How do Key Populations Cope their Behaviour Related Stigma? A Qualitative Study in a Province in Sri Lanka

Key populations are at the highest risk of acquiring and transmitting the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV). Due to the stigma vested upon them, they have become least accessible for preventive and curative services for HIV. Therefore, coping strategies are essential to minimize stigma to end AIDS by 2025, five years ahead of the global target of ending AIDS in 2030. The objective was to describe the coping strategies adopted by key-populations to overcome behavior-related stigma. Data from thirty-two in-depth interviews were analyzed using the thematic analysis method.

Cascaded Compressed Sensing Networks: A Reversible Architecture for Layerwise Learning

Recently, the method that learns networks layer by layer has attracted increasing interest for its ease of analysis. For the method, the main challenge lies in deriving an optimization target for each layer by inversely propagating the global target of the network. The target propagation is an ill-posed problem, due to involving the inversion of nonlinear activations from low-dimensional to high-dimensional spaces. To address the problem, the existing solution is to learn an auxiliary network to specially propagate the target. However, the network lacks stability, and moreover, it leads to higher complexity for network learning. In the letter, we show that target propagation could be achieved by modeling the network's each layer with compressed sensing, without the need of auxiliary networks. Experiments show that the proposed method could achieve better performance than the auxiliary network-based method.<br>

Cascaded Compressed Sensing Networks: A Reversible Architecture for Layerwise Learning

Recently, the method that learns networks layer by layer has attracted increasing interest for its ease of analysis. For the method, the main challenge lies in deriving an optimization target for each layer by inversely propagating the global target of the network. The target propagation is an ill-posed problem, due to involving the inversion of nonlinear activations from low-dimensional to high-dimensional spaces. To address the problem, the existing solution is to learn an auxiliary network to specially propagate the target. However, the network lacks stability, and moreover, it leads to higher complexity for network learning. In the letter, we show that target propagation could be achieved by modeling the network's each layer with compressed sensing, without the need of auxiliary networks. Experiments show that the proposed method could achieve better performance than the auxiliary network-based method.<br>

Global GOSAT, OCO-2 and OCO-3 Solar Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence Datasets

The retrieval of solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) from space is a relatively new advance in Earth observation science, having only become feasible within the last decade. Interest in SIF data has grown exponentially, and the retrieval of SIF and the provision of SIF data products has become an important and formal component of spaceborne Earth observation missions. Here, we describe the global Level 2 SIF Lite data products for the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), and OCO-3 platforms, which are provided for each platform in daily netCDF files. We also outline the methods used to retrieve SIF and estimate uncertainty, describe all the data fields, and provide users the background information necessary for the proper use and interpretation of the data, such as considerations of retrieval noise, sun-sensor geometry, the indirect relationship between SIF and photosynthesis, and differences among the three platforms and their respective data products. OCO-2 and OCO-3 have the highest spatial resolution spaceborne SIF retrievals to date, and the target and snapshot area mode observation modes of OCO-2 and OCO-3 are unique. These modes provide hundreds to thousands of SIF retrievals at biologically diverse global target sites during a single overpass, and provide an opportunity to better inform our understanding of canopy-scale vegetation SIF emission across biomes.

Implications of Climate Targets at a Local Level: The Study of Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India

Paris agreement’s 2°C target has set a goal for the entire World to reduce emissions. Simultaneously, the countries which are a party to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are also required to set voluntary national climate targets to reduce emissions. For achieving these targets, mitigations efforts have to be made at every possible level, especially from the metropolitan cities as they are the prominent source of emissions. This raises the requirement of elucidating the meaning of climate targets at local levels. In this context, the present study tries to interpret the global and national targets at the level of a metropolitan region and quantify the amount of emission reduction required. Mumbai Metropolitan Region in India was studied for this purpose. Paris Agreement’s 2°C target as a global target and India’s climate target defined in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions as the national target were studied. These climate targets were translated into emission budgets for Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Comparing these with Mumbai Metropolitan Region’s emission forecast showed that it requires a 16.8% reduction to meet the national target while a 40% to 47% reduction to meet the global target. The results are significant for policy makers and planners to design focused mitigation policies and support national efforts to govern climate change.

Caesarean sections and health financing: a global analysis

ObjectivesThe objective of this study is to explore the association of health financing indicators with the proportion of births by caesarean section (CS) across countries.DesignEcological cross-country study.SettingThis study examines CS proportions across 172 countries.Main outcome measuresThe primary outcome was the percentage excess of CS proportion, defined as CS proportions above the global target of 19%. We also analysed continuous CS proportions, as well as excess proportion with a more restrictive 9% global target. Multivariable linear regressions were performed to test the association of health financing factors with the percentage excess proportions of CS. The health financing factors considered were total available health system resources (as percentage of gross domestic product), total contributions from private households (out-of-pocket, compulsory and voluntary health insurance contributions) and total national income.ResultsWe estimate that in 2018 there were a total of 8.8 million unnecessary CS globally, roughly two-thirds of which occurred in upper middle-income countries. Private health financing was positively associated with percentage excess CS proportion. In models adjusted for income and total health resources as well as human resources, each 10 per cent increase in out-of-pocket expenditure was associated with a 0.7 per cent increase in excess CS proportions. A 10 per cent increase in voluntary health insurance was associated with a 4 per cent increase in excess CS proportions.ConclusionsWe have found that health system finance features are associated with CS use across countries. Further monitoring of these indicators, within countries and between countries will be needed to understand the effect of financial arrangements in the provision of CS.

Sustainable development: beyond appearances

Global resilience and stability have produced changes in the collective mentality, aimed at developing the spirit of resource conservation, increasing the quantity of recycled materials with effects in reducing climate change. The interdependence between economic, environmental and social considerations for ensuring sustainable development is obvious, their trend being of real interest in current research, because like those presented in the Brundtland report, only this will ensure “the needs of current generations without compromising the possibility of future generations to satisfy their own needs”. Based on a cascading research, from the global approach to sustainable development, to the practices reported by entities in Romania in the last five years, we aim to take stock of the achievements to identify where we are currently compared to the global target launched through the 17 sustainable development goals set by the UN in the 2030 Agenda.

Green and sustainable molten salt electrochemistry for the conversion of secondary carbon pollutants to advanced carbon materials

Carbon emissions have cause serious climate change such as global warming, glacier melting, and sea level rise and so on. Carbon neutrality becomes a global target and the sustainable disposal...