Manipulation of Magnetic Skyrmions by Superconducting Vortices in Ferromagnet-Superconductor Heterostructures

Dynamics of magnetic skyrmions in hybrid ferromagnetic films harbors novel physical phenomena and holds promise for technological applications. In this work, we discuss the behavior of magnetic skyrmions when coupled to superconducting vortices in a ferromagnet-superconductor heterostructure. We use numerical simulations and analytic arguments to reveal broader possibilities for manipulating the skyrmion-vortex dynamic correlations in the hybrid system, that are not possible in its separated constituents. We explore the thresholds of particular dynamic phases, and quantify the phase diagram as a function of the relevant material parameters, applied current and induced magnetic torques. Finally, we demonstrate the broad and precise tunability of the skyrmion Hall-angle in presence of vortices, with respect to currents applied to either or both the superconductor and the ferromagnet within the heterostructure

Some aspects of the synchronization in coupled maps

Through numerical simulations we analyze the synchronization time and the Lyapunov dimension of a coupled map lattice consisting of a chain of chaotic logistic maps exhibiting power law interactions. From the observed behaviors we find a lower bound for the size $N$ of the lattice, independent of the range and strength of the interaction, which imposes a practical lower bound in numerical simulations for the system to be considered in the thermodynamic limit. We also observe the existence of a strong correlation between the averaged synchronization time and the Lyapunov dimension. This is an interesting result because it allows an analytical estimation of the synchronization time, which otherwise requires numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Dental erosion in alcoholic patients under addiction rehabilitation therapy

Objective: To determine the occurrence and severity of dental erosion in alcoholic patients undergoing detoxification at the North Alcoholic Regional Centre (CRAN), Porto, Portugal, and to assess socioeconomic and behavioural covariates of dental erosion occurrence. Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in one centre (CRAN) for addiction rehabilitation therapy in the north of Portugal. A sample of 1064 teeth was examined.The condition of the dental erosion was classified by means of severity and anatomic location, according to the Eccles and Jenkins dental erosion index, and a dichotomous outcome assessing the occurrence of dental erosion (severity dental erosion levels > 0 ). Dental erosion results were linked to data supplied by a questionnaire assessing socio-demographic characteristics, behaviour related to alcohol and drug use, including a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and oral health promotion using logistic multivariate regression analysis. Results: Enamel and/or dentine erosion lesions were present on 49.4% of the teeth. Among these, 36.9% of occlusal surfaces presented dental erosion with a severity level of 1, 11.4% with a severity level 2 and 1.1% with a severity level 3.The highest occurrence of severity level 3 was found to exist in palatal dental surfaces (1.9%). Dental erosion on teeth surfaces was found to be independently associated with intra oral location (by arch, tooth type), patients’ socio-demographic characteristics, behaviour associated with a history of alcohol and drug abuse, and oral health promotion. Maxillary teeth, more so than mandibular teeth, presented moderate to higher severity erosion injuries (Wilcoxon test; p< 0.001); and significant differences in the severity of dental erosion were found between anterior and posterior teeth, in both the maxillary and the mandibular arches (Friedman test, p< 0.001). Conclusions:Alcohol-dependent patients undergoing a detoxification programme presented a high occurrence and a low severity of dental erosion lesions.The palatal surfaces of the anterior teeth, followed by incisive/occlusal surfaces in both anterior and posterior teeth, respectively, were most affected by erosion injurie

Enhancing Energy Production with Exascale HPC Methods

High Performance Computing (HPC) resources have become the key actor for achieving more ambitious challenges in many disciplines. In this step beyond, an explosion on the available parallelism and the use of special purpose processors are crucial. With such a goal, the HPC4E project applies new exascale HPC techniques to energy industry simulations, customizing them if necessary, and going beyond the state-of-the-art in the required HPC exascale simulations for different energy sources. In this paper, a general overview of these methods is presented as well as some specific preliminary results.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme (2014-2020) under the HPC4E Project (www.hpc4e.eu), grant agreement n° 689772, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the CODEC2 project (TIN2015-63562-R), and from the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP). Computer time on Endeavour cluster is provided by the Intel Corporation, which enabled us to obtain the presented experimental results in uncertainty quantification in seismic imagingPostprint (author's final draft

Screening \u3ci\u3eBrachiaria\u3c/i\u3e Introductions for Resistance to Spittlebugs (Homoptera: Cercopidae)

Spittlebugs are the most evident and damaging pests of Signal grasses (Brachiaria) in tropical America. Damage caused by these insects can result in the complete loss of available forage, thereby reducing the carrying capacity of infested pastures. Host plant resistance is a low-cost method of controlling insects. High level of spittlebug resistance is found in the cultivar Marandu (B. brizantha), but it requires more fertile soils. Brachiaria germplasm provided by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is available at National Beef Cattle Research Center of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa Beef Cattle) and it is being screened for spittlebug resistance. In the present study, 23 introductions of Brachiaria were evaluated for resistance to the spittlebug Deois flavopicta, based on the parameters: nymphal survival and nymphal period. The introductions CIAT 16125 and CIAT 16309, both B. brizantha, were selected as resistant in this test. Given the great number of available introductions and hybrids, tests like this have been conducted routinely at Embrapa Beef Cattle. A total of 551 introductions and hybrids have already been screened in the past few years. As a result 40 introductions and 11 hybrids were found resistant. The aim of continuing evaluations is to release new spittlebug resistant Brachiaria cultivars

Corporate governance : value creation and performance in credit unions

In this study, we examine the relationship between good corporate governance practices and the creation of value/performance of credit unions from 2010 to 2012. The objective was to create and validate a corporate governance index for credit unions, and to then analyse the relationship between good governance practices and the creation of value/performance. The problem question is: do good corporate governance practices provide value creation for credit unions? The research started by creating indices from factor analysis to identify latent dependent variables related to value creation and performance; next indices were created from the principal component analysis for the creation of independent latent variables related to corporate governance. Finally, based on panel data from regression models, the influence of the variables and indices related to corporate governance on the indices of value creation and performance was verified. Based on the research, it became evident that the Corporate Governance Index (IGC) is mainly impacted by Executive Management, with 40.31% of the IGC value, followed by the Representation and Participation dimension, with 34.07% of the IGC value. The contribution for academics was the creation of the Corporate Governance Index (IGC) applied for credit unions. As for the contribution to the system of credit unions, the highlight was the effectiveness of the mechanisms for economic-financial and asset management adopted by BACEN, credit unions and OCEMG.Nesta pesquisa, procurou-se analisar a relação entre as boas práticas de governança corporativa e a relação com a criação de valor/desempenho, das cooperativas de crédito ao longo do período de 2010 e 2012. O objetivo da pesquisa foi criar e validar um índice de governança corporativa para as cooperativas de crédito para então analisar a relação entre boas práticas de governança e a criação de valor/desempenho, tendo como questão problema: as boas práticas de governança corporativa proporcionam criação de valor para as cooperativas de crédito? Assim, iniciou-se a pesquisa por meio da criação de índices a partir da análise fatorial para a identificação de variáveis latentes dependentes relacionadas à criação de valor e desempenho; em seguida, a criação de índices a partir da análise de componentes principais para a criação de variáveis latentes independentes relacionadas à governança corporativa. Finalmente, verificou-se, a partir de modelos de regressão com dados em painel, a influência das variáveis e índices relacionados à governança corporativa com os índices de criação de valor e desempenho. Com base na pesquisa, ficou evidenciado que o Índice de Governança Corporativa (IGC) é impactado principalmente pela Gestão Executiva, representando 40,31% da importância do IGC, seguido da dimensão Representação e Participação com 34,07% da importância do IGC. A contribuição do trabalho para a academia foi a criação de Índice de Governança Corporativa (IGC) aplicável às cooperativas de crédito. Quanto à contribuição para o sistema de cooperativas de crédito, assinala-se a constatação de efetividade dos mecanismos de gestão econômico-financeira e patrimonial adotados pelo BACEN, Centrais de Cooperativas de Crédito e a OCEMG

Implementation of lean in health care environments: an update of systematic reviews

Purpose – Even though the implementation of Lean in healthcare environments is relatively recent, it has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years. Partly due to the fact that it is a recent field of practice and research and partly because the number of works developed in this field has grown rapidly, it is important to frequently update the perspectives on this field of investigation. Thus, this article aims to systematically review the implementation of Lean tools and techniques applied to hospital organizational areas in a 5-year period, between 2014 to 2018, complementing some of the most relevant reviews already published. The most important criteria such as tools, methods and principles, hospital areas intervened, improvements and difficulties were assessed and quantified. Methodology - As starting point for this systematic literature review, a set of selected pre-existing review publications was used to support the current work and as the ground base for the expansion of the studies about Lean Healthcare. The current study contemplated 114 articles from a 5-year period between 2014 and 2018. A subset of 58 of these articles was critically assessed to understand the application of lean tools and methods in different hospital areas. Findings - The thorough analysis of selected articles show a lack of works in Continuous Improvement approaches when compared to the application of work organization, visual management, and diagnosing and problem-solving tools. The reported improvement results demonstrate alignment with the principles and foundations of lean philosophy, but such results are presented in isolated initiatives and without robust evidence of long-term maintenance. Moreover, this study shows an evolution in the number of articles referring to lean implementation in hospital areas, but in its great majority, such articles report isolated implementations in different areas, not spreading those for the global organization. Thus, some of the main recommendations, are the need to implement studies on complete flows of patients, drugs and materials, instead of isolated initiatives, and strive to promote cultural change of hospitals through structural changes, following new visions and strategic objectives, supported by real models of continuous structural and sustained improvement. Originality – The current work develops a new perspective of the articles published under the thematic of Lean Healthcare, published in a recent period of 5 years, which are not completely covered by other works. Additionally, it explicitly applied, in an innovative way, an approach that used a set of previous reviews as the starting point for this SLR. In this way, it integrates approaches and categories from different SLRs, creating a framework of analysis that can be used by future researchers. Finally, it shows the most recent implementations of Lean Healthcare, exposing the current trends, improvements and also the main gaps.This work has been supported by FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope UIDB/00319/2020 and project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-03029

Compatibility studies of Olanzapine pre-formulated with excipients by thermal analysis: preliminary study

Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to investigate drug-excipient interactions and, in consequence, their compatibility. For this purpose, binary mixtures of olanzapine drug substance and the excipients croscarmellose sodium, magnesium stearate and microcrystalline cellulose, were prepared and analysed. By the analysis of the binary mixtures DSC and TG curves it were observed changes on the temperature and enthalpy values of the drug melting and decomposition peak, with the likely formation of intermediate substances.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire