Economic analysis of flood risk applied to the rehabilitation of drainage networks

Over time, cities have grown, developing various activities and accumulating important economic assets. Floods are a problem that worry city administrators who seek to make cities more resilient and safer. This increase in flood events is due to different causes: poor planning, population increase, aging of networks, etc. However, the two main causes for the increase in urban flooding are the increment in frequency of extreme rainfall, generated mainly by climate change, and the increase in urbanized areas in cities, which reduce green areas, decreasing the percentage of water that seeps naturally into the soil. As a contribution to solve these problems, the work presented shows a method to rehabilitate drainage networks that contemplates implementing different actions in the network: renovation of pipes, construction of storm tanks and installation of hydraulic controls. This work focuses on evaluating the flood risk in economic terms. To achieve this, the expected annual damage from floods and the annual investments in infrastructure to control floods are estimated. These two terms are used to form an objective function to be minimized. To evaluate this objective function, an optimization model is presented that incorporates a genetic algorithm to find the best solutions to the problem; the hydraulic analysis of the network is performed with the SWMM model. This work also presents a strategy to reduce computation times by reducing the search space focused mainly on large networks. This is intended to show a complete and robust methodology that can be used by managers and administrators of drainage networks in cities

Study of radiactivity on Arctic marine seaweed from Kongsfjorden (Svalbard)

Levels of natural and anthropogenic radionuclides have been determined in six brown and red seaweed species from Arctic coasts (Kongsfjorden, Spitsbergen, Svalbard Islands) in order to characterize the radioactivity in this ecosystem. Samples were collected in September 2014, August 2017 and July 2019. Levels of 7Be, 40K, 208Tl, 210Pb, 226Ra and 228Ra were measured by high-resolution gamma spectrometry. While anthropogenic radionuclides (1 4 C and 1 2 9 I) were determined by low-energy accelerator mass spectrometry (LEAMS). The activities of 129I are two orders of magnitude higher than those found in algae collected on the Spanish Atlantic Coast and presents more variability than the 14C results, indicating their different affinity to this element depending on the species. Radionuclide tracers discharged from Sellafield and La Hague are transported into the Arctic Ocean where they circulate at different depth levels, marking water of Atlantic origin (Karcher et al., 2012).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Proyecto CGL2015/67014

Нові явища у функціонально-стилістичному вживанні протиставних сполучників в українській літературній мові кінця ХХ — початку ХХІ століть

У статті досліджено зміни у функціонуванні найуживаніших протиставних сполучників у мові української преси та художньої літератури кінця ХХ — почат ку ХХІ століть, обґрунтовано слабку семантико-синтаксичну спеціалізацію протиставних сполучників та визначено їхні транспозиційні можливості.In the article the changes in the functioning of the most used adversative conjunctions in the language of Ukrainian press and artistic literature of the end of the XX — the beginning of the XXI centuries have been investigated, weak semantic-syntactic specialization of adversative conjunctions has been explained and their transisting resources have been determined

Óptimos económicos en corderos pelibuey engordados en corral

Los óptimos técnico (OT) y económico (OE) fueron estimados durante ocho semanas en 24 corderos Pelibuey machos (PVI 20+-0.52 k y edad 75+-15 d). Los valores del OT para alimentación y número de semanas fueron 107.40 k y 34.3, con ganancias de $718.29 y$ 1 147.61, y los del OE fueron 95.1 k y 34.26, con ganancias de $728.75 y$ 1 148.13. El peso máximo in vivo no necesariamente significa un máximo ingreso neto

Objective assessment of bradykinesia in Parkinson’s disease using evolutionary algorithms: clinical validation

Background: There is an urgent need for developing objective, effective and convenient measurements to help clinicians accurately identify bradykinesia. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of an objective approach assessing bradykinesia in finger tapping (FT) that uses evolutionary algorithms (EAs) and explore whether it can be used to identify early stage Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods: One hundred and seven PD, 41 essential tremor (ET) patients and 49 normal controls (NC) were recruited. Participants performed a standard FT task with two electromagnetic tracking sensors attached to the thumb and index finger. Readings from the sensors were transmitted to a tablet computer and subsequently analyzed by using EAs. The output from the device (referred to as "PD-Monitor") scaled from − 1 to +1 (where higher scores indicate greater severity of bradykinesia). Meanwhile, the bradykinesia was rated clinically using the Movement Disorder Society- Sponsored Revision of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) FT item. Results: With an increasing MDS-UPDRS FT score, the PD-Monitor score from the same hand side increased correspondingly. PD-Monitor score correlated well with MDS-UPDRS FT score (right side: r = 0.819, P = 0.000; left side: r = 0.783, P = 0.000). Moreover, PD-Monitor scores in 97 PD patients with MDS-UPDRS FT bradykinesia and each PD subgroup (FT bradykinesia scored from 1 to 3) were all higher than that in NC. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that PD-Monitor FT scores could detect different severity of bradykinesia with high accuracy (≥89.7%) in the right dominant hand. Furthermore, PD-Monitor scores could discriminate early stage PD from NC, with area under the ROC curve greater than or equal to 0.899. Additionally, ET without bradykinesia could be differentiated from PD by PD-Monitor scores. A positive correlation of PD-Monitor scores with modified Hoehn and Yahr stage was found in the left hand sides. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that a simple to use device employing classifiers derived from EAs could not only be used to accurately measure different severity of bradykinesia in PD, but also had the potential to differentiate early stage PD from normality

Genetic variability of histamine receptors in patients with Parkinson's disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Changes in the density and expression of histamine receptors (HRH) have been detected in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and HRH antagonists bring about improvements in motor and other symptoms, thus suggesting that HRH play a role in the clinical response of PD patients. This study is aimed to analyse polymorphic variations of HRH in patients with PD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Leukocytary DNA from 195 PD patients and a control group of 231 unrelated healthy individuals was studied for the nonsynonymous HRH1Leu449Ser and the promoter HRH2G-1018A polymorphisms by using amplification-restriction analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The HRH1Leu449Ser amino acid substitution was identified in two women with late-onset PD whereas it was not observed among healthy subjects. The HRH2G-1018A polymorphism was observed with allele frequencies = 3.59 (95% CI = 1.74–5.44) and 5.0 (95% CI = 3.00–6.96) for patients with PD and healthy controls, respectively. These frequencies were independent of gender and age of onset of the disease. Multiple comparison analyses revealed that differences were not statistically significant.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results indicate that the polymorphisms analyzed are not a major risk factor for PD, although the HRH1Leu449Ser amino acid substitution might be related to PD.</p

Comparing Monofractal and Multifractal Analysis of Corrosion Damage Evolution in Reinforcing Bars

Based on fractal theory and damage mechanics, the aim of this paper is to describe the monofractal and multifractal characteristics of corrosion morphology and develop a new approach to characterize the nonuniform corrosion degree of reinforcing bars. The relationship between fractal parameters and tensile strength of reinforcing bars are discussed. The results showed that corrosion mass loss ratio of a bar cannot accurately reflect the damage degree of the bar. The corrosion morphology of reinforcing bars exhibits both monofractal and multifractal features. The fractal dimension and the tensile strength of corroded steel bars exhibit a power function relationship, while the width of multifractal spectrum and tensile strength of corroded steel bars exhibit a linear relationship. By comparison, using width of multifractal spectrum as multifractal damage variable not only reflects the distribution of corrosion damage in reinforcing bars, but also reveals the influence of nonuniform corrosion on the mechanical properties of reinforcing bars. The present research provides a new approach for the establishment of corrosion damage constitutive models of reinforcing bars

Influence of IL28B Polymorphisms on Response to a Lower-Than-Standard Dose peg-IFN-α 2a for Genotype 3 Chronic Hepatitis C in HIV-Coinfected Patients

Background: Data on which to base definitive recommendations on the doses and duration of therapy for genotype 3 HCV/HIV-coinfected patients are scarce. We evaluated the efficacy of a lower peginterferon-α 2a dose and a shorter duration of therapy than the current standard of care in genotype 3 HCV/HIV-coinfected patients. Methods and Findings: Pilot, open-label, single arm clinical trial which involved 58 Caucasian HCV/HIV-coinfected patients who received weekly 135 μg peginterferon-α 2a plus ribavirin 400 mg twice daily during 20 weeks after attaining undetectable viremia. The relationships between baseline patient-related variables, including IL28B genotype, plasma HCV-RNA, ribavirin dose/kg, peginterferon-α 2a and ribavirin levels with virological responses were analyzed. Only 4 patients showed lack of response and 5 patients dropped out due to adverse events related to the study medication. Overall, sustained virologic response (SVR) rates were 58.3% by intention-to-treat and 71.4% by per protocol analysis, respectively. Among patients with rapid virologic response (RVR), SVR and relapses rates were 92.6% and 7.4%, respectively. No relationships were observed between viral responses and ribavirin dose/kg, peginterferon-α 2a concentrations, ribavirin levels or rs129679860 genotype. Conclusions: Weekly 135 μg pegIFN-α 2a could be as effective as the standard 180 μg dose, with a very low incidence of severe adverse events. A 24-week treatment duration appears to be appropriate in patients achieving RVR, but extending treatment up to just 20 weeks beyond negativization of viremia is associated with a high relapse rate in those patients not achieving RVR. There was no influence of IL28B genotype on the virological responses. © 2012 López-Cortés et al.Funding provided by Fundación Pública Andaluza para la gestión de la Investigación en Salud de Sevilla. Hospitales Universitarios Virgen del Rocío. Seville, Spain. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay Hu-INF-α kits for determination of pegIFN-α-2a were financed by Roche Pharma, S.A. (Spain).Peer Reviewe