The Problem of Lighting in Underground Domes, Vaults, and Tunnel-Like Structures of Antiquity; An Application to the Sustainability of Prominent Asian Heritage (India, Korea, China)

Lighting in heritage is complex because of the forms intervening in it. The historical evolution of cultures has not been analytical and therefore, the shapes involved di er greatly from the cuboids typically found in 21st century architecture. As a vector, light inevitably attaches to surface sources. In this research, we focused on 3D curved geometries. Following a di erent trail to radiative transfer by virtue of detailed knowledge of the spatiality of volumes, we present new expressions, previously undefined in the literature, that are derived from a combination of surfaces that we have found in many archaeological sites around Asia. In the discussion, we start from the particularities of spherical surfaces where a normal vector has to pass through the center. By means of easy calculations, we deducted innovative laws. These in turn, allowed us to formulate several new expressions for configuration factors based on the adroit use of spherical fragments. The method easily extends to organic shapes that are often contained in the sustainable architecture of the past. The method finishes with suitable algorithms to assess the reflections in such curved forms. Finally, we implemented the results in our creative software. In this way, we enhanced the sustainable paradigms for heritage structures in Asia that we present as a conclusion of the article

Testing for alpha-1 antitrypsin in COPD in outpatient respiratory clinics in Spain: A multilevel, cross-sectional analysis of the EPOCONSUL study

Background Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is the most common hereditary disorder in adults, but is under-recognized. In Spain, the number of patients diagnosed with AATD is much lower than expected according to epidemiologic studies. The objectives of this study were to assess the frequency and determinants of testing serum α1-antitrypsin (AAT) levels in COPD patients, and to describe factors associated with testing. Methods EPOCONSUL is a cross-sectional clinical audit, recruiting consecutive COPD cases over one year. The study evaluated serum AAT level determination in COPD patients and associations between individual, disease-related, and hospital characteristics. Results A total of 4,405 clinical records for COPD patients from 57 Spanish hospitals were evaluated. Only 995 (22.5%) patients had serum AAT tested on some occasion. A number of patient characteristics (being male [OR 0.5, p < 0.001], ≤55 years old [OR 2.38, p<0.001], BMI≤21 kg/m2 [OR 1.71, p<0.001], FEV1(%)<50% [OR 1.35, p<0.001], chronic bronchitis [OR 0.79, p < 0.001], Charlson index ≥ 3 [OR 0.66, p < 0.001], or history or symptoms of asthma [OR 1.32, p<0.001]), and management at a specialized COPD outpatient clinic [OR 2.73,p<0.001] were identified as factors independently associated with ever testing COPD patients for AATD. Overall, 114 COPD patients (11.5% of those tested) had AATD. Of them, 26 (22.8%) patients had severe deficiency. Patients with AATD were younger, with a low pack-year index, and were more likely to have emphysema (p<0.05). Conclusion Testing of AAT blood levels in COPD patients treated at outpatient respiratory clinics in Spain is infrequent. However, when tested, AATD (based on the serum AAT levels ≤100 mg/dL) is detected in one in five COPD patients. Efforts to optimize AATD case detection in COPD are needed.SEPA

La dualidad historia/leyenda en Bécquer, Valle-Inclán y Antonio Machado

La mayor autoridad crítica que en general se ha concedido, en los estudios del 98, a la literatura de corte realista y presentista frente a la volcada en un pasado resueltamente mitificado corre el riesgo de minusvalorar no sólo la transcendencia social de estas últimas obras, sino también su complejidad constructiva. Este ensayo, en el cual el primer Antonio Machado es asimismo primus inter pares, quiere sustraerse a dichos peligros dando un tratamiento histórico y filosófico (apoyado en Bergson, Ortega y la “transferencia” psicoanalítica) al concepto de “leyenda” y un tratamiento poético al concepto de “historia”. En este menester comentaré en detalle un ramillete de textos en prosa y verso publicados, en su mayor parte, en la cincuentena que media entre 1857 y 1907. In studies of the Generation of 1898, realist and present-oriented literary works have been accorded greater critical authority than the literature recreating an emphatically mythic past. This gesture runs the risk of undervaluing not only the social import of the seemingly less engaged works, but also their structural complexity. My essay studies the earlier Machado in relation to Bécquer and Valle- Inclán, and seeks to avoid the pitfalls just mentioned by subjecting the poet’s concept of “leyenda” to a historical and philosophical treatment (grounded especially in Bergson, Ortega y Gasset, and the role of “transference” in psychoanalysis) while subjecting the related concept of “historia” to a poetic treatment. Most of the poems and prose pieces discussed in greater detail were published in the fifty years stretching from 1857 to 1907

Four-body continuum-discretized coupled-channels calculations: Application to 6He+64Zn at 13.6 MeV

The recently developed four-body continuum-discretized coupled-channels (CDCC) method, making use of the binning procedure [1], is applied to the reaction 6He+64Zn at 13.6 MeV (around the Coulomb barrier). Excellent agreement with available elastic data [2] is found.Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica FIS 2008-04189, FPA 2006- 13807-C02-01U.S. Department of Energy DE-AC52-07NA27344U.K. STFC EP/D00362