Isocyanic acid (HNCO) in the hot molecular core G331.512-0.103: observations and chemical modelling

The authors thank the anonymous referee for the useful comments that improved the article. CMC acknowledges the support of CNPq, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico Brazil, process number 141714/2016-6. This study was financed in part by the Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001. LB acknowledges support fromCONICYT (Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica) project Basal AFB-170002. EM acknowledges support from the Brazilian agencies FAPESP (Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo, grant 2014/22095-6) and CNPq (grant 150465/2019-0). MC acknowledges the financial support from theEuropean Union'sHorizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no 872081; from the Spanish National Research, Development, and Innovation plan (RDI plan) under the project PID2019-104002GB-C21; the Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidad, Junta de Andalucia and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), ref. SOMM17/6105/UGR; the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades (ref. COOPB20364); and by the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Fisica, Matematicas y Computacion (CEAFMC) of the University of Huelva.Isocyanic acid (HNCO) is a simple molecule with a potential to form prebiotic and complex organic species. Using a spectral survey collected with the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment, in this work we report the detection of 42 transitions of HNCO in the hot molecular core/outflow G331.512-0.103 (hereafter G331). The spectral lines were observed in the frequency interval ∼160–355 GHz. By means of Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium analyses, applying the rotational diagram method, we studied the excitation conditions of HNCO. The excitation temperature and column density are estimated to be Tex= 58.8 ± 2.7 K and N = (3.7 ± 0.5) × 1015 cm−2, considering beam dilution effects. The derived relative abundance is between (3.8 ± 0.5) × 10−9 and (1.4 ± 0.2) × 10−8. In comparison with other hot molecular cores, our column densities and abundances are in agreement. An update of the internal partition functions of the four CHNO isomers: HNCO; cyanic acid, HOCN; fulminic acid, HCNO; and isofulminic acid, HONC is provided. We also used the astrochemical code NAUTILUS to model and discuss HNCO abundances. The simulations could reproduce the abundances with a simple zero-dimensional model at a temperature of 60 K and for a chemical age of ∼105 yr, which is larger than the estimated dynamical age for G331. This result could suggest the need for a more robust model and even the revision of chemical reactions associated with HNCO.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ) 141714/2016-6Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES) 001Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) Basal AFB-170002Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) 2014/22095-6Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ) 150465/2019-0European Union'sHorizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant 872081Spanish National Research, Development, and Innovation plan (RDI plan) PID2019-104002GB-C21Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y UniversidadJunta de AndaluciaEuropean Commission SOMM17/6105/UGRMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades COOPB20364Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Fisica, Matematicas y Computacion (CEAFMC) of the University of Huelv

Can neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio predict operators’ difficulty in early cholecystectomies; a retrospective cohort study

Background: Recent years has seen an increased trend toward “early cholecystectomy” following acute cholecystitis. Operators whilst performing cholecystectomy during acute cholecystitis commonly finds varying degree of inflammation ranging from soft omental adhesions to densely adherent gangrenous gall bladder, which is not only associated with morbidity but is often technically challenging. In this study we aim to retrospectively evaluate the role of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and its association with operative difficulty and length of stay for patients who underwent ‘hot cholecystectomy’. Methods: An anonymised retrospective single-centre cohort study using operative notes and clinical data. Chi-squared test and Mann-Whitney U-test were applied to determine significance between variables in the predetermined low NLR (5) groups. Multiple linear regression was applied for assessing any significant relationships between NLR and operative difficulty, length of stay (LOS) and post-operative stay (POS). Results: Patients with a high NLR > 5 level upon admission are on average older (median 44 vs 60 years; p-value 0.003), have a longer hospital stay (median 4 vs 5 days; 0.005), their operations takes longer (median 81 vs. 98 minutes; p=0.026), and operations are deemed more difficult (13% vs. 33%; p=0.035) as judged by surgeons and evident by intra operative parameters. In linear regresseion increased age was found to be associated with higher NLR (p=0.035). Presence of gangrene was significantly associated with both LOS and POS in regression analysis (p-value 0.044 and 0.015 respectively). Conclusions: In performing an ‘early cholecystectomy’ a higher NLR on admission is associated with operators’ difficulty. However, a NLR cut off of 5 is not significantly linked to increased length of stay. Nonetheless, NLR on admission can be applied to stratify acute cholecystitis to plan surgery and anticipate difficult operation. NLR when combined with age can be utilised as guide to prioritise the urgency of operation and as prognostic predictor of possible post op complications

Referees´ visual behaviour during offside situations in football.

El estudio analiza el comportamiento visual de 8 árbitros de fútbol durante la percepción del fuera de juego en laboratorio. La tarea consiste en percibir una secuencia de 24 ensayos en una pantalla (5x3m), donde se proyectan situaciones reducidas de juego y que concluyen con una posible acción de fuera de juego. Los participantes deben percibir la secuencia con el ASL Eye Tracking SE5000, y pulsar un puntero laser hacia la pantalla en aquellos ensayos con fuera de juego. Las variables a manipular son la distancia y el ángulo con que se perciben las acciones de fuera de juego. Las variables dependientes son el número y tiempo (media) de fijaciones visuales y el porcentaje de acierto. Los resultados muestran que la distancia y ángulo influyen en el comportamiento visual de los árbitros. Además, son más eficaces detectando el fuera de juego con ángulos pequeños y en distancias cercanas y medias.The study examines the 8 football referees´ visual behavior during the perception of offside actions carried out in a laboratory setting. The task consists on perceiving a rally of 24 trials onto a large screen (5x3m) with reduced play situations and that could conclude with an offside action. Participants perceive the sequence with the ASL Eye Tracking SE5000 and press a laser pointer toward the screen in those trials with offside action. Variables to manipulate are the distance and angle in which the offside trials are perceived. The dependent variables are the number and time (average) of visual fixations and the success rate. The results show that the distance and angle changes the referees´ visual behavior. Moreover, they have higher success rate when they perceive trials with small angles, concretely with short and medium distance

Modeling of the human vestibular system and integration in a simulator for the study of orientation and balance control

[Abstract] Biologically, the vestibular feedback is critical to the ability of human body to balance in different conditions. This paper presents a human-inspired orientation and balance control of a three degree- of-freedom (DOF) simulator that emulates a person sitting in a platform. In accordance with the role in humans, the control is essentially based on the vestibular system (VS), which regulates and stabilizes gaze during head motion, by means of modeling the behavior of the semicircular canals and otoliths in the presence of stimuli, i.e., linear and angular accelerations/velocities derived by the turns experienced by the robot head on the three Cartesian axes. The semicircular canal is used as the angular velocity sensor to perform the postural control of the robot. Simulation results in the MATLAB/Simulink environment are given to show that the orientation of the head in space (roll, pitch and yaw) can be successfully controlled by a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) with noise filter for each DOF.[Resumen] Biológicamente, la retroalimentación vestibular es crítica para la capacidad del cuerpo humano para equilibrarse en diferentes condiciones. Este artículo presenta una orientación inspirada por el hombre y el control de equilibrio de un simulador de tres grados de libertad (DOF) que emula a una persona sentada en una plataforma. De acuerdo con el papel en los humanos, el control se basa esencialmente en el sistema vestibular (VS), que regula y estabiliza la mirada durante el movimiento de la cabeza, mediante el modelado del comportamiento de los canales semicirculares y los otolitos en presencia de estímulos, es decir, aceleraciones / velocidades lineales y angulares derivadas de los giros experimentados por la cabeza del robot en los tres ejes cartesianos. El canal semicircular se utiliza como sensor de velocidad angular para realizar el control postural del robot. Los resultados de la simulación en el entorno de MATLAB / Simulink se proporcionan para mostrar que la orientación de la cabeza en el espacio (balanceo, inclinación y guiñada) se puede controlar con éxito mediante un derivado proporcional-integral (PID) con filtro de ruido para cada DOF

Diagnostic accuracy of CRP & WCC in abdomino-pelvic diseases of non-traumatic acute abdomen by taking CT findings as gold standard

Acute abdomen is a common presentation to many emergency departments worldwide. It is important to differentiate self-limiting causes and serious surgical causes. Inflammatory markers such as WCC and CRP currently being used to determine the cause, assess severity and guide further investigation for acute abdomen. The aim of this study was to determine diagnostic accuracy of C - reactive protein and White Cell Count in abdomino-pelvic diseases of non-traumatic acute abdomen by taking CT scan findings as gold standard. We found that CRP levels of above 100 were highly sensitive (94%) and specific (92%) for an acute surgical abdomen. WCC was not as accurate at determining an acute surgical abdomen due to reasons such as neutropenic sepsis

Mississippian lamprophyre dikes in western Sierras Pampeanas, Argentina: Evidence of transtensional tectonics along the SW margin of Gondwana

In the Famatina range, Sierras Pampeanas of Argentina (SW Gondwana), subvertical calc-alkaline lamprophyric dike swarms crop out through >300 km. The dikes cut Ordovician units with a prominent NW-SE trending and are covered by continental sedimentary successions of Pennsylvanian to Permian age. The dikes show a strong structural control associated with Riedel fault systems. Detailed field analysis suggested a ∼N-S opening direction oblique to the attitude of dike walls and a left-lateral transtensional tectonics during the emplacement. 40Ar/39Ar geochronology of a lamprophyric sample defined a crystallization age (plateau; whole rock) of 357.1 ± 7.1 Ma (MSWD = 2.3). Coetaneous ductile zones with dominant strike-slip motion, documented along western Argentina for >600 km, suggest a regional event in SW Gondwana during the Mississippian. We propose that this deformation was the result of the counterclockwise fast rotation of Gondwana between 365 and 345 Ma, when the Famatina range and western Argentina occupied a sub-polar position. A transform margin along SW Gondwana better explains our (and others) data rather than a subduction margin. This scenario is also consistent with the occurrence of A-type granites and normal-fault basins within the foreland as well as bimodal volcanics.Fil: Martina, Federico. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; ArgentinaFil: Canelo, Horacio Nicolas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; ArgentinaFil: Davila, Federico Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra; ArgentinaFil: de Hollanda, María Helena M.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Teixeira, Wilson. Universidade de Sao Paulo; Brasi

Towards a Cooperative Security System for Mobile-Health Applications

[EN] Mobile Health (m-Health) system architectures are typically based on mobile and wireless communications, and use mobile devices with data exchange supported by Web Services (WS). Although m-Health systems offer mobility as a potential and precious resource they also present several challenged issues and constraints, such as, battery and storage capacity, broadcast constraints, interferences, disconnections, noises, limited bandwidths, and network delays. Furthermore, constant mobility and often-required Internet connectivity also exposes and compromises the privacy and confidentiality of the m-Health system information. This paper proposes a novel data encryption solution for mobile health systems, considering a novel and early-proposed cooperation strategy. This encryption solution, called data encryption for mobile health applications (DE4MHA), tries to guarantee the best confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of m-health systems users data. The paper also presents a performance evaluation study comparing the performance an m-Health application with and without the DE4MHA.This work has been partially supported by National Funding from the FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia through the PEst-OE/EEI/LA0008/2013 Project; by the AAL4ALL (Ambient Assisted Living for All), project co-funded by COMPETE under FEDER via QREN Programme; by Brazilian National Council for Research and Development (CNPq) via Grant No. 309335/2017-5; and by FINEP, with resources from Funttel, Grant No. 01.14.0231.00, under the Centro de Referencia em Radiocomunicacoes - CRR project of the Instituto Nacional de Telecomunicacoes (Inatel), Brazil.Silva, BM.; Rodrigues, JJPC.; Canelo, F.; Lopes, IMC.; Lloret, J. (2019). Towards a Cooperative Security System for Mobile-Health Applications. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. 19(3):629-654. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-014-9154-362965419

γ-Aminobutyric acid treatments of pomegranate trees increase crop yield and fruit quality at harvest

γ-Aminobutyric (GABA) is a non-protein amino acid that has been reported to affect different plant developmental processes, including delay of fruit senescence and maintenance of quality when applied as postharvest treatment. In this experiment, GABA treatments (10, 50 and 100 mM) were applied by foliar spray to ‘Mollar de Elche’ pomegranate trees at three key points of fruit development. Results showed that GABA treatments increased crop yield in a dose-dependent way, this effect being due to a higher number of fruit harvested per tree. In addition, GABA treatments led to a deeper red colour of pomegranate skin and arils, the highest effects being observed for 100 mM dose. Total phenolic and total anthocyanin concentrations were also increased by GABA treatment, while other quality parameters such as total soluble solids, total acidity or firmness were not affected by treatments. Then, GABA preharvest treatment, applied at 100 mM, could be a useful tool to increase the economic profit of pomegranate crop, since higher yield and fruit with higher colour were obtained, which is an important quality parameter for this cultivar. In addition, aril total phenolics and anthocyanin content were increased, which would lead to enhance the antioxidant properties and health benefits for consumers