Networks often need to concurrently process millions of flows with varying Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. Doing so by deploying flow-specific rules at network nodes would require significant memory and overhead.In this paper, we take a fundamentally different approach, called P4QoS, by embedding QoS requirements in the packets themselves and leveraging P4-programmable network switches to process the traffic based on them. We illustrate and evaluate our approach with latency as our QoS metric, but our concept can be applied to other metrics as well. Our evaluation, both in software (Mininet) and in hardware (Intel Tofino), shows that P4QoS can satisfy application-specific QoS requirements with negligible memory overhead.

The concept of network slicing enables operators to provision multiple virtual networks on top of a single (shared) physical infrastructure. Adding elasticity to slicing, i.e., the ability to on-demand provision/release dedicated network resources, improves resource utilization. However, efficiently allocating and scaling slice resources, while maintaining state consistency, is challenging. Especially with P4-programmab1e network devices that process packets at Tbps speeds, controller-driven scaling of network functions would be too time-consuming, and data-plane scaling is needed. In this paper, we address this need, by developing a custom scaling protocol and framework that can consistently, with negligible delay, scale network slices and functions transparently to the slice end-users. We compare, via emulation and experiments on programmable hardware, our approach to state-of-the-art scaling techniques and demonstrate significant slice resource utilization improvements and scaling duration reductions.

Background Due to COVID-19, domestic violence victims face a range of mental health challenges, possibly resulting in substantial human and economic consequences. However, there is a lack of mental health interventions tailored to domestic violence victims and in the context of COVID-19. In this study, we aim to identify interventions that can improve domestic violence victims’ mental health amid the COVID-19 pandemic to address the research gap. Main text Drawing insights from established COVID-19 review frameworks and a comprehensive review of PubMed literature, we obtained information on interventions that can address domestic violence victims’ mental health challenges amid COVID-19. We identified practical and timely solutions that can be utilized to address mental health challenges domestic violence victims face amid COVID-19, mainly focusing on (1) decreasing victims’ exposure to the abuser and (2) increasing victims’ access to mental health services. Conclusion Domestic violence is a public health crisis that affects all demographics and could result in significant morbidity and mortality. In addition to emphasizing mental health challenges faced by domestic violence victims, multidisciplinary interventions are identified that could provide timely and practical solutions to domestic violence victims amid the pandemic, which range from tailored shelter home strategies, education programs, escape plans, laws and regulations, as well as more technology-based mental health solutions. There is a significant need for more multipronged and multidisciplinary strategies to address domestic violence amid and beyond the pandemic, particularly interventions that could capitalize on the ubiquity and cost-effectiveness of technology-based solutions.

We describe a purely image-based method for finding geometric constructions with a ruler and compass in the Euclidea geometric game. The method is based on adapting the Mask R-CNN state-of-the-art image processing neural architecture and adding a tree-based search procedure to it. In a supervised setting, the method learns to solve all 68 kinds of geometric construction problems from the first six level packs of Euclidea with an average 92% accuracy. When evaluated on new kinds of problems, the method can solve 31 of the 68 kinds of Euclidea problems. We believe that this is the first time that a purely image-based learning has been trained to solve geometric construction problems of this difficulty.

This article makes the case for why higher education institutions should take the teaching of peacebuilding seriously. It is co-authored by a team from four countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Colombia and the United Kingdom) who were involved in a small international research project looking at “Pedagogies for Peacebuilding”. Together they are trying to answer questions about the legitimacy of bringing these discussions into higher education and lecturer/student relationships. The authors discuss the spaces in which peacebuilding can be usefully considered within higher education curricula; the significance of higher education in helping young people develop habits of peace; and how the citizens and leaders of the future might be helped to understand the meaning and importance of peacebuilding. In the course of their argument, the authors consider the intention and impact of different pedagogical approaches.

The increasing penetration of renewable energy resources such as solar and wind via power electronic inverters is challenging grid dynamics, as well as grid planning, operation, and protection. Recently, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has reported a series of similar events of the unintended loss of solar generation in Southern California over a large geographic area following the transmission-level disturbances. These events highlight the importance of understanding the characteristics of the transmission-side disturbances propagating into the distribution systems and their impacts on the operation of inverter-based resources. In this paper, a real-time electromagnetic simulation testbed is constructed for real-time electromagnetic simulations to generate realistic transmission-level disturbances and investigate their impacts on the solar PV operation under different fault types and locations, solar penetration levels, and loading levels. Through the simulation analysis and grid strength assessment, it is found that the grid strength at points of integration (POIs) of solar PVs significantly affects the transient stability of solar generators. Particularly, undesirable transient stability events are more likely to occur at the weak POIs following the transmission-level disturbances. Moreover, undesirable transient stability events become severer when the transmission-level disturbance is closer to the weak POIs or the disturbances become more serious. Additionally, the impact of the transmission-level disturbances on the solar PVs at the weak POIs exacerbate with the increasing solar penetration levels and loading levels. Thus, it is important to study and develop new technologies for grid planning, operation, and protection in weak grid conditions to address the emerging issues of integrating the high penetration of solar PVs and other IBRs.

Este artigo tem como proposta relacionar o papel da farmácia hospitalar diante de um cenário de pandemia, como a do novo coronavírus, e ressaltar a importância de um plano de contingência para o enfrentamento do impacto causado por esta pandemia em um hospital. A partir de uma revisão teórica, onde buscou-se trabalhos científicos e literaturas sobre o tema, em plataformas de pesquisa Scielo e Google Acadêmico, foi possível selecionar e analisar planos de contingência da farmácia hospitalar propostos em âmbito nacional e internacional, assim como artigos, livros, dados estatísticos, declarações, manuais, normas técnicas, dentre outros materias, que permeiam essa temática, correlacionando-os com as atribuições de um serviço de farmácia em unidades de saúde. Os resultados da revisão bibliográfica corroboram para as evidências da necessidade de se elaborar um plano de contingência específico para este cenário. Com isso concluiu-se que compete ao farmacêutico entender do processo assistencial e de gestão para se implementar e executar um plano de contingência na farmácia hospitalar específico para a pandemia por COVID-19. De forma a combater o vírus SARS-CoV-2 e mitigar seu impacto no âmbito hospitalar e na sociedade como um todo, garantindo a qualidade e a segurança dos pacientes e colaboradores.

Introduction: The study is part of wider research project, published as article based on our earlier research experiences[1]. This study focused on the strategies for implementing practical activities in children with intellectual disabilities, with the goal of encouraging and rehabilitating neurophysiological processes of attention, behaviour, and cognition. It also focuses the concept of treatment and rehabilitation, based on the new strategies. Subject: The purpose of this study was to shed light on the cognitive and behavioural functioning of children with mild intellectual disabilities in relation to various aspects of the treatment strategies used. Study also present new strategies of treatment suggested for pandemic situation of Covid 19. Materials and Methods: The study sample included 124 participants with mild intellectual disability of both sexes, aged 8 to 13 years,from primary schools in Belgrade. In this research we applied the Trial Making Test (TMT; Reitan, 1971, Hamdan, Hamdan, 2009.) for attention assessment, the IOWA Conners’ Rating Scale for Children for behavior assessment, while for the assessment of cognitive function, the Test of Concept Utilization (TCU; Crager & Lane, 1989; Macesic-Petrovic, Kovacevic, Djuric-Zdravkovic, 2013.) was administered. Results: The findings show that more than half of the children surveyed have developmental disabilities in the areas studied. and a statistically significant correlation between the applied treatment modalities and tested abilities and functions (r = 0.52-0.59,   p < 0.01). The study emphasises the importance of implementing a multimodal oriented approach.: team work of professionals and non-professionals (cooperation between professionals and parents), complementary treatment (medical and special treatment, psychosocial interventions, combination of treatment strategies), psychotherapy and psychopharmacotherapy when necessary, as well as special education rehabilitation, based on  individual educational programs and individual training programs (IEP and ITP). It also focuses the treatment strategies in situation of Covid 19, because of it possible influence on the conclusion of the study. Conclusion: Finally, we proposed new treatment strategies with an emphasis on the special rehabilitation treatment and combination of strategy treatment, focuses to the new pandemic existential situation.

Objective: Sentinel lymph node harvesting is an essential step in the surgical treatment of a growing number of malignancies. Various techniques are available to facilitate this purpose. The present study reports a new laparoscopic technique for lymph node harvesting using magnetic nanoparticles containing a superparamagnetic iron-oxide core and dextran coating. This study assesses the clinical relevance of the prototype and provides input for further technological development on the way to clinical implementation. Methods: A laparoscopic differential magnetometer prototype was built, utilizing a nonlinear detection principle (differential magnetometry) for magnetic identification of lymph nodes. The iron content sensitivity, depth & spatial sensitivity, and angular sensitivity were analyzed to investigate clinical options. Results: The minimum detectable amount of iron was 9.8 μg at a distance of 1 mm. The detection depth was 5, 8, and 10 mm for samples containing 126, 252, and 504 μg iron, respectively. The maximum lateral detection distance was 5, 7, and 8 mm for samples containing 126, 252, and 504 μg iron, respectively. A sample containing 504 μg iron was detectable at all angulations assessed (0°, 30°, 60° and 90°). Conclusion: The laparoscopic differential magnetometer demonstrates promising results for further investigation and development towards laparoscopic lymph node harvesting using magnetic nanoparticles. Significance: The laparoscopic differential magnetometer facilitates a novel method for sentinel lymph node harvesting, which helps to determine prognosis and treatment of cancer patients.

The increase of global fish consumption brings with it the problem of fish mislabeling, which leads to economic losses for consumers or may even result in consumers’ health risk. Thus, continuous development of methods used in identification of exact fish species is essential. There are numerous modern identification methods, which use DNA or specific fish proteins as biomarkers, but they all come with various benefits and drawbacks. Protein-based methods include electrophoretic methods, ELISA, HPLC and MALDI-ToF Mass Spectrometry, while the methods that use DNA as a biomarker include PCR-RFLP, SSCP, qPCR, RAPD, FINS, DNA microarray, DNA barcoding, pyrosequencing and metabarcoding. There is a continuous development of new or improved methods. Most of the methods display a much better performance when analyzing raw or lightly processed fish, such as chilled or frozen, while heat treatment often leads to changes in the biomarker molecules, making the species identification difficult. The ideal method does not yet exist, but methods such as DNA barcoding, MALDI-ToF Mass Spectrometry and metabarcoding are the ones that show most potential.