LpL^{p} Boundedness of Riesz transform related to Schr\"odinger operators on a manifold

We establish various $L^{p}$ estimates for the Schr\"odinger operator $-\Delta+V$ on Riemannian manifolds satisfying the doubling property and a Poincar\'e inequality, where $\Delta$ is the Laplace-Beltrami operator and $V$ belongs to a reverse H\"{o}lder class. At the end of this paper we apply our result on Lie groups with polynomial growth.Comment: 38 page

Establishing an Integrated Monitoring Concept for the Vienna Lighthouse Project Smarter Together

Within the EU Lighthouse Project “Smarter Together”, the City of Vienna has been working during the last three years together with the Cities of Munich and Lyon following a P2P learning process to implement a set of integrated smart solutions with focus on holistic buildings refurbishment for low energy districts, onsite renewable energy supply (RES), e-mobility solutions and ICTs. This endeavour aims to support the city's vision to transform Vienna into a sustainable, resilient and liveable city along the ongoing urban transformations and energy transition. For several demonstration site projects an integrated monitoring concept has been established and tested within a co-creation process encompassing key city stakeholders and various actors from research institutions, industry and building contractors. The developed concept comprises the whole automated process of sensor-based data collection, transfer to, and storage on the city’s Data Management Platform (DMP) and the subsequent processing, visualisation and generation of related key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPI-based monitoring process seeks to track and monitor the impacts of the implemented solutions for the city demonstration sites, besides their potential contribution to achieving the city’s sustainable development targets following an intracity rollout phase and a future replication plan in selected follower cities. The established process highlights the importance of intensive communication among all stakeholders. The generated KPIs for the refurbished buildings demonstrates the importance of establishing a co-creationprocess gathering building owners, construction companies, city governance, research institutions and ICT utilities responsible for developing and maintaining Vienna’s DMP and the following provision of smartservices to third parties. The KPI-based monitoring shows that for the use cases of building refurbishment (comprising 65060 m2 of social housing and 3800 m2 public building) the achieved energy saving by building efficiency measures will reach annually about 4760 MWh. The fossil fuel saving through substitution effect by onsite renewable energy generations (PV, solar thermal, geothermal heat pumps) will reach about 451 MWh. The resulting CO2 reduction by building energy saving and RES will reach about 1423 tCO2 annually. The results underline the importance of the implemented smart solutions in achieving the Vienna Energy Framework Strategy pursuing a clear decarbonisation path and thus supporting its transformation vision towards an inclusive, sustainable and liveable city. The deployment of the successfully implemented and monitored solutions is ongoing. Based on the lessons-learned and the gained best-practices, it is expected that the implementation of an appropriate replication plan will make it possible that by the year 2030 a significant part of the existing old social buildings in Vienna will be refurbished and monitored following the integrated monitoring concept established within the Smarter Together project

Higher education and Syrian refugee students: The case of Iraq

"This report on the tertiary education for young Syrian refugees in Iraq is part of a broader regional study commissioned by UNESCO. The project aims to assess the impact of the conflict in Syria and the results of the crisis on tertiary education in host countries, including Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. This report presents the findings of an investigation that aims to identify major lines of action in tertiary education in emergencies, namely, legal frameworks and policies implemented by key actors within the sector, and it gives insights into the current status of tertiary education for Syrian refugees and displaced persons in Iraq. The report employs a qualitative approach and intends to explore and understand the challenges and opportunities for Syrian refugee students in accessing tertiary education. The study’s findings underline the understanding of the vital role of tertiary education in improving living conditions and giving a sense of hope for the future in the context of protracted situations. The results show that the large number of refugees, who have changed the national demographics within the country, present a challenge for the state and local communities in meeting the needs of both the refugees and the host communities. Several of these challenges pertaining to the education sector are: (1) legal issues including lack of accreditation and citizenship alongside restrictive host country policies, (2) ignorance of university application procedures or lack of academic and career guidance which provide pathways to the labor market or further education, and (3) financial shortcomings. The demand continues to far outstrip the opportunities available. The study offers policy and program recommendations to decision- and policy- makers for the national and international communities, national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors, education stakeholders and other institutions with the overall goal to improve and guide further practice and research in supporting displaced persons in protracted situations to access tertiary education.

Contribution pulmonaire à l’élimination systémique du propofol chez le patient sous anesthésie générale

Diverses études cliniques ont démontré l’existence d’un métabolisme extrahépatique du propofol. Le lieu exact de ce métabolisme n’est pas encore complètement élucidé chez l’homme. Des données chez l’animal suggèreraient que le poumon pourrait contribuer à la clairance totale du propofol. Le présent projet vise à investiguer la contribution pulmonaire à l’élimination systémique du propofol chez des patients sous anesthésie générale. Quatorze patients de type ASA I ou II, âgés entre 35 et 70 ans, pour lesquels une chirurgie cardiaque de routine était prévue, ont été inclus dans la présente étude. Le protocole a été préalablement approuvé par le comité d’éthique et les patients ont tous donné par écrit leur consentement éclairé. Le recrutement des patients a eu lieu à l’hôpital Royal Victoria. Le propofol a été administré en induction sous forme de bolus intraveineux, suivi d’une perfusion continue de 50 g/kg/min. Chez un même patient, des prélèvements sanguins pré- et post pulmonaires ont été pris simultanément de l’artère radiale et de l’artère pulmonaire, sous des conditions de ventilation contrôlée ou apnéiques, dans le but de mesurer les concentrations plasmatiques du propofol. Le gradient artério-veineux a été évalué à l’état d’équilibre afin de déterminer la contribution du poumon à l’élimination totale de propofol. Nous n’avons pas pu démontrer l’existence d’une extraction pulmonaire du propofol chez l’humain. Ceci pourrait être dû à plusieurs facteurs méthodologiques.Several clinical studies have demonstrated the existence of propofol extrahepatic metabolism. The exact nature and site of this metabolism is not fully elucidated in man, however, the lung may possibly contribute to propofol total clearance as suggested by animal findings. In the present study, pulmonary contribution to total body elimination of propofol was investigated in patients during cardio-surgical anesthesia. Following informed consent and research ethic board approval, fourteen patients-ASA category I or II, between 35 and 70 years of age and scheduled for routine cardiac surgery were included in the present study. Patients were recruited at Royal-Victoria Hospital. At induction, propofol was administered as an intravenous bolus followed by a continuous infusion rate of 50 g/kg/min. Arterial and mixed-venous blood samples were drawn simultaneously from the radial artery and pulmonary artery catheters from patients under controlled ventilation or apneic conditions, for measurement of plasma propofol concentrations. Arterio-venous gradient was assessed under steady-state conditions to evaluate a potential contribution of the lung to the overall elimination of propofol. No statistically significant differences were found between both sampling sites, either under controlled ventilation or after a short period of apnea. We were unable to demonstrate the existence of propofol pulmonary extraction in the lungs in humans. This might be explained by methodological factor

Higher education and Syrian refugee students: The case of Iraq

"This report on the tertiary education for young Syrian refugees in Iraq is part of a broader regional study commissioned by UNESCO. The project aims to assess the impact of the conflict in Syria and the results of the crisis on tertiary education in host countries, including Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey. This report presents the findings of an investigation that aims to identify major lines of action in tertiary education in emergencies, namely, legal frameworks and policies implemented by key actors within the sector, and it gives insights into the current status of tertiary education for Syrian refugees and displaced persons in Iraq. The report employs a qualitative approach and intends to explore and understand the challenges and opportunities for Syrian refugee students in accessing tertiary education. The study’s findings underline the understanding of the vital role of tertiary education in improving living conditions and giving a sense of hope for the future in the context of protracted situations. The results show that the large number of refugees, who have changed the national demographics within the country, present a challenge for the state and local communities in meeting the needs of both the refugees and the host communities. Several of these challenges pertaining to the education sector are: (1) legal issues including lack of accreditation and citizenship alongside restrictive host country policies, (2) ignorance of university application procedures or lack of academic and career guidance which provide pathways to the labor market or further education, and (3) financial shortcomings. The demand continues to far outstrip the opportunities available. The study offers policy and program recommendations to decision- and policy- makers for the national and international communities, national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donors, education stakeholders and other institutions with the overall goal to improve and guide further practice and research in supporting displaced persons in protracted situations to access tertiary education.

Advantages of first-derivative reflectance spectroscopy in the VNIR-SWIR for the quantification of olivine and hematite

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd The focus of this paper is to study the application of the first order derivative method for the estimation of minerals rates in different mineral mixtures. The primary goal with this is to find robust spectral features of specific minerals that are not severely influenced by the spectral features of the other minerals in a mixture. Results were used to select appropriate spectral features to be applied for quantifying the minerals in upcoming studies. Mixtures of different terrestrial minerals equivalent to those dominating the Martian surface with a grain size \u3c0.25 ​mm were prepared and analyzed in the laboratory by reflectance spectroscopy in the VNIR-SWIR range. The first derivatives were computed and correlated with the mineral concentration at specific wavelengths using the Unscrambler X software. The results indicated the first derivatives near 2300 ​nm, that is a characteristic absorption feature of olivine rich in magnesium and iron silicate, correlate strongly to the olivine content for all the mixtures containing olivine, binary and ternary, with regression coefficients ranging between 0.93 and 0.98. Additionally, the main advantage of this work is that first derivative spectra of mixtures with different olivine ratio highlights in the overlapping regions of the spectra the wavelengths where the first derivative values correlate strongly to the amount of olivine in the mixtures. The region near 1050–1300 ​nm was identified as a promising one for hematite-olivine mixtures and 785–900 ​nm for magnetite olivine, with a regression coefficient mean of 0.97 and 0.98, respectively. The study of hematite-plagioclase mixtures demonstrates that wavelengths near 785–858 ​nm and 940–989 ​nm lying within the overlapping regions of hematite and plagioclase exhibit robust correlation to the hematite content with a regression coefficient mean of 0.98 for both areas

Urinary miRNA profiles discriminate between obstruction-induced bladder dysfunction and healthy controls.

Urgency, frequency and incomplete emptying are the troublesome symptoms often shared between benign prostatic obstruction-induced (BLUTD) and neurogenic (NLUTD) lower urinary tract dysfunction. Previously, using bladder biopsies, we suggested a panel of miRNA biomarkers for different functional phenotypes of the bladder. Urine is a good source of circulating miRNAs, but sex- and age-matched controls are important for urinary metabolite comparison. In two groups of healthy subjects (average age 32 and 57 years old, respectively) the total protein and RNA content was very similar between age groups, but the number of secreted extracellular vesicles (uEVs) and expression of several miRNAs were higher in the young healthy male volunteers. Timing of urine collection was not important for these parameters. We also evaluated the suitability of urinary miRNAs for non-invasive diagnosis of bladder outlet obstruction (BOO). A three urinary miRNA signature (miR-10a-5p, miR-301b-3p and miR-363-3p) could discriminate between controls and patients with LUTD (BLUTD and NLUTD). This panel of representative miRNAs can be further explored to develop a non-invasive diagnostic test for BOO. The age-related discrepancy in the urinary miRNA content observed in this study points to the importance of selecting appropriate, age-matched controls