August 2020: Volume 5 Issue 1

Artificial hearts are designed to eliminate the need for heart transplants, which are in short supply. However, these devices are prone to creating complications such as infections or strokes. The complications occur from the mechanical aspects of the device. Therefore, the devices’ effectiveness is influenced by their design. This paper investigates the advances in technology of different artificial hearts that are being developed. The four devices evaluated in this paper are: the total artificial heart, the left ventricular assist device, the total internal artificial heart, and the HeartWare ventricular assist device. Research shows that the total artificial heart may result in both infections and strokes. The left ventricular assist device lowered the probability of these complications but did not eliminate the risk altogether. While the internal artificial heart was able to eliminate the risk of infections entirely, it introduced new complications. Finally, the HeartWare ventricular assist device decreased the rate of adverse events for the complications occurring over time. Given these results, artificial hearts still require further research to improve the risk of complication before the phasing out of heart transplants can occur.

We calculate the engine efficiency of a Leidenfrost droplet transport system to assess application for various industrial processes. The engine relies on the Leidenfrost effect to transport water droplets in a straight line across a superheated aluminium surface with ratchet-like topography. The engine efficiency of such a system has not been calculated in the literature thus far. Acceleration-time data was collected using Logger Pro 3® motion-tracking software and mechanical work was calculated using a midpoint Riemann sum. A power meter measured total power input at a constant rate. Average trial times were used to determine the power input for each trial, and engine efficiencies were subsequently calculated. Droplet volume and ratchet angle were varied as parameters in attempt to optimize engine efficiency. Our results give an extremely low average percent efficiency (2.86E-07%), which agrees with previously reported results for an analogous turbine system, to an order of magnitude. Varying the ratchet angle does not affect engine efficiency to any statistically meaningful extent. Increasing droplet volume in the 15-35 µL range tends to marginally improve engine efficiency for steep ratchet angles.

This study centres on the 2015 “Millennium Development Goals,” (MDGs) a historic United Nations (UN) initiative aimed at bridging many of the world’s inequalities. Since its conclusion, the success of the project has been hotly debated, as progress at the international level was markedly uneven. In order to ensure the success of future initiatives, it is necessary to determine why these goals failed so decisively in some contexts but succeeded in others. Given the innumerable nations involved in the project, the scope of the essay was narrowed to focus on a single country and MDG goal. This study centers on the improbable attainment of the fourth development goal (pertaining to neonatal and newborn health) in Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries. Using official UN documents, seminal literature, and consultation with crucial UN actor Uzma Syed herself, this study demonstrates that Bangladesh’s success was a result of efficient programming, data acquisition, and transnational, individual, and domestic cooperation. This allowed a small nation like Bangladesh to significantly reduce its under-five and infant mortality rates, illustrating that it is, in fact, possible to enact meaningful change in difficult circumstances. Following the conclusion of the initiative, the country has decided to maintain child survival as a government health priority, as inequalities between populations persist. According to former secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, a continued, strategic focus on under-fives is imperative, with a particular emphasis on the structural and social determinants of health. Looking, now, toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Bangladesh’s triumph can be used to build a framework for continued progress in the realms of child and neonatal health.

The scarcity of iron in marine environments, particularly in the Southern Ocean, provides ideal experimental grounds for large-scale iron fertilization. The Iron Hypothesis, proposed in the 1980s, sparked a series of in-situ fertilization experiments in the HNLC waters of the Southern Ocean aiming to prove that the addition of Fe(II) to iron-deficient phytoplankton populations would enhance photosynthetic processes to the point where they could serve as a viable method of mitigating anthropogenic carbon emissions through the acceleration of oceanic carbon sequestration. By examining the mechanisms behind iron fertilization, as well as contributions to the field and the gaps in knowledge pertaining to three major iron fertilization experiments – SOIREE, SOFeX, and LOHAFEX – this review will provide a comprehensive overview of the past, present, and future of iron fertilization.

The objective of this study was to determine the economic factors and characteristics of universal healthcare development among Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). A policy review was used to achieve this objective. This review established a comparative criterion of the key factors and characteristics of universal healthcare coverage development. Further, a comparison of three countries with established universal healthcare coverage, comprising of tax-based and social insurance models, was undertaken against BRIC healthcare systems. The decided upon factors and characteristics of developing and BRIC countries were used to inform and understand the development of process of universal healthcare coverage. The analysis found that continual economic growth and investment into the healthcare coverage are essential to successful universal healthcare coverage implementation and expansion. Understanding the models of healthcare systems along with the key economic factors and characteristics provides important context and understanding into the processes and mechanisms that drive successful universal healthcare coverage in developing countries. The factors and characteristics presented in this study provide a preliminary framework for understanding the conditions that contribute to universal healthcare coverage. This framework can be used as a template for a critical comparison and analysis that can be applied to all high, middle- and low-income countries in their effort to establish universal healthcare coverage.

The objective of this research is to investigate Canadian criminal judges’ views on offences related to procuring, seeking, or controlling under-aged sex workers, and factors influencing sentence severity. A qualitative analysis was conducted on sentencing court reports in Canada obtained through the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) database. Twelve sentencing court reports that fit the criteria of inclusion were selected as samples. Data analysis and coding procedures were guided by theories put forth by Amirault and Beauregard (2014), and Kingsnorth, MacIntosh, and Wentworth (1999), in combination with a grounded theory approach. Results revealed that mitigating and aggravating factors, and existing provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada were the main factors influencing judges’ decisions on sentence severity. Furthermore, judges viewed these offences as inherently wrong, and attributed culpability entirely on the offender by referring to under-aged sex workers as vulnerable victims, and chastising offenders by referring to their behaviours as selfish and disgusting. Implications in relation to current societal views on sex-workers were discussed, and strategies for future research were suggested.

Since the 2016 United States presidential election, the spread of misinformation, ‘fake news’, and ‘alternative facts’ dominating the public narrative seems to have become so prolific that many scholars, news agencies, and world leaders claim that we are living in a ‘post-truth’ political world, where facts and evidence have become unimportant compared to an individual’s feeling on any particular subject. However, in this article I suggest that modern democracies like the United States are constantly being shaped and challenged by technological advances, shifting ideologies, and global events. By analysing these factors one can better understand how Western society, particularly in the United States, has arrived at this post-truth era, what influence this is having on the democratic process, as well as the relationship between the public and social media in order for our democratic system to evolve.