A natural Finsler--Laplace operator

We give a new definition of a Laplace operator for Finsler metric as an average with regard to an angle measure of the second directional derivatives. This definition uses a dynamical approach due to Foulon that does not require the use of connections nor local coordinates. We show using 1-parameter families of Katok--Ziller metrics that this Finsler--Laplace operator admits explicit representations and computations of spectral data.Comment: 25 pages, v2: minor modifications, changed the introductio

Density of a gas of spin polarized fermions in a magnetic field

For a fermion gas with equally spaced energy levels that is subjected to a magnetic field, the particle density is calculated. The derivation is based on the path integral approach for identical particles, in combination with the inversion techniques for the generating function of the static response functions. Explicit results are presented for the ground state density as a function of the magnetic field with a number of particles ranging from 1 to 45.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures; To appear in Phys. Rev. E on December 1, 2000; e-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Vaccine Willingness and Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women's Perinatal Experiences and Practices-A Multinational, Cross-Sectional Study Covering the First Wave of the Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic may be of particular concern for pregnant and breastfeeding women. We aimed to explore their beliefs about the coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccine willingness and to assess the impact of the pandemic on perinatal experiences and practices. A multinational, cross-sectional, web-based study was performed in six European countries between April and July 2020. The anonymous survey was promoted via social media. In total, 16,063 women participated (including 6661 pregnant and 9402 breastfeeding women). Most responses were collected from Belgium (44%), Norway (18%) and the Netherlands (16%), followed by Switzerland (11%), Ireland (10%) and the UK (3%). Despite differences between countries, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was identified among 40-50% of the respondents at the end of the first wave of the pandemic and was higher among pregnant women. Education level and employment status were associated with vaccine hesitancy. The first wave had an adverse impact on pregnancy experiences and disrupted access to health services and breastfeeding support for many women. In the future, access to health care and support should be maintained at all times. Evidence-based and tailored information on COVID-19 vaccines should also be provided to pregnant and breastfeeding women to avoid unfounded concerns about the vaccines and to support shared decision making in this population

Generalized Ricci Curvature Bounds for Three Dimensional Contact Subriemannian manifolds

Measure contraction property is one of the possible generalizations of Ricci curvature bound to more general metric measure spaces. In this paper, we discover sufficient conditions for a three dimensional contact subriemannian manifold to satisfy this property.Comment: 49 page

Type 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor binds to fibrin via vitronectin

Type 1 plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1), the primary inhibitor of tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), circulates as a complex with the abundant plasma glycoprotein, vitronectin. This interaction stabilizes the inhibitor in its active conformation. In this report, the effects of vitronectin on the interactions of PAI-1 with fibrin clots were studied. Confocal microscopic imaging of platelet-poor plasma clots reveals that essentially all fibrin-associated PAI-1 colocalizes with fibrin-bound vitronectin. Moreover, formation of platelet-poor plasma clots in the presence of polyclonal antibodies specific for vitronectin attenuated the inhibitory effects of PAI-1 on t-PA-mediated fibrinolysis. Addition of vitronectin during clot formation markedly potentiates PAI-1-mediated inhibition of lysis of 125I-labeled fibrin clots by t-PA. This effect is dependent on direct binding interactions of vitronectin with fibrin. There is no significant effect of fibrin-associated vitronectin on fibrinolysis in the absence of PAI-1. The binding of PAI-1 to fibrin clots formed in the absence of vitronectin was characterized by a low affinity (Kd ~ 3.5 μM) and rapid loss of PAI-1 inhibitory activity over time. In contrast, a high affinity and stabilization of PAI-1 activity characterized the cooperative binding of PAI- 1 to fibrin formed in the presence of vitronectin. These findings indicate that plasma PAI-1-vitronectin complexes can be localized to the surface of fibrin clots; by this localization, they may modulate fibrinolysis and clot reorganization

DETERMINANTS OF MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA AMONG PHARMACY STUDENTS IN AUSTRALIA, BELGIUM, ESTONIA, FINLAND, INDIA AND LATVIA

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Remote Laboratory for E-Learning of Systems on Chip and Their Applications to Nuclear and Scientific Instrumentation

Configuring and setting up a remote access laboratory for an advanced online school on fully programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) proved to be an outstanding challenge. The school, jointly organized by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), focused on SoC and its applications to nuclear and scientific instrumentation and was mainly addressed to physicists, computer scientists and engineers from developing countries. The use of e-learning tools, which some of them adopted and others developed, allowed the school participants to directly access both integrated development environment software and programmable SoC platforms. This facilitated the follow-up of all proposed exercises and the final project. During the four weeks of the training activity, we faced and overcame different technology and communication challenges, whose solutions we describe in detail together with dedicated tools and design methodology. We finally present a summary of the gained experience and an assessment of the results we achieved, addressed to those who foresee to organize similar initiatives using e-learning for advanced training with remote access to SoC platforms