Synthesis of a Galile oand Wi-Max Three-Band Fractal-Eroded Patch Antenna

In this letter, the synthesis of a three-band patch antenna working in E5-L1 Galileo and Wi − Max frequency bands is described. The geometry of the antenna is defined by performing a Koch-like erosion in a classical rectangular patch structure according to a Particle Swarm strategy to optimize the values of the electrical parameters within given specifications. In order to assess the effectiveness of the antenna design, some results from the numerical synthesis procedure are described and a comparison between simulations and experimental measurements is reported. (c) 2007 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works

Effects of synthetic acid rain and organic and inorganic acids on survival and CaCO3 piercing stylets in tardigrades

Long-term environment acidifications due to decrease pH of the rainwaters affect both soils and water bodies. The organisms most likely to be affected by acid rain are the ones that possess vital organs made of calcium carbonate; among them are tardigrades, presenting aragonite piercing stylets in feeding apparatuses. A positive relationship between acidic rainfall and loss of tardigrades diversity has been already shown, but there is lack of knowledge of its lethal and sublethal effects. This study quantifies the effects of the acute exposure of three eutardigrade, Acutuncus antarcticus, Hypsibius exemplaris, and Macrobiotus cf. hufelandi, to synthetic acid rains and to organic and inorganic acids (hydrochloric, acetic, sulfuric, and nitric acids) naturally occurring in the environment. The cumulative proportion of dead animals in respect of exposition time was fitted to cumulative Weibull Distribution using a Bayesian framework. At the end of the experiments, animals were observed to investigate damages to their piercing stylets. Besides, stylets were finely morphologically described with Scanning Electron Microscopy. This study shows that acid rains and the other tested acids negatively affect tardigrades accordingly with pH, time of exposure, and tardigrade species. Freshwater species show a better resistance to acidity than the moss dwelling species, which can better acclimate over the time to low pH. The stylets resulted unaltered in almost all of the alive specimens. The results suggest that the tested tardigrades taxa have the ability to buffer the environmental proton change and the negative effect on their populations could be counteracted

Innovative Design of a Planar Fractal-Shaped GPS/GSM/Wi-Fi Antenna

In this letter, the design of a microstrip three-band antenna working in GPS, GSM and Wi-Fi frequency bands is described. By considering a planar geometry printed on a dielectric substrate, the tuning of the antenna behavior in three non-harmonic frequency bands is obtained perturbing the patch perimeter according to a Koch-like fractal shape. The synthesis procedure is automatically performed by means of an iterative PSO-based optimization strategy where a fractal boundary generator is integrated with a MoM-based electromagnetic simulator. The feasibility of the approach as well as the reliability of the synthesized antenna is assessed through simulations as well as experimental results. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.co

Role of Nutrition in Pediatric Patients with Cancer

: Children with cancer are at high risk for developing short-term and long-term nutritional problems related to their underlying disease and side effects of multimodal treatments. Nutritional status (NS) can influence several clinical outcomes, such as overall survival (OS) and event-free survival (EFS), treatment tolerance, risk of developing infections and quality of life (QoL). However, the importance of nutrition in children with cancer is still underestimated. This review focuses on alterations of NS that occurs in children during cancer treatment. In particular, we reviewed the pathogenesis of undernutrition in oncological children, as well as how NS affects treatment tolerance and response, the immune system and the risk of infections of children with cancer. Thanks to recent advances in all types of supportive therapy and to the progress of knowledge on this topic, it has been realized that NS is a modifiable prognostic factor that can be intervened upon to improve the outcome of these patients. Currently, there is a lack of a systematic approach and standard recommendations for nutritional care in the pediatric cancer population. Literature analysis showed that it is essential to define the NS and treat any alterations in a timely manner ensuring proper growth and development. Nutritional follow-up should become an integral part of the care pathway. Regular nutritional monitoring should be performed at diagnosis, during treatment and during follow-up. A close collaboration and sharing of expertise between pediatric oncologists and nutrition specialists, combined with careful and participatory sharing of the feeding experience with the family and the child (after age 6 years), is strongly required

Predicting needlestick and sharps injuries in nursing students: Development of the SNNIP scale

© 2020 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Aim: To develop an instrument to investigate knowledge and predictive factors of needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) in nursing students during clinical placements. Design: Instrument development and cross-sectional study for psychometric testing. Methods: A self-administered instrument including demographic data, injury epidemiology and predictive factors of NSIs was developed between October 2018–January 2019. Content validity was assessed by a panel of experts. The instrument's factor structure and discriminant validity were explored using principal components analysis. The STROBE guidelines were followed. Results: Evidence of content validity was found (S-CVI 0.75; I-CVI 0.50–1.00). A three-factor structure was shown by exploratory factor analysis. Of the 238 participants, 39% had been injured at least once, of which 67.3% in the second year. Higher perceptions of “personal exposure” (4.06, SD 3.78) were reported by third-year students. Higher scores for “perceived benefits” of preventive behaviours (13.6, SD 1.46) were reported by second-year students

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Emergenza sismica nel centro Italia 2016-2017. Secondo rapporto del gruppo operativo SISMIKO. Sviluppo e mantenimento della rete sismica mobile a seguito del terremoto di Amatrice Mw 6.0 (24 agosto 2016, Italia centrale)

La rete sismica temporanea installata dal gruppo operativo INGV SISMIKO a seguito del terremoto del 24 agosto 2016 tra i Monti della Laga e la Valnerina, è stata ampliata nel settore settentrionale a seguito dei forti terremoti avvenuti alla fine del mese di ottobre 2016. Successivamente alle due scosse di Mw 5.4 e 5.9 che il 26 ottobre hanno interessato l’area al confine Marche-Umbria tra i Comuni di Castelsantangelo sul Nera (MC), Norcia (PG) e Arquata del Tronto (AP), la geometria della rete è stata estesa di circa 25 km verso nord con l’attivazione di ulteriori tre stazioni temporanee di cui una, da subito, disposta per la trasmissione dei dati in tempo reale e per l’inserimento nel sistema di sorveglianza sismica dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). Un’ultima stazione è stata inoltre installata nei pressi di Campello del Clitunno in provincia di Perugia ad ovest della sequenza, a seguito del terremoto Mw 6.5 che la mattina del 30 ottobre ha interessato l’intera area già fortemente provata dalla sequenza in corso; questo è stato il più forte terremoto registrato negli ultimi 30 in Italia. A circa 5 mesi dall’inizio dell’emergenza sismica, la rete temporanea conta quindi 23 stazioni che da metà dicembre sono tutte trasmesse in tempo reale ai diversi centri di acquisizione INGV, ovvero Milano, Ancona e Grottaminarda ma soprattutto Roma dove i dati vengono contestualmente archiviati nell’European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA) e integrati nel sistema di monitoraggio e sorveglianza sismica dell’INGV; per la sorveglianza sono incluse solo parte delle stazioni. Nelle ultime settimane, le attività di campagna del gruppo operativo SISMIKO sono state costantemente focalizzate alla cura e alla manutenzione della strumentazione per garantire la continuità della trasmissione e dell’acquisizione dei dati, a volte compromesse da malfunzionamenti legati al maltempo. Alla data di aggiornamento del presente report, non è ancora stata decretata una dismissione o una rimodulazione della geometria della rete sismica temporanea, anche in considerazione della attività sismica in corso a tutt’oggi molto sostenuta. Tutti i dati acquisiti dalle stazioni temporanee SISMIKO, sono distribuiti senza alcun vincolo, al pari dei dati della Rete Sismica Nazionale (RSN, codice di rete IV), ed utilizzati per prodotti scientifici in tempo reale (localizzazioni di sala, calcolo dei Time Domain Moment Tensor -TDMT delle ShakeMaps, ecc) e per l’aggiornamento dei database dell’INGV come l’Italian Seismological Instrumental and Parametric Database (ISIDe) con la revisione del Bollettino Sismico Italiano (BSI), dell’INGV Strong Motion Data (ISMD) e dell’ITalian ACcelerometric Archive (ITACA), dell’European-Mediterranean Regional Centroid Moment Tensors (RCMT) e nei lavori scientifici che utilizzano forme d’onda velocimetriche ed accelerometriche (ri- localizzazioni, studi della sorgente sismica ecc.).Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)Published1SR. TERREMOTI - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Rapporto Preliminare Sulle Attività Svolte Nel Primo Mese Di Emergenza Dal Gruppo Operativo Sismiko A Seguito Del Terremoto Di Amatrice Mw 6.0 (24 Agosto 2016, Italia Centrale)

Sintesi delle attività svolte dal coordinamento delle reti sismiche mobili INGV in emergenza, denominato SISMIKO, nel primo mese della sequenza sismica “Amatrice” seguita al terremoto di Mw 6.0 del 24 agosto 2016 (01:36 UTC). Descrizione della rete sismica implementata e prime analisi dei dati acquisiti. Report on the activities in the first month of emergency by coordination of mobile seismic networks INGV emergency, called SISMIKO, after the Mw 6.0 Amatrice earthquake (August 24th, 2016, central italy). Description of the temporary seismic network implemented and preliminary analysis of the acquired data.INGV DPCPublished1IT. Reti di monitoraggi

Le attività del gruppo operativo INGV "SISMIKO" durante la sequenza sismica "Amatrice 2016",

SISMIKO è un gruppo operativo dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) che coordina tutte le Reti Sismiche Mobili INGVPublishedLecce3T. Sorgente sismica4T. Sismicità dell'Italia8T. Sismologia in tempo reale1SR TERREMOTI - Sorveglianza Sismica e Allerta Tsunami2SR TERREMOTI - Gestione delle emergenze sismiche e da maremoto3SR TERREMOTI - Attività dei Centr