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Wearable inertial measurement units (IMUs) have been widely used in human movement analysis outside the laboratory. However, the IMU-based orientation estimation remains challenging, particularly in scenarios involving relatively fast movements. Increased sampling rate has the potential to improve accuracy, but it also increases power consumption and computational complexity. The relationship between sampling frequencies and accuracies remains unclear. We thus investigated the specific influence of IMU sampling frequency on orientation estimation across a spectrum of movement speeds and recommended sufficient sampling rates. Seventeen healthy subjects wore IMUs on their thigh, shank, and foot and performed walking (1.2 m/s) and running (2.2 m/s) trials on a treadmill, and a motion testbed with an IMU was used to mimic high-frequency cyclic human movements up to 3.0 Hz. Four widely used IMU sensor fusion algorithms computed orientations at 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 Hz and were compared with marker-based optical motion capture (OMC) orientations to determine accuracy. Results suggest that the sufficient IMU sampling rate for walking is 100 Hz, running is 200 Hz, and high-speed cyclic movements is 400 Hz. The accelerometer sampling rate is less important than the gyroscope sampling rate. Further, accelerometer sampling rates exceeding 100 Hz even resulted in decreased accuracy because excessive orientation updates using distorted accelerations and angular velocity introduced more error than merely using angular velocity. These findings could serve as a foundation to inform wearable IMU development or selection across a spectrum of human gait movement speeds.

Agricultural spray drone (ASD) use in managed turfgrass has been given limited attention in the scientific literature. Further, deposition patterns of ASD spray have been obscured in previous research by ambient wind, crop canopy interference, and limited sampling resolution. Using a continuous sampling method involving blue colorant and water sprayed over white Kraft paper that was assessed via digital image analysis of stain objects and referenced spectrophotometric analysis of extractant, deposition metrics were estimated across a 29.3-m transect perpendicular to an ASD or ground-sprayer spray swath. The ASD applies very fine droplets that are highly concentrated with herbicide, similar to ultra–low volume treatments, that improved smooth crabgrass [Digitaria ischaemum (Schreb.) Schreb. ex Muhl.] control compared with a ground sprayer when the ASD was operated 2 m above the turf. Unfortunately, these very fine droplets also drift, leading to four times greater droplet density at distance of almost 12 m away from the targeted spray swath following an operational height of 10 m compared with 2 m. As ASD operational height increases, drift and effective swath width at 30% coefficient of variation uniformity increases, while effective application rate, total deposition, and D. ischaemum control by quinclorac herbicide decreased. Total deposition decreased 6% for each meter increase in ASD operational height, likely due to evaporation. The potential losses due to evaporation are a serious consideration for ASD use that has received little attention in the scientific literature. Our data suggest that ASD operational height should be as low as possible, but modification of spray systems may be needed to improve homogeneity of spray pattern.

What are the main findings? At a noise level of 5 mE/Hz, the Vzz component in nadir pointing mode and its involved dual-axis (Vxx + Vzz or Vyy + Vzz) and tri-axis observations are the highest-accuracy configurations, but they outperform GOCE across the full frequency band only at a sampling interval of 1 s. At a noise level of 0.1 mE/Hz, all tested sampling rates (1 s to 12 s) yield gravity field recovery accuracy superior to GOCE, with accuracy continuously improving as the sampling rate increases. When the instrument reaches its limiting precision, residual centrifugal force errors caused by uncertainties in attitude and angular velocity become the dominant error source, shifting the limiting factor from sensor noise to satellite platform stability. What are the implications of the main findings? These results provide a quantitative reference for selecting axis configurations (single-axis, dual-axis, or tri-axis) under different pointing modes for future spaceborne quantum gravity missions. This study reveals the significant impact of sampling rate on gravity field recovery accuracy, highlighting the need to balance measurement cycle design and sensor sensitivity in next-generation mission planning. The development of cold atom interferometry (CAI) provides new opportunities for next-generation satellite gravity gradiometry missions. Compared with the electrostatic gradiometer onboard the GOCE satellite, CAI gradiometers exhibit white noise characteristics within the effective measurement bandwidth, enabling improved performance in the low-frequency range (<5 mE/Hz). However, the measurement cycle, including atom preparation, cooling, and laser interferometry, leads to a relatively longer sampling rate, which may limit observation performance. In this study, the impact of sampling rate on the performance of a spaceborne CAI gradiometer is systematically investigated. Closed-loop simulations were performed under different observation configurations, noise levels, and sampling rates. The results are evaluated in terms of static gravity field recovery accuracy and compared with those from the GOCE mission. The results indicate that, for single-axis observations, the Vzz component in nadir pointing mode achieves the highest accuracy at the 5 mE/Hz noise level, while at 0.1 mE/Hz and a 1 s sampling interval, the accuracy improves by one order of magnitude compared to GOCE. For dual-axis observations, the combinations Vxx+Vzz and Vyy+Vzz in nadir pointing mode provide the best performance at 5 mE/Hz, and an improvement of up to one order of magnitude is achieved at 0.1 mE/Hz with a 1 s sampling interval. For tri-axis observations, both pointing modes outperform GOCE across the full frequency band only at a 1 s sampling interval under 5 mE/Hz noise. At 0.1 mE/Hz, all sampling configurations yield better results than GOCE, with the highest accuracy achieved in nadir pointing mode. These findings demonstrate the critical role of sampling rate in CAI-based gravity field recovery and provide useful guidance for the design of future spaceborne quantum gravity missions.

Maternal and child mortality remains a major public health problem in Ethiopia. Improving short birth interval practice is a main strategy to reduce neonatal mortality, maternal mortality, adverse pregnancy outcomes, high fertility rate, and enhance economic development efforts. However, there has been limited study done regarding short birth intervals in the study area. Therefore, this study aimed to assess short birth intervals and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last three years in Dembecha district, Northwest Ethiopia, 2019. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 880 reproductive-age multipara mothers using a stratified cluster sampling technique. The data were collected by face-to-face interviews through pretested and semi-structured questionnaires. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression model was fitted. Variables with a p-value [less than or equal to]0.05 were considered statistically significant factors. Adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was used to report the association between predictors and the outcome variable. The prevalence of short birth interval was found to be 43.4% (95% CI: 40.2, 46.9). Husband education (able to read and write) [AOR:2.81,(95% CI:1.04,7.85)], wealth index (lowest quartile) [AOR:3.75,(95% CI:2.35,5.97), residence (urban) [AOR:3.20,(95% CI:1.62,6.33)],age at first marriage (15-17 years old) [AOR: 1.65,(95% CI:1.15, 2.26),and non-use of contraceptive [AOR: 8.78, (95% CI: 6.18, 12.47) were statistically significant variables. The study revealed that the prevalence of short birth intervals among multipara women is found to be high. Husband education, wealth index, urban residence, age at first marriage, and non-use of contraceptives were variables significantly associated with short birth intervals. Hence, to overcome the problem the focus should be on increasing family planning utilization, avoiding early marriage, strengthening paternal education, and improving family income.

Urbanization is one of the main drivers in the conversion of natural habitats into different land use and land cover types (LULC) which threaten the local as well as global biodiversity. This impact is particularly alarming in tropical countries like India, where ~18% of the world's population live, and its ever-growing economy (i.e., industrial development) expanded urban areas by several folds. We undertook this study to examine the impacts of urbanization (i.e., LULC) on terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Western Ghats, India. We sampled different habitats ranged from highly disturbed urban areas to less disturbed forested areas. Multiple sampling methods such as quadrat sampling, line transect, point count, and camera trapping were used to quantify the target taxa. We used multi-species occupancy modeling in the Bayesian framework to estimate detection probability and occupancy and to assess the effect of various LULC on different species. All four groups showed a significant negative impact of increasing anthropogenic habitat cover on occupancy. Out of 213 species detected in this study, 96% of mammals, 85% of birds, 93.75% of amphibians, and 69.43% of reptiles showed a negative effect of anthropogenic habitat cover. Evidence suggests that historical and recent human disturbances could have played an important role in transforming this area from semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forest to open, scrubby, dry deciduous, and fire-prone landscape. This might be the reason for the high occupancy of open and degraded forest habitat preferring species in our study area. We recommend species-rich areas in the MMR, e.g., Karnala Bird Sanctuary (KBS) and Prabalgad-Matheran-Malanggad Hill Range (PMMHR), must be conserved through habitat restoration, ecotourism, public awareness, and policymaking.

Background Raising concerns in clinical settings, also known as whistleblowing, is vital for safeguarding patient safety and improving the quality of care. Despite research on whistleblowing in medical and nursing fields, there is limited evidence on this topic within dental education. This study aims to assess the self-reported confidence of undergraduate dental students in raising concerns and identify any barriers. Methods This cross-sectional study utilized an online close-ended questionnaire distributed via Google Forms to senior undergraduate dental students from Jordan University of Science and Technology and the University of Jordan, Jordan. Data collection was voluntary, with subsequent analysis performed using RStudio (version 2023.06.2) incorporating R version 4.0.5. T-tests and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to assess significant variations between results by gender and stage of study. Results A total of 382 participants were included in the study yielding a response rate of 30.80%. Of these, 257 were female (67.28%) and 125 were male (32.72%). Overall, 169 (44.24%) participants reported that their institutions had a policy document on raising concerns, while only 71 (18.58%) participants reported receiving formal training in raising concerns at their institution. Approximately 45% of participants reported experiencing situations which warranted raising concerns in clinical settings. The overall mean score for all items was 0.13 (95% CI -0.18 to 0.43). The findings revealed that students were marginally confident in raising concerns related to patient safety. However, their confidence was lower when addressing issues related to the conduct of clinical staff or peers. Common barriers reported included fear of causing trouble, lack of support, and fear of being ignored. ANOVA revealed significant variation by gender and year of study, with female students and final-year students reporting greater self-confidence in raising concerns ( p  < 0.001). Conclusions Notwithstanding the limitations of the current study, the results show that participants were marginally confident in raising concerns related to patient safety and several barriers to raising concerns were also identified. These findings underscore the need for dental schools to focus on enhancing students’ confidence and empowering them to report concerns when warranted. A transparent and supportive culture can contribute to improvements in patient safety and enhancing professionalism of dental students.

Drug costs is one of the main components of hospitalization expenditure for cerebral infarction inpatients. In China, the National Essential Medicine System (NEMS) was created to relieve the heavy drug-cost burden for patients. The objective of this study was to investigate essential drug-use status and its influencing factors among cerebral infarction inpatients in county-level hospitals of Anhui province, China. Three county-level hospitals were selected through a multi-stage cluster random sampling method. The hospitalization cost data of cerebral infarction inpatients in the three hospitals were extracted from the Anhui provincial information platform of the New Rural Cooperative Insurance System (NCMS), and whether the proportion of essential drug cost in the total drug cost reached the median value of 33.05% which was set as the evaluation index for essential drug-use status. Questionnaires for hospitals and physicians were designed and given to them to assess influencing factors. We retrieved the cost data of 2,189 inpatients from the NCMS platform and investigated 51 corresponding physicians in total. The drug costs accounted for 52.6% of the total hospitalization cost, and essential drug costs alone accounted for 37.0% of the total drug costs. The essential drug-cost proportion was high among physicians with a higher recognition degree on NEMS, older age, lower final academic degree, longer work experience and lower professional title. Married physicians and those with tight organizational affiliation also prescribed more essential drugs. Increasing the proportion of essential drugs was an effective way to reduce the disease burden for cerebral infarction patients. Perfecting the NEMS, increasing government investment, reinforcing education and propaganda, and formulating relevant incentive and restrictive mechanisms were all effective ways to promote and increase the number of essential drug prescriptions written by physicians.

Research has substantiated that the presence of outliers in data usually introduces additional errors and biases, which typically leads to a degradation in the precision of volatility forecasts. However, correcting outliers can mitigate these adverse effects. This study corrects the additive outliers through a weighting method and let these corrected values to replace the original outliers. Then, the model parameters are re-estimated based on this new return series. This approach reduces the extent to which outliers distort volatility estimates, allowing the model to better adapt to market conditions and improving the accuracy of volatility forecasts. This study introduces this approach for the first time to generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity mixed data sampling (GARCH-MIDAS) models, so as to establish an additional outliers corrected GARCH-MIDAS model (AO-GARCH-MIDAS). This pioneering approach marks a unique innovation. The research employs a diverse array of evaluation methods to validate the model’s robustness and consistently demonstrates its dependable performance. Findings unequivocally reveal the substantial influence of outliers on the model’s predictive capacity, with the AO-GARCH-MIDAS model exhibiting consistent superiority across all evaluation criteria. Additionally, while the GARCH model showcases stronger estimation capabilities compared to the GARCH-MIDAS model, the latter demonstrates heightened predictive prowess. Notably, regarding variable selection, the results underscore the greater predictive informational value inherent in realized volatility over other low-frequency factors.

Mangrove forests offer a wide range of ecosystem services, including coastal protection and climate regulation. These ecosystems serve as significant carbon sinks, effectively sequestering and storing carbon in their biomass and sediments. However, various human activities have an impact on carbon stocks in mangroves. The current study quantifies the carbon stored in mangrove forests of the Mtoni estuary in Dar es Salaam and the Kisiju estuary in Pwani, Tanzania, from 40 random sampling plots. Seven species of mangroves Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Vierh (Acanthaceae), Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (L.) Lam. (Rhizophoraceae), Ceriops tagal (Perr.) C. B. Rob, Heritiera littoralis Dryand. (Malvaceae), Xylocarpus granatum Koen. (Meliaceae), Sonneratia alba J. Smith (Lythraceae), and Rhizophora mucronata Lam were identified. Allometric models were used to estimate aboveground carbon (AGC) and belowground carbon (BGC). An organic elemental analyser determined the organic carbon content in the sediments, followed by calculations using a specific equation for soil organic carbon (SOC) content. Analysis revealed that the mean total carbon stock density in the Mtoni estuary is 334.7 ± 37.88 t/ha, which is equivalent to 1228 t CO 2 ha. In contrast, Kisiju stored 345.6 ± 31.7 t/ha, which is equivalent to 1268 t CO 2 ha. AGC averages 36.81 ± 7.06 t/ha in Mtoni and 70.65 ± 8.83 t/ha in Kisiju, whereas BGC averages 6.52 ± 1.23 t/ha and 16.61 ± 1.71 t/ha, respectively. The SOC density is greater in Mtoni at 291.45 ± 29.59 t/ha than that in Kisiju at 258.45 ± 21.16 t/ha, constituting 82% of the total carbon pool. The capacity of carbon storage in these mangrove ecosystems highlights their role in mitigating climate change. Nonetheless, fluctuations in carbon stores can be attributed to factors such as conservation status, deforestation rates, salinity, sediment deposition, ecosystem productivity, human disturbances, and urban pollution. The findings highlight the need for further conservation measures to enhance carbon storage and address climate change, offering critical information to policymakers.

Four years of continuous aerosol number size distribution measurements from the Arctic Climate Observatory in Tiksi, Russia, are analyzed. Tiksi is located in a region where in situ information on aerosol particle properties has not been previously available. Particle size distributions were measured with a differential mobility particle sizer (in the diameter range of 7–500 nm) and with an aerodynamic particle sizer (in the diameter range of 0.5–10 μm). Source region effects on particle modal features and number, and mass concentrations are presented for different seasons. The monthly median total aerosol number concentration in Tiksi ranges from 184 cm−3 in November to 724 cm−3 in July, with a local maximum in March of 481 cm−3. The total mass concentration has a distinct maximum in February–March of 1.72–2.38 μg m−3 and two minimums in June (0.42 μg m−3) and in September–October (0.36–0.57 μg m−3). These seasonal cycles in number and mass concentrations are related to isolated processes and phenomena such as Arctic haze in early spring, which increases accumulation and coarse-mode numbers, and secondary particle formation in spring and summer, which affects the nucleation and Aitken mode particle concentrations. Secondary particle formation was frequently observed in Tiksi and was shown to be slightly more common in marine, in comparison to continental, air flows. Particle formation rates were the highest in spring, while the particle growth rates peaked in summer. These results suggest two different origins for secondary particles, anthropogenic pollution being the important source in spring and biogenic emissions being significant in summer. The impact of temperature-dependent natural emissions on aerosol and cloud condensation nuclei numbers was significant: the increase in both the particle mass and the CCN (cloud condensation nuclei) number with temperature was found to be higher than in any previous study done over the boreal forest region. In addition to the precursor emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds, the frequent Siberian forest fires, although far away, are suggested to play a role in Arctic aerosol composition during the warmest months. Five fire events were isolated based on clustering analysis, and the particle mass and cloud condensation nuclei number were shown to be somewhat affected by these events. In addition, during calm and cold months, aerosol concentrations were occasionally increased by local aerosol sources in trapping inversions. These results provide valuable information on interannual cycles and sources of Arctic aerosols.