Lessons Learned and Paths Forward for Rabies Dog Vaccination in Madagascar: A Case Study of Pilot Vaccination Campaigns in Moramanga District

Canine rabies causes an estimated 60,000 human deaths per year, but these deaths are preventable through post-exposure prophylaxis of people and vaccination of domestic dogs. Dog vaccination campaigns targeting 70% of the population are effective at interrupting transmission. Here, we report on lessons learned during pilot dog vaccination campaigns in the Moramanga District of Madagascar. We compare two different vaccination strategies: a volunteer-driven effort to vaccinate dogs in two communes using static point vaccination and continuous vaccination as part of routine veterinary services. We used dog age data from the campaigns to estimate key demographic parameters and to simulate different vaccination strategies. Overall, we found that dog vaccination was feasible and that most dogs were accessible to vaccination. The static-point campaign achieved higher coverage but required more resources and had a limited geographic scope compared to the continuous delivery campaign. Our modeling results suggest that targeting puppies through community-based vaccination efforts could improve coverage. We found that mass dog vaccination is feasible and can achieve high coverage in Madagascar; however, context-specific strategies and an investment in dog vaccination as a public good will be required to move the country towards elimination.

The origin of the proton radius puzzle

The dimension of the proton, the basic building block of matter, is still object of controversy. The most precise electron-proton scattering data at low transferred momenta are re-analyzed and the extraction of the proton radius is discussed. A recent experiment from the JLAB-CLAS collaboration gives a small value for the radius (The symbol $$R_E^\alpha $$ R E α stands for the root-mean-square charge radius of the proton $$\sqrt{\langle r_E^2\rangle }$$ ⟨ r E 2 ⟩ , obtained by the experimental or theoretical Collaboration $$\alpha $$ α .) $$R_E^\mathrm{CLAS}= (0.831\pm 0.007_\mathrm{stat}\pm 0.012_\mathrm{syst})$$ R E CLAS = ( 0.831 ± 0 . 007 stat ± 0 . 012 syst ) fm (Xiong et al. in Nature 575:147, 2019), in contrast with previous electron scattering experiments, in particular with the MAINZ experiment (Bernauer et al. (A1 Collaboration), Phys. Rev. C 90:015206, 2014) that concluded $$R_E^\mathrm{MAINZ}= (0.879\pm 0.005_\mathrm{stat}\pm 0.004_\mathrm{syst}\pm 0.002_\mathrm{model}\pm 0.004_\mathrm{group})$$ R E MAINZ = ( 0.879 ± 0 . 005 stat ± 0 . 004 syst ± 0 . 002 model ± 0 . 004 group ) fm. The experimental results are re-analyzed in terms of different fits of the cross section and of its discrete derivative with analyticity constraints. The uncertainty on the derivative is two orders of magnitude larger than the error on the measured observable, i.e., the cross section. The systematic error associated with the radius is evaluated taking into account the uncertainties from different sources, as the extrapolation to the static point, the choice of the class of fitting functions, and the range of the data sample.

Granular impacts: how far the Boussinesq model can go?

A key problem on granular impacts deals with the determination of the mechanical response of the grains due to the impact of the intruder. This topic has been poorly addressed in the literature so far, a gap to which this study aims to contribute by measuring the pressure distribution at the bottom of a loose and dry sandy bed, impacted by a heavy sphere of fixed diameter. Exploring different bed thicknesses and intruder’s dropping height, we have found that the structure of this distribution is very similar to the Boussinesq model, initially proposed for a static point-force acting over an isotropic-elastic medium. This surprising result opens up many challenging questions that could help validate or refute this model in other scenarios.

Respon ASEAN Terhadap Mundurnya India Dari Kerja Sama Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a cooperation framework formulated by ASEAN and 6 strategic partner countries and is the first proposal in ASEAN history to discuss comprehensive economic cooperation. RCEP is ASEAN's effort to strengthen its position as regional aktor in the Southeast Asian. RCEP negotiations underwent changes during India's decision to withdraw from the RCEP negotiations, which prompted ASEAN to respond to these developments. This study fokuses on response taken by ASEAN to India's decision to withdraw from the RCEP negotiations. The concept used is soft regionalism which emphasizes geographic proximity, historical relations and the comparative advantage of the region. Soft regionalism is driven by not only by economic and business interests, but also market interests that become the energy of soft regionalism in Asia. This concept is functioning well because it conforms to the pragmatic Asian political conditions. The findings of this study is that ASEAN cannot be separated from the concept of soft regionalism in which it has been running, and still sees all changes through static point of view. ASEAN needs to make new breakthroughs in realizing comprehensive cooperation in the region.

Reconstructing the dynamics of the highly-similar May 2016 and June 2019 Iliamna Volcano, Alaska ice–rock avalanches from seismoacoustic data

Surficial mass wasting events are a hazard worldwide. Seismic and acoustic signals from these often-remote processes, combined with other geophysical observations, can provide key information for monitoring and rapid response efforts and enhance our understanding of event dynamics. Here we present seismoacoustic data and analyses for two very large ice–rock avalanches occurring on the natural laboratory of Iliamna Volcano, Alaska (USA) on 22 May 2016 and 21 June 2019. Iliamna is a glacier-mantled stratovolcano located in the Cook Inlet, ~ 200 km from Anchorage, Alaska. The volcano experiences massive, quasi-annual slope failures due to glacial instabilities and hydrothermal alteration of material near its summit. The May 2016 and June 2019 avalanches were particularly large and generated energetic seismic and infrasound signals which were recorded on numerous stations at ranges from ~ 9 to over 600 km. Both avalanches initiated in the same location near the head of Iliamna's east-facing Red Glacier, and their ~ 8 km long runout shapes are nearly identical. This repeatability – which is rare for mass movements – provides an excellent opportunity for comparison and validation of seismoacoustic source characteristics. For both events, we invert long-period (15–80 s) seismic signals to obtain a force-time representation of the source. We model the avalanche as a sliding block which exerts a spatially-static point force on the Earth. We use this force-time function to derive constraints on avalanche acceleration, velocity, and directionality which are compatible with satellite imagery and observed terrain features. Our inversion results suggest that the avalanches reached speeds exceeding 80 m s−1, consistent with numerical modeling from previous Iliamna studies. We lack sufficient local infrasound data to test an acoustic source model for these processes. However, the acoustic data suggest that infrasound from these avalanches is produced after the mass movement regime transitions from cohesive block-type failure to granular and turbulent flow – little to no infrasound is generated by the initial failure. At Iliamna, synthesis of advanced numerical flow models and more detailed groundtruth combined with increased geophysical station coverage could yield significant gains in our understanding of these events.

SGC-VSLAM: A Semantic and Geometric Constraints VSLAM for Dynamic Indoor Environments

As one of the core technologies for autonomous mobile robots, Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) has been widely researched in recent years. However, most state-of-the-art VSLAM adopts a strong scene rigidity assumption for analytical convenience, which limits the utility of these algorithms for real-world environments with independent dynamic objects. Hence, this paper presents a semantic and geometric constraints VSLAM (SGC-VSLAM), which is built on the RGB-D mode of ORB-SLAM2 with the addition of dynamic detection and static point cloud map construction modules. In detail, a novel improved quadtree-based method was adopted for SGC-VSLAM to enhance the performance of the feature extractor in ORB-SLAM (Oriented FAST and Rotated BRIEF-SLAM). Moreover, a new dynamic feature detection method called semantic and geometric constraints was proposed, which provided a robust and fast way to filter dynamic features. The semantic bounding box generated by YOLO v3 (You Only Look Once, v3) was used to calculate a more accurate fundamental matrix between adjacent frames, which was then used to filter all of the truly dynamic features. Finally, a static point cloud was estimated by using a new drawing key frame selection strategy. Experiments on the public TUM RGB-D (Red-Green-Blue Depth) dataset were conducted to evaluate the proposed approach. This evaluation revealed that the proposed SGC-VSLAM can effectively improve the positioning accuracy of the ORB-SLAM2 system in high-dynamic scenarios and was also able to build a map with the static parts of the real environment, which has long-term application value for autonomous mobile robots.

El proceso intencional/decisorio migratorio desde una aproximación cualitativa longitudinal

La perspectiva longitudinal cualitativa, aunque potencialmente adecuada, no ha recibido mucha atención en el campo de la migración internacional. Especialmente, las intenciones y decisiones residenciales de los migrantes se suelen estudiar desde un punto de vista estático, lo cual no permite explicar el fenómeno como proceso. El presente artículo demuestra la necesidad de una aproximación dinámica y cualitativa para explicar cómo se forman, mantienen o reformulan las intenciones / decisiones a lo largo del proyecto migratorio. Para ello, se utiliza un estudio de caso ucraniano en la Comunidad de Madrid, realizado en 4 oleadas entre los años 2009 y 2016. Mediante este estudio que articula las dimensiones temporales, espaciales y relacionales a la vez, se explican las aportaciones, pero también las dificultades y los retos conceptuales, metodológicos y analíticos de esta aproximación. Entre otros, se destaca la capacidad de observar los procesos causales cognitivos, lo que posibilita una mayor profundización sobre cómo se modelan las intenciones y toman decisiones residenciales.The qualitative longitudinal approach, although potentially adequate, has not received much attention in the field of international migration. Especially, the residential intentions and decisions of migrants are usually studied from a static point of view, which does not explain the phenomenon as a process. This article demonstrates the need for a dynamic and qualitative perspective to explain how intentions / decisions are formed, maintained or reformulated throughout the migratory project. For this, we use the Ukrainian case study in the Community of Madrid, carried out in 4 waves, between 2009 and 2016. Through this study that hat articulates the temporal, spatial and relational dimensions at the same time; we discuss the conceptual, methodological and analytical contributions and challenge of this approach. Among others, we highlight the ability to observe the cognitive causal processes, which allows a deeper understanding of how intentions are modelled and residential decisions are made.