Digital Commons Network^™

Personal Carbon Trading, Carbon-Knowledge Management And Their Influence On Environmental Sustainability In Thailand, Dadang Dally, Kurhayadi, Yeti Rohayati, Soheil Kazemian

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, Econjournals. All rights reserved. The relationship between personal carbon trading, carbon knowledge management and their impact on the environmental sustainability has got very little attention. Inspired from this gap in the literature, present research is exploring the relationship between carbon trading, carbon knowledge and their combine impact on sustainability of the natural environment in Thailand. A questionnaire is designed based on the various factors of both exogeneous and endogenous variables of the study. A sample of 251 respondents was collected for both measurement and structural equation models. Additionally, some descriptive measures are also calculated and presented which provide …

N Evolution And Physiochemical Structure Changes In Chars During Co-Pyrolysis: Effects Of Abundance Of Glucose In Fiberboard, Deliang Xu, Liu Yang, Ming Zhao, Yu Song, Karnowo, Hong Zhang, Xun Hu, Hongqi Sun, Shu Zhang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The simple incineration of wood-based panels (WBPs) waste generates a significant amount of NOx, which has led to urgency in developing a new method for treating the N-containing biomass residues. This work aims to examine the N evolution and physiochemical structural changes during the co-pyrolysis of fiberboard and glucose, where the percentage of glucose in the feedstock was varied from 0% to 70%. It was found that N retention in chars was monotonically increased with increasing use of glucose, achieving ~60% N fixation when the glucose accounted for 70% in the mixture. Pyrrole-N (N-5) and …

Copper Toxicity Links To Pathogenesis Of Alzheimer’S Disease And Therapeutics Approaches, Hafza Wajeeha Ejaz, Wei Wang, Minglin Lang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible, age-related progressive neurological disorder, and the most common type of dementia in aged people. Neuropathological lesions of AD are neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), and senile plaques comprise the accumulated amyloid-beta (Aβ), loaded with metal ions including Cu, Fe, or Zn. Some reports have identified metal dyshomeostasis as a neurotoxic factor of AD, among which Cu ions seem to be a central cationic metal in the formation of plaque and soluble oligomers, and have an essential role in the AD pathology. Cu-Aβ complex catalyzes the generation of …

Interrelations Among Leadership Competencies Of Bim Leaders: A Fuzzy Dematel-Anp Approach, Seyed Armin Mirhosseini, Reza Kiani Mavi, Neda Kiani Mavi, Behzad Abbasnejad, Farzaneh Rayani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The use of new, digitally enabled innovations, such as building information modeling (BIM), raises issues such as the delineation of a competent leader. Even though BIM-based competency assessment models have become essential tools for maximizing the potential values of BIM implementation, the current competency models provide limited focus on leadership aspects that facilitate and enhance the BIM implementation efforts. This paper seeks to identify the specific competencies required for BIM implementation and examines the relationships between these competencies. Thirty-two experts from around the globe investigated a total of 15 leadership competencies under three categories pertaining …

Energy Engineering Approach For Rural Areas Cattle Farmers In Bangladesh To Reduce Covid-19 Impact On Food Safety, Mohammad Nur-E-Alam, Mohammad Nasirul Hoque, Soyed Mohiuddin Ahmed, Mohammad Khairul Basher, Narottam Das

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This paper reports on the optimization of thin-film coating-assisted, self-sustainable, off-grid hybrid power generation systems for cattle farming in rural areas of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a lower middle-income country with declining rates of poverty among its 160 million people due to persistent economic growth in conjunction with balanced agricultural improvements. Most of the rural households adopt a mixed farming system by cultivating crops and simultaneously rearing livestock. Among the animals raised, cattle are considered as the most valuable asset for the small-/medium-scale farmers in terms of their meat and milk production. …

Comparative Study Of Green And Synthetic Polymers For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Nasiru Salahu Muhammed, Md. Bashirul Haq, Dhafer Al-Shehri, Mohammad Mizanur Rahaman, Alireza Keshavarz, S. M. Zakir Hossain

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Several publications by authors in the field of petrochemical engineering have examined the use of chemically enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) technology, with a specific interest in polymer flooding. Most observations thus far in this field have been based on the application of certain chemicals and/or physical properties within this technique regarding the production of 50–60% trapped (residual) oil in a reservoir. However, there is limited information within the literature about the combined effects of this process on whole properties (physical and chemical). Accordingly, in this work, we present a clear distinction …

Do Schools And Alcohol Mix? Australian Parents' Perspectives, Conor Gilligan, Therese Shaw, Shelley Beatty, Laura Thomas, Karen Louise Lombardi, Robyn Susanne Johnston

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: Alcohol use by adults at school events and alcohol promotion through school fundraising activities is common, but little is known about secondary school parents' attitudes towards these practices. Parental attitudes may influence principals' decision-making on this topic, particularly in jurisdictions where education department guidance is limited. This study explored parents' attitudes towards the consumption or promotion of alcohol in schools or at school events. Design/methodology/approach: Parents (n = 298) from five non-government secondary schools in Western Australia completed an online survey and provided responses relating to the promotion and availability of alcohol through their …

Sequencing Effort Dictates Gene Discovery In Marine Microbial Metagenomes, Carlos M. Duarte, David K. Ngugi, Intikhab Alam, John Pearman, Allan Kamau, Victor M. Eguiluz, Takashi Gojobori, Silvia G. Acinas, Josep M. Gasol, Vladimir Bajic, Xabier Irigoien

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Authors. Environmental Microbiology published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Massive metagenomic sequencing combined with gene prediction methods were previously used to compile the gene catalogue of the ocean and host-associated microbes. Global expeditions conducted over the past 15 years have sampled the ocean to build a catalogue of genes from pelagic microbes. Here we undertook a large sequencing effort of a perturbed Red Sea plankton community to uncover that the rate of gene discovery increases continuously with sequencing effort, with no indication that the retrieved 2.83 million non-redundant (complete) genes predicted …

Psychological Symptoms In Chinese Nurses May Be Associated With Predisposition To Chronic Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study Of Suboptimal Health Status, Jinxiu Zhu, Wenjuan Ying, Li Zhang, Gangyi Peng, Weiju Chen, Enoch Odame Anto, Xueqing Wang, Nan Lu, Shanshan Gao, Guihai Wu, Jingyi Yan, Jianfeng Ye, Shenglin Wu, Chengzhi Yu, Minghui Yue, Xiru Huang, Nuo Xu, Pengxiang Ying, Yanhong Chen, Xuerui Tan, Wei Wang

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Background: Suboptimal health status (SHS) is a reversible state between ideal health and illness and it can be effectively reversed by risk prediction, disease prevention, and personalized medicine under the global background of predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine (PPPM) concepts. More and more Chinese nurses have been troubled by psychological symptoms (PS). The correlation between PS and SHS is unclear in nurses. The purpose of current study is to investigate the prevalence of SHS and PS in Chinese nurses and the relationship between SHS and PS along with predisposing factors as well as to discuss the …

The Global, Regional, And National Burden Of Oesophageal Cancer And Its Attributable Risk Factors In 195 Countries And Territories, 1990-2017: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2017, Farin Kamangar, Dariush Nasrollahzadeh, Saeid Safiri, Sadaf G. Sepanlou, Christina Fitzmaurice, Kevin S. Ikuta, Catherine Bisignano, Farhad Islami, Gholamreza Roshandel, Stephen S. Lim, Hassan Abolhassani, Eman Abu-Gharbieh, Rufus Adesoji Adedoyin, Shailesh M. Advani, Muktar Beshir Ahmed, Miloud Taki Eddine Aichour, Tomi Akinyemiju, Chisom Joyqueenet Akunna, Fares Alahdab, Vahid Alipour, Amir Almasi-Hashiani, Abdulaziz M. Almulhim, Nahla Hamed Anber, Alireza Ansari-Moghaddam, Jalal Arabloo, Morteza Arab-Zozani, Atalel Fentahun Awedew, Alaa Badawi, Kathleen S. Sachiko Berfield, Kidanemaryam Berhe, Krittika Bhattacharyya, Antonio Biondi, Tone Bjørge, Antonio M. Borzì, Cristina Bosetti, Giulia Carreras, Felix Carvalho, Clara Castro, Dinh-Toi Chu, Vera Marisa Costa, Baye Dagnew, Jiregna Darega Gela, Ahmad Daryani, Feleke Mekonnen Demeke, Gebre Teklemariam Demoz, Mostafa Dianatinasab, Iffat Elbarazi, Mohammad Hassan Emamian, Arash Etemadi, Pawan Sirwan Faris, Eduarda Fernandes, Irina Filip, Florian Fischer, Mohamed M. Gad, Silvano Gallus, Abadi Kahsu Gebre, Tsegaye Tewelde Gebrehiwot, Gebreamlak Gebremedhn Gebremeskel, Begashaw Melaku Gebresillassie, Fatemah Ghasemi-Kebria, Ahmad Ghashghaee, Nermin Ghith, Mahaveer Golechha, Giuseppe Gorini, Rahul Gupta, Nima Hafezi-Nejad, Arvin Haj-Mirzaian, James D. Harvey, Maryam Hashemian, Hamid Yimam Hassen, Simon I. Hay, Andualem Henok, Chi Linh Hoang, H. Dean Hosgood, Mowafa Househ, Olayinka Stephen Ilesanmi, Milena D. Ilic, Seyed Sina Naghibi Irvani, Charvi Jain, Spencer L. James, Sun Ha Jee, Ravi Prakash Jha, Farahnaz Joukar, Ali Kabir, Amir Kasaeian, Mesfin Wudu Kassaw, Supreet Kaur, Andre Pascal Kengne, Esma Kerboua, Yousef Saleh Khader, Rovshan Khalilov, Ejaz Ahmad Khan, Abdullah T. Khoja, Jonathan M. Kocarnik, Hamidreza Komaki, Vivek Kumar, Carlo La Vecchia, Savita Lasrado, Bingyu Li, Alan D. Lopez, Azeem Majeed, Navid Manafi, Ana Laura Manda, Fariborz Mansour-Ghanaei, Manu Raj Mathur, Varshil Mehta, Dhruv Mehta, Walter Mendoza, Prasanna Mithra, Karzan Abdulmuhsin Mohammad, Abdollah Mohammadian-Hafshejani, Reza Mohammadpourhodki, Jemal Abdu Mohammed, Farnam Mohebi, Ali H. Mokdad, Lorenzo Monasta, Delaram Moosavi, Mahmood Moosazadeh, Ghobad Moradi, Farhad Moradpour, Rahmatollah Moradzadeh, Gurudatta Naik, Lonut Negoi, Haruna Asura Nggada, Huong Lan Thi Nguyen, Rajan Nikbakhsh, Molly R. Nixon, Andrew T. Olagunju, Jagadish Roa. Padubidri, Keyvan Pakshir, Shanti Patel, Mona Pathak, Hai Quang Pham, Akram Pourshams, Navid Rabiee, Mohammad Rabiee, Amir Radfar, Alireza Rafiei, Kiana Ramezanzadeh, Goura Kishor Rath, Priya Rathi, Salman Rawaf, David Laith Rawaf, Nima Rezaei, Elias Merdassa Roro, Anas M. Saad, Hamideh Salimzadeh, Abdallah M. Samy, Benn Sartorius, Arash Sarvaezad, Mario Sekerija, Feng Sha, Morteza Shamsizadeh, Sara Sheikhbahaei, Reza Shirkoohi, Sudeep K. Siddappa Malleshappa, Jasvinder A. Singh, Dhirendra Narain Sinha, Catalin-Gabriel Smarandache, Sergey Soshnikov, Hafiz Ansar Rasul Suleria, Degena Bahrey Tadesse, Berhe Etsay Tesfay, Bhaskar Thakur, Eugenio Traini, Khanh Bao Tran, Bach Xuan Tran, Irfan Ullah, Marco Vacante, Yousef Veisani, Isidora S. Vujcic, Girmay Teklay Weldesamuel, Rixing Xu, Vahid Yazdi-Feyzabadi, Deniz Yuce, Vesna Zadnik, Zoubida Zaidi, Zhi-Jiang Zhang, Reza Malekzadeh, Mohsen Naghavi, Gbd 2017 Oesophageal Cancer Collaborators

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s). Background Oesophageal cancer is a common and often fatal cancer that has two main histological subtypes: oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Updated statistics on the incidence and mortality of oesophageal cancer, and on the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) caused by the disease, can assist policy makers in allocating resources for prevention, treatment, and care of oesophageal cancer. We report the latest estimates of these statistics for 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2017, by age, sex, and Socio-demographic Index (SDI), using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 …

Imputation Of Missing Data From Time-Lapse Cameras Used In Recreational Fishing Surveys, Ebenezer Afrifa-Yamoah, Stephen M. Taylor, Aiden Fisher, Ute Mueller

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

While remote camera surveys have the potential to improve the accuracy of recreational fishing estimates, missing data are common and require robust analytical techniques to impute. Time-lapse cameras are being used in Western Australia to monitor recreational boating activities, but outages have occurred. Generalized linear mixed effect models formulated in a fully conditional specification multiple imputation framework were used to reconstruct missing data, with climatic and some temporal classifications as covariates. Using a complete 12-month camera record of hourly counts of recreational powerboat retrievals, data were simulated based on ten observed camera outage patterns, with a missing proportion of between …

Circulating Tumour Dna In Advanced Melanoma Patients Ceasing Pd1 Inhibition In The Absence Of Disease Progression, Lydia Warburton, Leslie Calapre, Michelle Pereira, Anna Reid, Cleo Robinson, Benhur Amanuel, Mel Ziman, Michael Millward, Elin Gray

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Immunotherapy is an important and established treatment option for patients with advanced melanoma. Initial anti-PD1 trials arbitrarily defined a two-year treatment duration, but a shorter treatment duration may be appropriate. In this study, we retrospectively assessed 70 patients who stopped anti-PD1 therapy in the absence of progressive disease (PD) to determine clinical outcomes. In our cohort, the median time on treatment was 11.8 months. Complete response was attained at time of anti-PD1 discontinuation in 61 (87%). After a median follow up of 34.2 months (range: 2–70.8) post discontinuation, 81% remained disease free. Using ddPCR, we determine the utility of circulating …

Validation And Reliability Of The Alzheimer’S Disease-Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation Food Frequency Questionnaire, Samantha L. Gardener, Philippa Lyons-Wall, Ralph Martins, Stephanie Rainey-Smith

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Accuracy in measuring intake of dietary constituents is an important issue in studies reporting the associations between diet and chronic diseases. We modified a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to include foods of interest in the field of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research. The aim of the current study was to determine the reliability and validity of the AD-CSIROFFQ in 148 cognitively normal older adults. The AD-CSIROFFQ was completed before and after completion of a four-day weighed food record. Of the 508 food and beverage items reported, 309 had sufficient consumption levels for analysis of …

Co-Occurrence Across Time And Space Of Drug- And Cannabinoid- Exposure And Adverse Mental Health Outcomes In The National Survey Of Drug Use And Health: Combined Geotemporospatial And Causal Inference Analysis, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Hulse

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Whilst many studies have linked increased drug and cannabis exposure to adverse mental health (MH) outcomes their effects on whole populations and geotemporospatial relationships are not well understood.

Methods

Ecological cohort study of National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) geographically-linked substate-shapefiles 2010–2012 and 2014–2016 supplemented by five-year US American Community Survey. Drugs: cigarettes, alcohol abuse, last-month cannabis use and last-year cocaine use. MH: any mental illness, major depressive illness, serious mental illness and suicidal thinking. Data analysis: two-stage, geotemporospatial, robust generalized linear regression and causal inference methods in R.

Results

410,138 NSDUH respondents. Average response rate 76.7%. …

Structural Similarity Loss For Learning To Fuse Multi-Focus Images, Xiang Yan, Syed Zulqarnain Gilani, Hanlin Qin, Ajmal Mian

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Convolutional neural networks have recently been used for multi-focus image fusion. However, some existing methods have resorted to adding Gaussian blur to focused images, to simulate defocus, thereby generating data (with ground-truth) for supervised learning. Moreover, they classify pixels as ‘focused’ or ‘defocused’, and use the classified results to construct the fusion weight maps. This then necessitates a series of post-processing steps. In this paper, we present an end-to-end learning approach for directly predicting the fully focused output image from multi-focus input image pairs. The suggested approach uses a CNN architecture …

Are Heat Shock Proteins An Important Link Between Type 2 Diabetes And Alzheimer Disease?, Joanne Elizabeth Rowles, Kevin Noel Keane, Thiago Gomes Heck, Vinicius Cruzat, Giuseppe Verdile, Philip Newsholme

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are growing in prevalence worldwide. The development of T2D increases the risk of AD disease, while AD patients can show glucose imbalance due to an increased insulin resistance. T2D and AD share similar pathological features and underlying mechanisms, including the deposition of amyloidogenic peptides in pancreatic islets (i.e., islet amyloid polypeptide; IAPP) and brain (β-Amyloid; Aβ). Both IAPP and Aβ can undergo misfolding and aggregation and accumulate in the extracellular space of their respective tissues of origin. As a main response to protein …

In Situ Wettability Investigation Of Aging Of Sandstone Surface In Alkane Via X-Ray Microtomography, Nilesh Kumar Jha, Maxim Lebedev, Stefan Iglauer, Jitendra S. Sangwai, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Wettability of surfaces remains of paramount importance for understanding various natural and artificial colloidal and interfacial phenomena at various length and time scales. One of the problems discussed in this work is the wettability alteration of a three-phase system comprising high salinity brine as the aqueous phase, Doddington sandstone as porous rock, and decane as the nonaqueous phase liquid. The study utilizes the technique of in situ contact angle measurements of the several 2D projections of the identified 3D oil phase droplets from the 3D images of the saturated sandstone miniature …

Biceps Brachii Muscle Hardness Assessed By A Push-In Meter In Comparison To Ultrasound Strain Elastography, Mitsuyoshi Murayama, Kazunori Nosaka, Takayuki Inami, Norihiro Shima, Tsugutake Yoneda

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). This study investigated the relationship between push-in meter (PM) and ultrasound strain elastography (USE) for biceps brachii (BB) muscle hardness. BB hardness of 21 young men was assessed by PM and USE during rest and isometric contractions of six different intensities (15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90% of maximal voluntary contraction: MVC) at 30°, 60° and 90° elbow flexion. Muscle hardness (E) was calculated from the force–displacement relationship in PM, and strain ratio (SR) between an acoustic coupler (elastic modulus: 22.6 kPa) and different regions of interest (ROIs) in BB was calculated and converted to Young’s …

A Platform In The Use Of Medicines To Treat Chronic Hepatitis C (Platinum C): Protocol For A Prospective Treatment Registry Of Real-World Outcomes For Hepatitis C, Jessica Ramsay, Julie Marsh, Alisa Pedrana, Nada Andric, Richard Norman, Wendy Cheng, Steve Webb, Nikolajs Zeps, Matthew Bellgard, Todd Graves, Margaret Hellard, Tom Snelling

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Background: Safe, highly curative, short course, direct acting antiviral (DAA) therapies are now available to treat chronic hepatitis C. DAA therapy is freely available to all adults chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Australia. If left untreated, hepatitis C may lead to progressive hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Australia is committed to eliminating hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030 set by the World Health Organization. However, since the introduction of funded DAA treatment, uptake has been suboptimal. Australia needs improved strategies for testing, treatment uptake and treatment completion to address …

Automated Smart Home Assessment To Support Pain Management: Multiple Methods Analysis, Roschelle L. Fritz, Marian Wilson, Gordana Dermody, Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe, Diane J. Cook

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

©Roschelle L Fritz, Marian Wilson, Gordana Dermody, Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe, Diane J Cook. Objective: This study aimed to determine if a smart home can detect pain-related behaviors to perform automated assessment and support intervention for persons with chronic pain.Background: Poorly managed pain can lead to substance use disorders, depression, suicide, worsening health, and increased use of health services. Most pain assessments occur in clinical settings away from patients’ natural environments. Advances in smart home technology may allow observation of pain in the home setting. Smart homes recognizing human behaviors may be useful for quantifying functional pain interference, thereby creating new ways …

Concordant Peripheral Lipidome Signatures In Two Large Clinical Studies Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Kevin Huynh, Wei Ling Florence Lim, Corey Giles, Kaushala S. Jayawardana, Agus Salim, Natalie A. Mellett, Adam Alexander T. Smith, Gavriel Olshansky, Brian G. Drew, Pratishtha Chatterjee, Ian Martins, Simon M. Laws, Ashley I. Bush, Christopher C. Rowe, Victor L. Villemagne, David Ames, Colin L. Masters, Matthias Arnold, Kwangsik Nho, Andrew J. Saykin, Rebecca Baillie, Xianlin Han, Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, Ralph N. Martins, Peter J. Meikle

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Changes to lipid metabolism are tightly associated with the onset and pathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Lipids are complex molecules comprising many isomeric and isobaric species, necessitating detailed analysis to enable interpretation of biological significance. Our expanded targeted lipidomics platform (569 species across 32 classes) allows for detailed lipid separation and characterisation. In this study we examined peripheral samples of two cohorts (AIBL, n = 1112 and ADNI, n = 800). We are able to identify concordant peripheral signatures associated with prevalent AD arising from lipid pathways including; ether lipids, sphingolipids (notably GM3 gangliosides) and lipid …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Assessment Of A Ceo2@Nanoclay Nanocomposite For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Mohammad Javad Nazarahari, Abbas Khaksar Manshad, Siyamak Moradi, Ali Shafiei, Jagar Abdulazez Ali, S. Mohammad Sajadi, Alireza Keshavarz

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. In this paper, synthesis and characterization of a novel CeO2 /nanoclay nanocomposite (NC) and its effects on IFT reduction and wettability alteration is reported in the literature for the first time. The NC was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and EDS MAP. The surface morphology, crystalline phases, and functional groups of the novel NC were investigated. Nanofluids with different concentrations of 100, 250, 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 ppm were prepared and used as dispersants in …

Exponential Increase Of Plastic Burial In Mangrove Sediments As A Major Plastic Sink, C. Martin, F. Baalkhuyur, L. Valluzzi, V. Saderne, M. Cusack, H. Almahasheer, P. K. Krishnakumar, L. Rabaoui, M. A. Qurban, A. Arias-Ortiz, Pere Masqué, C. M. Duarte

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Authors. Sequestration of plastics in sediments is considered the ultimate sink of marine plastic pollution that would justify unexpectedly low loads found in surface waters. Here, we demonstrate that mangroves, generally supporting high sediment accretion rates, efficiently sequester plastics in their sediments. To this end, we extracted microplastics from dated sediment cores of the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf mangrove (Avicennia marina) forests along the Saudi Arabian coast. We found that microplastics <0.5 mm dominated in mangrove sediments, helping explain their scarcity, in surface waters. We estimate that 50 ± 30 and 110 ± 80 metric tons of plastic may have been buried since the 1930s in mangrove sediments across the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, respectively. We observed an exponential increase in the plastic burial rate (8.5 ± 1.2% year-1) since the 1950s in line with the global plastic production increase, confirming mangrove sediments as long-term sinks for plastics.

A Preliminary Investigation Of Maintenance Contributions To Commercial Air Transport Accidents, Fatima Najeeb Khan, Ayiei Ayiei, John Murray, Glenn Baxter, Graham Wild

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Aircraft maintenance includes all the tasks needed to ensure an aircraft’s continuing airworthiness. Accidents that result from these maintenance activities can be used to assess safety. This research seeks to undertake a preliminary investigation of accidents that have maintenance contributions. An exploratory design was utilized, which commenced with a content analysis of the accidents with maintenance contributions (n = 35) in the official ICAO accident data set (N = 1277), followed by a quantitative ex-post facto study. Results showed that maintenance contributions are involved in 2.8 ± 0.9% of ICAO official …

No Soldiers Left Behind: An Iot-Based Low-Power Military Mobile Health System Design, James Jin Kang, Wencheng Yang, Gordana Dermody, Mohammadreza Ghasemian, Sasan Adibi, Paul Haskell-Dowland

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2013 IEEE. There has been an increasing prevalence of ad-hoc networks for various purposes and applications. These include Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) and Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) which have emerging applications in health monitoring as well as user location tracking in emergency settings. Further applications can include real-Time actuation of IoT equipment, and activation of emergency alarms through the inference of a user's situation using sensors and personal devices through a LPWAN. This has potential benefits for military networks and applications regarding the health of soldiers and field personnel during a mission. Due to the wireless …

Tumour Pd-L1 Expression In Small-Cell Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Emmanuel Acheampong, Afaf Abed, Michael Morici, Samantha Bowyer, Benhur Amanuel, Weitao Lin, Michael Millward, Elin S. Gray

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

: Antibodies against programmed death-1 (PD-1), and its ligand, (PD-L1) have been approved recently for the treatment of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Although there are previous reports that addressed PD-L1 detection on tumour cells in SCLC, there is no comprehensive meta-analysis on the prevalence of PD-L1 expression in SCLC. We performed a systematic search of the PubMed, Cochrane Library and EMBASE databases to assess reports on the prevalence of PD-L1 expression and the association between PD-L1 expression and overall survival (OS). This meta-analysis included 27 studies enrolling a total of 2792 patients. The pooled estimate of PD-L1 expression was 26.0% …

Comparing Web-Based Mindfulness With Loving-Kindness And Compassion Training For Promoting Well-Being In Pregnancy: Protocol For A Three-Arm Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial, Amy Louise Finlay-Jones, Jacqueline Ann Davis, Amanda O'Donovan, Keerthi Kottampally, Rebecca Anne Ashley, Desiree Silva, Jeneva Lee Ohan, Susan L. Prescott, Jenny Downs

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© Amy Louise Finlay-Jones, Jacqueline Ann Davis, Amanda O'Donovan, Keerthi Kottampally, Rebecca Anne Ashley, Desiree Silva, Jeneva Lee Ohan, Susan L Prescott, Jenny Downs. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 14.10.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. Background: Promoting psychological well-being and preventing …

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms In Lcat May Contribute To Dyslipidaemia In Hiv-Infected Individuals On Haart In A Ghanaian Population, Simon Bannison Bani, Kwabena Owusu Danquah, Christian Obirikorang, William K. B. A. Owiredu, Lawrence Quaye, Edmund Muonir Der, Emmanuel Acheampong, Yussif Adams, Peter Paul M. Dapare, Moses Banyeh, Enoch Odame Anto, Samuel Asamoah Sakyi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020, The Author(s). Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is known to cause lipid abnormalities such as dyslipidaemia in HIV-infected individuals. Yet, dyslipidaemia may not independently occur as it may be worsened by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL). This case–control study was conducted in three-selected hospitals in the Northern part of Ghana. The study constituted a total of 118 HIV-infected participants aged 19–71 years, who had been on HAART for 6–24 months. Dyslipidaemia was defined based on the NCEP-ATP III criteria. HIV-infected individuals on HAART with dyslipidaemia were classified as cases while …

“Cultural Security Is An On-Going Journey … ” Exploring Views From Staff Members On The Quality And Cultural Security Of Services For Aboriginal Families In Western Australia, Lina Gubhaju, Robyn Williams, Jocelyn Jones, David Hamer, Carrington Shepherd, Dan Mcaullay, Sandra J. Eades, Bridgette Mcnamara

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Cultural security is a key element of accessible services for Indigenous peoples globally, although few studies have examined this empirically. We explored the scope, reach, quality, and cultural security of health and social services available to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander families in Western Australia (WA), from the point of view of staff from the services. We recruited staff from health and social services for Aboriginal people in the Perth, Kalgoorlie, Great Southern, and South West regions of WA between December 2015 and September 2017 to complete online surveys. We examined …

Perceived Influence Of Value Systems On The Uptake Of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Among Men In Kweneng East, Botswana, Thandisizwe R. Mavundla, Fungai Mbengo, Khanyenda Bruce Ngomi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Botswana is one of the countries in Eastern and Southern Africa significantly impacted by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). To control the spread of HIV, the government in 2009 rolled out the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programme as an additional HIV prevention strategy with the goal of circumcising 80% of HIV negative men by 2016. However, the country failed to achieve this goal as less than 30% of the targeted men were circumcised by 2016. A study was therefore conducted to explore and describe …