Simulation of Demographic Change in Palestinian Territories

Mortality, birth rates and retirement play a major role in demographic changes. In most cases, mortality rates decreased in the past century without noticeable decrease in fertility rates, this leads to a significant increase in population growth. In many poor countries like Palestinian territories the number of births has fallen and the life expectancy increased. In this article we concentrate on measuring, analyzing and extrapolating the age structure in Palestine a few decades ago into future. A Fortran program has been designed and used for the simulation and analysis of our statistical data. This study of demographic change in Palestine has shown that Palestinians will have in future problems as the strongest age cohorts are the above-60-year olds. We therefore recommend the increase of both the retirement age and women employment.Comment: For Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 18, issue 11; 9 pages including figures and progra

Leitmann's direct method for fractional optimization problems

Based on a method introduced by Leitmann [Internat. J. Non-Linear Mech. {\bf 2} (1967), 55--59], we exhibit exact solutions for some fractional optimization problems of the calculus of variations and optimal control.Comment: Submitted June 16, 2009 and accepted March 15, 2010 for publication in Applied Mathematics and Computation

BAUMSLAG–SOLITAR GROUP C∗-ALGEBRAS FROM INTERVAL MAPS

We yield operators U and V on Hilbert spaces that are parame- terized by the orbits of certain interval maps that exhibit chaotic behavior and obey the (deformed) Baumslag–Solitar relation UV =e2πiαVUn, α∈R, n∈N. We then prove that the scalar e2πiα can be removed whilst retaining the isomor- phism class of the C∗-algebra generated by U and V . Finally, we simultane- ously unitarize U and V by gluing pairs of orbits of the underlying noninvertible dynamical system and investigate these unitary representations under distinct pairs of orbits

Theoretical and practical constructs of health: the relevance of biomedical and socioecological approaches

No campo educacional, a abordagem biomédica, na qual saúde é entendida principalmente como ausência de doença, traz limitações importantes. Uma alternativa poderia ser a substituição da abordagem biomédica por outra, mas, para isso, é importante entender as diferentes abordagens de saúde discutidas na literatura, o que justifica a realização de estudos de revisão crítica de indicadores teóricos e práticos que diferenciam abordagens de saúde. Para realizar tal estudo, realizamos um levantamento bibliográfico em quatro banco de dados, resultando num corpus de 169 artigos pertinentes para o presente estudo. Com base na análise destes materiais, pode-se concluir que, dos diferentes modos de pensar e agir em saúde, emergem duas abordagens bem definidas: a biomédica e a socioecológica. Enquanto a primeira traz uma visão biologicista e reducionista da saúde, a segunda entende a saúde a partir de arcabouços epistemológicos, antropológicos, históricos, sociais, culturais e comportamentais, e não somente biológicos.There are many works that seek to reflect about health, from classical texts to more recent studies, in the national and international literature, in a variety of fields. The diversity of works makes it important to understand the different health approaches discussed in the literature need to be understood, what justifies carrying out this critical review study of the theoretical and practical indicators that differentiate the various health approaches. A literature survey was carried out in four database, resulting in a corpus of 169 articles relevant to the present study. Based on the analysis of these materials, it was concluded that from the different ways of thinking and acting in health, two well defined approaches emerges: the biomedical and socioecological. While the former presents a biological and reductionist view of health, the latter considers health from the epistemological, anthropological, historical, social, cultural and behavioural frameworks, and not only biological.CIEC - Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, IE, UMinho (UI 317 da FCT), PortugalFundos Nacionais através da FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) e cofinanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) através do COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) no âmbito do CIEC (Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, da Universidade do Minho) com a referência POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On the Fitness Landscapes of Interdependency Models in the Travelling Thief Problem

Since its inception in 2013, the Travelling Thief Problem (TTP) has been widely studied as an example of problems with multiple interconnected sub-problems. The dependency in this model arises when tying the travelling time of the "thief" to the weight of the knapsack. However, other forms of dependency as well as combinations of dependencies should be considered for investigation, as they are often found in complex real-world problems. Our goal is to study the impact of different forms of dependency in the TTP using a simple local search algorithm. To achieve this, we use Local Optima Networks, a technique for analysing the fitness landscape

Pleiotropic Effects of Tetracyclines in the Management of COVID-19: Emerging Perspectives

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Approximately 15% of severe cases require an intensive care unit (ICU) admission and mechanical ventilation due to development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Tetracyclines (TCs) are a group of bacteriostatic antibiotics, like tetracycline, minocycline, and doxycycline, effective against aerobic and anaerobic bacteria as well as Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Based on available evidences, TCs may be effective against coronaviruses and thus useful to treat COVID-19. Thus, this review aims to provide a brief overview on the uses of TCs for COVID-19 management. SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses depend mainly on the matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) for their proliferation, cell adhesion, and infiltration. The anti-inflammatory mechanisms of TCs are linked to different pathways. Briefly, TCs inhibit mitochondrial cytochrome c and caspase pathway with improvement of lymphopenia in early COVID-19. Specifically, minocycline is effective in reducing COVID-19–related complications, through attenuation of cytokine storm as apparent by reduction of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a. Different clinical trials recommend the replacement of azithromycin by minocycline in the management of COVID-19 patients at high risk due to two main reasons: 1) minocycline does not prolong the QT interval and even inhibits ischemia-induced arrhythmia; 2) minocycline displays synergistic effect with chloroquine against SARS-CoV-2. Taken together, the data presented here show that TCs, mainly doxycycline or minocycline, may be potential partners in COVID-19 management, derived pneumonia, and related complications, such as acute lung injury (ALI) and ARDS.The authors thank all members of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiyria University. NC-M acknowledges the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the Horizon 2020 Program (PTDC/PSI-GER/28076/2017)

Site adaptations of Acanthogyrus (Acanthosentis) tilapiae: Observations through light and scanning electron microscopy

Acanthogyrus (Acanthosentis) tilapiae parasites were collected from the intestines of 300 fish belonging to three tilapia species sourced at the River Nile, Giza, Egypt. The proboscis of the parasite was characterized by three rows of hooks that curved towards the posterior of the body. The first row is supported by unmodified hooks. The parasite tegument has a series of alternative folds and a large number of pores. Sensory ganglia are located on the surface of the proboscis and body. Acanthogyrus (Acanthosentis) tilapiae provokes an aggressive host response indicated by hyperplasia of the intestinal goblet cells and focal eosinophil infiltrations. This acanthocephalan parasite shows a highly modified adaptation to its site of host infection

Diffeomorphic density registration

In this book chapter we study the Riemannian Geometry of the density registration problem: Given two densities (not necessarily probability densities) defined on a smooth finite dimensional manifold find a diffeomorphism which transforms one to the other. This problem is motivated by the medical imaging application of tracking organ motion due to respiration in Thoracic CT imaging where the fundamental physical property of conservation of mass naturally leads to modeling CT attenuation as a density. We will study the intimate link between the Riemannian metrics on the space of diffeomorphisms and those on the space of densities. We finally develop novel computationally efficient algorithms and demonstrate there applicability for registering RCCT thoracic imaging.Comment: 23 pages, 6 Figures, Chapter for a Book on Medical Image Analysi