Juan Luis Guerra and the Merengue: Toward a New Dominican National Identity

This research monograph offers a historical account about the development of merengue in the Dominican Republic from the late 1800’s to the present

Clinical research training of Peruvian neurologists: a baseline assessment

In Peru, despite a strong clinical research infrastructure in Lima, and Masters degree programs in epidemiology at three universities, few neurologists participate in clinical research. It was our objective to identify perceived needs and opportunities for increasing clinical research capacity and training opportunities for Peruvian neurologists. We conducted a descriptive, cross-sectional survey of Peruvian neurologists in Lima and Arequipa, Peru. Forty-eight neurologists completed written surveys and oral interviews. All neurologists reported interest in clinical research, but noted that lack of time and financial resources limited their ability to participate. Although most neurologists had received some training in epidemiology and research design as medical students or residents, the majority felt these topics were not adequately covered. Neurologists in Arequipa noted international funding for clinical research was uncommon outside the capital city of Lima. We concluded that clinical research is important to Peruvian neurologists. The three main barriers to increased participation in clinical research identified by neurologists were insufficient training in clinical research methodology, meager funding opportunities, and lack of dedicated time to participate in clinical research. Distance learning holds promise as a method for providing additional training in clinical research methodology, especially for neurologists who may have difficulty traveling to larger cities for additional training

Advancing cognitive engineering methods to support user interface design for electronic health records

Background Despite many decades of research on the effective development of clinical systems in medicine, the adoption of health information technology to improve patient care continues to be slow, especially in ambulatory settings. This applies to dentistry as well, a primary care discipline with approximately 137,000 practitioners in the United States. A critical reason for slow adoption is the poor usability of clinical systems, which makes it difficult for providers to navigate through the information and obtain an integrated view of patient data. Objective In this study, we documented the cognitive processes and information management strategies used by dentists during a typical patient examination. The results will inform the design of a novel electronic dental record interface. Methods We conducted a cognitive task analysis (CTA) study to observe ten general dentists (five general dentists and five general dental faculty members, each with more than two years of clinical experience) examining three simulated patient cases using a think-aloud protocol. Results Dentists first reviewed the patient’s demographics, chief complaint, medical history and dental history to determine the general status of the patient. Subsequently, they proceeded to examine the patient’s intraoral status using radiographs, intraoral images, hard tissue and periodontal tissue information. The results also identified dentists’ patterns of navigation through patient’s information and additional information needs during a typical clinician-patient encounter. Conclusion This study reinforced the significance of applying cognitive engineering methods to inform the design of a clinical system. Second, applying CTA to a scenario closely simulating an actual patient encounter helped with capturing participants’ knowledge states and decision-making when diagnosing and treating a patient. The resultant knowledge of dentists’ patterns of information retrieval and review will significantly contribute to designing flexible and task-appropriate information presentation in electronic dental records

Intertidal zone particulate organic carbon redistribution by low-tide rainfall

We present field data and data from the literature to highlight the effects of low-tide rainfall on particulate organic carbon (POC) redistribution in intertidal landscapes. The POC exchanges reported from disparate but related studies were standardized to a storm-induced exchange rate (gPOC m⁻² mmRain⁻¹) and compared. Results show that these intertidal areas have a characteristic response to rainfall with an average flux of 0.040 ± 0.038 gPOC m⁻² mmRain⁻¹. Further, low-tide rainfall can entrain and redistribute 7–54% of annual sedimentary POC accumulation, or 12–75% of annual POC export, based on current outwelling assessments. Finally, we provide a conceptual model describing the variability of rainfall-driven POC exchange through the hierarchical structure of intertidal landscapes and how observations of POC flux can be expected to change across the intertidal landscape. This information should be used to guide sampling strategies for continued intertidal zone rainfall work.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is copyrighted by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. It can be found at: http://www.aslo.org/lo/index.htm

Mineralogía de la roca hospedante y menas de uranio en el campo volcánico de Quenamari

El trabajo se realizó en el marco del Proyecto GE25: “Metalogenia del Uranio en las Regiones de Cusco y Puno” en la Dirección de Recursos Minerales y Energéticos del Instituto Geológico Minero y Metalúrgico (INGEMMET). El estudio consiste caracterizar macroscópicamente y microscópicamente la mineralógica de las rocas hospedantes y menas de las ocurrencias de uranio en el Campo Volcánico de Quenamari

Bilateral symmetry breaking in a nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity exhibiting optical tristability

We show the existence of a region in the parameter space that defines the field dynamics in a Fabry-Perot cylindrical cavity, where three output stable stationary states of the light are possible for a given localized incident field. Two of these states do not preserve the bilateral (i.e. left-right) symmetry of the entire system. These broken-symmetry states are the high-transmission nonlinear modes of the system. We also discuss how to excite these states.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

On the formation of hot Neptunes and super-Earths

The discovery of short-period Neptune-mass objects, now including the remarkable system HD69830 (Lovis et al. 2006) with three Neptune analogues, raises difficult questions about current formation models which may require a global treatment of the protoplanetary disc. Several formation scenarios have been proposed, where most combine the canonical oligarchic picture of core accretion with type I migration (e.g. Terquem & Papaloizou 2007) and planetary atmosphere physics (e.g. Alibert et al. 2006). To date, published studies have considered only a small number of progenitors at late times. This leaves unaddressed important questions about the global viability of the models. We seek to determine whether the most natural model -- namely, taking the canonical oligarchic picture of core accretion and introducing type I migration -- can succeed in forming objects of 10 Earth masses and more in the innermost parts of the disc. This problem is investigated using both traditional semianalytic methods for modelling oligarchic growth as well as a new parallel multi-zone N-body code designed specifically for treating planetary formation problems with large dynamic range (McNeil & Nelson 2009). We find that it is extremely difficult for oligarchic tidal migration models to reproduce the observed distribution. Even under many variations of the typical parameters, we form no objects of mass greater than 8 Earth masses. By comparison, it is relatively straightforward to form icy super-Earths. We conclude that either the initial conditions of the protoplanetary discs in short-period Neptune systems were substantially different from the standard disc models we used, or there is important physics yet to be understood.Comment: 19 pages, 18 figures. Final version accepted to MNRAS 30 September 200

Novel Wireless Sensor System for Dynamic Characterization of Borehole Heat Exchangers

The design and field test of a novel sensor system based in autonomous wireless sensors to measure the temperature of the heat transfer fluid along a borehole heat exchanger (BHE) is presented. The system, by means of two specials valves, inserts and extracts miniaturized wireless sensors inside the pipes of the borehole, which are carried by the thermal fluid. Each sensor is embedded in a small sphere of just 25 mm diameter and 8 gr weight, containing a transceiver, a microcontroller, a temperature sensor and a power supply. A wireless data processing unit transmits to the sensors the acquisition configuration before the measurements, and also downloads the temperature data measured by the sensor along its way through the BHE U-tube. This sensor system is intended to improve the conventional thermal response test (TRT) and it allows the collection of information about the thermal characteristics of the geological structure of subsurface and its influence in borehole thermal behaviour, which in turn, facilitates the implementation of TRTs in a more cost-effective and reliable way

Unveiling the Cygnus OB2 stellar population with Chandra

The aim of this work is to identify the so far unknown low mass stellar population of the ~2Myr old Cygnus OB2 region, and to investigate the X-ray and near-IR stellar properties of its members. We analyzed a 97.7 ksec Chandra ACIS-I observation pointed at the core of the Cygnus OB2 region. X-ray variability ans spectral analysis of sources was characterized through the KS-test and XSPEC thermal models, respectively. We detected 1003 X-ray sources. Of these, 775 have near-IR counterparts associated with Cygnus OB2 members. We estimate a typical absorption toward Cygnus OB2 of Av~7.0 mag. Although the region is young, very few stars (~4.4 %) show disk-induced excesses in the near-IR. X-ray variability is detected in ~13 % of the sources. Flares account for at least 60 % of the variability. O- that early B-type stars are not significantly variable. Typical X-ray spectral parameters are log(Nh)~22.25 and kT~1.35 keV. Variable and flaring sources have harder spectra with median kT=3.3 and 3.8 keV, respectively. OB stars are typically softer (kT~0.75 keV). X-ray luminosities range between 1E+30 and 1E+31 erg/s for intermediate- and low-mass stars, and 2.5x10^30 and between 6.3E+33 erg/s for OB stars. The Cygnus OB2 region has a very rich population of low-mass X-ray emitting stars. Circumstellar disks seem to be very scarce.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 20 pages, 17 figure