Detection of Cathinone and Mephedrone in Plasma by LC-MS/MS Using Standard Addition Quantification Technique

Designer drugs are structural analogs of Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Schedule I and II substances. They are synthesized to mimic the effects of illegal drugs of abuse and to bypass the provisions of drug regulations. Despite the increased availability of designer drugs, few studies have focused on specific analytical extraction techniques for their detection and quantification in biological samples. Solid phase extraction (SPE) is the most commonly used technique for sample preparation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the extraction efficiency of the various SPE columns with different sorbent materials for two designer drugs, cathinone and mephedrone in sheep plasma using LC-MS/MS as well as to evaluate the standard addition quantification technique. SPE columns used in this study were Phenomenex Strata X-C strong cation mixed mode column, Phenomenex Strata X Drug B strong cation mixed mode column and SupelTM HLB hydrophilic modified styrene polymer column. The Phenomenex Strata X-Drug B strong cation cartridge was found to have the best retention profile for our analytes. Percent recovery of initial cathinone concentration was 137.6, 93.6 and 103.6% for 10, 33 and 100ng/mL cathinone respectively using the standard addition method with the X-intercept and 120.9, 91.1 and 103.2% with calculations based on the Y-intercept. Percent recovery of initial mephedrone concentration was 191.9, 105.7 and 116.7% for 10, 33 and 100ng/mL mephedrone respectively using the standard addition method with the X-intercept and 153.5, 97.1 and 115.1% using the Y-intercept

Challenges and Roles of Extension Workers on Cyber Extension as Information Media

Agriculture has been developing, which attracts more attention from all aspects of the economy. Besides, the industrialization of agriculture is the process of transforming agricultural production towards a comprehensive industrial direction in all aspects such as implementing livestock industry or agricultural mechanization, modernization of farming process, production in the form of modern farming (intensive farming, increasing crops, fertilizing in cultivation, and animal production). Thanks to the application of science, technology, and technology in the agricultural sector, agriculture activities have improved their productivity. Agricultural products include cattle, fish, poultry, and crops. The methods include economic institutions (economic laws such as supply and demand, value, competition) and legal, political institutions. One of the methods to implement agriculture extension is a cyber extension or using the power of online networks, computer communications, and digital interactive multimedia. The paper aimed to provide an overview of cyber extension in the context of agriculture development. Keywords: Cyber extension, agriculture extension, adoption, agricultural developmen

Proceso gerencial para la ejecuci?n del proyecto de dise?o y construcci?n de m?dulos habitacionales para estudiantes de educaci?n superior en la ciudad de Girardot

126 P?ginasRecurso Electr?nicoEl acceso a la educaci?n superior para los j?venes en Colombia es mayor que hace una d?cada, la competitividad y profesionalizaci?n de la mano de obra del pa?s ha generado la necesidad de la realizaci?n de estudios posteriores al bachillerato e incluso del aumento en la demanda de estudios de postgrado. Es importante citar que el Municipio de Girardot es el principal centro urbano de la regi?n, el cual aglutina la mayor poblaci?n de estudiantes de educaci?n superior, con amplia oferta de instituciones educativas, tanto p?blicas como privadas que ofrecen carreras t?cnicas, tecnol?gicas y profesionales, haciendo de ?sta una opci?n atractiva para los futuros bachilleres de las poblaciones aleda?as y propias de la ciudad. El objetivo del presente proyecto, es el dise?o, ejecuci?n y adecuaci?n de dos m?dulos habitacionales para estudiantes de educaci?n superior, donde encuentren satisfacci?n a sus necesidades de vivienda. No se pretende un modelo solamente habitacional, sino un modelo de mejoramiento de entorno, motivando el desarrollo de una metr?poli universitaria que crece cada d?a con estudiantes for?neos, por lo que se requiere tener en cuenta que el h?bitat a ofrecerles se deben reducir las condiciones carentes, y limitantes que se encuentran en la oferta habitacional actual. Se establecen resultados y entregables como son el presupuesto, plan de inversi?n, cronogramas, plan de manejo ambiental y de riesgos y los recursos necesarios para el logro de los objetivos propuestos, as? mismo se plasman en este documento todas las etapas conformadas en la ejecuci?n del proyecto.ABSTRACT The acces to higher education to young people in Colombia is bigger than a decade ago, the competitiveness y profesionalization of manpower in the country has generate the needing of realization of posterior studies to high school and even the rise on demand of postgrade studies. It is important to quote that the municipality of Girardot is the principal urban center in the region, which has the most student population of higher education, with a wide offert of educational institutes, public and private that offers technincal, technological and profesional careers, making it an atractive option to the next high school graduates of the around and of the city. The target of the present project, is the design, execution and adequacy of two housing modules to higher education student, where they can find satisfaction to them house needs. The idea is not just to make an housing model, is to make a model of improving of the environment, motivating the development of a universitary metropoli that grows up every day with foreign students, thats why it requires to realize that the in habitat to offer, should be reduced the lacking conditions and limiting that we can find in the housing offer in present. Results will be setted and appendages as the budget, investment plan, schedule, environmental management plan and risks, and the necessary resources to the achievement of the objectives, and all the stages of the project execution will be displayed.INTRODUCCI?N 17 1. DEFINICI?N Y PLANTEAMIENTO DEL PROBLEMA 18 2. JUSTIFICACI?N 19 3. OBJETIVOS 20 3.1. OBJETIVO GENERAL 20 3.2. OBJETIVOS ESPEC?FICOS 20 4. METODOLOG?A 21 5. DESCRIPCI?N GENERAL DEL PROYECTO 24 5.1. T?TULO O NOMBRE DEL PROYECTO 24 5.2. ENTIDADES RESPONSABLES O FORMULADORES 24 5.3. NECESIDADES QUE ORIGINA EL PROYECTO 24 5.4. SOLUCI?N A LA NECESIDAD 24 5.5. VIABILIDAD DE MERCADO 25 5.6. VIABILIDAD T?CNICA. 25 5.7. VIABILIDAD ADMINISTRATIVA Y LEGAL 26 5.8. VIABILIDAD AMBIENTAL 27 5.9. EVALUACI?N FINANCIERA Y ECON?MICA 28 6. EL CONTEXTO DEL PROYECTO 29 6.1. ENTORNO ECON?MICO Y FINANCIERO 29 6.1.1. Producto interno bruto 29 6.1.2. Inflaci?n 29 6.1.3. Tasa de Inter?s 29 6.1.4. An?lisis de variables 30 6.1.5. Valor presente neto (VPN) 30 6.1.6. Tasa interna de retorno (TIR) 30 6.1.7. Relaci?n beneficio ? Costo RBC 31 6.1.8. Periodo de recuperaci?n de la inversi?n 31 6.2. ENTORNO TECNOL?GICO 31 6.2.1. Conectividad y comunicaciones 31 6.3. ENTORNO POL?TICO 32 6.4. ENTORNO AMBIENTAL 32 6.5. ENTORNO SOCIAL 33 7. EL TALENTO HUMANO Y SU PAPEL PROTAG?NICO EN LA GERENCIA DEL PROYECTO 34 7.1. LA ESTRUCTURA ORGANIZACIONAL PARA LA EJECUCI?N DEL PROYECTO 34 7.2. PROCESOS DE SELECCI?N DEL GERENTE DE PROYECTO Y SU EQUIPO NUCLEAR 34 7.2.1. Proceso de selecci?n del gerente de proyectos 35 7.2.1.1. Reclutamiento 35 7.2.1.2. Selecci?n de personal 35 7.2.1.3. Ficha t?cnica Profesiogr?fica 36 7.2.2. Proceso de selecci?n del equipo nuclear 36 7.2.2.1. Reclutamiento y selecci?n de personal 36 7.2.2.2. Ficha t?cnica Profesiogr?fica 36 7.2.3. Calificaci?n 37 7.2.4. Contrataci?n 40 7.3. MODELO GERENCIAL APLICADO A LA EJECUCI?N DEL PROYECTO 41 7.3.1. Caracter?sticas de la APO 42 7.3.2. Como aplicaremos la APO 43 7.3.3. Estilo de liderazgo 43 7.4. ESTRATEGIA PARA GERENCIAR EL TALENTO HUMANO RESPONSABLE DE LA EJECUCI?N DEL PROYECTO 44 7.5. EL SISTEMA DE INFORMACI?N Y COMUNICACI?N PARA LA EJECUCI?N DEL PROYECTO 45 7.5.1. Informaci?n general del proyecto 45 7.5.2. Prop?sitos 45 7.5.3. Procedimientos acordados para la etapa de ejecuci?n 45 7.5.3.1. Procedimiento de selecci?n de outsourcing 45 7.5.3.2. Procedimiento de selecci?n gerente de proyectos y equipo nuclear 46 7.5.4. Sistema de comunicaci?n 46 7.5.4.1. Planificaci?n de la informaci?n 46 9 7.5.4.2. Difusi?n de la informaci?n (tecnolog?a) 47 7.5.5. Informes 47 7.5.6. Cierre administrativo 48 7.5.7. Reportes de desempe?o 48 7.5.7.1. Formatos 48 8. LA GERENCIA DEL PROYECTO 49 8.1. INICIO 49 8.2. PLANIFICACI?N 49 8.2.1. Objetivos generales de la ejecuci?n 49 8.2.2. Objetivos espec?ficos de la ejecuci?n 49 8.3. GESTI?N DEL ALCANCE 50 8.3.1. Acta de constituci?n del proyecto 50 8.3.2. Estructura de divisi?n del trabajo (EDT) 50 8.3.3. Descripci?n de actividades 50 8.3.4. Matriz de responsabilidades 50 8.4. GESTI?N DEL TIEMPO 50 8.4.1. Duraci?n de Actividades 50 8.4.2. Matriz de precedencias 51 8.4.3. Programa para la ejecuci?n del proyecto 52 8.4.4. Matriz de programaci?n 53 8.4.5. Red del Proyecto- Red y Gantt de la ejecuci?n del proyecto 53 8.4.6. Ruta cr?tica 54 8.4.7. Diagrama de Gantt 54 8.5. GESTI?N DEL COSTO 54 8.5.1. Inversiones fijas 54 8.5.2. Inversiones diferidas 55 8.5.3. Costo por actividades - estructura de costos 56 8.5.4. Descripci?n del flujo de caja de la ejecuci?n 60 8.5.5. Plan de desembolsos 60 8.5.5.1. Plan de desembolsos outsourcing de dise?o 60 8.5.5.2. Plan de desembolsos outsourcing de construcci?n 61 8.5.5.3. Estimaci?n de costos 62 8.5.5.4. Factores tenidos en cuenta para la estimaci?n de costos 63 8.6. GESTI?N DE RIESGO 63 8.6.1. Identificaci?n de riesgos 63 8.6.2. Clasificaci?n delos riesgos externos 64 8.6.2.1. Ambiente general 64 8.6.2.2. Ambiente sectorial o industrial 64 8.6.3. Clasificaci?n delos riesgos internos 66 8.6.3.1. Recursos y capacidades directivos 66 8.6.3.2. Recursos y capacidades financieros 67 8.6.3.3. Desconfianza con los trabajadores del proyecto 67 11 8.7. CONTROL 68 8.7.1. Reuniones semanales de evaluaci?n 69 8.7.2. Reuniones extraordinarias 69 8.7.3. Medici?n de los tiempos y costos de actividades 70 8.7.4. Lista de seguimiento de actividades y responsables 70 8.8. CIERRE 70 8.8.1. Acta de terminaci?n 70 8.8.2. Actas de liquidaci?n 70 8.9. APLICACI?N DEL PROJECT 71 9. CONTRATACI?N PARA LA EJECUCI?N DEL PROYECTO 72 9.1. CONTRATACI?N DEL GERENTE DEL PROYECTO 72 9.1.1. Contrataci?n del equipo nuclear 72 9.1.2. Contrato de Prestaci?n de Servicios 72 9.1.3. Contrato a t?rmino fijo 72 9.1.4. Contrato de outsourcing de Dise?o y construcci?n 72 10. CONCLUSIONES 73 11. RECOMENDACIONES 74 REFERENCIAS 75 ANEXOS 7

Techniques of replica symmetry breaking and the storage problem of the McCulloch-Pitts neuron

In this article the framework for Parisi's spontaneous replica symmetry breaking is reviewed, and subsequently applied to the example of the statistical mechanical description of the storage properties of a McCulloch-Pitts neuron. The technical details are reviewed extensively, with regard to the wide range of systems where the method may be applied. Parisi's partial differential equation and related differential equations are discussed, and a Green function technique introduced for the calculation of replica averages, the key to determining the averages of physical quantities. The ensuing graph rules involve only tree graphs, as appropriate for a mean-field-like model. The lowest order Ward-Takahashi identity is recovered analytically and is shown to lead to the Goldstone modes in continuous replica symmetry breaking phases. The need for a replica symmetry breaking theory in the storage problem of the neuron has arisen due to the thermodynamical instability of formerly given solutions. Variational forms for the neuron's free energy are derived in terms of the order parameter function x(q), for different prior distribution of synapses. Analytically in the high temperature limit and numerically in generic cases various phases are identified, among them one similar to the Parisi phase in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. Extensive quantities like the error per pattern change slightly with respect to the known unstable solutions, but there is a significant difference in the distribution of non-extensive quantities like the synaptic overlaps and the pattern storage stability parameter. A simulation result is also reviewed and compared to the prediction of the theory.Comment: 103 Latex pages (with REVTeX 3.0), including 15 figures (ps, epsi, eepic), accepted for Physics Report

Enhanced adhesion from high energy ion irradiation

We have found that irradiation of a variety of thin film-substrate combinations by heavy ion beams at energies of mega-electronvolts per atomic mass unit will produce a remarkable enhancement in the adherence of the film. For example, gold films can be firmly attached to soft materials such as Teflon using a 1 MeV beam of protons (10^(14) cm^(−2)) or helium ions (10^(13) cm^(−2)) and to harder materials such as silicon (10^(15) cm^(−2)), quartz (2 × 10^(15) cm^(−2)) and tungsten (2 × 10^(14) cm^(−2)) with 0.5 MeV a.m.u.^(−1) beams of fluorine or chlorine ions. In the case of metal films on semiconductors a low resistance contact results. The mixed layer at the interface is observed to be quite thin (approximately 50 Å or less); for silver on silicon electron diffraction and imaging studies of the interface region reveal the presence of crystalline silver compounds

Timing characterization of OpenMP4 tasking model

OpenMP is increasingly being supported by the newest high-end embedded many-core processors. Despite the lack of any notion of real-time execution, the latest specification of OpenMP (v4.0) introduces a tasking model that resembles the way real-time embedded applications are modeled and designed, i.e., as a set of periodic task graphs. This makes OpenMP4 a convenient candidate to be adopted in future real-time systems. However, OpenMP4 incorporates as well features to guarantee backward compatibility with previous versions that limit its practical usability in real-time systems. The most notable example is the distinction between tied and untied tasks. Tied tasks force all parts of a task to be executed on the same thread that started the execution, whereas a suspended untied task is allowed to resume execution on a different thread. Moreover, tied tasks are forbidden to be scheduled in threads in which other non-descendant tied tasks are suspended. As a result, the execution model of tied tasks, which is the default model in OpenMP to simplify the coexistence with legacy constructs, clearly restricts the performance and has serious implications on the response time analysis of OpenMP4 applications, making difficult to adopt it in real-time environments. In this paper, we revisit OpenMP design choices, introducing timing predictability as a new and key metric of interest. Our first results confirm that even if tied tasks can be timing analyzed, the quality of the analysis is much worse than with untied tasks. We thus reason about the benefits of using untied tasks, deriving a response time analysis for this model, and so allowing OpenMP4 untied model to be applied to real-time systems

Generation of ring-shaped optical vortices in dissipative media by inhomogeneous effective diffusion

By means of systematic simulations we demonstrate generation of a variety of ring-shaped optical vortices (OVs) from a two-dimensional input with embedded vorticity, in a dissipative medium modeled by the cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with an inhomogeneous effective diffusion (spatial-filtering) term, which is anisotropic in the transverse plane and periodically modulated in the longitudinal direction. We show the generation of stable square- and gear-shaped OVs, as well as tilted oval-shaped vortex rings, and string-shaped bound states built of a central fundamental soliton and two vortex satellites, or of three fundamental solitons. Their shape can be adjusted by tuning the strength and modulation period of the inhomogeneous diffusion. Stability domains of the generated OVs are identified by varying the vorticity of the input and parameters of the inhomogeneous diffusion. The results suggest a method to generate new types of ring-shaped OVs with applications to the work with structured light.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures; Nonlinear Dynamics, in pres

Effect of Iodine Doping on Bi2_{2}Sr2_{2}Ca1_{1}Cu2_{2}Ox_{x}: Charge Transfer or Interlayer Coupling?

A comparative study has been made of iodine-intercalated Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$Ca$_{1}$Cu$_{2}$O$_{x}$ single crystal and 1 atm O$_{2}$ annealed Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$Ca$_{1}$Cu$_{1}$O$_{x}$ single crystal using AC susceptibility measurement, X-ray photoemission (XPS) and angle-resolved ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (ARUPS). AC susceptibility measurement indicates that O$_{2}$-doped samples studied have T$_{c}$ of 84 $^{o}$K, whereas T$_{c}$ of Iodine-doped samples studied are 80 $^{o}$K. XPS Cu 2p core level data establish that the hole concentration in the CuO$_{2}$ planes are essentially the same for these two kinds of samples. ARUPS measurements show that electronic structure of the normal states near the Fermi level has been strongly affected by iodine intercalation. We conclude that the dominant effect of iodine doping is to alter the interlayer coupling.Comment: LBL 9 pages, APS_Revtex. 5 Figures, available upon request. UW-Madison preprin

Innovating Management Control by Dynamic Analysis of Pareto in a Hotel Business

This paper deals with the Pareto Analysis of problems observed and criticized by clients in a hotel establishment in the municipality of Porto Velho, capital of the State of Rondocirc;nia. The general objective of the research is to study the use of Pareto Analysis in these problems that annoy the clients; (1), to group the data in descending order of frequency and to calculate the cumulative values (2), and indicating innovation for managerial control through a tool for Pareto Analysis in a dynamical way (3). The methodology of the qualitative-quantitative approach, of an exploratory nature, is adopted; the bibliographic survey and the field research are applied in support of the case study. Through the database system that the company under study possesses, the data necessary to be used in the Pareto Analysis are obtained, completing the first specific objective; the grouping of these data in descending order of absolute frequency, the calculation of the cumulative values, the preparation of the Pareto Diagram and the analysis carried out successfully completed the second specific objective; and finally the study is finished with the creation of a tool that allows a more dynamic analysis of the scenario in which the company is inserted, as a proposal of innovation for the institution to perform its practical and dynamic analyzes, useful in decision making. This study is a contribution of the academy to managers who work with complex decisions in hotel or related establishments interested in customer satisfaction