114 research outputs found

    CMSIS-RTOS para microcontroladores CORTEX-M3

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    La siguiente guía se encuentra enfocada en el desarrollo de software basado en RTOS para microcontroladores con núcleo Cortex-M3, demostrando las principales técnicas de desarrollo y depuración con CMSIS-RTOS. Las pautas establecidas están dirigidas hacia estudiantes de las carreras de “Radio ingeniería” 11.04.01, “Matemáticas y Física Aplicada” 03.04.01, y “Sistemas de Vehículos Espaciales y Cosmonáutica” 24.03.01/24.04.01. El laboratorio de entrenamiento con CMSIS-RTOS puede ser llevado a cabo dentro de los cursos “Dispositivos digitales y microprocesadores”, “Sistemas fundamentales de un microprocesador” y “Programación de microcontroladores”. Esta guía fue elaborada por el “Departamento de Láser y Sistemas Biotécnicos”.Гриф.Используемые программы: Adobe Acrobat.Труды сотрудников Самар. ун-та (электрон. версия)

    Microeconomic institutions and personnel economics for health care delivery: a formal exploration of what matters to health workers in Rwanda

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    Background: Most developing countries face important challenges regarding the quality of health care and there is a growing consensus that health workers play a key role in this process. Our understanding as to what are the key institutional challenges in human resources, and their underlying driving forces, is more limited. A conceptual framework that structures existing insights and provides concrete directions for policy making is also missing. Methods: To gain a bottom up perspective we gather qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with different levels of health workers and users of health services in rural and urban Rwanda. We conducted discussions with 48 health workers and 25 users of health services in nine different groups in 2005. We maximized within-group heterogeneity by selecting participants using specific criteria that affect health worker performance and career choice. The discussion were analysed electronically, to identify key themes and insights, and are documented with a descriptive quantitative analysis relating to the associations between quotations. The findings from this research are then revisited ten years later making use of detailed follow up studies that have been carried out since then. Findings: The original discussions identified both key challenges in human resources for health, and driving forces of these challenges, as well as possible solutions. Two sets of issues were highlighted: those related to the size and distribution of the workforce, and those related to health workers’ on-the-job performance. Among the latter, four categories were identified: health workers’ poor attitudes towards patients, absenteeism, corruption and embezzlement, and lack of medical skills among some categories of health workers. The discussion suggest that four components constitute the deeper causal factors, which are, ranked in order of ease of malleability: incentives, monitoring arrangements, professional and workplace norms and intrinsic motivation. Three institutional innovations are identified that aim at improving performance: performance pay, community health workers and increased attention to training of health workers. Revisiting the findings from this primary research making use of later in depth studies, the analysis demonstrates their continued relevance and usefulness. We discuss how the different factors affect the quality of care by impacting on health worker performance and labour market choices, making use of insights from economics and development studies on the role of institutions. Conclusion: The study results indicates that health care quality to an important degree depends on four institutional factors at the micro level that strongly impact on health workers performance and career choice, and which deserve more attention in applied research and policy reform. The analysis also helps to identify ways forwards, which fit well with the Ministry’s most recent strategic plan

    To what extent could performance-based schemes help increase the effectiveness of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programs in resource-limited settings? a summary of the published evidence

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In resource-limited settings, HIV/AIDS remains a serious threat to the social and physical well-being of women of childbearing age, pregnant women, mothers and infants.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>In sub-Saharan African countries with high prevalence rates, pediatric HIV/AIDS acquired through mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) can in largely be prevented by using well-established biomedical interventions. Logistical and socio-cultural barriers continue, however, to undermine the successful prevention of MTCT (PMTCT). In this paper, we review reports on maternal, neonatal and child health, as well as HIV care and treatment services that look at program incentives.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>These studies suggest that comprehensive PMTCT strategies aiming to maximize health-worker motivation in developing countries must involve a mix of both financial and non-financial incentives. The establishment of robust ethical and regulatory standards in public-sector HIV care centers could reduce barriers to PMTCT service provision in sub-Saharan Africa and help them in achieving universal PMTCT targets.</p

    An Antagomir to MicroRNA Let7f Promotes Neuroprotection in an Ischemic Stroke Model

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    We previously showed that middle-aged female rats sustain a larger infarct following experimental stroke as compared to younger female rats, and paradoxically, estrogen treatment to the older group is neurotoxic. Plasma and brain insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels decrease with age. However, IGF-1 infusion following stroke, prevents estrogen neurotoxicity in middle-aged female rats. IGF1 is neuroprotective and well tolerated, but also has potentially undesirable side effects. We hypothesized that microRNAs (miRNAs) that target the IGF-1 signaling family for translation repression could be alternatively suppressed to promote IGF-1-like neuroprotection. Here, we report that two conserved IGF pathway regulatory microRNAs, Let7f and miR1, can be inhibited to mimic and even extend the neuroprotection afforded by IGF-1. Anti-mir1 treatment, as late as 4 hours following ischemia, significantly reduced cortical infarct volume in adult female rats, while anti-Let7 robustly reduced both cortical and striatal infarcts, and preserved sensorimotor function and interhemispheric neural integration. No neuroprotection was observed in animals treated with a brain specific miRNA unrelated to IGF-1 (anti-miR124). Remarkably, anti-Let7f was only effective in intact females but not males or ovariectomized females indicating that the gonadal steroid environment critically modifies miRNA action. Let7f is preferentially expressed in microglia in the ischemic hemisphere and confirmed in ex vivo cultures of microglia obtained from the cortex. While IGF-1 was undetectable in microglia harvested from the non-ischemic hemisphere, IGF-1 was expressed by microglia obtained from the ischemic cortex and was further elevated by anti-Let7f treatment. Collectively these data support a novel miRNA-based therapeutic strategy for neuroprotection following stroke

    Intimate blending of binary polymer systems from their common cyclodextrin inclusion compounds

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    A procedure for the formation of intimate blends of three binary polymer systems polycarbonate (PC)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), PC/poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) and PMMA/PVAc is described. PC/PMMA, PC/PVAc, and PMMA/PVAc pairs were included in gamma-cyclodextrin (gamma-CD) channels and were then simultaneously coalesced from their common gamma-CD inclusion compounds (ICs) to obtain intimately mixed blends. The formation of ICs between polymer pairs and gamma-CD were confirmed by wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It was observed [solution H-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)] that the ratios of polymers in coalesced PC/ PMMA and PC/PVAc binary blends are significantly different than the starting ratios, and PC was found to be preferentially included in gamma-CD channels when compared with PMMA or PVAc. Physical mixtures of polymer pairs were also prepared by coprecipitation and solution casting methods for comparison. DSC, solid-state H-1 NMR, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and direct insertion probe pyrolysis mass spectrometry (DIP-MS) data indicated that the PC/PMMA, PC/PVAc, and PMMA/ PVAc binary polymer blends were homogeneously mixed when they were coalesced from their ICs. A single, common glass transition temperature (Tg) recorded by DSC heating scans strongly suggested the presence of a homogeneous amorphous phase in the coalesced binary polymer blends, which is retained after thermal cycling to 270 C. The physical mixture samples showed two distinct T-gS and H-1 T-1 rho values for the polymer components, which indicated phase-separated blends with domain sizes above 5 run, while the coalesced blends exhibited uniform 1H spin-lattice relaxation values, indicating intimate blending in the coalesced samples. The TGA results of coalesced and physical binary blends of PC/PMMA and PC/PVAc reveal that in the presence of PC, the thermal stability of both PMMA and PVAc increases. Yet, the presence of PMMA and PVAc decreases the thermal stability of PC itself. DIP-MS observations suggested that the degradation mechanisms of the polymers changed in the coalesced blends, which was attributed to the presence of molecular interactions between the well-mixed polymer components in the coalesced samples
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