• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.41-49
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• 2023

Objectives: Rwanda reported a stunting rate of 33% in 2020, decreasing from 38% in 2015; however, stunting remains an issue. Globally, child deaths from malnutrition stand at 45%. The best options for the early detection and treatment of stunting should be made a community policy priority, and health services remain an issue. Hence, this research aimed to develop a model for predicting stunting in Rwandan children. Methods: The Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey 2019-2020 was used as secondary data. Stratified 10-fold cross-validation was used, and different machine learning classifiers were trained to predict stunting status. The prediction models were compared using different metrics, and the best model was chosen. Results: The best model was developed with the gradient boosting classifier algorithm, with a training accuracy of 80.49% based on the performance indicators of several models. Based on a confusion matrix, the test accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and F1 were calculated, yielding the model's ability to classify stunting cases correctly at 79.33%, identify stunted children accurately at 72.51%, and categorize non-stunted children correctly at 94.49%, with an area under the curve of 0.89. The model found that the mother's height, television, the child's age, province, mother's education, birth weight, and childbirth size were the most important predictors of stunting status. Conclusions: Therefore, machine-learning techniques may be used in Rwanda to construct an accurate model that can detect the early stages of stunting and offer the best predictive attributes to help prevent and control stunting in under five Rwandan children.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4581-4585
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• 2012

Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) performs a vital role in the pathogenesis of hematopoietic malignancies. Therefore in recent times, the focus of several studies was on use of FLT3 as a prognostic marker. The present study investigated the molecular characterization and incidence of FLT3 mutations in acute leukemia patients in Pakistan. A total of 55 patients were studied, of which 25 were suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 30 were suffering from acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The polymerase chain reaction demonstrated FLT3/ITD mutations in 1 (4%) of 25 ALL patients, a male with the L2 subtype. In AML cases the rate was 4 (13.3%) of 30, three males and one female. The AML-M4 subtype was found in three and the AML M2 subtype in the other. In the AML cases, a statistically significant (p=0.009) relationship was found between WBC (109/L) and FLT3/ITD positivity. However, no significant relationship was found with other clinical parameters (p>0.05). In acute myeloid leukemia (AML) $FLT3/ITD^+$ mutation was more prevalent in elderly patients 31-40 age groups, 21-30 and 51-60 age groups respectively. In acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) statistically no significant relationship was found between clinical features and FLT3/ITD positivity (p>0.05). However, in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) $FLT3/ITD^+$ mutation was more commonly found in age groups of 21-30.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.507-528
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• 2014

In the ship and offshore structure design, age-related problems such as corrosion damage, local denting, and fatigue damage are important factors to be considered in building a reliable structure as they have a significant influence on the residual structural capacity. In shipping, corrosion addition methods are widely adopted in structural design to prevent structural capacity degradation. The present study focuses on the historical trend of corrosion addition rules for ship structural design and investigates their effects on the ultimate strength performance such as hull girder and stiffened panel of double hull oil tankers. Three types of rules based on corrosion addition models, namely historic corrosion rules (pre-CSR), Common Structural Rules (CSR), and harmonised Common Structural Rules (CSR-H) are considered and compared with two other corrosion models namely UGS model, suggested by the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS), and Time-Dependent Corrosion Wastage Model (TDCWM). To identify the general trend in the effects of corrosion damage on the ultimate longitudinal strength performance, the corrosion addition rules are applied to four representative sizes of double hull oil tankers namely Panamax, Aframax, Suezmax, and VLCC. The results are helpful in understanding the trend of corrosion additions for tanker structures.

• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.180-193
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• 2022

Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (PIBD) is a multisystem disorder characterized by intestinal and extraintestinal manifestations and complications. Cerebrovascular events (CVE) are rare extraintestinal complications in patients with PIBD. Statistics show that 3.3% patients with PIBD and 1.3-6.4% adult patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) experience CVE during the course of the disease. Therefore, this study aimed to review the records of children with IBD who developed CVE during the course of the disease. We retrospectively reviewed 62 cases of PIBD complicated by CVE. The mean patient age at the time of thrombotic events was 12.48±4.13 years. The incidence of ulcerative colitis was significantly higher than that of Crohn's disease (43 [70.5%] vs. 13 [21.3%] patients). Most patients (87.93%) were in the active phase of IBD at the time of CVE. The mean time interval between the onset of IBD and CVE was 20.84 weeks. Overall, 11 (26.83%) patients showed neurological symptoms of CVE at disease onset. The most frequent symptom on admission was persistent and severe headaches (67.85%). The most common site of cerebral venous thrombosis was the transverse sinuses (n=23, 53.48%). The right middle cerebral artery (n=3, 33.34%) was the predominant site of cerebral arterial infarction. Overall, 41 (69.49%) patients who were mostly administered unfractionated heparin or low-molecular-weight heparin (56.09%) recovered completely. Patients with IBD are at a risk of thromboembolism. CVE may be the most common type of thromboembolism. Based on these findings, the most common risk factor for CVE is IBD flares. In patients with CVE, anticoagulant therapy with heparin, followed by warfarin, is necessary.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.326-335
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• 2022

Background: One of the important actions for enhancing human reliability in any industry is assessing human error probability (HEP). The HEART technique is a robust tool for calculating HEP in various industries. The traditional HEART has some weaknesses due to expert judgment. For these reasons, a hybrid model is presented in this study to integrate HEART with Best-Worst Method. Materials Method: In this study, the blasting process in an iron ore mine was investigated as a case study. The proposed HEART-BWM was used to increase the sensitivity of APOA calculation. Then the HEP was calculated using conventional HEART formula. A consistency ratio was calculated using BWM. Finally, for verification of the HEART-BWM, HEP calculation was done by traditional HEART and HEART-BWM. Results: In the view of determined HEPs, the results showed that the mean of HEP in the blasting of the iron ore process was 2.57E-01. Checking the full blast of all the holes after the blasting sub-task was the most dangerous task due to the highest HEP value, and it was found 9.646E-01. On the other side, obtaining a permit to receive and transport materials was the most reliable task, and the HEP was 8.54E-04. Conclusion: The results showed a good consistency for the proposed technique. Comparing the two techniques confirmed that the BWM makes the traditional HEART faster and more reliable by performing the basic comparisons.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.1418-1422
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• 2006

In this work the construction of a novel poly(vinyl chloride) membrane sensor based on 2,2'-dianiline disulfide (DADS) as a neutral carrier, o-nitrophenyloctyl ether (NPOE) as a plasticizer and sodium tetraphenyl borate (NaTPB) as an anionic site with unique selectivity towards Tm(III) ions is reported. The electrode has a linear dynamic range between $1.0\;{\times}\;10^{-6}$ and $1.0\;{\times}\;10^{-2}$ M, with a nice Nernstian slope of 19.5 ${\pm}$ 0.3 mV per decade and a detection limit of $4.0\;{\times}\;10^{-7}$ M at the pH range of 4.8-8.5. It has a very fast response time (<15 s) in the whole concentration range, and can be used for at least 4 weeks without any considerable divergence in the electrode potentials. The proposed sensor revealed comparatively good selectivity with respect to most common metal ions, and especially lanthanide ions. It was used as an indicator electrode in the potentiometric titration of Tm(III) ions with EDTA and in direct determination of concentration of Tm(III) ions in binary mixtures. It was also applied in determination of fluoride ions in mouth wash preparations.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.25-28
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• 2012

Paint Spray is developed as a direct sampling ionisation method for mass spectrometric analysis of additives in polymer-based surface coatings. The technique simply involves applying an external high voltage (5 kV) to the wetted sample placed in front of the mass spectrometer inlet and represents a much simpler ionisation technique compared to those currently available. The capabilities of Paint Spray are demonstrated herein with the detection of four commercially available hindered amine light stabilisers; TINUVIN${(R)}$770, TINUVIN${(R)}$292, TINUVIN${(R)}$123 and TINUVIN${(R)}$152 directly from thermoset polyester-based coil coatings. Paint Spray requires no sample preparation or pre-treatment and combined with its simplicity requiring no specialised equipment makes it ideal for use by non-specialists. The application of Paint Spray for industrial use has significant potential as sample collection from a coil coating production line and Paint Spray ionisation could enable fast quality control screening at high sensitivity.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.342-346
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• 2015

Haloacetonitriles (HANs) are nitrogenous disinfection by-products (DBPs) that have been reported to have a higher toxicity than the other groups of DBPs. The adsorption process is mostly used to remove HANs in aqueous solutions. Functionalized composite materials tend to be effective adsorbents due to their hydrophobicity and specific adsorptive mechanism. In this study, the removal of dichloroacetonitrile (DCAN) from tap water by adsorption on thiol-functionalized mesoporous composites made from natural rubber (NR) and hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS-SH) was investigated. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results revealed that the thiol group of NR/HMS was covered with NR molecules. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated an expansion of the hexagonal unit cell. Adsorption kinetic and isotherm models were used to determine the adsorption mechanisms and the experiments revealed that NR/HMS-SH had a higher DCAN adsorption capacity than powered activated carbon (PAC). NR/HMS-SH adsorption reached equilibrium after 12 hours and its adsorption kinetics fit well with a pseudo-second-order model. A linear model was found to fit well with the DCAN adsorption isotherm at a low concentration level.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.47-52
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• 2019

Purpose: This study specifically discusses why coffee shop customers want to revisit coffee shops. In addition, we would like to verify the mediated effect of the emotional reaction in relation to the influence of the experience values of the Chinese coffee shop on the re-visit of the coffee shop. Research design, data and methodology: Regression and reliability analyses were conducted. Simple regression was used for stock price verification, and the bootstrap method of model4 of Hayes was performed for the intermediate hypothesis verification. Results: This study confirmed that the experience values of coffee shops (entertainment, aesthetic, economic efficiency, and service excellence) have a significant influence on customers' intention to revisit coffee shops. Conclusions: Managers can check that the level of revisit by customers is increased by increasing the elements of experience value. In addition, studies have shown that the customer's emotional reactions play a significant mediating role in the relationship between the value of the experience and the customer's intention to revisit the coffee shop. This suggests that the coffee shop operator should focus on the emotional response of its customers and devise strategies to ensure that the value of the experience is connected to the intent of revisiting.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.140-144
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• 2016

Owing to the kinetic differences in ammonia oxidation among ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOM), there is no standard set of kinetic values that can be used as a representative set for nitrifying wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) design. As a result, this study clarified a link between the half-saturation constants for ammonia oxidation (Ks) and the dominant ammonia-oxidizing bacterial (AOB) groups in sludge from full-scale WWTPs and laboratory-scale nitrifying reactors. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses revealed that AOB affiliated with the Nitrosomonas oligotropha cluster were the dominant AOM groups in the sludge taken from the low-ammonia-level WWTPs, while AOB associate with the Nitrosomonas europaea cluster comprised the majority of AOM groups in the sludge taken from the high-ammonia-level WWTPs and nitrifying reactors. A respirometric assay demonstrated that the ammonia Ks values for the high-ammonia-level WWTPs and nitrifying reactors were higher than those of the low-ammonia-level plants. Using the Ks values of available AOM cultures as a reference, the Ks values of the analyzed sludge were mainly influenced by the dominant AOB species. These findings implied that.different sets of kinetic values may be required for WWTPs with different dominant AOM species for more accurate WWTP design and operations.