Exploring Cultural Factors Impacting Female Digital Entrepreneurs in Underdeveloped Countries

This chapter aims at understanding the cultural influence on female digital entrepreneurs in underdeveloped countries and the possible effects of cyberostracism by integrating the significance of culture and its influence on females providing a holistic view of how women with entrepreneurial desires experience challenges due to the identified existing gaps in underdeveloped countries. Besides sociocultural dynamics, education is a factor observed to be extremely impactful. Basic and digital literacy are considered essential to progress in conducting businesses across borders. From a digital perspective, “cyberostracism” is identified as a potential issue women could encounter due to lack of education. In this study, a comparative analysis on female digital entrepreneurs of the Asian and European region is conducted based on the view of a collectivistic and individualistic society concluded by providing a framework to minimize gaps and establish an environment for women to pursue digital entrepreneurship in their societies, mitigating the possible effects of cyberostracism.

Ωto_abR: A Web Application for the Visualization and Analysis of Click-Evoked Auditory Brainstem Responses

Since its inception by Jewett and Williston in the late 1960s, the auditory brainstem response (ABR) has been an indispensable diagnostic tool, used by audiologists around the world. Click-evoked ABR testing proves to be a reliable tool, as it provides an objective representation of the auditory function, an estimate of hearing thresholds and the ability to pinpoint a potential issue in the auditory neural pathway. The present study describes state-of-the-art ABR analytics-related platforms and provides an overview of their functionality. In conjunction, we introduce the design and development of a newly developed, user-friendly web application, built in R language. This application provides several well-known and newly key characteristics for the analysis of ABR waveforms. These include absolute peak latencies, amplitudes, and interpeak latencies.

Ensuring Success of Complex Liner Deployment Over Complete Field Development Campaign

This paper describes the innovative engineering workflow which has been used to ensure the safe deployment of deep production liners on long step-out wells of a deep offshore development field. It highlights the importance of accurate Torque & Drag modelling during planning and operations and provides details on how the use of downhole data assisted in understanding downhole conditions on the first wells, which allowed to optimize the running and setting procedure for the next wells of the field. For this methodology, a unique Torque & Drag stiff-string model was used to simulate the evolution of side-forces, tension, stretch, torque and twist along the string at every stage of the deployment and setting of the liner. Simulations were performed both during planning phase and operations. Once the well completed, downhole memory data from a logging tool was compared with simulations, which allowed to calibrate the model, better understand downhole conditions, and provide recommendations for the next runs. Using this methodology, the operator succeeded in deploying the liner to total depth, setting the hanger and packer successfully on all the wells of the field. These operations were performed with only 40 minutes of non-productive time throughout the campaign. The paper shows how correlating downhole data with Torque & Drag simulations highlighted areas of improvement and allowed to optimize the running and setting procedure of the liner. It also led the operator to gain confidence in the feasibility of such critical operations even on the more challenging wells. Detailed engineering and collaboration were key to this success. Such methodology can be applied on every well where weight transfer is a potential issue. As the industry is heading towards digitalization and automation, this case study is a prime example which demonstrates the added value of combining advanced physics-based simulations with time based downhole data.

The Ad Hoc Back-End of the BIRALET Radar to Measure Slant-Range and Doppler Shift of Resident Space Objects

Space debris is a term for all human-made objects orbiting the Earth or reentering the atmosphere. The population of space debris is continuously growing and it represents a potential issue for active satellites and spacecraft. New collisions and fragmentation could exponentially increase the amount of debris and so the level of risk represented by these objects. The principal technique used for the debris monitoring, in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) between 200 km and 2000 km of altitude, is based on radar systems. The BIRALET system represents one of the main Italian radars involved in resident space objects observations. It is a bi-static radar, which operates in the P-band at 410–415 MHz, that uses the Sardinia Radio Telescope as receiver. In this paper, a detailed description of the new ad hoc back-end developed for the BIRALET radar, with the aim to perform slant-range and Doppler shift measurements, is presented. The new system was successfully tested in several validation measurement campaigns, the results of which are reported and discussed.

Selection in working memory is resource-demanding: Concurrent task effects on the retro-cue effect

In a retro-cue paradigm, after memorizing a set of objects, people are cued to remember only a subset. Improved memory from the retro-cue suggests that selection processes can benefit items stored in working memory. Does selection in working memory require attention? If so, an attention-demanding task should disrupt retro-cue effects. Studies using a dual-task paradigm have found mixed results, with only one study (Janczyk & Berryhill, Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 76 (3), 715–724, 2014) showing a decreased retro-cue effect by a secondary task. Here we explore a potential issue in that study – the temporal overlap of the secondary task response with the memory test presentation. This raises questions about whether the secondary task was impairing selection processes in memory or was impacting the memory response. We replicated their paradigm by inserting a tone discrimination task at the retro-cue offset, but we also included a condition in which the tone task and the memory test were temporally separated. In Experiment 1, performing the tone task did not impair the retro-cue effect. In Experiment 2, we added an articulatory suppression task as in Janczyk and Berryhill’s study, and we found that the requirement to execute the tone task impaired retro-cue effects. This impairment was independent of whether the tone and memory tasks overlapped. These findings suggest that internal prioritization can be impaired by dual-task interference, but may only occur when such interference is robust enough, for example, due to switching between multiple tasks.

Covid-19: "Drive thru swabbing hubs" – safe and effective testing for travellers

Background: With increasing number of international travellers taking flights and the need of stringent quarantine regulations across the globe in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a mandatory requirement for many airlines and countries to have a COVID-19 RT-PCR Negative certificate for travellers within a time-specific period prior to boarding flights. Method: As the demand for RT-PCR testing in this group of asymptomatic well individuals who are planning to travel is increasing, they present to COVID testing centres for their swab tests, where suspected COVID patients also attend, thereby increasing the risk of exposure of these healthy people to possibly infected individuals. Hence, the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) in Qatar implemented “Drive-Thru” swabbing hubs to address this potential issue. We analysed the usefulness of this MOPH initiative and how it has helped tackle the challenge. Results and Conclusion: With a reduced risk of exposure for travellers to potentially suspected COVID-19 patients in COVID centres, the “Drive-Thru” swabbing hubs have been a pragmatic, welcome and wonderful initiative. This has contributed to curb the spread of COVID-19 by facilitating easy testing thereby alleviating anxiety in travellers as well as reducing the burden of an exponentially increasing number of travellers presenting to COVID centres.

Analysis of the Development of Bali Cattle Population in Agriculture Ecosystem of Timor Island using System Dynamics

Developing Bali cattle population in Timor Island, East Nusa Tenggara province carries a potential issue regarding cattle population. The objective of this research was to conduct an analysis and projection of the development of Bali cattle population in the agricultural ecosystem in Timor Island using system dynamics. The research was conducted from January to September 2018. The research location was determined purposively based on the characteristics of the agricultural ecosystem located in Kupang Regency and Kupang City. The research used 60 Bali cattle and involved 102 rancher respondents. Interviews and field observations were conducted to obtain primary and secondary data. Data analysis was done by building a system dynamics using Powersim and interpreting the simulation results for the next 30 years. The analysis results of the system dynamics showed that a declining population of Bali cattle over the next 19 or 25 years due to the ranchers' current behavior. The contributing factors included calf mortality that reached 29.6% per year; Bali cow mortality was up to 14.1% per year; calving interval was 22 months; traditional farm management that it is not economical; and the rate of livestock export reached 29.5% per year of the total population. Rancher management interventions and farm policies to reduce the inhibiting factors of cattle productivity are needed to maintain the population of Bali cattle in Timor Island, especially in the agricultural ecosystem.

Placard in Hand: A Simple, Inexpensive Intervention to Improve On-Treatment Visit Compliance in a Safety Net Radiation Oncology Patient Population

PURPOSE: On-treatment visits (OTVs) for patients undergoing radiotherapy (RT) should occur every five fractions. Compliance with OTVs was identified as a potential issue in a safety-net patient population. This study determined if brightly colored placards given to patients improved OTV compliance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis of all patients with lung cancer receiving RT from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2017 evaluated OTV compliance before (No Placard) and after (Placard) the placard was introduced in the clinic. Analysis of variance, χ2 tests, and Fisher’s exact tests were performed to assess differences in continuous and categorical patient and treatment variables, respectively. RESULTS: The No Placard group included 48 patients who were scheduled for 151 OTVs. The Placard group included 50 patients who were scheduled for 187 OTVs. The percentage of missed OTVs in the No Placard group was 9.3% (14/151), versus 2.1% (4/187) in the Placard group ( P = .004). Patients in the No Placard group were more likely to speak English (97.9% v 86.0%; P = .060), were less likely to have stage I-III disease (75% v 88%; P = .097), and received lower mean RT doses (48.2 Gy v 55.6 Gy; P = .007). On multivariate analysis adjusting for language, stage, and RT dose, the adjusted mean rate of missed OTVs in the No Placard group was 7.1%, versus 1.4% in the Placard group ( P = .019). CONCLUSION: A significant increase in compliance of OTVs was observed with the introduction of brightly colored placards. This represents a simple, inexpensive method to improve OTV compliance in a safety-net setting and may be applicable to other patient populations.

Primordial follicle survival of goat ovarian tissue after vitrification and transplantation on chorioallanthoic membrane

Background Ovarian tissue vitrification is an alternative fertility preservation procedure for young female patients prior to gonadotoxic treatment. Primordial follicle loss might be a potential issue for vitrification and transplantation procedures. This study aimed to evaluate primordial follicle density and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fragmentation in each stage of the preservation procedure of goat ovarian tissue. Follicle density and DNA fragmentation were examined microscopically after staining with hematoxylin eosin and TUNEL assay, respectively. Both parameters were compared between fresh, fresh-transplanted, vitrification, and vitrification-transplanted groups. Results A significant decrease was observed in the primordial follicle proportion after vitrification and transplantation compared to the primordial follicle proportion in the fresh group (88.09% vs 52.42%, p < 0.05, 95% CI 11.54, 66.94). There was no significant difference in DNA fragmentations of primordial follicles between each group (p > 0.05). Conclusions The vitrification and transplantation process of goat ovarian strips could cause the primordial follicles loss and DNA damage of the follicles. However, primordial follicles loss and DNA damage were not significantly different in each procedure.

Effectiveness and safety of oral anticoagulants among non-valvular atrial fibrillation patients with polypharmacy

Aims Polypharmacy is prevalent among non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) patients and presents a potential issue for the effective management of NVAF. This study compared the risk of stroke/systemic embolism (SE) and major bleeding (MB) among NVAF patients with polypharmacy newly prescribed oral anticoagulants (OACs). Methods and results A retrospective study of NVAF patients with polypharmacy who initiated OACs from 01 January 2013 to 30 September 2015 was conducted using US CMS Medicare and four commercial databases. Polypharmacy was defined as ≥6 concomitant medications on the index date. Propensity score matching was conducted to compare non-vitamin K antagonists OACs (NOACs) to warfarin as well as between NOACs. Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the risk of stroke/SE and MB. A total of 188 893 patients with polypharmacy were included, with an average of 8 concomitant medications (interquartile range 6–9). Compared to warfarin, apixaban [hazard ratio (HR): 0.59, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.52–0.68], and rivaroxaban (HR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.69–0.83) were associated with a lower risk of stroke/SE. Apixaban (HR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.54–0.61) and dabigatran (HR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.66–0.88) were associated with a decreased risk of MB compared with warfarin. Compared with dabigatran and rivaroxaban, apixaban was associated with a lower risk of stroke/SE and MB. Dabigatran was associated with lower risk of MB compared with rivaroxaban. Conclusions In this observational study of anticoagulated NVAF patients with polypharmacy, effectiveness and safety profiles are more favourable for NOACs vs. warfarin. Our observations are hypothesis generating and may help inform future clinical trials regarding appropriate OAC treatment selection in polypharmacy patients.