The application of predictive modelling for determining bio-environmental factors affecting the distribution of blackflies (Diptera: Simuliidae) in the Gilgel Gibe watershed in Southwest Ethiopia

Blackflies are important macroinvertebrate groups from a public health as well as ecological point of view. Determining the biological and environmental factors favouring or inhibiting the existence of blackflies could facilitate biomonitoring of rivers as well as control of disease vectors. The combined use of different predictive modelling techniques is known to improve identification of presence/absence and abundance of taxa in a given habitat. This approach enables better identification of the suitable habitat conditions or environmental constraints of a given taxon. Simuliidae larvae are important biological indicators as they are abundant in tropical aquatic ecosystems. Some of the blackfly groups are also important disease vectors in poor tropical countries. Our investigations aim to establish a combination of models able to identify the environmental factors and macroinvertebrate organisms that are favourable or inhibiting blackfly larvae existence in aquatic ecosystems. The models developed using macroinvertebrate predictors showed better performance than those based on environmental predictors. The identified environmental and macroinvertebrate parameters can be used to determine the distribution of blackflies, which in turn can help control river blindness in endemic tropical places. Through a combination of modelling techniques, a reliable method has been developed that explains environmental and biological relationships with the target organism, and, thus, can serve as a decision support tool for ecological management strategies

Impact of Islamic and conventional microfinance on poverty alleviation: A qualitative analysis

This study attempts to analyze the influence of Islamic and conventional microfinance on poverty alleviation in Pakistan. This study adopts a qualitative approach of investigation. It conducts 16 in-depth interviews with Islamic and conventional microfinance clients to evaluate the influence of microfinance on poverty alleviation. The study results reveal that Islamic microfinance significantly contribute towards poverty alleviation as compared to conventional microfinance. Further, it has identified some important factors like entrepreneurship, social capital, awareness, education, religiosity, and empowerment that may help to enhance the influence of microfinance towards poverty alleviation. This research may help microfinance researchers, governments, practitioners, and rating agencies to focus on suggested factors that may affect the connection between microfinance and poverty alleviation. This study may help to understand the poor living conditions and financial difficulties of microfinance clients and may help the social organizations to devise strategies to serve them in a better way to overcome their financial challenges as well as to cope with their family issues. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first study showing a qualitative analysis related to the impact of both Islamic and conventional microfinance on poverty alleviation

Angle-Encoded Swarm Optimization for UAV Formation Path Planning

© 2018 IEEE. This paper presents a novel and feasible path planning technique for a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (DAVs) conducting surface inspection of infrastructure. The ultimate goal is to minimise the travel distance of DAVs while simultaneously avoid obstacles, and maintain altitude constraints as well as the shape of the UAV formation. A multiple-objective optimisation algorithm, called the Angle-encoded Particle Swarm Optimization (θ- PSO) algorithm, is proposed to accelerate the swarm convergence with angular velocity and position being used for the location of particles. The whole formation is modelled as a virtual rigid body and controlled to maintain a desired geometric shape among the paths created while the centroid of the group follows a pre-determined trajectory. Based on the testbed of 3DR Solo drones equipped with a proprietary Mission Planner, and the Internet-of- Things (loT) for multi-directional transmission and reception of data between the DAV s, extensive experiments have been conducted for triangular formation maintenance along a monorail bridge. The results obtained confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach

Automatic crack detection in built infrastructure using unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper addresses the problem of crack detection which is essential for health monitoring of built infrastructure. Our approach includes two stages, data collection using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and crack detection using histogram analysis. For the data collection, a 3D model of the structure is first created by using laser scanners. Based on the model, geometric properties are extracted to generate way points necessary for navigating the UAV to take images of the structure. Then, our next step is to stick together those obtained images from the overlapped field of view. The resulting image is then clustered by histogram analysis and peak detection. Potential cracks are finally identified by using locally adaptive thresholds. The whole process is automatically carried out so that the inspection time is significantly improved while safety hazards can be minimised. A prototypical system has been developed for evaluation and experimental results are included

‘Blue boats’ and ‘reef robbers’: A new maritime security threat for the Asia Pacific?

© 2019 The Authors. Asia Pacific Viewpoint published by Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd Vietnamese ‘blue boats’ – small wooden-hulled fishing boats – are now entering the territorial waters of Pacific Island countries and illegally catching high-value species found on remote coastal reefs. Crossing several international boundaries and traversing a distance of over 5000 km, these intrusions have alarmed Oceanic countries, including Australia. Lacking administrative capacity as well as jurisdictional authority to effectively control the vast stretches of island coastlines individually, governments and intergovernmental bodies in the region have called for strengthened coordination of surveillance efforts while also pressuring Vietnam diplomatically. This paper reviews these latest developments and is the first to provide a focused assessment of the issue. Through the lens of Copenhagen School of securitisation theory, we analyse responses of national and regional actors and their portrayal in online media to understand how blue boats are constructed as a security threat within a narrative of maritime, food and human security. Arguably, Australia together with the Forum Fisheries Agency, who advise on the governance of offshore tuna resources, have so far acted most decisively – in a way that might see them extend their strategic role in the region. We propose a comprehensive empirical research agenda to better understand and manage this nascent, flammable and largely unpredictable inter-regional phenomenon

Crack detection using enhanced thresholding on UAV based collected images

© 2018 Australasian Robotics and Automation Association. All rights reserved. This paper proposes a thresholding approach for crack detection in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based infrastructure inspection system. The proposed algorithm performs recursively on the intensity histogram of UAV-taken images to exploit their crack-pixels appearing at the low intensity interval. A quantified criterion of interclass contrast is proposed and employed as an object cost and stop condition for the recursive process. Experiments on different datasets show that our algorithm outperforms different segmentation approaches to accurately extract crack features of some commercial buildings

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bb pair in events with one charged lepton and large missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set

We present a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W boson in sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV p-pbar collision data collected with the CDF II detector at the Tevatron corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb-1. In events consistent with the decay of the Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair and the W boson to an electron or muon and a neutrino, we set 95% credibility level upper limits on the WH production cross section times the H->bb branching ratio as a function of Higgs boson mass. At a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV/c2 we observe (expect) a limit of 4.9 (2.8) times the standard model value.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett (v2 contains clarifications suggested by PRL

Synthesis of Algorithms and Procedures for Real-Time Internal Calibration of Receiving Channels in Digital Phased Antenna Arrays

Introduction. Real-time calibration is essential for maintaining the performance of modern digital phased antenna array (DPAA) systems. Previous papers have proposed a method of real-time internal calibration for all receiving channels. This method uses a calibration signal (CalSig) of the same frequency spectrum as the received signal, modulated in phase and amplitude by the binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and on–off keying (OOK) codes, respectively. With the purpose of improving the method, we propose an algorithm for estimating the phase and amplitude parameters of each receiving channel on the basis of continuous phase correlation accumulation of CalSig samples.Aim. Synthesis of algorithms and procedures for real-time internal calibration of receiving channels in digital phased antenna arrays.Materials and methods. Calibration algorithms and calibration procedure were analyzed and synthesized using the methods of systems analysis. In addition, the methods of systems engineering and technology, digital processing of radar signals and synthesis of building test models close to actual requirements were applied.Results. The advantage of the proposed calibration algorithm and calibration procedure consists in using CalSig modulated by the BPSK and OOK codes. The results obtained on a small DPAA system with four receiving channels gave the error of phase and amplitude lower than 0.3° and 0.05 dB, and the error of main beam direction lower than 0.2°. The results of testing the developed DPAA model confirmed the simplicity and high calibration accuracy of the approach under study.Conclusion. The proposed calibration algorithm and calibration procedure have the advantage over those proposed in previous research in terms of simplicity and resource efficiency. This fact determines the prospects for using the obtained results

Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and mortality of HIV, 1980–2017, and forecasts to 2030, for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017

Background Understanding the patterns of HIV/AIDS epidemics is crucial to tracking and monitoring the progress of prevention and control efforts in countries. We provide a comprehensive assessment of the levels and trends of HIV/AIDS incidence, prevalence, mortality, and coverage of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 1980–2017 and forecast these estimates to 2030 for 195 countries and territories. Methods We determined a modelling strategy for each country on the basis of the availability and quality of data. For countries and territories with data from population-based seroprevalence surveys or antenatal care clinics, we estimated prevalence and incidence using an open-source version of the Estimation and Projection Package—a natural history model originally developed by the UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling, and Projections. For countries with cause-specific vital registration data, we corrected data for garbage coding (ie, deaths coded to an intermediate, immediate, or poorly defined cause) and HIV misclassification. We developed a process of cohort incidence bias adjustment to use information on survival and deaths recorded in vital registration to back-calculate HIV incidence. For countries without any representative data on HIV, we produced incidence estimates by pulling information from observed bias in the geographical region. We used a re-coded version of the Spectrum model (a cohort component model that uses rates of disease progression and HIV mortality on and off ART) to produce age-sex-specific incidence, prevalence, and mortality, and treatment coverage results for all countries, and forecast these measures to 2030 using Spectrum with inputs that were extended on the basis of past trends in treatment scale-up and new infections. Findings Global HIV mortality peaked in 2006 with 1·95 million deaths (95% uncertainty interval 1·87–2·04) and has since decreased to 0·95 million deaths (0·91–1·01) in 2017. New cases of HIV globally peaked in 1999 (3·16 million, 2·79–3·67) and since then have gradually decreased to 1·94 million (1·63–2·29) in 2017. These trends, along with ART scale-up, have globally resulted in increased prevalence, with 36·8 million (34·8–39·2) people living with HIV in 2017. Prevalence of HIV was highest in southern sub-Saharan Africa in 2017, and countries in the region had ART coverage ranging from 65·7% in Lesotho to 85·7% in eSwatini. Our forecasts showed that 54 countries will meet the UNAIDS target of 81% ART coverage by 2020 and 12 countries are on track to meet 90% ART coverage by 2030. Forecasted results estimate that few countries will meet the UNAIDS 2020 and 2030 mortality and incidence targets. Interpretation Despite progress in reducing HIV-related mortality over the past decade, slow decreases in incidence, combined with the current context of stagnated funding for related interventions, mean that many countries are not on track to reach the 2020 and 2030 global targets for reduction in incidence and mortality. With a growing population of people living with HIV, it will continue to be a major threat to public health for years to come. The pace of progress needs to be hastened by continuing to expand access to ART and increasing investments in proven HIV prevention initiatives that can be scaled up to have population-level impact