Quality of nutritional care during pregnancy: folic acid and vitamin D supplementation

Backgrounds: Folic acid (FA) and vitamin D supplementation is recommended during pregnancy. Quality nutritional care during pregnancy should include the supplementation of these vitamins. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the quality of nutritional care regarding supplementation during pregnancy in primary health care units in six states of Mexico (Estado de México, Oaxaca, Yucatán, Chihuahua, Veracruz and Chiapas). Methods: A mixed study was conducted. An indicator (formed by two sub-indicators) to assess the quality of nutritional care focused on FA and vitamin D supplementation in pregnancy was developed and validated. To assess the quality of care, a sample of 97 health units (HUs) was estimated considering the total number of HUs in the selected states. To ensure the representativeness of the following strata: rurality, care for the indigenous population, and size of the HU; at least one unit was assigned to each stratum by simple random sampling. A trained team performed a random sample of 30 pregnancy clinical records in each HU; the records and the nutritional control cards were reviewed to assess whether the recommendations of the indicator were met. The percentage of compliance with the indicator was estimated. It was considered that an evaluated record complied with the indicator if it complied with its two sub-indicators. A traffic light system was used to present the results: good quality was considered as green (compliance ≥90%); poor quality as yellow (compliance 71% - 89%) and bad quality as red (compliance ≤70%). In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with health professionals and an observation guide was applied in health units. Results: A total of 95 HU were assessed. Of the 794 cases evaluated, only one met the two sub-indicators. A bad quality of nutritional care focused on supplementation during pregnancy was observed in the six states and in all HUs. It was identified that most HUs did not have a nutritionist and doctors and nurses recognized that they did not have the knowledge to give nutritional recommendations. Conclusions: It is necessary to implement actions aimed at improving the capacities of health professionals regarding the quality of nutritional care

Design and Construction for Hydroxides Based Air Conditioning System with Solar Collectors for Confined Roofs

In this chapter, the methodology to determinate heat load is revised and presented. The main parameters must be fixed as function of climatization, internal thermic conditions (comfort, temperature, and humid) and the activities. According with literature, the roof structural requirements were checked. These are an important parameter because it represents the limits to the system such as load by devices (weight of equipment), orientation in solar systems (operating conditions), and building materials. The method of calculation of solar available is shown; the aim is to achieve the major collection of solar energy. Finally, the plate heat exchangers can be fabricated in gasketed, welded or module welded design characterized by the model in which the flow channels for the two heat exchanging media are sealed. The kind of exchanger is suitable depending on your requirements. The thermodynamic method of calculation of sizing the exchangers is reviewed. The aim of this section is to find the suitable devices for the operation of air-conditioning absorption system based on hydroxide

Reproducibility of fluorescent expression from engineered biological constructs in E. coli

We present results of the first large-scale interlaboratory study carried out in synthetic biology, as part of the 2014 and 2015 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competitions. Participants at 88 institutions around the world measured fluorescence from three engineered constitutive constructs in E. coli. Few participants were able to measure absolute fluorescence, so data was analyzed in terms of ratios. Precision was strongly related to fluorescent strength, ranging from 1.54-fold standard deviation for the ratio between strong promoters to 5.75-fold for the ratio between the strongest and weakest promoter, and while host strain did not affect expression ratios, choice of instrument did. This result shows that high quantitative precision and reproducibility of results is possible, while at the same time indicating areas needing improved laboratory practices.Peer reviewe

Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies

Flare frequency distributions represent a key approach to addressing one of the largest problems in solar and stellar physics: determining the mechanism that counter-intuitively heats coronae to temperatures that are orders of magnitude hotter than the corresponding photospheres. It is widely accepted that the magnetic field is responsible for the heating, but there are two competing mechanisms that could explain it: nanoflares or Alfv\'en waves. To date, neither can be directly observed. Nanoflares are, by definition, extremely small, but their aggregate energy release could represent a substantial heating mechanism, presuming they are sufficiently abundant. One way to test this presumption is via the flare frequency distribution, which describes how often flares of various energies occur. If the slope of the power law fitting the flare frequency distribution is above a critical threshold, $\alpha=2$ as established in prior literature, then there should be a sufficient abundance of nanoflares to explain coronal heating. We performed $>$600 case studies of solar flares, made possible by an unprecedented number of data analysts via three semesters of an undergraduate physics laboratory course. This allowed us to include two crucial, but nontrivial, analysis methods: pre-flare baseline subtraction and computation of the flare energy, which requires determining flare start and stop times. We aggregated the results of these analyses into a statistical study to determine that $\alpha = 1.63 \pm 0.03$. This is below the critical threshold, suggesting that Alfv\'en waves are an important driver of coronal heating.Comment: 1,002 authors, 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published by The Astrophysical Journal on 2023-05-09, volume 948, page 7