The Prevalence and Associated Factors of Caesarean Section at Noakhali Sadar, Bangladesh

Background: The present Caesarean section (C-Section) delivery rate is 33% in Bangladesh which is almost double what is recommended by the World Health Organization for each country. C-section delivery is related to surgical complications, thus increase the rate of hospitalization and reduce women’s quality of life. However, data on C-section delivery rates in different areas in this country are limited. Keeping this in mind, the objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and factors associated with C-section deliveries in Noakhali district, Bangladesh. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 400 women of child-bearing age from Noakhali district, Bangladesh, who had either cesarean (215) or normal vaginal delivery (185) in the last two years using a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 and frequency tabulation, binary and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to achieve the study objective. Results: The prevalence of C-Section in the study area was 53.75%, which was higher than the current Bangladeshi C-section prevalence rate. The most important predictors of C-section delivery among the study area were the mother’s nutritional status, education of the respondent and her husband, family income, normal representation of the fetus, prolong labor pain during delivery, delivery in a private facility, term delivery, and baby’s birth weight. The adjusted odds of undergoing C-section was higher among respondents who were overweight (AOR=6.53; CI=3.007 to 14.18), had LBW baby (AOR= 4.641; CI=2.066 to 10.42), family income more than or equal 20,000 (AOR =3.038; CI=1.056 to 8.743),prolong labor pain during delivery (AOR = 6.027; CI=2.829 to 12.84), performed delivery in private facility (AOR= 27.88; CI=11.55 to 67.33) and mal-presentation of the fetus (AOR = 6.867; CI=2.519 to 18.72). Conclusions: The health care system in Noakhali and other districts in Bangladesh urgently needs policy guidelines to monitor C-Section delivery indications to avoid high rates of unnecessary C-Section.

A Note on the Representation of Clifford Algebra

In this note we construct explicit complex and real matrix representations for the generators of real Clifford algebra $C\ell_{p,q}$. The representation is based on Pauli matrices and has an elegant structure similar to the fractal geometry. We find two classes of representation, the normal representation and exceptional one. The normal representation is a large class of representation which can only be expanded into $4m+1$ dimension, but the exceptional representation can be expanded as generators of the next period. In the cases $p+q=4m$, the representation is unique in equivalent sense. These results are helpful for both theoretical analysis and practical calculation. The generators of Clifford algebra are the faithful basis of $p+q$ dimensional Minkowski space-time or Riemann space, and Clifford algebra converts the complicated relations in geometry into simple and concise algebraic operations, so the Riemann geometry expressed in Clifford algebra will be much simple and clear.

Establishing a Developmentally Appropriate fMRI Paradigm Relevant to Presurgical Mapping of Memory in Children

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an established eloquent cortex mapping technique that is now an integral part of the pre-operative work-up in candidates for epilepsy surgery. Emerging evidence in adults with epilepsy suggests that material-specific fMRI paradigms can predict postoperative memory outcomes, however these paradigms are not suitable for children. In pediatric age, the use of memory fMRI paradigms designed for adults is complicated by the effect of developmental stages in cognitive maturation, the impairment experienced by some people with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and the normal representation of memory function during development, which may differ from adults. We present a memory fMRI paradigm designed to activate mesial temporal lobe structures that is brief, independent of reading ability, and therefore a novel candidate for use in children. Data from 33 adults and 19 children (all healthy controls) show that the paradigm captures the expected leftward asymmetry of mesial temporal activation in adults. A more symmetrical pattern was observed in children, consistent with the progressive emergence of hemispheric specialisation across childhood. These data have important implications for the interpretation of presurgical memory fMRI in the pediatric setting. They also highlight the need to carefully consider the impact of cognitive development on fMRI tools used in clinical practice.

The Performance on Slope Number of Hypercube, Normal Representation of Butterfly and Benes Networks

Many quality measures have been defined for graph drawings. In order to optimize these measures, slope number is considered to minimize the distinct edge slopes. The edges of the graphs are designed here as straight line segments. A number of distinct slopes required to draw the graph is called slope number. In this paper the slopenumber is discussed for known parallel architectures like hypercube, butterfly and benes networks. In addition to that the characterization of these networks is investigated and the results are observed for the defined problem.

Extracting information from RNA SHAPE data: Kalman filtering approach

RNA SHAPE experiments have become important and successful sources of information for RNA structure prediction. In such experiments, chemical reagents are used to probe RNA backbone flexibility at the nucleotide level, which in turn provides information on base pairing and therefore secondary structure. Little is known, however, about the statistics of such SHAPE data. In this work, we explore different representations of noise in SHAPE data and propose a statistically sound framework for extracting reliable reactivity information from multiple SHAPE replicates. Our analyses of RNA SHAPE experiments underscore that a normal noise model is not adequate to represent their data. We propose instead a log-normal representation of noise and discuss its relevance. Under this assumption, we observe that processing simulated SHAPE data by directly averaging different replicates leads to bias. Such bias can be reduced by analyzing the data following a log transformation, either by log-averaging or Kalman filtering. Application of Kalman filtering has the additional advantage that a prior on the nucleotide reactivities can be introduced. We show that the performance of Kalman filtering is then directly dependent on the quality of that prior. We conclude the paper with guidelines on signal processing of RNA SHAPE data.

Semantic Typicality Effects in Primary Progressive Aphasia

Prototypical items within a semantic category are processed faster than atypical items within the same category. This typicality effect reflects normal representation and processing of semantic categories and when absent may be reflective of lexical–semantic deficits. We examined typicality effects in individuals with semantic and nonsemantic variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA; semantic—PPA-S, agrammatic—PPA-G), a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by specific decline in language function, and age-matched controls. Using a semantic category verification task, where participants were asked to decide whether visual or auditory words (category typical, atypical, or nonmembers) belonged within a specified superordinate category, we found a typicality effect (ie, faster response times for typical vs atypical items) for all participant groups. However, participants with more severe PPA-S did not show a typicality effect in either modality. Findings may reflect increased intracategory semantic blurring as the disease progresses and semantic impairment becomes more severe.

Universal continuous transition to turbulence in a planar shear flow

We examine the onset of turbulence in Waleffe flow – the planar shear flow between stress-free boundaries driven by a sinusoidal body force. By truncating the wall-normal representation to four modes, we are able to simulate system sizes an order of magnitude larger than any previously simulated, and thereby to attack the question of universality for a planar shear flow. We demonstrate that the equilibrium turbulence fraction increases continuously from zero above a critical Reynolds number and that statistics of the turbulent structures exhibit the power-law scalings of the (2 + 1)-D directed-percolation universality class.

Normal Extensions of Representations of Abelian Semigroups

A commuting family of subnormal operators need not have a commuting normal extension. We study when a representation of an abelian semigroup can be extended to a normal representation, and show that it suffices to extend the set of generators to commuting normals. We also extend a result due to Athavale to representations on abelian lattice ordered semigroups.

Schur Products

The projective representation of groups was introduced in 1904 by Issai Schur. It differs from the normal representation of groups by a twisting factor, which we call Schur function in this book and which is called sometimes normalized factor set in the literature (other names are also used). It starts with a discret group T and a Schur function f for T. This is a scalar valued function on T^2 satisfying the conditions f(1,1)=1 and |f(s,t)|=1, f(r,s)f(rs,t)=f(r,st)f(s,t) for all r,s,t in T. The projective representation of T twisted by f is a unital C*-subalgebra of the C*-algebra L(l^2(T)) of operators on the Hilbert space l^2(T). This reprezentation can be used in order to construct many examples of C*-algebras. By replacing the scalars R or C with an arbitrary unital (real or complex) C*-algebra E the field of applications is enhanced in an essential way. In this case l^2(T) is replaced by the Hilbert right E-module E tensor l^2(T) and L(l^2(T)) is replaced by the C*-algebra of adjointable operators on E tensor l^2(T). We call Schur product of E and T the resulting C*-algebra (in analogy to cross products which inspired the present construction). It opens a way to creat new K-theories (see the draft "Axiomatic K-theory for C*-algebras"). In a first chapter we introduce some results which are needed for this construction, which is developed in a second chapter. In the third chapter we present examples of C*-algebras obtained by this method. The classical Clifford Algebras (including the infinite dimensional ones) are C*-algbras which can be obtained by projective representations of certain groups. The last chapter of this book is dedicated to the generalization of these Clifford Algebras as an example of Schur products.

QUANTUM INFORMATION APPROACH TO NORMAL REPRESENTATION OF EXTENSIVE GAMES

We modify the concept of quantum strategic game to make it useful for extensive form games. We prove that our modification allows us to consider the normal representation of any finite extensive game using the fundamental concepts of quantum information. The Selten's Horse game and the general form of two-stage extensive game with perfect information are studied to illustrate a potential application of our idea. In both examples we use the Eisert–Wilkens–Lewenstein approach as well as the Marinatto–Weber approach to quantization of games.