Mapping Aspects to Components

This document defines a representation of aspects in the component model. Such a representation requires modeling the available (primitive) components, defining the composition mechanism, and representing aspects as enhancements of components

Periodic and discrete Zak bases

Weyl's displacement operators for position and momentum commute if the product of the elementary displacements equals Planck's constant. Then, their common eigenstates constitute the Zak basis, each state specified by two phase parameters. Upon enforcing a periodic dependence on the phases, one gets a one-to-one mapping of the Hilbert space on the line onto the Hilbert space on the torus. The Fourier coefficients of the periodic Zak bases make up the discrete Zak bases. The two bases are mutually unbiased. We study these bases in detail, including a brief discussion of their relation to Aharonov's modular operators, and mention how they can be used to associate with the single degree of freedom of the line a pair of genuine qubits.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; displayed abstract is shortened, see the paper for the complete abstrac

The participatory turn in radioactive waste management:Deliberation and the social-technical divide

National policies for long-term management of radioactive waste have for decades been driven by technical experts. The pursuit of these technocratic policies led in many countries to conflict with affected communities. Since the late 1990s, however, there has been a turn to more participatory approaches. This participatory turn reflects widespread acknowledgement in the discourse of policy actors and implementing organisations of the importance of social aspects of radioactive waste management and the need to involve citizens and their representatives in the process. This appears to be an important move towards democratisation of this particular field of technological decision making but, despite these developments, technical aspects are still most often brought into the public arena only after technical experts have defined the ‘problem’ and decided upon a ‘solution’. This maintains a notional divide between the treatment of technical and social aspects of radioactive waste management and raises pressing questions about the kind of choice affected communities are given if they are not able to debate fully the technical options. The article aims to contribute to better understanding and addressing this situation by exploring the complex entanglement of the social and the technical in radioactive waste management policy and practice, analysing the contingent configurations that emerge as sociotechnical combinations. Drawing upon empirical examples from four countries that have taken the participatory turn - Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom – the article describes the different ways in which sociotechnical combinations have been constructed, and discusses their implications for future practice

Impact of Alexithymia and Disease Characteristics on Work Productivity and Activity In Psoriasis Patients With Short Disease Duration: Epidepso Multicentre Study

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A multidimensional grid-adaptive relativistic magnetofluid code

A robust second order, shock-capturing numerical scheme for multi-dimensional special relativistic magnetohydrodynamics on computational domains with adaptive mesh refinement is presented. The base solver is a total variation diminishing Lax-Friedrichs scheme in a finite volume setting and is combined with a diffusive approach for controlling magnetic monopole errors. The consistency between the primitive and conservative variables is ensured at all limited reconstructions and the spatial part of the four velocity is used as a primitive variable. Demonstrative relativistic examples are shown to validate the implementation. We recover known exact solutions to relativistic MHD Riemann problems, and simulate the shock-dominated long term evolution of Lorentz factor 7 vortical flows distorting magnetic island chains.Comment: accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communication

Extragalactic jets with helical magnetic fields: relativistic MHD simulations

Extragalactic jets are inferred to harbor dynamically important, organized magnetic fields which presumably aid in the collimation of the relativistic jet flows. We here explore by means of grid-adaptive, high resolution numerical simulations the morphology of AGN jets pervaded by helical field and flow topologies. We concentrate on morphological features of the bow shock and the jet beam behind the Mach disk, for various jet Lorentz factors and magnetic field helicities. We investigate the influence of helical magnetic fields on jet beam propagation in overdense external medium. We use the AMRVAC code, employing a novel hybrid block-based AMR strategy, to compute ideal plasma dynamics in special relativity. The helicity of the beam magnetic field is effectively transported down the beam, with compression zones in between diagonal internal cross-shocks showing stronger toroidal field regions. In comparison with equivalent low-relativistic jets which get surrounded by cocoons with vortical backflows filled by mainly toroidal field, the high speed jets demonstrate only localized, strong toroidal field zones within the backflow vortical structures. We find evidence for a more poloidal, straight field layer, compressed between jet beam and backflows. This layer decreases the destabilizing influence of the backflow on the jet beam. In all cases, the jet beam contains rich cross-shock patterns, across which part of the kinetic energy gets transferred. For the high speed reference jet considered here, significant jet deceleration only occurs beyond distances exceeding ${\cal O}(100 R_j)$, as the axial flow can reaccelerate downstream to the internal cross-shocks. This reacceleration is magnetically aided, due to field compression across the internal shocks which pinch the flow.Comment: 16 pages, Astronomy and Astrophysics accepted for publicatio

Selective digestive and oropharyngeal decontamination in medical and surgical ICU patients:individual patient data meta-analysis

Objectives: Selective digestive decontamination (SDD) and selective oropharyngeal decontamination (SOD) improved intensive care unit (ICU), hospital and 28-day survival in ICUs with low levels of antibiotic resistance. Yet it is unclear whether the effect differs between medical and surgical ICU patients.& para;& para;Methods: In an individual patient data meta-analysis, we systematically searched PubMed and included all randomized controlled studies published since 2000. We performed a two-stage meta-analysis with separate logistic regression models per study and per outcome (hospital survival and ICU survival) and subsequent pooling of main and interaction effects.& para;& para;Results: Six studies, all performed in countries with low levels of antibiotic resistance, yielded 16 528 hospital admissions and 17 884 ICU admissions for complete case analysis. Compared to standard care or placebo, the pooled adjusted odds ratios for hospital mortality was 0.82 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.72-0.93) for SDD and 0.84 (95% CI 0.73-0.97) for SOD. Compared to SOD, the adjusted odds ratio for hospital mortality was 0.90 (95% CI 0.82-0.97) for SDD. The effects on hospital mortality were not modified by type of ICU admission (p values for interaction terms were 0.66 for SDD and control, 0.87 for SOD and control and 0.47 for SDD and SOD). Similar results were found for ICU mortality.& para;& para;Conclusions: In ICUs with low levels of antibiotic resistance, the effectiveness of SDD and SOD was not modified by type of ICU admission. SDD and SOD improved hospital and ICU survival compared to standard care in both patient populations, with SDD being more effective than SOD. (C) 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Guselkumab treatment normalizes the stratum corneum ceramide profile and alleviates barrier dysfunction in psoriasis:results of a randomized controlled trial

The epidermal inflammation associated with psoriasis drives skin barrier perturbations. The skin barrier is primarily located in stratum corneum (SC). Its function depends on the SC lipid matrix of which ceramides constitute important components. Changes in the ceramide profile directly correlate to barrier function. In this study, we characterized the dynamics of the barrier function and ceramide profile of psoriatic skin during anti-Interleukin-23 therapy with guselkumab. We conducted a double-blind, randomized controlled trial in which 26 mild-to-severe plaque psoriasis patients were randomization 3:1–100 mg guselkumab or placebo for 16 weeks and barrier dynamics monitored throughout. Barrier function was measured by trans-epidermal water loss measurements. Untargeted ceramide profiling was performed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry after SC was harvested using tape-stripping. The barrier function and ceramide profile of lesional skin normalized to that of controls during treatment with guselkumab, but not placebo. This resulted in significant differences compared to placebo at the end of the treatment. Changes in the lesional ceramide profile during treatment correlated with barrier function and target lesion severity. Nonlesional skin remained similar throughout treatment. Guselkumab therapy restored the skin barrier in psoriasis. Concomitant correlations between skin barrier function, the ceramide profile, and disease severity demonstrate their interdependency.</p