Assessment of Acute Poisoning Cases in Emergency Department of the Provincial General Reference Hospital in Bukavu, DR-Congo

Background: Acute intoxications result from intentionally or accidentally taking a relatively significant amount of a chemical substance which triggers disturbances in the level of psychophysiological functions, the complications of which may lead to mental disorders, physical causalities, and death. Any acute intoxication mostly requires emergency care. Objective: To highlight the prevalence, history, clinical features, emergency treatment, and prediction of acute intoxication cases referred to the emergency services at the Provincial General Reference Hospital in Bukavu, DR-Congo. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2021 to October 2022 based on an analysis of patients’ medical files. Triage was performed among all-type of patient files recorded in the computerized hospital database Ebale-Sante to sort cases of intoxication. Results: During the observational period, 3966 emergency admissions were counted, of which 321 (8.09%) patients were identified as having acute intoxication. Among these, 100 files that containing sufficient information fit the quality criteria for this study’s analysis. The victims were infants, adolescents and adults aged 1 - 45 years, and 52% were female and 48% were male. Most cases were accidental and, occurred at home, and the victims were driven to the hospital within 2 - 24 hours. The substances consumed included household products, drugs, and herbs. Resuscitation care, antidotes and supportive symptomatic medications ensured that 85% were healed and 10% experienced sequelae;however, 5% died. Conclusion: Acute intoxication occurs in infants mostly accidentally though the ingestion of household products and medicines. Furthermore, suicide cases may occur in traumatized adolescents and discordant couples. People should be informed about how to store hazardous products (e.g.: drugs, household products and pesticides), which should not be available to children, to avoid unintentional poisoning. Special training in clinical toxicology is required to reduce treatment failure.

Galactic coordinate system based on multi-wavelength catalogs

The currently used Galactic coordinate system（GalC S） is based on the FK5 system at J2000.0, which was transformed from the FK4 system at B1950.0.The limitations and misunderstandings related to this transformed GalC S can be avoided by defining a new GalC S that is directly connected to the International Celestial Reference System（ICRS）. With more data at various wavelengths released by large survey programs, a more appropriate GalC S consistent with features associated with the Milky Way can be established. We try to find the best orientation of the GalC S using data from two all-sky surveys, AKARI and WISE, at six wavelengths between 3.4 μm and 90 μm, and synthesize results obtained at various wavelengths to define an improved GalC S in the framework of the ICRS. The revised GalC S parameters for defining the new GalC S in the ICRS are summarized as：αp= 192.777°, δp= 26.9298°, for the equatorial coordinates of the north Galactic pole and θ = 122.95017° for the position angle of the Galactic center. As one of the Galactic substructures, the Galactic warp exhibits different forms in different GalC Ss that are constructed with various data and methods, which shows the importance of re-defining the GalC S by the relative commission of the International Astronomical Union that can lead to a better understanding of Galactic structure and kinematics.

Numerical simulation of the Moon's rotation in a rigorous relativistic framework

This paper describes a numerical simulation of the rigid rotation of the Moon in a relativis- tic framework. Following a resolution passed by the International Astronomical Union （IAU） in 2000, we construct a kinematieally non-rotating reference system named the Selenocentric Celestial Reference System （SCRS） and give the time transformation between the Selenocentric Coordinate Time （TCS） and Barycentric Coordinate Time （TCB）. The post-Newtonian equations of the Moon＇s rotation are written in the SCRS, and they are integrated numerically. We calculate the correction to the rotation of the Moon due to total relativistic torque which includes post-Newtonian and gravitomagnetic torques as well as geodetic precession. We find two dominant periods associated with this correction： 18.6 yr and 80.1 yr. In addition, the precession of the rotating axes caused by fourth-degree and fifth-degree harmonics of the Moon is also analyzed, and we have found that the main periods of this precession are 27.3 d, 2.9 yr, 18.6 yr and 80.1 yr.

Data science:Trends, perspectives, and prospects

Data science is a rapidly growing academic field with significant implications for all conventional scientific studies. However, most relevant studies have been limited to one or several facets of data science from a specific application domain perspective and less to discuss its theoretical framework. Data science is unique in that its research goals, perspectives, and body of knowledge are distinct from other sciences. The core theories of data science are the DIKW pyramid, data-intensive scientific discovery, data science life cycle, data wrangling or munging,big data analytics, data management, and governance, data products Dev Ops, and big data visualization. Six main trends characterize the recent theoretical studies on data science are:(1)the growing significance of Data Ops,(2) the rise of citizen data scientists,(3) enabling augmented data science,(4) integrating data warehouse with data lake,(5) diversity of domain-specific data science, and(6) implementing data stories as data products. Further development of data science should prioritize four ways to turn challenges into opportunities:(1) accelerating theoretical studies of data science,(2) the trade-off between explainability and performance,(3) achieving data ethics, privacy and trust, and(4) aligning academic curricula with industrial needs.