How Should Clinicians Weigh the Benefits and Harms of Discussing Politicized Topics that Influence Their Individual Patients\u27 Health?

Health implications of politically charged phenomena are particularly difficult for physicians to discuss with their patients and communities. Addressing climate change and its associated health effects involves trade-offs between health and economic prosperity, necessitating that physicians weigh the potential benefits and risks of discussing climate change health effects. We argue that the potential benefits of physician communication and advocacy ultimately outweigh the potential risks. Therefore, physicians should be supported in their efforts to educate their patients and communities about climate change health effects. Furthermore, democratic deliberation could prove helpful in addressing disagreements among physicians within a practice about such politicized health topics

Assessing and Mitigating Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Active Distribution Systems

The transportation sector is expected to undergo a worldwide shift to zero-carbon emission automobiles. Major research advancements and government policies have been addressing the financial and technical barriers to electric vehicle (EV) use. Battery packs constitute an important component of EV technology. Improvements in battery pack technology are leading to lower battery cost, higher battery density, and increased driving range, making EVs more appealing to the consumers. On the other hand, EV charging loads can cause power quality issues such as harmonic distortion, voltage drop, power unbalance, power losses and transformer aging. EV increased charging load is urging the need of assessing its negative impacts on the grid to protect power system components. A comparison of the impacts of different levels of EV charging on the grid can allow EV users and utilities to understand the risks associated with their choices. Harmonic distortion due to nonlinear devices can be evaluated using harmonic power flow methods. Decoupled harmonic power flow technique is widely used in power systems analysis due to its simplicity and computational efficiency. Mitigation techniques to reduce harmonic impacts on the grid are crucial for power system reliability and maintenance. Incorporating distributed generation (DG) units into the network can achieve harmonic compensation of EV charging. A genetic algorithm is proposed to determine the current harmonic spectrum of each DG unit, accomplishing an optimal harmonic compensation of EV charging. DG integration improves grid power quality and voltage profile. It also helps in reducing voltage and current disturbances produced by EV loads

The Contemporary Relevance of Kant’s Transcendental Psychology

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Kant’s transcendental psychology against the orthodoxy of the dominant analytic school of philosophy, in an aim to salvage it from criticisms that resulted in the widespread view that Kant had little to say about the mind that was correct or useful. Historically, this had led to the near exclusion of Kant’s views of the mind from mainstream philosophical debate; those who acknowledged intellectually the psychological import of the work deemed as having transgressed the bounds of proper philosophy. It is argued that this was, and still is, an unfortunate and narrow view, since an interpretation which fully embraces the transcendental aspect can provide invaluable insights and direction for contemporary research in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. A major focus of this work is to provide a rigorous conceptual analysis of the modern problem of consciousness and to show that every approach has become a response, positive or negative, to the Cartesian distinction between body and mind. Today, more than three hundred years after Descartes’ philosophical dualism, this powerful and persuasive argument still continues to hold fast. Cognitive neuroscientists have amassed a deep and detailed understanding of how our brains process information from the external world, but the question of how this information is transformed into conscious experience is deemed an unsolved problem. It is proposed that, although Kant never uses the concept of consciousness in the now dominant sense of phenomenal qualia, his theory of the transcendental subject is a valuable tool in unravelling the philosophical complexities that are commonplace in current theories

Nonstationary flow for the Navier-Stokes equations in a cylindrical pipe

In cylindrical domain, we consider the nonstationary flow with prescribed inflow and outflow, modelled with Navier-Stokes equations under the slip boundary conditions. Using smallness of some derivatives of inflow function, external force and initial velocity of the flow, but with no smallness restrictions on the inflow, initial velocity neither force, we prove existence of solutions in $W^{2,1}_2.

Effet de Zingiber officinale l. (zingiberaceae) sur la croissance des graines de gombo en serre

Le gombo est une plante maraîchère alimentaire et médicinale de grande consommation au Gabon. La présente étude a été réalisée pour améliorer les productions de ce légume, et pallier aux déficits observés sur le marché national. Les graines de gombo ont pour cela été prétraitées par immersion pendant 24 h dans 3 solutions d’extraits de gingembre de concentrations respectives 5 %, 15 % et 25 %, puis cultivées en serre. L’effet inducteur a été mesuré par la germination des graines, les croissances longitudinale et tangentielle des tiges, et les surfaces foliaires des plantes. Les résultats obtenus ont montré que les extraits de gingembre concentré à 5 % stimulaient significativement tous les paramètres morphométriques étudiés. Les concentrations élevées (15 % et 25 %) de gingembre ont en revanche inhibé les indices morphologiques précités. Ces réductions ont été significatives et proportionnelles aux concentrations des extraits utilisés. L’emploi des solutions de gingembre à faible concentration peut donc être envisagé dans les programmes d’amélioration des rendements du gombo.Mots-clés : gombo, gingembre, prétraitement, stimulation, inhibition, croissance