2,504 research outputs found

    Management of inflammation in dry eye disease: Recommendations from a European panel of experts

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    Introduction: Early initiation of anti-inflammatory therapies is recommended for dry eye disease (DED) to break the vicious cycle of pathophysiology. However, there is limited guidance on how to implement topical ciclosporin (CsA) and corticosteroid treatment into clinical practice. This expert-led consensus provides practical guidance on the management of DED, including when and how to use topical CsA. Methods: A steering committee (SC) of seven European DED experts developed a questionnaire to gain information on the unmet needs and management of DED in clinical practice. Consensus statements on four key areas (disease severity and progression; patient management; efficacy, safety and tolerability of CsA; and patient education) were generated based on the responses. The SC and an expanded expert panel of 22 members used a nine-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 9 = strongly agree) to rate statements; a consensus was reached if ≥75% of experts scored a statement ≥7. Results: A stepwise approach to DED management is required in patients presenting with moderate corneal staining. Early topical CsA initiation, alone or with corticosteroids, should be considered in patients with clinical risk factors for severe DED. Patient education is required before and during treatment to manage expectations regarding efficacy and tolerability in order to optimise adherence. Follow-up visits are required, ideally at Month 1 and every 3 months thereafter. Topical CsA may be continued indefinitely, especially when surgery is required. Conclusion: This consensus fills some of the knowledge gaps in previous recommendations regarding the use of topical corticosteroids and CsA in patients with DED

    Method of recovering municipal boundary lines in Province of Valencia (Spain) by means of historical cadastral maps

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    Land demarcation is a fundamental requirement when determining to what extent property owners and public administrations can apply their rights. Just as international boundaries must be clearly marked so that there can be no doubt as to which jurisdiction is to be applied, municipal boundaries must be clearly defined in order to avoid disputes between local administrations. In Spain the Geographical Institute carried out the demarcation of all municipal boundaries at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, defined their limits on cadastral maps and represented them on the 1:50,000 scale National Topographical Map. At the present time, more than a hundred years after this survey, in many cases parts of the original municipal limits have been lost for one reason or another, both on the maps and on the ground itself, and it has now become necessary to take steps to recover them. This paper defines a method of using the municipal councils own historical information to trace original boundary lines. The work included both a study and a series of tests carried out in different municipal areas in the Province of Valencia, Spain. The original reports and field notebooks of the Geographical Institute were used as the basic material of the study, supported by cadastral maps from different periods, as well as historical and contemporary orthophotos to help locate possible boundary markers. GPS techniques were employed to look for, survey and reinstate boundary marker positions.This work has been partially supported by the research project 'The Land Registry as the basic tool for organising spatial information; INSPIRE Directive, spatial data and metadata (II)', DER2011-23321 from the Spanish Government.Femenía Ribera, C.; Benítez Aguado, E.; Mora Navarro, JG.; Martínez Llario, JC. (2014). Method of recovering municipal boundary lines in Province of Valencia (Spain) by means of historical cadastral maps. Survey Review. 46(337):255-266. https://doi.org/10.1179/1752270613Y.0000000081S25526646337Aguña Martín J. 2000.Deslindes de fincas. El topógrafo como técnico indispensable de la determinaci�n de la propiedad. La topografía aplicada a la problemática inmobiliaria.Topografía Aplicada. XVI Cursos de Verano de Laredo. Universidad de Cantabria.Alcázar Molina M. 2003.Catastro Inmobiliario. Centro de Ingeniería Económica (INECO) Editorial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia ref. 2003–2176.Berné Valero J.L and Femenia-Ribera C., C., 2000.Catstro de rústica. Editorial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia ref. 2000–4185, 386.Berné Valero J.L, Femenia-Ribera C, Aznar Bellver J. 2004.Catastro y Valoración Catastral. Editorial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia ref. 2004–532.Berné Valero J.L, Femenia-Ribera C, Benitez-Aguado E. 2008.Catastro en España. Editorial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia ref. 2008–413, 550.Blais, H. (2011). An intra-imperial conflict: the mapping of the border between Algeria and Tunisia, 1881–1914. Journal of Historical Geography, 37(2), 178-190. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2010.11.006Brumec, M., & Koleša, J. (2011). Land cadastral representation adjustment when making land survey plan. Geodetski vestnik, 55(02), 284-291. doi:10.15292/geodetski-vestnik.2011.02.284-291Capdevila i Subirana J. 2009a.Historia del deslinde de la frontera hispano-francesa. Del tratado de los Pirineos (1659) a los tratados de Bayona (1856-1868). Instituto Geográfico Nacional-Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica, 184.Capdevila i Subirana J. 2009b. Qui va dibuixar la ratlla? Treballs de la Comisión Mixta de Límites (1853–1868).Congrés El Fet Fronterer. Fronteres, relacions, intercanvis.Institut d’Estudis Empordanesos, Figueres.Casey, E. S. (2011). Border versus Boundary at La Frontera. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29(3), 384-398. doi:10.1068/d0410Collier, P. (2009). International Boundary Surveys and Demarcation in the Late 19thand Early 20thCenturies. Survey Review, 41(311), 2-13. doi:10.1179/003962608x325457Cruz Sánchez F. 2010.Líneas límite en la Comunidad Valenciana. Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros Técnicos en Topografía. Valencia.Cruz Sánchez F. 2011.Determinación de líneas límites, Primeras Jornadas de Arquitectura e Ingeniería Civil y Cartográfica de la Comunidad Valenciana. Valencia.Donaldson, J. W. (2008). Pillars and perspective: demarcation of the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary. Journal of Historical Geography, 34(3), 471-493. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2007.11.005Donaldson, J. W. (2008). Politics and scale in boundary-making: the work of boundary commissions. Journal of Historical Geography, 34(3), 393-396. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2008.02.001Femenia-Ribera C. 2006. La topografía y la cartografía en los deslindes y servidumbres en España,Biblio 3W: Revista bibliográfica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales, 10, pp. 100–110, Aviailable at: [accessed 10 July 2013].Femenia-Ribera C. 2009.La Cartografía y su Legislación Territorial. Editorial Universidad Politécnica de Valencia ref. 2009-505, 272.Femenia-Ribera C, Mora-Navarro G, Benitez-Aguado E, Garrido Villén N. 2013. A study and analysis of ways of representing the boundary between adjacent municipal areas as used in different types of maps in Valencia wetland.Scripta Nova.Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales, to be published.Fernández Pareja M.T and García-Patos Herreros P.J. 2012. International Border Agreements: Spanish-Portuguese Model.X Congreso TopCart 2012: Congreso IberoAmericano de Geomática y Ciencias de la Tierra, Madrid.Forman, G. (2006). Law and the historical geography of the Galilee: Israel’s litigatory advantages during the special operation of land settlement. Journal of Historical Geography, 32(4), 796-817. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2005.09.004Garrido-Villén, N., Antón-Merino, A., Berné Valero, J. L., & Femenia Ribera, C. (2013). Land surveyors as expert witnesses in real estate litigation matters in Spain. geodetski vestnik, 57(01), 066-084. doi:10.15292/geodetski-vestnik.2013.01.066-084García Cepeda F. 2009.Doctoral Thesis: Optimización de la metodología para la definición, actualización, mantenimiento y aprovechamiento de las líneas límite jurisdiccionales.Departamento de Ingeniería Topográfica y Cartográfica. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.García Lario J.M and Pérez Casas J.M. 2010.Delimitaciones Territoriales, Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica, Curso Básico sobre el Sistema Cartográfico Nacional. Valencia.Grimalt Servera P. 2001.El Deslinde entre Particulares. Editorial Aranzadi.Kim, M.-A. (2009). The Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848-1857. 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Revista digital de geografía, cartografía i ciències de la Terra,43, vol. XVI. Available at: [accessed 15 January 2013].Moya Rodríguez M and García-Rodrigo Martín A.M. 2002.Catastro, Valoración y Tributación Inmobiliaria Rústica, Editorial Artemedia Comunicación S.L., p. 454.Piña García F. 2009.Doctoral Thesis: Los Límites Administrativos, el Dominio Público y la zonificación del espacio en la Ordenación del Territorio y el Urbanismo, Análisis y evaluación posicional en Cantabria. Departamento de Ingeniería Geográfica y Técnicas de Expresión Gráfica, Universidad de Cantabria.Pirti, A., Arslan, N., Deveci, B., Aydin, O., Erkaya, H., & Hosbas, R. G. (2009). Real-Time Kinematic GPS for Cadastral Surveying. Survey Review, 41(314), 339-351. doi:10.1179/003962609x451582Pro Ruíz J. 1992.Estado, geometría y propiedad: Los orígenes del Catastro en España: 1715-1941. Centro de Gestión Catastral y Cooperación Tributaria, Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda, p. 419.Pro Ruíz J. 1999.El Catastro desde el punto de vista histórico. XV° Curso de Especialización: Cartografía Catastral Informatizada y Cartografía a grandes escalas.Reguera Rodríguez A.T. 2007. La lucha postal por el territorio.Scripta Nova. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales, 237, XI. Aviailable at: [accessed 10 July 2013].Tucci, M., & Giordano, A. (2011). Positional accuracy, positional uncertainty, and feature change detection in historical maps: Results of an experiment. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 35(6), 452-463. doi:10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2011.05.004Urteaga L, Nadal F, Muro JI. 2003. Imperialismo y cartografía: La organización de la Comisión Española del Estado Mayor en Marruecos (1881–1882).Scripta Nova. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales, 142, VII. Available at: [accessed 10 July 2013].Urteaga L. 2006. El mapa del norte de Marruecos a escala 1/500·000 y la Conferencia de Algeciras de 1906.Scripta Nova. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales, 218, X. Available at: [accessed 10 July 2013].Valcuende del Río J.M and Cardia LM. 2009. Etnografia das Fronteiras Políticas e Sociais na Amazonia Occidental: Brasil, Perú e Bolivia.Scripta Nova. Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales, 292, XIII. Available at: [accessed 10 July 2013].Vilalta Nicuesa A.E. 2005.Expediente de deslinde y acción de deslinde y amojonamiento, Editorial Bosch, Biblioteca Básica de Práctica Procesal, 17, p. 95

    Prediction of length of stay for stroke patients using artificial neural networks

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    Strokes are neurological events that affect a certain area of the brain. Since brain controls fundamental body activities, brain cell deterioration and dead can lead to serious disabilities and poor life quality. This makes strokes the leading cause of disabilities and mortality worldwide. Patients that suffer strokes are hospitalized in order to be submitted to surgery and receive recovery therapies. Thus, it’s important to predict the length of stay for these patients, since it can be costly to them and their family, as well as to the medical institutions. The aim of this study is to make a prediction on the number of days of patients’ hospital stays based on information available about the neurological event that happened, the patient’s health status and surgery details. A neural network was put to test with three attribute subsets with different sizes. The best result was obtained with the subset with fewer features obtaining a RMSE and a MAE of 5.9451 and 4.6354, respectively.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/CEC/00319/2019

    The Role of Blue Carbon in Climate Change Mitigation and Carbon Stock Conservation

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    The potential for Blue Carbon ecosystems to combat climate change and provide co-benefits was discussed in the recent and influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. In terms of Blue Carbon, the report mainly focused on coastal wetlands and did not address the socio-economic considerations of using natural ocean systems to reduce the risks of climate disruption. In this paper, we discuss Blue Carbon resources in coastal, open-ocean and deep-sea ecosystems and highlight the benefits of measures such as restoration and creation as well as conservation and protection in helping to unleash their potential for mitigating climate change risks. We also highlight the challenges—such as valuation and governance—to marshaling their mitigation role and discuss the need for policy action for natural capital market development, and for global coordination. Efforts to identify and resolve these challenges could both maintain and harness the potential for these natural ocean systems to store carbon and help fight climate change. Conserving, protecting, and restoring Blue Carbon ecosystems should become an integral part of mitigation and carbon stock conservation plans at the local, national and global levels.</jats:p

    Recent developments of the Hierarchical Reference Theory of Fluids and its relation to the Renormalization Group

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    The Hierarchical Reference Theory (HRT) of fluids is a general framework for the description of phase transitions in microscopic models of classical and quantum statistical physics. The foundations of HRT are briefly reviewed in a self-consistent formulation which includes both the original sharp cut-off procedure and the smooth cut-off implementation, which has been recently investigated. The critical properties of HRT are summarized, together with the behavior of the theory at first order phase transitions. However, the emphasis of this presentation is on the close relationship between HRT and non perturbative renormalization group methods, as well as on recent generalizations of HRT to microscopic models of interest in soft matter and quantum many body physics.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Review paper to appear in Molecular Physic

    Quasinormal modes of massive charged flavor branes

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    We present an analysis and classification of vector and scalar fluctuations in a D3/D7 brane setup at finite termperature and baryon density. The system is dual to an N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with SU(N_c) gauge group and N_f hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation in the quenched approximation. We improve significantly over previous results on the quasinormal mode spectrum of D7 branes and stress their novel physical interpretation. Amongst our findings is a new purely imaginary scalar mode that becomes tachyonic at sufficiently low temperature and baryon density. We establish the existence of a critical density above which the scalar mode stays in the stable regime for all temperatures. In the vector sector we study the crossover from the hydrodynamic to the quasiparticle regime and find that it moves to shorter wavelengths for lower temperatures. At zero baryon density the quasinormal modes move toward distinct discrete attractor frequencies that depend on the momentum as we increase the temperature. At finite baryon density, however, the trajectories show a turning behavior such that for low temperature the quasinormal mode spectrum approaches the spectrum of the supersymmetric zero temperature normal modes. We interpret this as resolution of the singular quasinormal mode spectrum that appears at the limiting D7 brane embedding at vanishing baryon density.Comment: 56 pages, 40 figure

    Consensus document on allergic conjunctivitis (DECA)

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    Allergic conjunctivitis (AC) is an inflammatory disease of the conjunctiva caused mainly by an IgE-mediated mechanism. It is the most common type of ocular allergy. Despite being the most benign form of conjunctivitis, AC has a considerable effect on patient quality of life, reduces work productivity, and increases health care costs. No consensus has been reached on its classification, diagnosis, or treatment. Consequently, the literature provides little information on its natural history, epidemiological data are scarce, and it is often difficult to ascertain its true morbidity. The main objective of the Consensus Document on Allergic Conjunctivitis (Documento dE Consenso sobre Conjuntivitis Alérgica [DECA]), which was drafted by an expert panel from the Spanish Society of Allergology and Spanish Society of Ophthalmology, was to reach agreement on basic criteria that could prove useful for both specialists and primary care physicians and facilitate the diagnosis, classification, and treatment of AC. This document is the first of its kind to describe and analyze aspects of AC that could make it possible to control symptoms

    Turbulence and galactic structure

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    Interstellar turbulence is driven over a wide range of scales by processes including spiral arm instabilities and supernovae, and it affects the rate and morphology of star formation, energy dissipation, and angular momentum transfer in galaxy disks. Star formation is initiated on large scales by gravitational instabilities which control the overall rate through the long dynamical time corresponding to the average ISM density. Stars form at much higher densities than average, however, and at much faster rates locally, so the slow average rate arises because the fraction of the gas mass that forms stars at any one time is low, ~10^{-4}. This low fraction is determined by turbulence compression, and is apparently independent of specific cloud formation processes which all operate at lower densities. Turbulence compression also accounts for the formation of most stars in clusters, along with the cluster mass spectrum, and it gives a hierarchical distribution to the positions of these clusters and to star-forming regions in general. Turbulent motions appear to be very fast in irregular galaxies at high redshift, possibly having speeds equal to several tenths of the rotation speed in view of the morphology of chain galaxies and their face-on counterparts. The origin of this turbulence is not evident, but some of it could come from accretion onto the disk. Such high turbulence could help drive an early epoch of gas inflow through viscous torques in galaxies where spiral arms and bars are weak. Such evolution may lead to bulge or bar formation, or to bar re-formation if a previous bar dissolved. We show evidence that the bar fraction is about constant with redshift out to z~1, and model the formation and destruction rates of bars required to achieve this constancy.Comment: in: Penetrating Bars through Masks of Cosmic Dust: The Hubble Tuning Fork strikes a New Note, Eds., K. Freeman, D. Block, I. Puerari, R. Groess, Dordrecht: Kluwer, in press (presented at a conference in South Africa, June 7-12, 2004). 19 pgs, 5 figure

    Behavioral Problems In The Utilization Of New Technology To Control Caries: Patients And Provider Readiness And Motivation

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    New research developments frequently are neither adopted by providers nor utilized by patients. This dual problem of impacting the behaviors of providers and patients presents a challenge. This paper will present behavioral theories and technologies that can be utilized to impact both provider and patient behaviors
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