Near-Infrared Spectroscopy as a Tool for Marine Mammal Research and Care

Developments in wearable human medical and sports health trackers has offered new solutions to challenges encountered by eco-physiologists attempting to measure physiological attributes in freely moving animals. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is one such solution that has potential as a powerful physio-logging tool to assess physiology in freely moving animals. NIRS is a non-invasive optics-based technology, that uses non-ionizing radiation to illuminate biological tissue and measures changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentrations inside tissues such as skin, muscle, and the brain. The overall footprint of the device is small enough to be deployed in wearable physio-logging devices. We show that changes in hemoglobin concentration can be recorded from bottlenose dolphins and gray seals with signal quality comparable to that achieved in human recordings. We further discuss functionality, benefits, and limitations of NIRS as a standard tool for animal care and wildlife tracking for the marine mammal research community.

Secured Cotabato City State Polytechnic College Web-Based Student Clearance System

The study describes the Secured CCSPC Web-Based Student Clearance System's use and predicted effects. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Sublime editor, Bootstrap, and MySQL as the database tool were used to create the clearance system. This system includes two-factor authentication for students and designated offices. In the clearance system, a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for data transit, as well as a software firewall and anti-SQL Injection attack, were offered and implemented. The CCSPC Portal was linked to the web-based student clearance system and Web API, with Web API acting as a bridge between SIMone and the clearance system. SIMone's role is to offer just a limited amount of information on the web-based clearing, such as designated office operations, account status from the Cashier, and student profiles from the Registrar. Students and the approved offices in charge of signing the student clearance include the Graduating Class Association (GCA) Treasurer, Laboratory Custodian, Cashier, Librarian, Academic Related Services (ARS), SPEED Director, Department Chairperson, College Dean, and the Registrar. The ISO 9126-1 International Standard Tool for Software Evaluation, on the other hand, was utilized in the CCSPC beneficiaries' surveys to test the system's effectiveness and reliability.

Three-dimensional (3D) velocity map imaging: from technique to application

The velocity map imaging (VMI) technique was first introduced by Eppink and Parker in 1997, as an improvement to the original ion imaging method by Houston and Chandler in 1987. The method has gained huge popularity over the past two decades and has become a standard tool for measuring high-resolution translational energy and angular distributions of ions and electrons. VMI has evolved gradually from 2D momentum measurements to 3D measurements with various implementations and configurations. The most recent advancement has brought unprecedented 3D performance to the technique in terms of resolutions (both spatial and temporal), multi-hit capability as well as acquisition speed while maintaining many attractive attributes afforded by conventional VMI such as being simple, cost-effective, visually appealing and versatile. In this tutorial we will discuss many technical aspects of the recent advancement and its application in probing correlated chemical dynamics.

Optimization of the Use of TOGAF ADM in the Design of Information Systems for Islamic Boarding Schools

Pesantren is an educational institution that stands traditionally where students live in one place to live with each other and study under the guidance of a teacher who is also known as a Kiai. For its implementation, many things must be managed by a boarding school, starting from student registration, student placement, student learning, and evaluation of student learning at the boarding school. So far, there is no adequate system for all of these administrative needs. The purpose of this study is to build an information system framework for Islamic boarding schools using the TOGAF FRAMEWORK. Miftahul Huda Islamic Boarding School Pekanbaru City uses the TOGAF-ADM methodology as the standard tool used. The use of TOGAF can bring a consistent enterprise architecture, based on stakeholder requirements, and bring some considerations. . In designing this blueprint, it will rely on the work steps of the TOGAF ADM Framework, in which this enterprise architecture framework is divided into (four) categories, namely: business architecture, data, applications, and technology.

Uncertainty-aware Visual Analytics - Scope, Oppertunities and Challenges

In many applications, Visual Analytics(VA) has developed into a standard tool to ease data access and knowledge generation. Unfortunately, many data sources, used in the VA process, are affected by uncertainty. In addition, the VA cycle itself can introduce uncertainty to the knowledge generation process. The classic VA cycle does not provide a mechanism to handle these sources of uncertainty. In this manuscript, we aim to provide an extended VA cycle that is capable of handling uncertainty by quantification, propagation, and visualization. Different data types and application scenarios that can be handled by such a cycle, examples, and a list of open challenges in the area of uncertainty-aware VA are provided.

New In Vitro Methodology for Kinetics Distribution Prediction in the Brain. An Additional Step towards an Animal-Free Approach

The development of new drugs or formulations for central nervous system (CNS) diseases is a complex pharmacologic and pharmacokinetic process; it is important to evaluate their access to the CNS through the blood−brain barrier (BBB) and their distribution once they have acceded to the brain. The gold standard tool for obtaining this information is the animal microdialysis technique; however, according to 3Rs principles, it would be better to have an “animal-free” alternative technique. Because of that, the purpose of this work was to develop a new formulation to substitute the brain homogenate in the in vitro tests used for the prediction of a drug’s distribution in the brain. Fresh eggs have been used to prepare an emulsion with the same proportion in proteins and lipids as a human brain; this emulsion has proved to be able to predict both the unbound fraction of drug in the brain (fu,brain) and the apparent volume of distribution in the brain (Vu,brain) when tested in in vitro permeability tests. The new formulation could be used as a screening tool; only the drugs with a proper in vitro distribution would pass to microdialysis studies, contributing to the refinement, reduction and replacement of animals in research.

Continuous Feature-Based Tracking of the Inner Ear for Robot-Assisted Microsurgery

Robotic systems for surgery of the inner ear must enable highly precise movement in relation to the patient. To allow for a suitable collaboration between surgeon and robot, these systems should not interrupt the surgical workflow and integrate well in existing processes. As the surgical microscope is a standard tool, present in almost every microsurgical intervention and due to it being in close proximity to the situs, it is predestined to be extended by assistive robotic systems. For instance, a microscope-mounted laser for ablation. As both, patient and microscope are subject to movements during surgery, a well-integrated robotic system must be able to comply with these movements. To solve the problem of on-line registration of an assistance system to the situs, the standard of care often utilizes marker-based technologies, which require markers being rigidly attached to the patient. This not only requires time for preparation but also increases invasiveness of the procedure and the line of sight of the tracking system may not be obstructed. This work aims at utilizing the existing imaging system for detection of relative movements between the surgical microscope and the patient. The resulting data allows for maintaining registration. Hereby, no artificial markers or landmarks are considered but an approach for feature-based tracking with respect to the surgical environment in otology is presented. The images for tracking are obtained by a two-dimensional RGB stream of a surgical microscope. Due to the bony structure of the surgical site, the recorded cochleostomy scene moves nearly rigidly. The goal of the tracking algorithm is to estimate motion only from the given image stream. After preprocessing, features are detected in two subsequent images and their affine transformation is computed by a random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. The proposed method can provide movement feedback with up to 93.2 μm precision without the need for any additional hardware in the operating room or attachment of fiducials to the situs. In long term tracking, an accumulative error occurs.

Development and Psychometrics of a Theory-Based Physical Activity Assessment Questionnaire for the Pregnant Women (PA2Q-PW)

Backgrounds & Aims: There is evidence that physical activity plays an essential role in preventing pregnancy-related diseases. This study aimed to develop and design a theory-based physical activity assessment questionnaire for pregnant women (PA2Q-PW). Methods: The PEN-3 cultural model provided the theoretical foundations for the four subscales of our designed instrument; knowledge, attitude, nurture, and enabling. The primary questionnaire was designed with 41 items, and the questionnaire was modified according to the experts' reviews. At last, a group of 400 pregnant women participated in a study to calculate the psychometrics of the tool. Results: The highest score was seen in the knowledge subscale of PA2Q-PW, and the value of Cronbach's alpha for the subscales was from 0.89 to 0.97, and the value of ICC was from 0.76 to 0.89. The correlation (CVI & CVR indices) between the experts was satisfactory in all items of PA2Q-PW. The minimum loading factor for varimax rotation in the knowledge subscale was 0.41; the attitude was 0.56, nurtures were 0.38, and enabling was 0.27. Conclusion: PA2Q-PW is the first standard tool based on the PEN-3 cultural model that researchers can utilize to gather data and conduct the desired education interventions to change physical activity behavior in pregnant women during pregnancy.

Academic Procrastination among College Students of Jorhat- An Explorative Study

Academic procrastination is a behavior that is very common among students. It involves knowing that an individual needs to finish the academic task before the assigned time but for one or another reason respondents fail to accomplish the task within the expected time frame. It is the practice of doing more pleasurable or less urgent tasks instead of more urgent ones. Individuals often promise themselves not to delay things until the last minute but it happens again. Such procrastination behaviors affect the student’s actual performances in the learning process and lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, depression, and self-doubt. The present study is exploratory research carried out to assess the area and gender difference in academic procrastination among College students in the year 2020. A sample of 199 undergraduate students was selected by using Solvin’s formula (N/1+Ne²), where ‘N’ is the total population and ‘e’ is the margin of error. A standard tool named “Procrastination Assessment Scale for Students (PASS)” was used to assess the academic procrastination of the students. The findings revealed that in areas of procrastination majority 61.3 percent of the respondents had an average level of academic procrastination, as most of the respondents (63.81%) sometimes procrastinate in school activities in general also 65.32 percent of respondents sometimes face a problem when they procrastinate in school activities in general. Findings also depict that 49.74 percent definitely want to decrease the tendency to procrastinate in keeping up with weekly reading assignments. It was also revealed from the findings that there was no gender difference in academic procrastination among College students.

Computable embeddability for algebraic structures

In computability theory, the standard tool to classify preorders is provided by the computable reducibility. If [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are preorders with domain [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] is computably reducible to [Formula: see text] if and only if there is a computable function [Formula: see text] such that for all [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]. We study the complexity of preorders which arise in a natural way in computable structure theory. We prove that the relation of computable isomorphic embeddability among computable torsion abelian groups is a [Formula: see text] complete preorder. A similar result is obtained for computable distributive lattices. We show that the relation of primitive recursive embeddability among punctual structures (in the setting of Kalimullin et al.) is a [Formula: see text] complete preorder.