The human prerogative: a critical analysis of evidence-based and other paradigms of care in substance abuse treatment

Present-day substance abuse treatment is characterized by a compelling demand for applying evidence-based interventions. Vehement discussions between policymakers, practitioners and researchers illustrate this clash of differing paradigms. The aim of this article is to situate evidence-based practice among the leading paradigms of care and to elucidate its implicit assumptions and potential implications. Evidence-based practice is inherent in the empirical-analytical paradigm of care and science, founded upon randomized and controlled studies. This paradigm is compared with the phenomenological-existential and the critical post-structural paradigm, which focus on elaborating the human potential and exploring individuals' subjective interpretations, and on criticizing social inequalities and striving for compliance with human rights, respectively. Evidence-based practice and the methodological rigidity in each paradigm are analyzed critically. We conclude that through the dialectical integration of these diverse approaches, evidence, existence/humanism and social emancipation can be combined for the benefit of the human prerogative of care

Feasibility Study and Optimal Design of an Experimental Bench for Identification of Liquid Thermal Diffusivity

Expertise of innovative materials by nondestructive techniques is a key goal in process engineering development. In this context, if identification of thermal diffusivity of liquid is a crucial requirement to develop a reliable mathematical model of knowledge, it is essential to propose a complete and valid methodology. Based on the analysis of thermal wave propagation (generated by a periodic excitation), an experimentation is developed in order to avoid the implementation of a pyroelectric sensor required in usual photopyroelectric techniques. The proposed approach is investigated in a trilayer system. Theoretical aspects of the identification of thermal parameters in the frequency domain are presented. A feasibility study is discussed in order to justify this approach for liquids. A sensitivity analysis is implemented in a particular case to provide an optimal experimental bench. Finally, experimental results for several liquids are presented and discussed

Insects and other pests in Africa

One of the most important bean-production constraints in tropical and subtropical Africa is the wide range of insect pests, which attack every part of the bean plant (from roots to pods and seeds) causing heavy losses either in the field or in storage. Losses can be up to 100 percent depending on area, season, cv., planting date, and cultural practices. Ophiomyia phaseoli, which attacks seedlings, is the most important pest. The main damage is caused by larval feeding and tunneling in stem tissue. Seedlings suffer premature leaf fall and either die or become stunted. Control is done through cultural practices, the use of insecticides, and var. resistance. Liriomyza trifolii is an important pest in Egypt and Mauritius; damage is caused by the maggot which destroys leaf's palisade tissue, making serpentine tunnels. It is controlled with insecticides and the use of resistant cv. Aphis favae and Aphis craccivora are the main aphid pests affecting common beans and cowpea. Their feeding causes leaf yellowing, destruction, yield losses, and transmit and spread BCMV. Control measures include the use of insecticides and resistant cv.Una de las mas importantes limitaciones a la produccion del frijol en Africa tropical y subtropical es el amplio rango de insectos plaga que atacan cada parte de la planta de frijol (raices, vainas, semillas) causando grandes perdidas en el campo o en almacenamiento. Las perdidas pueden ser de hasta 100 por ciento dependiendo del area, la estacion, el cv., la fecha de siembra y las practicas culturales. Ophiomyia phaseoli, que ataca las plantulas, es la plaga mas importante. El principal dano es causado por la alimentacion de larvas y la construccion de tuneles en el tejido del tallo. Las plantulas sufren senescencia foliar prematura y se danan o atrofian. Se controla mediante practicas culturales, uso de insecticidas y var. resistentes. Liriomyza trifolii es una plaga importante en Egipto y Mauricio; el dano es causado por la larva que destruye el tejido de empalizada de la hoja, contruyendo tuneles serpenteantes. Se controla con insecticidas y con el uso de var. resistentes. Aphis fabae y Aphis craccivora son los principales afidos que atacan al frijol comun y al caupi. Su alimentacion ocasiona amarillamiento foliar, destruccion, perdidas

Numerical design of experiment for sensitivity analysis - application to skin burn injury prediction

Temperature evolution and skin burn process resulting from a laser radiation exposure are investigated in this paper. Transient temperature in skin is numerically estimated using a 1-D multilayered model based on Penne\u27s equation. The degree of burn injury is numerically evaluated by using an Arrhenius-type function. Unfortunately, most of the mathematical model parameters are not well defined in literature. Thus, a sensitivity analysis has been performed in order to evaluate the effect of each parameters inaccuracy on temperature estimation and on burn injuries prediction (according to several authors\u27 characterization). Investigated parameters uncertainties that crucially invalidate the thermal model are as follows: epidermis and dermis volumetric heat, extinction coefficient, and skin thickness of the affected area. Considering the damage prediction, the activation energy is a key parameter for the validation of an efficient predictive tool

On the use of periodic photothermal methods for materials diagnosis

This work aims the analysis of valuation methods devoted to materials diagnosis in order to provide an efficient estimation in practical operational conditions and environment (by the observation of a thermal tracer representative of a damage). The followed methodology consists in implementing observation techniques based on a periodic photo-thermal excitation so that the observation of the heated structure response allows to identify characteristic parameters of the studied materials. In most cases, simplistic hypotheses required for analytical model validation are not satisfied. Thus, analysis in the frequency domain requires the computing of a specific finite elements method

Quasi-online method for the identification of heat flux densities and trajectories of two mobile heating sources

This paper deals with a complex inverse ill-posed problem related to the identification of numerous unknown parameters of a system described by partial differential equations. A quasi-online identification method of heat flux densities and trajectories of two mobile heating sources is proposed. This approach is based on a modification of the conjugate gradient method with automatically adaptive sliding window size in order to ensure online identification. A set of fixed sensors is located on the domain in order to measure temperature evolution. Observations are disturbed according to a realistic Gaussian noise. The effectiveness of the proposed method will be illustrated considering numerical results of several simulatio

Time-Stepping for Laser Ablation

Nanosecond laser ablation is a popular technique, applied in many areas of science and technology such as medicine, archaeology, chemistry, environmental and materials sciences. We outline a computational model for radiative and collisional processes occurring during ns-laser ablation, and compare the performance of various low and high order time-stepping algorithms