Deep Excavation Braced by Diaphragm Wall in Gdańsk (Poland)

Protection of deep excavation by cast in situ concrete diaphragm walls for Shopping Center in Gdansk (Poland) is described. The structure was designed as five-storey-building with three additional underground floors and founded on diaphragm walls. The excavation was made by “half-floor” method with temporary supports of floor in the form of steel columns. Static calculations of excavation bracing were carried out by PLAXIS numerical code for both design stage (for two calculation schemes: anchored and supported by floor ring) as well as after its construction (back analysis). The calculations served for an assessment of predicted wall displacements, deformations of soil surface around the excavation and internal forces in subsequent stages of the excavation deepening and for different working schemes (supports) of the construction. During construction works vertical displacements of the soil surface around the excavation and surrounding buildings as well as horizontal displacements of diaphragm walls were monitored and compared with the results of corresponding calculations. Some exemplary distributions of calculated and measured values of the wall and soil surface deformations are presented. Subsoil unloading effects and the range of impact zones on the vicinity are also analyzed

Foliated quantum error-correcting codes

We show how to construct a large class of quantum error-correcting codes, known as Calderbank-Steane-Shor codes, from highly entangled cluster states. This becomes a primitive in a protocol that foliates a series of such cluster states into a much larger cluster state, implementing foliated quantum error correction. We exemplify this construction with several familiar quantum error-correction codes and propose a generic method for decoding foliated codes. We numerically evaluate the error-correction performance of a family of finite-rate Calderbank-Steane-Shor codes known as turbo codes, finding that they perform well over moderate depth foliations. Foliated codes have applications for quantum repeaters and fault-tolerant measurement-based quantum computation

Multilocus sequence types of invasive Corynebacterium diphtheriae isolated in the Rio de Janeiro urban area, Brazil

Invasive infections caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae in vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals have been reported increasingly. In this study we used multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to study genetic relationships between six invasive strains of this bacterium isolated solely in the urban area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during a 10-year period. Of note, all the strains rendered negative results in PCR reactions for the tox gene, and four strains presented an atypical sucrose-fermenting ability. Five strains represented new sequence types. MLST results did not support the hypothesis that invasive (sucrose-positive) strains of C. diphtheriae are part of a single clonal complex. Instead, one of the main findings of the study was that such strains can be normally found in clonal complexes with strains related to non-invasive disease. Comparative analyses with C. diphtheriae isolated in different countries provided further information on the geographical circulation of some sequence types

Diagonal Polarized Pin-Based Cavity Antenna Array in Planar Technology

This contribution describes the design and characterization of a very compact 8-element proximity fed cavity antenna array realized completely in PCB technology. The cavities are formed by the placement of a series of through pins (vias) along a rectangular outline. Micro-strip lines excite the structure, and slot coupling is used to feed the individual radiating cavities. The elements are linearly polarized, but are arrayed with a diagonal orientation. The configuration allows for defining a single multifunction system that combines functionalities as radar and ESM in X-band. A -10 dB bandwidth of near 20% is achieved with the antenna and -10 dB for |iquests | Lt 50deg over the majority of the design band. The main achievement of the array is the extreme efficiency, also in a design that resorts to very dense dielectrics

The perspectives of people with dementia on their future, end of life and on being cared for by others:A qualitative study

Aims and objectives:  To explore the perspectives of people with dementia on being cared for by others, on the future and on the end of life, and to evaluate the capability and willingness of participants to have these conversations. Background:  Awareness about perspectives of people with dementia should decrease stigmatisation and improve their quality of life. Applying palliative care principles from an early stage is important to address diverse needs and to anticipate the future. Few studies investigate perspectives of people with dementia regarding palliative care, including advance care planning. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive design. METHODS: We performed in-depth interviews with 18 community-dwelling persons with dementia in South-Limburg, the Netherlands. Transcripts were analysed using an inductive content analysis. Two authors coded the data and regularly compared coding. All authors discussed abstraction into categories and themes. We followed the COREQ reporting guidelines. Results:  Five overarching themes derived from the interviews were as follows: (a) My life still has value and meaning, (b) I am my own unique individual, (c) I place my trust in other people, (d) The future worries me, and (e) I accept and embrace what life brings. Conclusions:  Participants' thoughts about the future and the end of life involved feelings of ambiguity and anxiety, but also of contentment and resignation. Despite worrying thoughts of decline, participants primarily demonstrated resilience and acceptance. They expressed appreciation and trust towards those who care for them. They wished to be recognised as unique and worthy humans, until the end of life. Relevance to clinical practice:  This study demonstrates capability and willingness of people with dementia to discuss the future and end-of-life topics. Public and professional awareness may facilitate opportunities for informal end-of-life discussions. Healthcare professionals should promote belongingness of persons with dementia and strive to build equal, trustful care relationships with them and their families

Business process variant analysis based on mutual fingerprints of event logs

Comparing business process variants using event logs is a common use case in process mining. Existing techniques for process variant analysis detect statistically-significant differences between variants at the level of individual entities (such as process activities) and their relationships (e.g. directly-follows relations between activities). This may lead to a proliferation of differences due to the low level of granularity in which such differences are captured. This paper presents a novel approach to detect statistically-significant differences between variants at the level of entire process traces (i.e. sequences of directly-follows relations). The cornerstone of this approach is a technique to learn a directly-follows graph called mutual fingerprint from the event logs of the two variants. A mutual fingerprint is a lossless encoding of a set of traces and their duration using discrete wavelet transformation. This structure facilitates the understanding of statistical differences along the control-flow and performance dimensions. The approach has been evaluated using real-life event logs against two baselines. The results show that at a trace level, the baselines cannot always reveal the differences discovered by our approach, or can detect spurious differences.This research is partly funded by the Australian Research Council (DP180102839) and Spanish funds MINECO and FEDER (TIN2017-86727-C2-1-R).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

High Speed Photometry of SDSS J013701.06-091234.9

We present high speed photometry of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey cataclysmic variable SDSS J013701.06-091234.9 in quiescence and during its 2003 December superoutburst. The orbital modulation at 79.71\pm0.01 min is double humped; the superhump period is 81.702\pm0.007 min. Towards the end of the outburst late superhumps with a period of 81.29\pm0.01 min were observed. We argue that this is a system of very low mass transfer rate, and that it probably has a long outburst interval.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Practical nursing recommendations for palliative care for people with dementia living in long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic:A rapid scoping review

Background:  The acute nature of COVID-19 and its effects on society in terms of social distancing and quarantine regulations affect the provision of palliative care for people with dementia who live in long-term care facilities. The current COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge to nursing staff, who are in a key position to provide high-quality palliative care for people with dementia and their families. Objective:  To formulate practice recommendations for nursing staff with regard to providing palliative dementia care in times of COVID-19. Design and method:  A rapid scoping review following guidelines from the Joanna Briggs Institute. Eligible papers focused on COVID-19 in combination with palliative care for older people or people with dementia and informed practical nursing recommendations for long-term care facilities. After data extraction, we formulated recommendations covering essential domains in palliative care adapted from the National Consensus Project's Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care. Data sources:  We searched the bibliographic databases of PubMed, CINAHL and PsycINFO for academic publications. We searched for grey literature using the search engine Google. Moreover, we included relevant letters and editorials, guidelines, web articles and policy papers published by knowledge and professional institutes or associations in dementia and palliative care. Results:  In total, 23 documents (7 (special) articles in peer-reviewed journals, 6 guides, 4 letters to editors, 2 web articles (blogs), 2 reports, a correspondence paper and a position paper) were included. The highest number of papers informed recommendations under the domains 'advance care planning' and 'psychological aspects of care'. The lowest number of papers informed the domains 'ethical care', 'care of the dying', 'spiritual care' and 'bereavement care'. We found no papers that informed the 'cultural aspects of care' domain. Conclusion:  Literature that focuses specifically on palliative care for people with dementia in long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic is still largely lacking. Particular challenges that need addressing involve care of the dying and the bereaved, and ethical, cultural and spiritual aspects of care. Moreover, we must acknowledge grief and moral distress among nursing staff. Nursing leadership is needed to safeguard the quality of care and nursing staff should work together within an interprofessional care team to initiate advance care planning conversations in a timely manner, to review and document advance care plans, and to adapt goals of care as they may change due to the COVID-19 situation