Pancreatoscopy-guided electrohydraulic lithotripsy in a patient with calcific chronic pancreatitis

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Phase transitions and crossovers in reaction-diffusion models with catalyst deactivation

The activity of catalytic materials is reduced during operation by several mechanisms, one of them being poisoning of catalytic sites by chemisorbed impurities or products. Here we study the effects of poisoning in two reaction-diffusion models in one-dimensional lattices with randomly distributed catalytic sites. Unimolecular and bimolecular single-species reactions are considered, without reactant input during the operation. The models show transitions between a phase with continuous decay of reactant concentration and a phase with asymptotic non-zero reactant concentration and complete poisoning of the catalyst. The transition boundary depends on the initial reactant and catalyst concentrations and on the poisoning probability. The critical system behaves as in the two-species annihilation reaction, with reactant concentration decaying as t^{-1/4} and the catalytic sites playing the role of the second species. In the unimolecular reaction, a significant crossover to the asymptotic scaling is observed even when one of those parameters is 10% far from criticality. Consequently, an effective power-law decay of concentration may persist up to long times and lead to an apparent change in the reaction kinetics. In the bimolecular single-species reaction, the critical scaling is followed by a two-dimensional rapid decay, thus two crossovers are found.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Endometriosis: A Rare Cause of Large Bowel Obstruction.

Large bowel obstruction can result in significant morbidity and mortality, especially in cases of acute complete obstruction. There are many possible causes, the most common in adults being colorectal cancer. Endometriosis is a benign disease, and the most affected extragenital location is the bowel, especially the rectosigmoid junction. However, transmural involvement and acute occlusion are very rare events. We report an exceptional case of acute large bowel obstruction as the initial presentation of endometriosis. The differential diagnosis of colorectal carcinoma may be challenging, and this case emphasizes the need to consider intestinal endometriosis in females at a fertile age presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms and an intestinal mass causing complete large bowel obstruction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Desempenho e avaliação das carcaças de borregos castrados ou inteiros terminados em confinamento.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o desempenho e a qualidade da carcaça de borregos castrados e inteiros terminados em confinamento

Text mining and ruin theory: a case study of research on risk models with dependence

This paper aims to analyze unstructured data using a text mining approach. The work was motivated in order to organize and structure research in Risk Theory. In our study, the subject to be analyzed is composed by 27 published papers of the risk and ruin theory topic, area of actuarial science. They were coded into 32 categories. For the purpose, all data was analyzed and figures were produced using the software NVivo 11 plus. Software NVivo is a specialized tool in analyzing unstructured data, although it is commonly used just for qualitative research. We used it for Quali-Quant analysisinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A public micro pension programme in Brazil : Heterogeneity among states and setting up of benefit age adjustment

Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world, despite of having a \High Human Development" it is the 9th most unequal country. The existing Brazilian micro pension programme is one of the safety nets for poor people. To become eligible for this benet, each person must have an income that is less than a quarter of the Brazilian minimum monthly wage and be either over 65 or considered disabled. That minimum income corresponds to approximately 2 dollars per day. This paper analyses quantitatively some aspects of this programme in the Public Pension System of Brazil. We look for the impact of some particular economic variables on the number of people receiving the benet, and seek if that impact signicantly diers among the 27 Brazilian Federal Units. We search for heterogeneity. We perform regression and spatial cluster analysis for detection of geographical grouping. We use a database that includes the entire population that receives the bene- t. Afterwards, we calculate the amount that the system spends with the beneciaries, estimate values per capita and the weight of each UF, searching for heterogeneity re ected on the amount spent per capita. In this latter calculation we use a more comprehensive database, by individual, that includes all people that started receiving a benet under the programme in the period from 2nd of January 2018 to 6th of April 2018. We compute the expected discounted benet and conrm a high heterogeneity among UF's as well as gender. We propose achieving a more equitable system by introducing `age adjusting factors' to change the benet age.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Initial measurements of black hole spin in GX 339-4 from Suzaku spectroscopy

We report on a deep Suzaku observation of the stellar-mass black hole GX 339-4 in outburst. A clear, strong, relativistically shaped iron emission line from the inner accretion disk is observed. The broadband disk reflection spectrum revealed is one of the most sensitive yet obtained from an accreting black hole. We fit the Suzaku spectra with a physically motivated disk reflection model, blurred by a new relativistic line function in which the black hole spin parameter is a variable. This procedure yielded a black hole spin parameter of a p. Joint modeling of these Suzaku spectra and prior XMM-Newton spectra obtained in two different 0.89 +/- 0.04 outburst phases yields a spin parameter of a = 0.93 +/- 0.01. The degree of consistency between these results suggests that disk reflection models allow for spin measurements that are not strongly biased by scattering effects. We suggest that the best value of the black hole spin parameter is a = 0.93 +/- 0.01 (statistical) +/- 0.04 (systematic). Although preliminary, these results represent the first direct measurement of nonzero spin in a stellar-mass black hole using relativistic line modeling