service preferences and NHP (vs. KHP) status, controlling for age, facility, gravidity, retention status, and pregnancy status. Among 250 participants (median age 31 years, 31% NHP, 69% KHP), 93% preferred integrated versus non-integrated HIV and maternal-child health (MCH) services; 37% preferred male partners attend at least one ANC appointment (vs. no attendance/no preference); 54% preferred support groups (vs. no groups; 96% preferred facility - over community-based groups); and, preferences for groups was lower among NHP (42%) versus KHP (60%). NHP had lower odds of preferring support groups versus KHP (aOR 0.45, 95% CI 0.25-0.82), but not the other services. Integrated services were highly preferred by WLH, supporting the current PMTCT service model in Kenya. Further research is needed to explore the implementation of facility-based support groups for WLH as well as the reasons underlying women's preferences.

Location choice of foreign direct investment in technical KIBS in China: impact of human capital and intellectual property rights protection

PurposeThis study considers the “technology creation” characteristic of technical knowledge-intensive business services (T-KIBS) and examines how human capital and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection affect the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China for two types of T-KIBS: (1) information transmission, software and information technology (ICT) services and (2) scientific research and technology (SCI) services.Design/methodology/approachOur empirical analysis is based on panel data on 22 Chinese provinces from 2009 to 2017. We use the generalized method of moments estimation for the regression analysis.FindingsFDI in ICT services prefers regions with high human capital, while FDI in SCI services favors regions with good IPR protection.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research could use more comprehensive data and qualitative interviews to enhance the findings.Practical implicationsThese findings provide a foundation for China’s future policy on attracting FDI into T-KIBS, especially in areas related to human capital and IPR protection.Originality/valueThis study bridges the research gap on the FDI location choice of T-KIBS in China by clarifying the influences of human capital and IPR protection and providing theoretical support for the location choice of T-KIBS FDI.