Harmonizing Software Standards with a Semantic Model

The application of standards in the software development process supports interoperability between systems. Maintenance of standards must be guaranteed on the organisational and technical level. The use of semantic technologies can contribute to the standard maintenance process by providing a harmonizing bridge between standards of different knowledge domains and languages and by providing a single point of administration for standard domain concepts. This paper describes a case study of the creation of a semantic layer between software standards for water management systems in The Netherland

Evaluation of climatological methods for estimating evapotranspiration

The majos purposes of this work were to measure the evapotranspiration in a potato field-crop under three soil moisture regimes and to correlate these values with solar radiation data and to those employing Penman's formula. The estimatives obtained by the two methods studied were significantly correlated to the evapotranspiration values measured in the various periods of the plant growth. In the first stage of the growth season, Penman's formula uppertestimated the measured values in about 25-30%, however from the stage of tuber growth to maturity, it suplied the best estimates, except in the tratment where the matric potencial of soil water reached -2.0 bars. This contributed to reduce evapotranspiration rate during all growin season. The relationship between evapotranspiration and solar radiation is presented for varius stages of the plant growth.Neste trabalho foi observado o comportamento da fórmula de Penman e da radiação solar como base para estimativa da evapotranspiração de uma cultura de batata (Solanun tuberosum L.) submetida a três regimes de umidade do solo. Concluiu-se que tanto a formula de Penman como os dados de radiação solar mostraram elevada correlação com a evapotranspiração determinada pelo método do balanço de água. No período inicial de crescimento a fórmula de Penman superestimou em 25-30% os valores de evapotranspiração determinados. Porém, no período de maior desenvolvimento vegetativo da cultura, as estimativas aproximaram-se daqueles determinados, exceto para o tratamento onde o potencial matricial da água do solo era perimitido atingir níveis da ordem de -2,0 bares, o que proporcionou uma redução na intensidade de evapotranspiração. As relações entre a evapotranspiração e os dados de radiação solar são apresentados em diferentes períodos do ciclo de crescimento da cultura

Reduction–oxidation (redox) system in radiation-induced normal tissue injury: molecular mechanisms and implications in radiation therapeutics

Every year, millions of cancer patients undergo radiation therapy for treating and destroying abnormal cell growths within normal cell environmental conditions. Thus, ionizing radiation can have positive therapeutic effects on cancer cells as well as post-detrimental effects on surrounding normal tissues. Previous studies in the past years have proposed that the reduction and oxidation metabolism in cells changes in response to ionizing radiation and has a key role in radiation toxicity to normal tissue. Free radicals generated from ionizing radiation result in upregulation of cyclooxygenases (COXs), nitric oxide synthase (NOSs), lipoxygenases (LOXs) as well as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NADPH oxidase), and their effected changes in mitochondrial functions are markedly noticeable. Each of these enzymes is diversely expressed in multiple cells, tissues and organs in a specific manner. Overproduction of reactive oxygen radicals (ROS), reactive hydroxyl radical (ROH) and reactive nitrogen radicals (RNS) in multiple cellular environments in the affected nucleus, cell membranes, cytosol and mitochondria, and other organelles, can specifically affect the sensitive and modifying enzymes of the redox system and repair proteins that play a pivotal role in both early and late effects of radiation. In recent years, ionizing radiation has been known to affect the redox functions and metabolism of NADPH oxidases (NOXs) as well as having destabilizing and detrimental effects on directly and indirectly affected cells, tissues and organs. More noteworthy, chronic free radical production may continue for years, increasing the risk of carcinogenesis and other oxidative stress-driven degenerative diseases as well as pathologies, in addition to late effect complications of organ fibrosis. Hence, knowledge about the mechanisms of chronic oxidative damage and injury in affected cells, tissues and organs following exposure to ionizing radiation may help in the development of treatment and management strategies of complications associated with radiotherapy (RT) or radiation accident victims. Thus, this medically relevant phenomenon may lead to the discovery of potential antioxidants and inhibitors with promising results in targeting and modulating the ROS/NO-sensitive enzymes in irradiated tissues and organ injury systems

Determinação da umidade do solo pelo método das pesagens

Soil moisture determinations are of considerable importance to estimate the need for irrigation and to determine the amount of water to apply. There is a constant demand for a method to determine soil moisture content for irrigation purposes that is at one time reliable, rapid and inexpensive. The multiple-weighing method presented in this work was developed independently from the method proposed years ago by PAPADAKIS. It offers a few advantages over the method of PAPADAKIS which are discussed in detail. A comparison was made between the multiple-weighing method and the usual oven-drying method, for the determination of soil moisture of different soils. The data was statistically analysed. No significant difference was found between methods. A correlation coefficient of 0,99 was found between the two methods for each of the three soils.A determinação da umidade em amostras de terras é importante para trabalhos de irrigação. A possibilidade de se fazer esta determinação no campo é de grande interêsse quando alia um aceitável gráu de precisão à facilidade e rapidêz na determinação. O método das pesagens, apresentado nêste trabalho e desenvolvido independentemente do método anteriormente proposto por Papadakis, quer nos parecer que apresenta vantagens, sobre o deste autor, que são discutidas em detalhes nêste trabalho. Uma comparação, entre o método que sugerimos e o processo clássico de determinação da umidade por secagem em estufa, é feita para 3 solos de natureza e textura diferentes. Os dados obtidos foram tratados estatisticamente. A análise estatística dos dados, mostra que os resultados obtidos pelos dois métodos são semelhantes, com um índice de correlação de 0,99 entre os métodos, para cada um dos solos utilizados na comparação

Reduction�oxidation (redox) system in radiation-induced normal tissue injury: molecular mechanisms and implications in radiation therapeutics

Abstract Every year, millions of cancer patients undergo radiation therapy for treating and destroying abnormal cell growths within normal cell environmental conditions. Thus, ionizing radiation can have positive therapeutic effects on cancer cells as well as post-detrimental effects on surrounding normal tissues. Previous studies in the past years have proposed that the reduction and oxidation metabolism in cells changes in response to ionizing radiation and has a key role in radiation toxicity to normal tissue. Free radicals generated from ionizing radiation result in upregulation of cyclooxygenases (COXs), nitric oxide synthase (NOSs), lipoxygenases (LOXs) as well as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase (NADPH oxidase), and their effected changes in mitochondrial functions are markedly noticeable. Each of these enzymes is diversely expressed in multiple cells, tissues and organs in a specific manner. Overproduction of reactive oxygen radicals (ROS), reactive hydroxyl radical (ROH) and reactive nitrogen radicals (RNS) in multiple cellular environments in the affected nucleus, cell membranes, cytosol and mitochondria, and other organelles, can specifically affect the sensitive and modifying enzymes of the redox system and repair proteins that play a pivotal role in both early and late effects of radiation. In recent years, ionizing radiation has been known to affect the redox functions and metabolism of NADPH oxidases (NOXs) as well as having destabilizing and detrimental effects on directly and indirectly affected cells, tissues and organs. More noteworthy, chronic free radical production may continue for years, increasing the risk of carcinogenesis and other oxidative stress-driven degenerative diseases as well as pathologies, in addition to late effect complications of organ fibrosis. Hence, knowledge about the mechanisms of chronic oxidative damage and injury in affected cells, tissues and organs following exposure to ionizing radiation may help in the development of treatment and management strategies of complications associated with radiotherapy (RT) or radiation accident victims. Thus, this medically relevant phenomenon may lead to the discovery of potential antioxidants and inhibitors with promising results in targeting and modulating the ROS/NO-sensitive enzymes in irradiated tissues and organ injury systems. Keywords Radiation Redox Normal tissue injury Inflammation NADPH oxidas

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02