Distance-hereditary embeddings of circulant graphs

©2003 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.In this paper we present a distance-hereditary decomposition of optimal chordal rings of 2k2 nodes into a set of rings of 2k nodes, where k is the diameter. All the rings belonging to this set have the same length and their diameter corresponds to the diameter of the chordal ring in which they are embedded. The members of this embedded set of rings are non-disjoint and preserve the minimal routing of the original circulant graph. Besides its practical consequences, our research allows the presentation of these optimal circulant graphs as a particular evolution of the traditional ring topology.Carmen Martinez, Beivide Beivide, Jaime Gutierrez, [Maria] Cruz Iz

Maintenance of street lighting systems using mobile phones

There is no doubt that street lighting systems have an important role in cities promoting comfort, as well as enhancing safety and security. These kinds of systems require maintenance in order to guarantee operation and reduce energy consumption. To help with certain maintenance tasks, a new smartphone application has been developed. The aim of this tool is to set up street lighting energy efficiency level at the same time that the illuminance level is evaluated. The benefit of this tool is that maintenance staff can assess energy efficiency on an easy and quick way, achieving a result report. In addition, a new Bluetooth device was created to perform the measurements, being necessary to perform a brief study about its accuracy compared with a mobile phone ambient light sensor and an external sensor

Efectos del cannabis sobre la salud mental en jóvenes consumidores

Esta es la segunda parte de una revisión sobre los efectos adversos que presenta el consumo de cannabis sobre la salud de los jóvenes. La primera parte trató sobre los efectos adversos para la salud física y esta segunda parte trata de los efectos adversos sobre la salud psíquica. El cannabis ha sido considerado a veces como una droga relativamente menos peligrosa que otras, y además se le han atribuido otras finalidades distintas de las recreativas, buscando efectos terapéuticos (analgésico, anticonvulsivo, sedante, antidepresivo, etc.). Sin embargo, en los últimos años existe una creciente evidencia epidemiológica de la existencia de efectos adversos sobre la salud psíquica a medio y largo plazo, además de los derivados de la dependencia y abstinencia. En el presente artículo se ha realizado una búsqueda bibliográfica y se han analizado especialmente grandes estudios epidemiológicos más recientes que han evaluado los efectos sobre la salud mental en consumidores jóvenes. Se presenta una puesta al día del estado actual del conocimiento epidemiológico de la relación entre cannabis y enfermedad psíquica

Peaks in the Cosmic Microwave Background: flat versus open models

We present properties of the peaks (maxima) of the CMB anisotropies expected in flat and open CDM models. We obtain analytical expressions of several topological descriptors: mean number of maxima and the probability distribution of the gaussian curvature and the eccentricity of the peaks. These quantities are calculated as functions of the radiation power spectrum, assuming a gaussian distribution of temperature anisotropies. We present results for angular resolutions ranging from 5' to 20' (antenna FWHM), scales that are relevant for the MAP and COBRAS/SAMBA space missions and the ground-based interferometer experiments. Our analysis also includes the effects of noise. We find that the number of peaks can discriminate between standard CDM models, and that the gaussian curvature distribution provides a useful test for these various models, whereas the eccentricity distribution can not distinguish between them.Comment: 13 pages latex file using aasms4.sty + 3 tables + 2 postscript figures, to appear in ApJ (March 1997

Measurements of Neutrons In A Mixed GammaNeutron Field Using Three Different Types of Detectors

A linear electron accelerator for medical use is a device for the treatment of tumors by collimated beams of electrons and/or photons. These accelerators are devices that employ electromagnetic waves of high frequency, to accelerate electrons that are used directly in the treatment of superficial tumors, or, if they are made to hit them on an appropriate target, they can produce photons of high energy destined to the treatment of deeptumors.Depending on the energy of the electrons and photons and the materials that make up the head of the accelerator and the target, this equipment will produce in addition to the aforementioned radiation, neutron fields of regular intensity. It is necessary to estimate the equivalent dose due to the neutrons themselves, the doses due to the gamma field of neutron capture, produced by the capture of thermal neutrons in the concrete of the bunker, and the gamma doses due to phenomena of neutron activation of elements of the own accelerator. It is therefore important to be able to measure (detect, quantify, dose, etc.) both photons and neutrons in these cases and others more. In this work we use three different detectors, namely a scintillator-photomultiplier system, a fast reading dosimeter and bubble detector. The idea is to measure the radiation separately and compare their results. The results obtained were the mixed gamma-neutron field spectrum, the dose due only to neutrons obtained by the bubble detectors, which is compared to the dose obtained by the second fast reading dosimeters (model 884), plus the dose obtained by the first dosimeters (model 609) and finally the dose obtained by the Victoreen dosimeter

Extended computation of the viscous Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a horizontally confined flow

In this article, the classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability is extended to situations where the fluid is completely confined, in both the vertical and horizontal directions. This article starts with the two-dimensional (2D) viscous periodic case with finite height where the effect of adding surface tension to the interface is analyzed. This problem is simulated from a dual perspective: first, the linear stability analysis obtained when the Navier-Stokes equations are linearized and regularized in terms of density and viscosity; and second, looking at the weakly compressible version of a multiphase smoothed particle hydrodynamics (WCSPH) method. The evolution and growth rates of the different fluid variables during the linear regime of the SPH simulation are compared to the computation of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the viscous version of the Rayleigh-Taylor stability (VRTI) analysis with and without surface tension. The most unstable mode, which has the maximal linear growth rate obtained with both approaches, as well as other less unstable modes with more complex structures are reported. The classical horizontally periodic (VRTI) case is now adapted to the case where two additional left and right walls are included in the problem, representing the cases where a two-phase flow is confined in a accelerated tank. This 2D case where no periodic assumptions are allowed is also solved using both techniques with tanks of different sizes and a wide range of Atwood numbers. The agreement with the linear stability analysis obtained by a Lagrangian method such as multiphase WCSPH is remarkable.The research leading to these results was undertaken as part of the SLOWD project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant No. 815044. L.M.G. acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) under Grant No. RTI2018-096791-B-C21, Hidrodinámica de elementos de amortiguamiento del movimiento de aerogeneradores flotantes

Olive leaf as a source of antibacterial compounds active against antibiotic-resistant strains of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli

Campylobacter spp. are the main cause of bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide, and broiler chicks are the main vector of transmission to humans. The high prevalence of Campylobacter in poultry meat and the increase of antibiotic resistant strains have raised the need to identify new antimicrobial agents. For this reason, the aim of the current study was to evaluate the antibacterial activity of two extracts of olive leaf against antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter strains (C. jejuni and C. coli) isolated from poultry food chain. The extracts of olive leaf (E1 and E2) were markedly different in their chemical compositions. While E1 was composed predominantly of highly hydrophilic compounds such as hydroxytyrosol and hydroxytyrosol glucosides (14,708 mg/100 g), E2 mainly contained moderately hydrophilic compounds, with oleuropein (20,471 mg/100 g) being prevalent. All Campylobacter strains exhibited similar antibiotic profiles, being resistant to ciprofloxacin and tetracycline. E1 showed strong antibacterial activity and reduced bacterial growth from 4.12 to 8.14 log CFU/mL, depending on the strain. Hydroxytyrosol was the main compound responsible, causing the inhibition of growth of Campylobacter strains at low concentrations (0.1–0.25 mg/mL). E2 demonstrated a lower antibacterial effect than E1, reducing growth from 0.52 to 2.49 log CFU/mL. The results of this study suggest that the optimization of the composition of olive-leaf extracts can provide improved treatment results against Campylobacter strain

Comparative ergonomic workflow and user experience analysis of MRI versus fluoroscopy-guided vascular interventions:an iliac angioplasty exemplar case study

Purpose A methodological framework is introduced to assess and compare a conventional fluoroscopy protocol for peripheral angioplasty with a new magnetic resonant imaging (MRI)-guided protocol. Different scenarios were considered during interventions on a perfused arterial phantom with regard to time-based and cognitive task analysis, user experience and ergonomics. Methods Three clinicians with different expertise performed a total of 43 simulated common iliac angioplasties (9 fluoroscopic, 34 MRI-guided) in two blocks of sessions. Six different configurations for MRI guidance were tested in the first block. Four of them were evaluated in the second block and compared to the fluoroscopy protocol. Relevant stages’ durations were collected, and interventions were audio-visually recorded from different perspectives. A cued retrospective protocol analysis (CRPA) was undertaken, including personal interviews. In addition, ergonomic constraints in the MRI suite were evaluated. Results Significant differences were found when comparing the performance between MRI configurations versus fluoroscopy. Two configurations [with times of 8.56 (0.64) and 9.48 (1.13) min] led to reduce procedure time for MRI guidance, comparable to fluoroscopy [8.49 (0.75) min]. The CRPA pointed out the main influential factors for clinical procedure performance. The ergonomic analysis quantified musculoskeletal risks for interventional radiologists when utilising MRI. Several alternatives were suggested to prevent potential low-back injuries. Conclusions This work presents a step towards the implementation of efficient operational protocols for MRI-guided procedures based on an integral and multidisciplinary framework, applicable to the assessment of current vascular protocols. The use of first-user perspective raises the possibility of establishing new forms of clinical training and education

trimAl: a tool for automated alignment trimming in large-scale phylogenetic analyses

Summary: Multiple sequence alignments are central to many areas of bioinformatics. It has been shown that the removal of poorly aligned regions from an alignment increases the quality of subsequent analyses. Such an alignment trimming phase is complicated in large-scale phylogenetic analyses that deal with thousands of alignments. Here, we present trimAl, a tool for automated alignment trimming, which is especially suited for large-scale phylogenetic analyses. trimAl can consider several parameters, alone or in multiple combinations, for selecting the most reliable positions in the alignment. These include the proportion of sequences with a gap, the level of amino acid similarity and, if several alignments for the same set of sequences are provided, the level of consistency across different alignments. Moreover, trimAl can automatically select the parameters to be used in each specific alignment so that the signal-to-noise ratio is optimized