Provision of Preconception Care by Midwives, Nurses and Doctors at Ndola Teaching Hospital in Ndola District, Zambia

Background: The goal of preconception care is to improve the outcome of a mother’s pregnancy and childbirth. Nevertheless, in most developing nations;Zambia included, there are still issues with implementation of preconception care. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the provision of preconception care by midwives, nurses and doctors at Ndola Teaching Hospital in Zambia. Methods: A concurrent embedded mixed methodology utilising a descriptive explorative study design, where 107 respondents were randomly selected using the lottery technique for quantitative part and two focused group discussions for qualitative part of the study was used. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data and a focus group discussion guide was used for the focus group discussions. Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 26 with significance set at 0.05 and at 95% confidence level and thematic analysis were used for data analysis. Results: 75% of the respondents in this study were not providing preconception care and only 25% of respondents were providing preconception care;however, this was provided randomly because there were no guidelines to follow. Among the respondents, 81.3% had medium knowledge, 70.1% had good practices and 92.5% had positive attitudes towards preconception care. Further analysis showed that the association between preconception care and knowledge, practices and attitudes was not statistically significant (p = values 0.336;0.344;1.000 respectively). Multivariate logistic regression revealed that participants with high knowledge were five times more likely to provide preconception care (OR = 5.00, CI = 0.42 - 59.7, P = 0.203). Generally, all the participants acknowledged that preconception care was an important package that could prevent maternal and child morbidities and mortalities. Conclusions: The study revealed that most of the respondents were not providing preconception care. Provision of preconception was done by a small fraction of the respondents and it was done in an unorderly manner due to lack of set standards and guidelines. Despite medium levels of knowledge and generally good practices and positive attitudes towards preconception care, its random provision indicates a need for established standards to enhance maternal and child health outcomes.

Impact of Mandatory Provisions on the Validity of Juristic Acts: A Path for Legal Policy Analysis

Contrary to the approach in judicial practice,Paragraph 1,Article 153,of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China,as a rule of invalidity for violating mandatory provisions,does not adopt a dichotomy towards mandatory provisions with effectiveness and administrative characteristics,yet it maintains the legislative philosophy of differentiation.It leaves unspecified whether mandatory provisions that do not explicitly render a juristic act invalid impact the act’s validity,entrusting this determination to the discretion of judges on a case-by-case basis.When judges,under the authority of Paragraph 1,Article 153 of the Civil Code,explore the normative intent of mandatory provisions to assess their effect on the validity of juristic acts,they should engage in legal policy analysis centered on consequence-based argumentation to overcome the limitations of norm typological analysis.This analysis employs a reasoning model predicated on the normative purpose,utilizing a consequencefocused interpretative approach for formulating and arguing propositions of rules applicable to pending cases,thereby arriving at case-specific conclusions.Since the invalidation of juristic acts serves as an auxiliary regulatory tool for the state economy and society,a consequence-oriented interpretation needs to be based on the idea of mutual instrumentalization of public and private laws.This entails predicting the outcomes of negating the validity of a juristic act in industrial regulatory scenarios and assessing these outcomes within the framework of public and private regulatory instruments.

Provisioning Services与XenApp联合组建局域网应用环境的研究

Citrix公司推出的基于应用流技术的Provisioning Services软件可以实现客户端通过PXE技术获取服务端采用VDisk磁盘存放的操作系统镜像文件,实现无盘启动;而同公司的基于应用虚拟化技术的XenApp软件则可以实现瘦客户端对服务器端所发布程序的访问。将两者相互结合来组建局域网应用环境,不但可以节省软硬件成本,而且对局域网络环境的管理也变得更加轻松和安全。此外还可以指定客户端可运行的应用程序,对服务器端的访问也不仅限于局域网内部。

Joint optimization of maintenance inspection and spare provisioning for aircraft deteriorating parts

With the wide application of condition based maintenance(CBM) in aircraft maintenance practice, the joint optimization of maintenance and inventory management, which can take full advantage of CBM and reduce the aircraft operational cost, is receiving increasing attention. In order to optimize the inspection interval, maintenance decision and spare provisioning together for aircraft deteriorating parts, firstly, a joint inventory management strategy is presented, then, a joint optimization of maintenance inspection and spare provisioning for aircraft parts subject to the Wiener degradation process is proposed based on the strategy.Secondly, a combination of the genetic algorithm(GA) and the Monte Carol method is developed to minimize the total cost rate.Finally, a case study is conducted and the proposed joint optimization model is compared with the existing optimization model and the airline real case. The results demonstrate that the proposed model is more beneficial and effective. In addition, the sensitivity analysis of the proposed model shows that the lead time has higher influence on the optimal results than the urgent order cost and the corrective maintenance cost, which is consistent with the actual situation of aircraft maintenance practices and inventory management.

Adaptive Service Provisioning for Mobile Edge Cloud

A mobile edge cloud provides a platform to accommodate the offloaded traffic workload generated by mobile devices.It can significantly reduce the access delay for mobile application users.However,the high user mobility brings significant challenges to the service provisioning for mobile users,especially to delay-sensitive mobile applications.With the objective to maximize a profit,which positively associates with the overall admitted traffic served by the local edge cloud,and negatively associates with the access delay as well as virtual machine migration delay,we study a fundamental problem in this paper:how to update the service provisioning solution for a given group of mobile users.Such a profit-maximization problem is formulated as a nonlinear integer linear programming and linearized by absolute value manipulation techniques.Then,we propose a framework of heuristic algorithms to solve this Nondeterministic Polynomial(NP)-hard problem.The numerical simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the devised algorithms.Some useful summaries are concluded via the analysis of evaluation results.

Spatial matching and flow in supply and demand of water provision services: A case study in Xiangjiang River Basin

Global climate change and increased human consumption have aggravated the uneven spatiotemporal distribution of watershed water resources, affecting the water provision supply and demand state. However, this problem has often been ignored. The present study used the Xiangjiang River basin(XRB) as the study area, and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs(InVEST) model, demand quantification model,supply–demand ratio, and water flow formula were applied to explore the spatial heterogeneity, flow, and equilibrium between water supply and demand. The results demonstrated significant spatial heterogeneity in the upstream, midstream, and downstream regions.The areas of water shortage were mainly located the downstream of the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan urban agglomeration, and the Hengyang basin was the most scarcity area. Affected by terrain gradients and human needs, water flow varied from-16.33 × 10^(8) m^(3) to 13.69 × 10^(8) m^(3)from the upstream to the downstream area, which provided a possibility to reduce spatial heterogeneity. In the future, measures such as strengthening water resource system control,sponge city construction, and dynamic monitoring technology should be taken to balance the supply and demand of water in different river sections of the basin. This study can provide references for regulating water resources allocation in different reaches of the basin.

COVID-19:Effect on gastroenterology and hepatology service provision and training:Lessons learnt and planning for the future

In late 2019,reports arose of a new respiratory disease in China,identified as a novel coronavirus,severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.The World Health Organisation named the disease caused by the virus‘coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)’.It was declared a pandemic in early 2020,after the disease rapidly spread across the world.COVID-19 has not only resulted in substantial morbidity and mortality but also significantly impacted healthcare service provision and training across all medical specialties with gastroenterology and Hepatology services being no exception.Internationally,most,if not all‘nonurgent’services have been placed on hold during surges of infections.As a result there have been delayed diagnoses,procedures,and surgeries which will undoubtedly result in increased morbidity and mortality.Outpatient services have been converted to remote consultations where possible in many countries.Trainees have been redeployed to help care for COVID-19 patients in other settings,resulting in disruption to their training-particularly endoscopy and outpatient clinics.This has led to significant anxiety amongst trainees,and risks prolongation of training.It is of the utmost importance to develop strategies that continue to support COVID-19-related service provision,whilst also supporting existing and future gastroenterology and Hepatology services and training.Changes to healthcare provision during the pandemic have generated new and improved frameworks of service and training delivery,which can be adopted in the post-COVID-19 world,leading to enhanced patient care.

The Pricing of Convertible Bonds with a Call Provision

This paper deals with the pricing of convertible bond with call provision based on the traditional B-S formula. By applying the principle of no arbitrage, the partial differential equation for the bond is established with identified boundary conditions, which solution results in the closed form of the pricing formula.

PacketCable下eUE的安全Provisioning机制

本文介绍了一种基于Packet Cable2.0的eUE安全Provisioning过程和机制。在这种机制下,设计了一种E-UE的Provisioning架构,并详细定义了该架构下eUE与各个逻辑功能组件之间的交互过程。出于安全性的考虑,该机制通过加入KDC服务器来保证系统内部各组件之间安全的交互认证过程,有效地防止网络中可能出现的信息泄露、篡改和劫取等安全威胁,实现PacketCable下eUE的安全Provisoning过程。

PROVISIONS OF THE CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ON EXTERNAL AUDIT AND CERTIFICATE OF EXTERNAL AUDIT ISSUED RECENTLY BY THE GENERAL ADMINISTRATION OF CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

In accordance with the regulations as stipulated in the Pro-visions of the Customs of the People’s Republic of China on Ex-ternal Audit, the Customs officers engaged in external audit shalluse the Certificate of External Audit of the Customs (hereinafterreferred to as Certificate) as of June 5, 1997. The Certificate has ablack leather outer covering and is inlaid inside with a pierced andguilded customs emblem, which consists of the red national em-blem in its upper part, and a key and a truncheon encircled by earsof wheat in its lower part. Put in a leather covering, the Certificateis a card sealed up with plastics, on which there is a bareheadedcolour photo of the holder in the Customs uniform and with a

CMTS Provision系统设计

伴随广电宽带业务的发展,通过使用Cable Modem作为接入方式的互联网用户不断增多;需要解决对宽带用户CM认证,及时自动的实现对CM访问网络的控制、向用户提供灵活多样的业务以及对多业务的扩展支持等问题。CMTS Provision系统提供了一个以策略为基础的网络应用,服务商及企业用户能更好的管理它,它使用了其独特的性能,与其他的网络基础软件及商业应用能更好的结合在一起。

Prolonged milk provisioning and extended maternal care in the milking spider Toxeus magnus: biological implications and questions unresolved

Prolonged milk provisioning and extended parental care for nutritionally independent offspring, previously considered to only co-occur in long-lived mammals (Clutton-Brock, 1991;Royle et al., 2012), were recently reported in the reproduction of the milking spider, Toxeus magnus (Chen et al. 2018). Newly hatched T. magnus spiderlings require 53 days to develop to maturity, with an average adult body length of 6.6 mm.

ProVISION随钻测井系统

ProVISION是斯伦贝谢公司的随钻测井系统,其应用范围:根据随钻实时测得的实时渗透率及自由和束缚流体体积进行地质导向;在无放射源的情况下测量孔隙度;在钻井期间做出完井、侧钻或封堵与放弃的决定,以便节省钻机时间;随钻实时指示产能,预测含水量,直接探测油气。

Effect of Polishing Procedure on the Roughness and Bacterial Adhesion of Provisional Restorative Materials

Provisional prosthetic restoration materials are exposed to oral cavity producing on the surface biofilm where different factors such as surface roughness and porosity can condition their formation and organization and can create stagnation areas that promote the bonding of organic particles, thus facilitating the formation and maturation of the biofilm. The purpose of this study was to compare surface roughness of two provisional prosthetic restorations materials and their bacterial susceptibility. In this study, two provisional restoration materials were used in two groups, A polymethyl methacrylate acrylic (NicTone MDC DENTAL) and B bis-acryl resin (Protemp 4 ESPE 3M). A total of 80 samples (40 samples of each material) were in thick plates of 10 × 10 mm and 2 mm high. 20 samples of each material were polished, while 20 were left unpolished. Subsequently, the samples were observed by Atomic Force Microscopy for their evaluation of surface roughness. The values were analyzed with t-test, Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test. The samples were microbiologically inoculated with the strains obtained and identified from a provisional polymethyl methacrylate acrylic restoration in a patient, in order to observe bacterial adhesion using a Scanning Electron Microscope. Two strains, Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomona luteola, were identified. The presence of the microorganisms was observed on the surface of both materials, either polished or unpolished, with a lower level of microorganism adhesion found on the bis-acrylic resin. There was a significant difference about surface roughness in the groups A and B with p -8). We found that the polished bis-acrylic resin showed lower surface roughness and bacterial adhesion in comparison with the polymethyl methacrylate.

Switching between multiplexing and diversity in MIMO systems with QoS provisioning

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems can significantly improve the spectrum efficiency or transmission reliability through spatial multiplexing or diversity respectively.Most of previous works mainly have focused on the multiplexing-diversity tradeoff or switching between multiplexing and diversity without considering the property of heterogeneous QoS provisioning.In this paper,switching between multiplexing and diversity in MIMO system with the heterogeneous QoS provisioning is studied.Firstly the QoS provisioning for users are classified into two classes:users with real time service requirement and users with non-real time service requirement respectively.Then based on the heterogeneous QoS Provisioning for users,two different switching criterions are proposed,switching based on the Euclidean distance for users with real time service to minimize the probability of symbol error and capacity-based switching criterion for users with non-real time service to maximize the transmission capacity respectively.Finally,numerical simulation results are illustrated to demonstrate the performance of proposed scheme.

Inter-individual variation in provisioning rate,prey size and number,and links to total prey biomass delivered to nestlings in the Collared Flycatcher(Ficedula albicollis)

Background:In bird species where offspring growth and survival rely on parents’food provisioning,parents can maximise their fitness by increasing the quantity and/or the quality of preys delivered to their offspring.Many studies have focused on inter-individual variation in feeding rate,yet this measure may not accurately reflect the total amount of food(i.e.energy)provided by parents if there is large variation in the quantity and quality of preys at each feeding.Here,we explored the relative role of individual(sex,age,body condition),breeding(hatching date,brood size)and environmental(temperature)factors on feeding rate,prey number,size and quality,and their contribution to total prey biomass delivered to the nestlings of 164 Collared Flycatcher(Ficedula albicollis)parents in 98 nests.Results:Preys delivered to the nest were mainly larvae(53.6%)and flying insects(45.6%).Feeding rate increased with brood size and age,and was higher in males than females.Mean prey number decreased,but mean prey size increased,as the season progressed and parents feeding their brood with primary larvae brought more preys per visit.Relationships between feeding rate,mean prey number and size remained when taking into account the provision-ing quality:parents brought either a large number of small prey or a small number of larger items,and the force of the trade-offs between feeding rate and mean prey number and size depended on the quality of the provisioning of the parents.Whatever the percentage of larvae among preys in the provisioning,the variance in total prey biomass was foremost explained by feeding rate(65.1%to 76.6%)compared to mean prey number(16.4%to 26%)and prey size(2.7%to 4%).Conclusions:Our study shows that variation in feeding rate,prey number,size,but not quality(i.e.percentage of lar-vae),were influenced by individual factors(sex and age)and breeding decisions(brood size and timing of breeding)and that,whatever the provisioning strategy adopted,feeding rate was the best proxy of the total biomass delivered to the nestlings.

Resource provisioning for computation and communication in multi-cell wireless networks

The convergence of computation and communication at network edges plays a significant role in coping with computation-intensive and delay-critical tasks.During the stage of network planning,the resource provisioning problem for edge nodes has to be investigated to provide prior information for future system configurations.This work focuses on how to quantify the computation capabilities of access points at network edges when provisioning resources of computation and communication in multi-cell wireless networks.The problem is formulated as a discrete and non-convex minimization problem,where practical constraints including delay requirements,the inter-cell interference,and resource allocation strategies are considered.An iterative algorithm is also developed based on decomposition theory and fractional programming to solve this problem.The analysis shows that the necessary computation capability needed for certain delay guarantee depends on resource allocation strategies for delay-critical tasks.For delay-tolerant tasks,it can be approximately estimated by a derived lower bound which ignores the scheduling strategy.The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated using numerical results.

Enhanced Cloud Service Provisioning for Social Networks

In the era of cloud computing and social networks prosperity, new requirements rise up for cloud services that meet social network’s needs. Several cloud service providers deliver social network services for cloud services users. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework to pick the best cloud service providers from group of available providers based on many Quality-of-Service (“QoS”) criteria attributes in order to enhance efficiency, accuracy and service provisioning. This paper also aims to provide a classification for QoS criteria attributes, which is divided into five main attributes and sub-attributes, helping in enhancing ranking process in the provided framework.

Cloud Service Provisioning Based on Peer-to-Peer Network for Flexible Service Sharing and Discovery

In this paper, we present an approach to establish efficient and scalable service provisioning in the cloud environment using P2P-based infrastructure for storing, sharing and discovering services. Unlike most other P2P-based approaches, it allows flexible search queries, since all of them are executed against internal database presenting at each overlay node. Various issues concerning using this approach in the cloud environment, such as load-balancing, queuing, dealing with skewed data and dynamic attributes, are addressed in the paper. The infrastructure proposed in the paper can serve as a base for creating robust, scalable and reliable cloud systems, able to fulfill client’s QoS requirements, and at the same time introduce more efficient utilization of resources to the cloud provider.

Innovative Approaches to Energy Provision in Off-Grid Rural Communities—A Case of Botswana

Although renewable energy technologies applications to rural communities to improve energy access have been embraced in numerous parts of the world, sustainability of these systems is increasingly becoming critical as far as realization of long term benefits is concerned. The current manuscript proposes approaches deemed to provide appropriate match between technology and users in a select of Botswana’s rural communities. The methodology includes a participatory and inclusive approach in which the local community is engaged in the generation of their own energy. Available information indicates that available feedstock in selected communities is sufficient to generate and provide sustainable energy supply for the community.