Effects of Maternal Marginal Iodine Deficiency on Interactions between Cerebellar Bergmann Glia Cells and Purkinje Cells in Rat Offspring

Iodine deficiency （ID） during early pregnancy has an adverse effect on children＇s psychomotor and motor function but the mechanism has not been clarified. Therefore, our aim was to study the effect of maternal marginal ID on cerebellar neurodevelopment and the underlying mechanism. After obtaining marginal ID rats, we examined interactions between Bergmann gila cells （BGs） and Purkinje cells （PCs） using immunofluorescence and expression of the glutamate transporter and receptor by western blot. Our results showed that marginal ID reduced the number of contacted points between BGs and PCs,

Climate Change Perceptions , Impacts and Adaptation Strategies of F arm Households in Potohar Region of Punjab, Pakistan

Climate change has become a global phenomenon and is adversely affecting agricultural development across the globe.Developing countries like Pakistan where 18.9%of the GDP(gross domestic product)came from the agriculture sector and also 42%of the labor force involved in agriculture.They are directly and indirectly affected by climate change due to an increase in the frequency and intensity of climatic extreme events such as floods,droughts and extreme weather events.In this paper,we have focused on the impact of climate change on farm households and their adaptation strategies to cope up the climatic extremes.For this purpose,we have selected farm households by using multistage stratified random sampling from four districts of the Potohar region i.e.Attock,Rawalpindi,Jhelum and Chakwal.These districts were selected by dividing the Potohar region into rain-fed areas.We have employed logistic regression to assess the determinants of adaptation to climate change and its impact.We have also calculated the marginal effect of each independent variable of the logistic regression to measure the immediate rate of change in the model.In order to check the significance of our suggested model,we have used hypothesis testing.

Modeling household car ownership using ordered logistic regression model

Considering both the discrete and ordered nature of the household car ownership an ordered logistic regression model to predict household car ownership is established by using the data of Nanjing Household Travel Survey in the year 2012. The model results show that some household characteristics such as the number of driver licenses household income and home location are significant.Yet the intersection density indicating the street patterns of home location and the dummy near the subway and the bus stop density indicating the transit accessibility of home location are insignificant.The model estimation obtains a good γ2 the goodness of fit of the model and the model validation also shows a good performance in prediction.The marginal effects of all the significant explanatory variables are calculated to quantify the odds change in the household car ownership following a one-unit change in the explanatory variables.

Analysis of passenger boarding time difference between adults and seniors based on smart card data

As an essential component of bus dwelling time, passenger boarding time has a significant impact on bus running reliability and service quality. In order to understand the passengers’ boarding process and mitigate passenger boarding time, a regression analysis framework is proposed to capture the difference and influential factors of boarding time for adult and elderly passengers based on smart card data from Changzhou. Boarding gap, the time difference between two consecutive smart card tapping records, is calculated to approximate passenger boarding time. Analysis of variance is applied to identify whether the difference in boarding time between adults and seniors is statistically significant. The multivariate regression modeling approach is implemented to analyze the influences of passenger types, marginal effects of each additional boarding passenger and bus floor types on the total boarding time at each stop. Results show that a constant difference exists in boarding time between adults and seniors even without considering the specific bus characteristics. The average passenger boarding time decreases when the number of passenger increases. The existence of two entrance steps delays the boarding process, especially for elderly passengers.

Random-parameters analysis of highway characteristics on crash frequency and injury severity

Factors that affect highway-related crash frequency and injury severity vary across observations. Using a methodology that does not account nor correct for heterogeneity in observed and unobserved crash factors across highway segments may lead to biased and inconsistent estimated coefficients, thus resulting in erroneous inferences. The present paper demonstrates the use of random-parameters models to facilitate and enhance how crash factors affect crash frequency and injury severity along a highway segment. The results indicate that a unit increase in the presence of stop sign along a highway segment reduces crash frequency by 2.471 for 87.24% of the roadway segments. For the remaining 12.76% of the roadway segments, crash frequency is increased by the same margin. Using the random-parameters multinomial logit model, the result indicates that, for 90.89% of the observations, the presence of a stop sign on a highway segment increases the probability of the injury outcome. For 9.11% of the observations, the presence of a stop sign on a highway segment reduces the probability of the injury outcome, and the marginal effect value across observations is 0.0017. Vertical grades greater than 5% increase crash frequency for 58.46% of the highway segments, and decrease for 41.54% of the highway segments by 0.121 for one unit increase in vertical grades.