The Task Allocation Model In Communication Channel Delay

In this paper a heuristics approach for task allocation in a distributed computing system has been discussed. This performs static allocation and provide near optimal results. The suggested algorithm is coded in Mat Lab and implemented on a Dual Core machine and found the performance of the developed algorithm is satisfactory

The Persistence of Gender-blind Phenomena in Indian Science Academia

Using the theoretical tool of gender-blind sexism, an extension of Bonilla Silva’s (2003) color-blind racism, the current study explores the key determinants which are responsible for discrimination of women in science disciplines in Indian higher education. We argue that gender-blind sexism demonstrates how gender discrimination operates as institutional tools to discriminate between men and women in science fields. Although the science stream proclaims gender neutrality/blindness, it ultimately disfavors women over men. This study with the aid of extensive in-depth face-to-face interviews, aims to recognize the pattern accountable for women’s reduced progress in the sciences. Against the backdrop of the recently framed National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, by the Government of India, this intensive qualitative study identifies certain crucial dimensions responsible for gender discrimination and diminishing participation of females in Indian academia, especially in the sciences. With several institutional policies that have been in place to mitigate challenges in overt sexist patterns in the workplace, the analysis still confirms the existence of a perceivable organizational barrier, which hinders the rise of women faculty members. We infer that gender discrimination operates through covert mechanisms of gender-blindness and such practices are normalized institutionally as a brand-new form of sexism

Social sustainability skills in secondary education: gender and spatial contexts

In today’s rapidly evolving world, the acquisition of social competencies and an understanding of sustainability principles are critical for holistic student development. This study delves into the comprehensive analysis of social and sustainable skills within the framework of secondary education, considering the influential factors of gender and spatial contexts. To investigate whether there exists a difference between the students at the secondary level of education in social and sustainable skills along the demographic lines of gender and spatial context. A primary data collection method was used for gathering quantitative data from 125 students on a Likert-type 25-item self-constructed questionnaire and differential analysis was conducted. The performance of male and female students is significantly different and the performance of students in the urban settings is higher than the students in the rural settings. It shows that female and rural students are comparatively lower in performing on the social and sustainable skills test. The findings of this research hold implications for educators, policymakers, and practitioners committed to fostering well-rounded individuals prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. By identifying gender-specific patterns and spatial influences, stakeholders can tailor educational strategies and interventions to ensure equitable skill cultivation

Postgraduate pharmacology curriculum in current scenario and future prospects: an educational forum

In India Doctorate of Medicine (MD) pharmacology is primarily knowledge oriented based on teaching, seminars, lectures and research related activities including animals and paper-based experiments and day to day management of undergraduate classes. MD pharmacology student should be competent of both clinical and experimental pharmacology. So, the postgraduate pharmacology curriculum should be competent to meet all the job requirements. Therefore, medical council of India (MCI) has introduced new post graduate curriculum which is based on knowledge, practical, clinical skills, thesis skills, and attitudes including communication and training in research. In India demand for skilled clinical research professionals is increasing day by day for growing pharma industries and good academician. So, there is an urgent need for the experienced and skilled pharmacologist to fulfil the requirements. MD pharmacology students should get posting in different clinical departments and observatory posting in industry, clinical research organization (CRO), regulatory body and research organisations. The course of MD Pharmacology should be like that fulfil all the skills that a pharmacologist must have

Echocardiographic assessment of cardiac functions in patients of chronic kidney disease stage v on hemodialysis

Introduction: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is emerging to be an important chronic disease globally due to rapidly increasing worldwide incidence of diabetes and hypertension. It encompasses a spectrum of pathophysiologic processes associated with abnormal kidney function and a progressive decline in glomerular filtration rate (GFR). The cardiovascular mortality in these individuals is 10to20fold more frequent than in the general population.Our study assess the pattern of echocardiographic changes in patients of CKD stage V on hemodialysis.Method: This was a cross sectional study conducted on 100 patients with CKDstage V on maintenance hemodialysis for more than 3 months. All patients were subjected to detailed clinical examination and investigation like complete blood count, renal function tests, liver function tests, lipid profile, ECG, chest X ray PA view and echocardiography. Results: Out of 100 cases, 58% were males and 42% females, most of them aged above 40 years with hypertension (61%) and diabetes (25%) as leading associated comorbidities. The presenting chief complaints were easy fatiguability (90%), nausea/vomiting (53%), dyspnoea (38%), edema (23%), decreased urine output (23%) and chest pain (10%), associated with pallor (51%), raised JVP (30%) and pedal edema (25%). ECG revealed ST-T changes (34%) as the most common finding, followed by sinus tachycardia (28%), LV hypertrophy (23%), other chambers abnormalities, conduction abnormalities and rhythm abnormalities. In Echocardiography, most common finding was diastolic dysfunction seen in 73% cases, followed by concentric left ventricular hypertrophy (54%), systolic dysfunction (25%), left ventricular enlargement (20%), global hypokinesia (15%), regional wall motion abnormalityof left ventricle (10%), ventricular ectopics (12%), atrial fibrillation (8%), pericardial effusion (7%), aortic valve calcification (29%), mitral regurgitation (39%), mitral valve calcification (8%) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (42%).Conclusion: The high association of diastolic dysfunction, left ventricular hypertrophy and systolic dysfunction on echocardiography implies that patients of CKD stage V on maintenance hemodialysis require routine echocardiography in all, despite absence of cardiac symptoms, so that timely efforts targeted at prevention and control of left ventricular hypertrophy and systolic dysfunction should be implemented asearlyas possible which may reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in these patients

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 comparative risk assessment (CRA) is a comprehensive approach to risk factor quantification that offers a useful tool for synthesising evidence on risks and risk outcome associations. With each annual GBD study, we update the GBD CRA to incorporate improved methods, new risks and risk outcome pairs, and new data on risk exposure levels and risk outcome associations. Methods: We used the CRA framework developed for previous iterations of GBD to estimate levels and trends in exposure, attributable deaths, and attributable disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), by age group, sex, year, and location for 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or groups of risks from 1990 to 2017. This study included 476 risk outcome pairs that met the GBD study criteria for convincing or probable evidence of causation. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from 46 749 randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL), we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We explored the relationship between development and risk exposure by modelling the relationship between the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and risk-weighted exposure prevalence and estimated expected levels of exposure and risk-attributable burden by SDI. Finally, we explored temporal changes in risk-attributable DALYs by decomposing those changes into six main component drivers of change as follows: (1) population growth; (2) changes in population age structures; (3) changes in exposure to environmental and occupational risks; (4) changes in exposure to behavioural risks; (5) changes in exposure to metabolic risks; and (6) changes due to all other factors, approximated as the risk-deleted death and DALY rates, where the risk-deleted rate is the rate that would be observed had we reduced the exposure levels to the TMREL for all risk factors included in GBD 2017. Findings: In 2017,34.1 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 33.3-35.0) deaths and 121 billion (144-1.28) DALYs were attributable to GBD risk factors. Globally, 61.0% (59.6-62.4) of deaths and 48.3% (46.3-50.2) of DALYs were attributed to the GBD 2017 risk factors. When ranked by risk-attributable DALYs, high systolic blood pressure (SBP) was the leading risk factor, accounting for 10.4 million (9.39-11.5) deaths and 218 million (198-237) DALYs, followed by smoking (7.10 million [6.83-7.37] deaths and 182 million [173-193] DALYs), high fasting plasma glucose (6.53 million [5.23-8.23] deaths and 171 million [144-201] DALYs), high body-mass index (BMI; 4.72 million [2.99-6.70] deaths and 148 million [98.6-202] DALYs), and short gestation for birthweight (1.43 million [1.36-1.51] deaths and 139 million [131-147] DALYs). In total, risk-attributable DALYs declined by 4.9% (3.3-6.5) between 2007 and 2017. In the absence of demographic changes (ie, population growth and ageing), changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs would have led to a 23.5% decline in DALYs during that period. Conversely, in the absence of changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs, demographic changes would have led to an 18.6% increase in DALYs during that period. The ratios of observed risk exposure levels to exposure levels expected based on SDI (O/E ratios) increased globally for unsafe drinking water and household air pollution between 1990 and 2017. This result suggests that development is occurring more rapidly than are changes in the underlying risk structure in a population. Conversely, nearly universal declines in O/E ratios for smoking and alcohol use indicate that, for a given SDI, exposure to these risks is declining. In 2017, the leading Level 4 risk factor for age-standardised DALY rates was high SBP in four super-regions: central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia; north Africa and Middle East; south Asia; and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania. The leading risk factor in the high-income super-region was smoking, in Latin America and Caribbean was high BMI, and in sub-Saharan Africa was unsafe sex. O/E ratios for unsafe sex in sub-Saharan Africa were notably high, and those for alcohol use in north Africa and the Middle East were notably low. Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning

Oligonucleotide Frequencies of Barcoding Loci Can Discriminate Species across Kingdoms

Background: DNA barcoding refers to the use of short DNA sequences for rapid identification of species. Genetic distance or character attributes of a particular barcode locus discriminate the species. We report an efficient approach to analyze short sequence data for discrimination between species. Methodology and Principal Findings: A new approach, Oligonucleotide Frequency Range (OFR) of barcode loci for species discrimination is proposed. OFR of the loci that discriminates between species was characteristic of a species, i.e., the maxima and minima within a species did not overlap with that of other species. We compared the species resolution ability of different barcode loci using p-distance, Euclidean distance of oligonucleotide frequencies, nucleotide-character based approach and OFR method. The species resolution by OFR was either higher or comparable to the other methods. A short fragment of 126 bp of internal transcribed spacer region in ribosomal RNA gene was sufficient to discriminate a majority of the species using OFR. Conclusions/Significance: Oligonucleotide frequency range of a barcode locus can discriminate between species. Ability to discriminate species using very short DNA fragments may have wider applications in forensic and conservation studies

Universal Plant DNA Barcode Loci May Not Work in Complex Groups: A Case Study with Indian Berberis Species

BACKGROUND: The concept of DNA barcoding for species identification has gained considerable momentum in animals because of fairly successful species identification using cytochrome oxidase I (COI). In plants, matK and rbcL have been proposed as standard barcodes. However, barcoding in complex genera is a challenging task. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated the species discriminatory power of four reportedly most promising plant DNA barcoding loci (one from nuclear genome--ITS, and three from plastid genome--trnH-psbA, rbcL and matK) in species of Indian Berberis L. (Berberidaceae) and two other genera, Ficus L. (Moraceae) and Gossypium L. (Malvaceae). Berberis species were delineated using morphological characters. These characters resulted in a well resolved species tree. Applying both nucleotide distance and nucleotide character-based approaches, we found that none of the loci, either singly or in combinations, could discriminate the species of Berberis. ITS resolved all the tested species of Ficus and Gossypium and trnH-psbA resolved 82% of the tested species in Ficus. The highly regarded matK and rbcL could not resolve all the species. Finally, we employed amplified fragment length polymorphism test in species of Berberis to determine their relationships. Using ten primer pair combinations in AFLP, the data demonstrated incomplete species resolution. Further, AFLP analysis showed that there was a tendency of the Berberis accessions to cluster according to their geographic origin rather than species affiliation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We reconfirm the earlier reports that the concept of universal barcode in plants may not work in a number of genera. Our results also suggest that the matK and rbcL, recommended as universal barcode loci for plants, may not work in all the genera of land plants. Morphological, geographical and molecular data analyses of Indian species of Berberis suggest probable reticulate evolution and thus barcode markers may not work in this case

Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure (ACLF): The ‘Kyoto Consensus’-Steps From Asia

Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a condition associated with high mortality in the absence of liver transplantation. There have been various definitions proposed worldwide. The first consensus report of the working party of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) set in 2004 on ACLF was published in 2009, and the APASL ACLF Research Consortium (AARC) was formed in 2012. The AARC database has prospectively collected nearly 10,500 cases of ACLF from various countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This database has been instrumental in developing the AARC score and grade of ACLF, the concept of the \u27Golden Therapeutic Window\u27, the \u27transplant window\u27, and plasmapheresis as a treatment modality. Also, the data has been key to identifying pediatric ACLF. The European Association for the Study of Liver-Chronic Liver Failure (EASL CLIF) and the North American Association for the Study of the End Stage Liver Disease (NACSELD) from the West added the concepts of organ failure and infection as precipitants for the development of ACLF and CLIF-Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) and NACSELD scores for prognostication. The Chinese Group on the Study of Severe Hepatitis B (COSSH) added COSSH-ACLF criteria to manage hepatitis b virus-ACLF with and without cirrhosis. The literature supports these definitions to be equally effective in their respective cohorts in identifying patients with high mortality. To overcome the differences and to develop a global consensus, APASL took the initiative and invited the global stakeholders, including opinion leaders from Asia, EASL and AASLD, and other researchers in the field of ACLF to identify the key issues and develop an evidence-based consensus document. The consensus document was presented in a hybrid format at the APASL annual meeting in Kyoto in March 2024. The \u27Kyoto APASL Consensus\u27 presented below carries the final recommendations along with the relevant background information and areas requiring future studies

Humanity's Last Exam

Benchmarks are important tools for tracking the rapid advancements in large language model (LLM) capabilities. However, benchmarks are not keeping pace in difficulty: LLMs now achieve over 90\% accuracy on popular benchmarks like MMLU, limiting informed measurement of state-of-the-art LLM capabilities. In response, we introduce Humanity's Last Exam (HLE), a multi-modal benchmark at the frontier of human knowledge, designed to be the final closed-ended academic benchmark of its kind with broad subject coverage. HLE consists of 3,000 questions across dozens of subjects, including mathematics, humanities, and the natural sciences. HLE is developed globally by subject-matter experts and consists of multiple-choice and short-answer questions suitable for automated grading. Each question has a known solution that is unambiguous and easily verifiable, but cannot be quickly answered via internet retrieval. State-of-the-art LLMs demonstrate low accuracy and calibration on HLE, highlighting a significant gap between current LLM capabilities and the expert human frontier on closed-ended academic questions. To inform research and policymaking upon a clear understanding of model capabilities, we publicly release HLE at https://lastexam.ai