9,194 research outputs found
Performance of mechanically shaken indirect contact atmospheric dryer in drying pastelike materials
Pastelike materials are encountered in many technological processes in chemical, pharmaceutical, foodstuff and natural product industries. The most important factor in the drying of this type of materials is the nature of the moisture bonding that occurs. Because of the different characteristics of pastes, it is impossible to recommend a universal type of dryer for all of these materials. Some of the dryers available provide only indirect contact with the drying agent (heat) and also maintain constant moisture with a system of rotating paddles. We evaluated the performance of this type by studying the dryer kinetics curves for ground coffee under a variety of operational conditions of moisture load of material, temperature of the heating plate, intensity of the mechanical mixing of the moisture material, and initial moisture. The effects of these parameters (except for moisture) were studied using a 2 3 factorial design. According the analyses of the kinetics drying curves, was observed that the increase in the temperature of the plate and rotation as well as the decrease in the load facilitates more effective removal of moisture. In statistical analysis was determined that the load of the material and the heating plate temperature influence the final moisture content of the material and plate temperature modifies the final temperature of the solid. Also, was suggested linear models from the factorial design to describe the process of drying coffee grounds satisfactorily.21348749
Informal Caregivers’ Health Literacy in Lisbon, Portugal: A Profile for Health Promotion Prioritization
Health literacy (HL) allows people to access, understand and evaluate health information. Informal caregivers' levels of HL may impact long-term care outcomes. 'Informal caregivers' profile in Lisbon county: a health community approach' is a nurse-led research project aiming to assess informal caregivers' health literacy and associated factors in Lisbon county, as well as to foster the development of a local-specific health literacy strategy. A survey to identify a health/social caregiver profile, including questions about HL (HLS-EU-PT), was submitted to a representative sample of carers. Descriptive and bivariate inferential analysis was developed. Informal caregivers' level of HL was mostly sufficient (n = 99, 38%). More than 60% of caregivers have limited HL regarding health promotion. 'Access', 'Appraisal' and 'Use' are the information processing stages with lower mean scores of HL. Carers with low HL levels appear to be older and to have less education, low knowledge of community resources and decreased wellbeing (p < 0.05). A strategy focused on health promotion-related HL through primary care resources can potentially improve caregivers' knowledge, competencies and motivation, as well as health system sustainability. Reported HLS-EU-PT scores deserve special attention. Future work should emphasize the role of HL-associated factors and health outcomes for caregivers and cared-for persons.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Maternal SIN3A regulates reprogramming of gene expression during mouse preimplantation development.
Does Reality Overcome the Expected? Survey on Informal Caregivers' Profile: A Nurse-Led Study in Times of COVID-19
The increasing overload of chronic conditions raises challenges for the health system.
Informal caregivers have a major role in ensuring the quality of life of the cared-for person, despite
the reported lack of working resources which can lead to unmet needs. This article reports on the
first part of a nurse-led research project entitled “Informal caregiver’ profiles in Lisbon county: a
health community approach.’ We aimed to support decision-making by developing an informal
caregiver profile to promote tailored interventions. A survey addressing the dyad was developed and
submitted to a convenient, network-based, stratified sample of carers aged 18 years or above. More
than thirty community partners supported the identification of caregivers. Data were submitted to
univariate descriptive analysis. A profile of the cared-for person and the informal caregiver was
uncovered by identifying 639 caregivers, of whom the majority lived with the cared-for person. Only
four percent planned the transition to a caregiver role, and no more than 10% had access to support
programs. Approximately half of the respondents found that COVID-19 negatively impacted their
performance in the caregiver role. Developing a local and tailored strategy with collaboration between
healthcare professionals, academics, and community partners is key to ensuring that meaningful
support is provided to caregivers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
PREPARATION OF SILVER AND GOLD NANOPARTICLES: A SIMPLE METHOD TO INTRODUCE NANOTECHNOLOGY INTO TEACHING LABORATORIES.
PREPARATION OF SILVER AND GOLD NANOPARTICLES: A SIMPLE METHOD TO INTRODUCE NANOTECHNOLOGY INTO TEACHING LABORATORIES. A new practical experiment involving silver and gold nanoparticle syntheses was introduced in an inorganic chemistry laboratory course for undergraduate students at the Institute of Chemistry, UNICAMP. The nanoparticles were synthesized by the reduction of silver nitrate and tetrachloroauric acid with sodium borohydride and sodium citrate in an aqueous medium. Stabilities of the suspensions were tested using several different reactants including sodium chloride, polyvinylpyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol and cistamine. Changes in optical properties were observed by electronic spectra and also by transmission electronic microscopy, which also yielded data for estimating particle size.3591872U18
Novel scaling behavior of the Ising model on curved surfaces
We demonstrate the nontrivial scaling behavior of Ising models defined on (i)
a donut-shaped surface and (ii) a curved surface with a constant negative
curvature. By performing Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the former model
has two distinct critical temperatures at which both the specific heat
and magnetic susceptibility show sharp peaks.The critical exponents
associated with the two critical temperatures are evaluated by the finite-size
scaling analysis; the result reveals that the values of these exponents vary
depending on the temperature range under consideration. In the case of the
latter model, it is found that static and dynamic critical exponents deviate
from those of the Ising model on a flat plane; this is a direct consequence of
the constant negative curvature of the underlying surface.Comment: 11 pages 5 figure
Long Short-Term Sample Distillation
In the past decade, there has been substantial progress at training
increasingly deep neural networks. Recent advances within the teacher--student
training paradigm have established that information about past training updates
show promise as a source of guidance during subsequent training steps. Based on
this notion, in this paper, we propose Long Short-Term Sample Distillation, a
novel training policy that simultaneously leverages multiple phases of the
previous training process to guide the later training updates to a neural
network, while efficiently proceeding in just one single generation pass. With
Long Short-Term Sample Distillation, the supervision signal for each sample is
decomposed into two parts: a long-term signal and a short-term one. The
long-term teacher draws on snapshots from several epochs ago in order to
provide steadfast guidance and to guarantee teacher--student differences, while
the short-term one yields more up-to-date cues with the goal of enabling
higher-quality updates. Moreover, the teachers for each sample are unique, such
that, overall, the model learns from a very diverse set of teachers.
Comprehensive experimental results across a range of vision and NLP tasks
demonstrate the effectiveness of this new training method.Comment: published as a conference paper at AAAI 202
A Factorization Law for Entanglement Decay
We present a simple and general factorization law for quantum systems shared
by two parties, which describes the time evolution of entanglement upon passage
of either component through an arbitrary noisy channel. The robustness of
entanglement-based quantum information processing protocols is thus easily and
fully characterized by a single quantity.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Analyzing Ideological Communities in Congressional Voting Networks
We here study the behavior of political party members aiming at identifying
how ideological communities are created and evolve over time in diverse
(fragmented and non-fragmented) party systems. Using public voting data of both
Brazil and the US, we propose a methodology to identify and characterize
ideological communities, their member polarization, and how such communities
evolve over time, covering a 15-year period. Our results reveal very distinct
patterns across the two case studies, in terms of both structural and dynamic
properties
Markedly Divergent Tree Assemblage Responses to Tropical Forest Loss and Fragmentation across a Strong Seasonality Gradient
We examine the effects of forest fragmentation on the structure and composition of tree assemblages within three seasonal and aseasonal forest types of southern Brazil, including evergreen, Araucaria, and deciduous forests. We sampled three southernmost Atlantic Forest landscapes, including the largest continuous forest protected areas within each forest type. Tree assemblages in each forest type were sampled within 10 plots of 0.1 ha in both continuous forests and 10 adjacent forest fragments. All trees within each plot were assigned to trait categories describing their regeneration strategy, vertical stratification, seed-dispersal mode, seed size, and wood density. We detected differences among both forest types and landscape contexts in terms of overall tree species richness, and the density and species richness of different functional groups in terms of regeneration strategy, seed dispersal mode and woody density. Overall, evergreen forest fragments exhibited the largest deviations from continuous forest plots in assemblage structure. Evergreen, Araucaria and deciduous forests diverge in the functional composition of tree floras, particularly in relation to regeneration strategy and stress tolerance. By supporting a more diversified light-demanding and stress-tolerant flora with reduced richness and abundance of shade-tolerant, old-growth species, both deciduous and Araucaria forest tree assemblages are more intrinsically resilient to contemporary human-disturbances, including fragmentation-induced edge effects, in terms of species erosion and functional shifts. We suggest that these intrinsic differences in the direction and magnitude of responses to changes in landscape structure between forest types should guide a wide range of conservation strategies in restoring fragmented tropical forest landscapes worldwide
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