Faraday effect revisited: sum rules and convergence issues

This is the third paper of a series revisiting the Faraday effect. The question of the absolute convergence of the sums over the band indices entering the Verdet constant is considered. In general, sum rules and traces per unit volume play an important role in solid state physics, and they give rise to certain convergence problems widely ignored by physicists. We give a complete answer in the case of smooth potentials and formulate an open problem related to less regular perturbations.Comment: Dedicated to the memory of our late friend Pierre Duclos. Accepted for publication in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical

Resilience Quantification and Its Application to a Residential Building Subject to Hurricane Winds

In order to overcome negative consequences of a disaster, buildings and infrastructures need to be resilient. After a disaster occurs, they must get back to their normal operations as quickly as possible. Buildings and infrastructures should incorporate both pre-event (preparedness and mitigation) and post-event (response and recovery) resilience activities to minimize negative effects of a disaster. Quantitative approaches for measuring resilience for buildings and infrastructures need to be developed. A proposed methodology for quantification of resilience of a given building type based on different hurricane categories is presented. The formulation for the resilience quantification is based on a model embedding several distinct parameters (for example, structural loss ratios, conditional probabilities of exceeding for damage states, estimated and actual recovery times, wind speed probability). The proposed resilience formulation is applied to a residential building type selected from HAZUS.(i) Numerical results of resilience for the selected residential building type against Category 1, 2, and 3 hurricanes are presented in a dashboard representation. Resilience performance indicators between different types of buildings, which are identical except for their roof types, have been evaluated in order to present applicability of the proposed methodology

The Space Infrastructure Vulnerability Cadastre: Orbital Debris Critical Loads

Orbital debris from over 50 years of human activity in space are threatening the operations of existing and future satellites and the sustainability of high-value satellite orbits. This technical memorandum calls for the development of a cadastre that depicts the vulnerability of critical satellite orbits to accumulating orbital debris. A space infrastructure vulnerability cadastre could serve as a governance tool for use by developers and operators of critical space infrastructures to better communicate the current and future vulnerability of high-value orbits to the accumulation of orbital debris. These high-value orbits are susceptible to loss for decades or centuries if generation of orbital debris continues unabated. The concept of environmental critical loads is applied to heavily used orbits as a way to indicate acceptable debris density for satellite operations, and when debris density / risk thresholds approach unacceptable levels that reduce the probability of sustaining spacecraft operations in those orbits

A family of inequalities originating from coding of messages

AbstractThis paper presents 96 new inequalities with common structure, all elementary to state but many not elementary to prove. For example, if n is a positive integer and a=ł(a1,…,an) and b=(b1,…,bn) are arbitrary vectors in R+n=[0,∞)n, and ρ(mi,j) is the spectral radius of an n×n matrix with elements mi,j, then∑i,jmin((aiaj),(bibj))⩽∑i,jmin((aibj),(biaj)),[2mm]∑i,jmax((ai+aj),(bi+bj))⩾∑i,jmax((ai+bj),(bi+aj)),ρ(min((aiaj),(bibj)))⩽ρ(min((aibj),(biaj))),[-4mm]∑i,jmin((aiaj),(bibj))xixj⩽∑i,jmin((aibj),(biaj))xixj,forallrealxi,i=1,…,n,∫∫log[(f(x)+f(y))(g(x)+g(y))]dμ(x)dμ(y)⩽∫∫log[(f(x)+g(y))(g(x)+f(y))]dμ(x)dμ(y).The second inequality is obtained from the first inequality (which is due to G. Zbăganu [A new inequality with applications in measure and information theories, in: Proceedings of the Romanian Academy, Series A1 (1), 2000, pp. 15–19]) by replacing min with max, and × with +, and by reversing the direction of the inequality. The third inequality is obtained from the first by replacing the summation by the spectral radius. The fourth inequality is obtained from the first by taking each summand as a coefficient in a quadratic form. The fifth inequality is obtained from the first by replacing both outer summations by products, min by ×, × by +, and the non-negative vectors a, b by non-negative measurable functions f, g. The proofs of these inequalities are mysteriously diverse.A nice generalization of the first inequality is proved: Let ∗ be one of the four operations +, ×, min and max on an appropriate interval J of R. Let a,b∈Jn. Denote by a∗a the n×n matrix ai,j=ai∗aj. Then the matrix a∗a is more different from b∗b than a∗b is from b∗a. Precisely, if ∣A∣=∑1⩽i,j⩽n∣ai,j∣, then ∥a∗a−b∗b∥⩾∥a∗b−b∗a∥

Opportunities and challenges for implementing cost accounting systems in the Kenyan health system.

Low- and middle-income countries need to sustain efficiency and equity in health financing on their way to universal health care coverage. However, systems meant to generate quality economic information are often deficient in such settings. We assessed the feasibility of streamlining cost accounting systems within the Kenyan health sector to illustrate the pragmatic challenges and opportunities. We reviewed policy documents, and conducted field observations and semi-structured interviews with key informants in the health sector. We used an adapted Human, Organization and Technology fit (HOT-fit) framework to analyze the components and standards of a cost accounting system. Among the opportunities for a viable cost accounting system, we identified a supportive broad policy environment, political will, presence of a national data reporting architecture, good implementation experience with electronic medical records systems, and the availability of patient clinical and resource use data. However, several practical issues need to be considered in the design of the system, including the lack of a framework to guide the costing process, the lack of long-term investment, the lack of appropriate incentives for ground-level staff, and a risk of overburdening the current health management information system. To facilitate the implementation of cost accounting into the health sector, the design of any proposed system needs to remain simple and attuned to the local context

Cosa de niños

The present article analyzes the novel called Una muchacha muy bella (2013) by the Argentinian Julián López. It is considered a childhood novel about the former dictatorship in Argentina. Nevertheless, it shows differences with other texts (as much films as literary texts) produced up to the present. The article analyzes the protagonist, a child son of an activist woman during the dictatorship. It examines the construction of the character and its relation with the facts that are connected with the historical moment of the text. Those things the child knows are constructed on the vague limits between the things he knows about his mother situation and those things he does not know. There is also a link of sense with a dictatorship that acts in a clandestine way, hiding several facts and showing other facts. It is made a comparison between the place that took society during the dictatorship: a society that could not know everything, but it had to know at least something.El presente artículo analiza la novela Una muchacha muy bella (2013) del argentino Julián López. Se la considera parte de los relatos de infancia sobre la última dictadura militar en Argentina. No obstante, presenta diferencias con esta línea y los textos (tanto fílmicos como literarios) producidos hasta el momento. Se analiza la figura protagonista de la novela, un niño hijo de una mujer militante: se estudia la construcción del personaje y su relación con los hechos que tienen que ver con el momento histórico en el que se enmarca el texto. El saber del niño se construye sobre límites difusos entre lo que conoce acerca de la situación de su madre y aquello que desconoce. Esto como correlato, además, de una dictadura que actúa clandestinamente, ocultando unas acciones, pero a la vez mostrando otras. Se establece la analogía con el lugar de la sociedad en general durante la dictadura: una sociedad que podía no saber todo lo que ocurría, pero que de ninguna manera no podía no saber nada

Real-time imaging of DNA damage in yeast cells using ultra-short near-infrared pulsed laser irradiation

Analysis of accumulation of repair and checkpoint proteins at repair sites in yeast nuclei has conventionally used chemical agents, ionizing radiation or induction of endonucleases to inflict localized damage. In addition to these methods, similar studies in mammalian cells have used laser irradiation, which has the advantage that damage is inflicted at a specific nuclear region and at a precise time, and this allows accurate kinetic analysis of protein accumulation at DNA damage sites. We show here that it is feasible to use short pulses of near-infrared laser irradiation to inflict DNA damage in subnuclear regions of yeast nuclei by multiphoton absorption. In conjunction with use of fluorescently-tagged proteins, this allows quantitative analysis of protein accumulation at damage sites within seconds of damage induction. PCNA accumulated at damage sites rapidly, such that maximum accumulation was seen approximately 50 s after damage, then levels declined linearly over 200-1000 s after irradiation. RPA accumulated with slower kinetics such that hardly any accumulation was detected within 60 s of irradiation, and levels subsequently increased linearly over the next 900 s, after which levels were approximately constant (up to ca. 2700 s) at the damage site. This approach complements existing methodologies to allow analysis of key damage sensors and chromatin modification changes occurring within seconds of damage inception

Erratum to: Evaluation of Lactobacillus coryniformis CECT5711 strain as a coadjuvant in a vaccination process: a randomised clinical trial in healthy adults

Peer reviewe

On acceptance conditions for membrane systems: characterisations of L and NL

In this paper we investigate the affect of various acceptance conditions on recogniser membrane systems without dissolution. We demonstrate that two particular acceptance conditions (one easier to program, the other easier to prove correctness) both characterise the same complexity class, NL. We also find that by restricting the acceptance conditions we obtain a characterisation of L. We obtain these results by investigating the connectivity properties of dependency graphs that model membrane system computations

The Effect of Different Pulsed Electric Field Treatments on Producing High Quality Red Wines

The aim of this study was to apply different Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) treatments in the pre-maceration stage of the mash which derives from ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Merlot’ grapes that were harvested in the Crişana-Santimreu vineyard, Romania, in 2016, in order to increase the content of total phenols, flavonoids, monomeric anthocyanin pigment and colour intensity of ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Merlot’ wines. The electrical and mechanical parameters that represent the variables in this experiment were: the distance between the drums, different voltages (7-8 kV), and different frequencies (178-344 Hz). The wines obtained were also analyzed in terms of the antioxidant capacity using two different methods. All PEF treatments applied in the pre-maceration stage resulted in an increase in bioactive compounds content and colour intensification. Of the five PEF treatments tested, the PEF treatment using the distance between the drums of 2.5 mm, U = 8 kV, the frequency f = 344 Hz, pulse durations of 300 s resulted in a wine with a content of total phenols 2 times and 1.5 times higher than the control sample in the case of ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Merlot’, respectively. Also, this type of PEF treatment also resulted in an extraction of the total flavonoids as efficiently as 1.8 times and 1.4 times, respectively, in the case of ‘Pinot Noir’ and ‘Merlot’, respectively. PEF treatment is a technology suitable for extracting phenols from grapes and so this technology can be used in the food industry to obtain wines rich in bioactive compounds with antioxidant capacity