Fumonisin exposure through maize in complementary foods is inversely associated with linear growth of infants in Tanzania

Infants consuming maize‐based foods are at a high risk of exposure to fumonisins. This study explored the association between exposure of fumonisins from maize and growth retardation among infants in Tanzania. Mothers of 215 infants consented for their children to participate in this study. We estimated maize intake for each child by twice conducting a 24 h dietary recall and fumonisins level in the maize, using HPLC. Fumonisins exposure for each child was estimated by combining his/her maize intake and the fumonisins level in the maize. Of the infants, 191 consumed maize. The maize consumed by 131 infants contained fumonisins at levels varying from 21 to 3201 μg/kg. Fumonisins exposure in 26 infants exceeded the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake of 2 μg/kg body weight. At 12 months of age, infants exposed to fumonisins intakes above the provisional maximum tolerable daily intake of 2 μg/kg bodyweight were significantly shorter by 1.3 cm and 328 g lighter. It appears that the exposure to fumonisins is associated with growth retardation. This is the first study to report an association between fumonisins exposures and growth retardation.     

South African research in selected scientific areas: Status 1981–2000

The paper is a bibliometric study of the publication and citation patterns and impact of South African research 1981–2000 in five selected research fields: Animal & Plant sciences; Chemistry; Biochemistry; Microbiology & molecular biology, including genetics; and Physics, excluding Space science. Data are collected from Science Citation Index via the ISI product National Science Indicators. With the exception of Microbiology & molecular biology and Physics the results demonstrate a decrease of SA publications from 1986–1990. The SA world share declines for all five fields. First from the period 1994–1998 the Animal & plant sciences and Microbiology & molecular biology turn the decline into an increase. Absolute citation impact is increasing for all the fields from 1989–1993, except for Chemistry. One reason for the decline is a lower publication output. General & internal medicine, as an supplementary volume-heavy field observed, declines in citations until that same period from which it becomes stable, also in impact, but with a marked decrease in cited paper proportion. In citation world shares the five fields combined show positive signs also since 1989–1993, after which period the international eco-political embargo of SA was lifted. However, Biochemistry and Chemistry continue to decline during the 1990s. Citation impact relative to the world shows a similar pattern, but stagnation appears towards the end of the 1990s in all the observed fields combined. The trends are quite similar to those of Mexico and New Zealand. It is thus highly uncertain if a general citation embargo of SA occurred; yet, in some fields like the Animal & plant sciences, Veterinary science, Chemistry, and General & internal medicine there are signs that a mild citation embargo might have occurred. However, the economic embargo, combined with a significant brain drain, may have had an effect on the publication productivity, after it was lifted. For all indicators Chemistry is undergoing a marked decline during the last decade. This is in line with the negative trends for General & internal medicine, whereas some other medical specialities, biology, economics and other social sciences, the engineering fields and materials sciences keep stable or increase their production. SA is in line with the Mexican development but below that of New Zealand, seemingly losing ground to the developed countries. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Controlling swimming and crawling in a fish robot using a central pattern generator

Online trajectory generation for robots with multiple degrees of freedom is still a difficult and unsolved problem, in particular for non-steady state locomotion, that is, when the robot has to move in a complex environment with continuous variations of the speed, direction, and type of locomotor behavior. In this article we address the problem of controlling the non-steady state swimming and crawling of a novel fish robot. For this, we have designed a control architecture based on a central pattern generator (CPG) implemented as a system of coupled nonlinear oscillators. The CPG, like its biological counterpart, can produce coordinated patterns of rhythmic activity while being modulated by simple control parameters. To test our controller, we designed BoxyBot, a simple fish robot with three actuated fins capable of swimming in water and crawling on firm ground. Using the CPG model, the robot is capable of performing and switching between a variety of different locomotor behaviors such as swimming forwards, swimming backwards, turning, rolling, moving upwards/downwards, and crawling. These behaviors are triggered and modulated by sensory input provided by light, water, and touch sensors. Results are presented demonstrating the agility of the robot and interesting properties of a CPG-based control approach such as stability of the rhythmic patterns due to limit cycle behavior, and the production of smooth trajectories despite abrupt changes of control parameters. The robot is currently used in a temporary 20-month long exhibition at the EPFL. We present the hardware setup that was designed for the exhibition, and the type of interactions with the control system that allow visitors to influence the behavior of the robot. The exhibition is useful to test the robustness of the robot for long term use, and to demonstrate the suitability of the CPG-based approach for interactive control with a human in the loop. This article is an extended version of an article presented at BioRob2006 the first IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics.     

Applying Pareto Ranking and Niche Formation to Genetic Algorithm-Based Multiobjective Time–Cost Optimization

Time–cost optimization (TCO) is one of the greatest challenges in construction project planning and control, since the optimization of either time or cost, would usually be at the expense of the other. Although the TCO problem has been extensively examined, many research studies only focused on minimizing the total cost for an early completion. This does not necessarily convey any reward to the contractor. However, with the increasing popularity of alternative project delivery systems, clients and contractors are more concerned about the combined benefits and opportunities of early completion as well as cost savings. In this paper, a genetic algorithms (GAs)-driven multiobjective model for TCO is proposed. The model integrates the adaptive weight to balance the priority of each objective according to the performance of the previous “generation.” In addition, the model incorporates Pareto ranking as a selection criterion and the niche formation techniques to improve popularity diversity. Based on the proposed framework, a prototype system has been developed in Microsoft Project for testing with a medium-sized project. The results indicate that greater robustness can be attained by the introduction of adaptive weight approach, Pareto ranking, and niche formation to the GA-based multiobjective TCO model.     

The case for treating depression in military spouses.

The increased operational tempo associated with current deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) is placing considerable strain on military families. Among other sequelae of OIF and OEF deployment, findings from recent studies suggest high rates of depression in spouses of service members. This review presents a rationale for targeting depression among military spouses. It examines how stressors relating to the deployment cycle may contribute to depression in spouses and outlines the effects of spousal depression on the mental health of service members and their children. Mental health services currently available to military spouses as well as barriers to their care are also described. Considerations for the adaptation of treatment to their unique circumstances and needs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Food insecurity,school absenteeism and educational attainment of adolescents in Jimma Zone Southwest Ethiopia: a longitudinal study

Background  

Food insecurity not only affects physical growth and health of children but also their intellectual development, school attendance and academic performance. However, most evidences are based on studies in high income countries. Although food insecurity is common in Ethiopia, to what extent it affects school attendance and educational attainment of adolescents is not explored. We hypothesized that food insecure adolescents would be more likely to be absent from school and have lower grades attained after 1 year compared to their food secure peers.     

ScaLeKB: scalable learning and inference over large knowledge bases

Recent years have seen a drastic rise in the construction of web knowledge bases (e.g., Freebase, YAGO, DBPedia). These knowledge bases store structured information about real-world people, places, organizations, etc. However, due to the limitations of human knowledge, web corpora, and information extraction algorithms, the knowledge bases are still far from complete. To infer the missing knowledge, we propose the Ontological Pathfinding (OP) algorithm to mine first-order inference rules from these web knowledge bases. The OP algorithm scales up via a series of optimization techniques, including a new parallel-rule-mining algorithm, a pruning strategy to eliminate unsound and inefficient rules before applying them, and a novel partitioning algorithm to break the learning task into smaller independent sub-tasks. Combining these techniques, we develop a first rule mining system that scales to Freebase, the largest public knowledge base with 112 million entities and 388 million facts. We mine 36,625 inference rules in 34 h; no existing system achieves this scale.Based on the mining algorithm and the optimizations, we develop an efficient inference engine. As a result, we infer 0.9 billion new facts from Freebase in 17.19 h. We use cross validation to evaluate the inferred facts and estimate a degree of expansion by 0.6 over Freebase, with a precision approaching 1.0. Our approach outperforms state-of-the-art mining algorithms and inference engines in terms of both performance and quality.     

Effect of SiC‐Reinforcement and Equal‐Channel Angular Pressing on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of AA2017

This article deals with powder metallurgical production and modification of properties of a composite material based on an age‐hardenable Al–Cu alloy. The main objective is to improve the mechanical properties by particle reinforcement and equal‐channel angular pressing (ECAP). Our approach makes use of four hardening mechanisms: precipitation hardening, particle reinforcement, strain‐hardening, and grain boundary hardening associated with an ultrafine‐grained microstructure produced by ECAP. The main processing steps are high‐energy ball milling, hot‐isostatic pressing, extrusion, heat treatment, and a single ECAP pass. Microstructures are analyzed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. The mechanical properties are characterized by hardness measurements and quasi‐static tensile testing. Our experimental results show that the proposed processing route results in a nearly homogeneous distribution of SiC particles in the matrix. The combination of particle reinforcement and ECAP leads to an improvement of ultimate tensile strength by almost 300 MPa compared to the unreinforced alloy. A subsequent heat treatment leads to a further increase in hardness and strength that can be related to changes in the defect structure. Our study provides detailed information on how processing steps, microstructures, and mechanical behavior are interrelated in this technologically relevant class of materials.