Human Mobility in Large Cities as a Proxy for Crime

We investigate at the subscale of the neighborhoods of a highly populated city the incidence of property crimes in terms of both the resident and the floating population. Our results show that a relevant allometric relation could only be observed between property crimes and floating population. More precisely, the evidence of a superlinear behavior indicates that a disproportional number of property crimes occurs in regions where an increased flow of people takes place in the city. For comparison, we also found that the number of crimes of peace disturbance only correlates well, and in a superlinear fashion too, with the resident population. Our study raises the interesting possibility that the superlinearity observed in previous studies [Bettencourt et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 7301 (2007) and Melo et al., Sci. Rep. 4, 6239 (2014)] for homicides versus population at the city scale could have its origin in the fact that the floating population, and not the resident one, should be taken as the relevant variable determining the intrinsic microdynamical behavior of the system.Comment: 17 pages, 8 Figure

New Criteria of Indication and Selection of Patients to Cochlear Implant

Numerous changes continue to occur in cochlear implant candidacy. In general, these have been accompanied by concomitant and satisfactory changes in surgical techniques. Together, this has advanced the utility and safety of cochlear implantation. Most devices are now approved for use in patients with severe to profound unilateral hearing loss rather then the prior requirement of a bilateral profound loss. Furthermore, studies have begun utilizing short electrode arrays for shallow insertion in patients with considerable low-frequency residual hearing. This technique will allow the recipient to continue to use acoustically amplified hearing for the low frequencies simultaneously with a cochlear implant for the high frequencies. The advances in design of, and indications for, cochlear implants have been matched by improvements in surgical techniques and decrease in complications. The resulting improvements in safety and efficacy have further encouraged the use of these devices. This paper will review the new concepts in the candidacy of cochlear implant. Medline data base was used to search articles dealing with the following topics: cochlear implant in younger children, cochlear implant and hearing preservation, cochlear implant for unilateral deafness and tinnitus, genetic hearing loss and cochlear implant, bilateral cochlear implant, neuropathy and cochlear implant and neural plasticity, and the selection of patients for cochlear implant

Characterization and strengthening a "ghost" building

In the middle of the eighties it was intended to build a one family dwelling at a North Portuguese Region, but a much bigger edification was constructed, without any design elements. At the end of the nineties this construction was acquired, and another architectonic and functional configuration was designed for this space. Since there were not any elements available for the existent construction, it was carried out several strategies for its geometrical, structural and material characterization. These elements gave the indispensable information for analysing the structural stability of the building, which revealed to be necessary to strengthen foundations, beams and columns. The procedures for characterizing the construction, the structural stability analysis and the strengthening strategies are described in the work

A New Spin on Galactic Dust

We present a new puzzle involving Galactic microwave emission and attempt to resolve it. On one hand, a cross-correlation analysis of the WHAM H-alpha map with the Tenerife 10 and 15 GHz maps shows that the well-known DIRBE correlated microwave emission cannot be dominated by free-free emission. On the other hand, recent high resolution observations in the 8-10 GHz range with the Green Bank 140 ft telescope by Finkbeiner et al. failed to find the corresponding 8 sigma signal that would be expected in the simplest spinning dust models. So what physical mechanism is causing this ubiquitous dust-correlated emission? We argue for a model predicting that spinning dust is the culprit after all, but that the corresponding small grains are well correlated with the larger grains seen at 100 micron only on large angular scales. In support of this grain segregation model, we find the best spinning dust template to involve higher frequency maps in the range 12-60 micron, where emission from transiently heated small grains is important. Upcoming CMB experiments such as ground-based interferometers, MAP and Planck LFI with high resolution at low frequencies should allow a definitive test of this model.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted ApJ version. 6 pages, 4 figs. Color figures and more foreground information at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~angelica/foreground.html#spin or from [email protected]

Spread of vaccinia virus to cattle herds, Argentina, 2011

To the Editor: Since 1999, several zoonotic outbreaks of vaccinia virus (VACV) infection have been reported in cattle and humans in rural areas of Brazil. The infections have caused exanthematous lesions on cows and persons who milk them, and thus are detrimental to the milk industry and public health services (1,2). In Brazil during the last decade, VACV outbreaks have been detected from the north to the extreme south of the country (1–4). Because Brazil shares extensive boundaries with other South American countries, humans and cattle on dairy and beef-producing farms in those countries may be at risk of exposure to VACV. To determine if VACV has spread from Brazil to Argentina, we investigated the presence of VACV in serum samples from cattle in Argentina.Facultad de Ciencias VeterinariasComisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la provincia de Buenos Aire

Meningoradiculitis Due To Cryptococcus Neofermans In An Immunocompetent Patient.

Meningoradiculitis refers to combined involvement of meninges and nerve roots. The most frequent location is the lumbosacral region. Etiology is diverse, including inflammatory, infectious and neoplastic disorders. Meningoradiculitis is a rare form of involvement in cryptococcal infection. We describe a case of subacute lower limbs flaccid paresis diagnosed as lumbosacral meningoradiculitis in view of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) inflammatory changes and typical enhancement on MRI of lumbar spine. Cryptococcus neoformans was isolated from CSF. Extensive screening yielded no immunodeficiencies.62147-

Spread of vaccinia virus to cattle herds, Argentina, 2011

To the Editor: Since 1999, several zoonotic outbreaks of vaccinia virus (VACV) infection have been reported in cattle and humans in rural areas of Brazil. The infections have caused exanthematous lesions on cows and persons who milk them, and thus are detrimental to the milk industry and public health services (1,2). In Brazil during the last decade, VACV outbreaks have been detected from the north to the extreme south of the country (1–4). Because Brazil shares extensive boundaries with other South American countries, humans and cattle on dairy and beef-producing farms in those countries may be at risk of exposure to VACV. To determine if VACV has spread from Brazil to Argentina, we investigated the presence of VACV in serum samples from cattle in Argentina.Facultad de Ciencias VeterinariasComisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la provincia de Buenos Aire

Renormalization-group study of Anderson and Kondo impurities in gapless Fermi systems

Thermodynamic properties are presented for four magnetic impurity models describing delocalized fermions scattering from a localized orbital at an energy-dependent rate $\Gamma(\epsilon)$ which vanishes precisely at the Fermi level, $\epsilon = 0$. Specifically, it is assumed that for small $|\epsilon|$, $\Gamma(\epsilon)\propto|\epsilon|^r$ with $r>0$. The cases $r=1$ and $r=2$ describe dilute magnetic impurities in unconventional superconductors, ``flux phases'' of the two-dimensional electron gas, and zero-gap semiconductors. For the nondegenerate Anderson model, the depression of the low-energy scattering rate suppresses mixed valence in favor of local-moment behavior, and leads to a marked reduction in the exchange coupling on entry to the local-moment regime, with a consequent narrowing of the range of parameters within which the impurity spin becomes Kondo-screened. The relationship between the Anderson model and the exactly screened Kondo model with power-law exchange is examined. The intermediate-coupling fixed point identified in the latter model by Withoff and Fradkin (WF) has clear signatures in the thermodynamic properties and in the local magnetic response of the impurity. The underscreened, impurity-spin-one Kondo model and the overscreened, two-channel Kondo model both exhibit a conditionally stable intermediate-coupling fixed point in addition to unstable fixed points of the WF type. In all four models, the presence or absence of particle-hole symmetry plays a crucial role.Comment: 44 two-column REVTex pages, 31 epsf-embedded EPS figures. MINOR formatting changes. To appear in Phys. Rev.