Conversion Matrix Method of Moments for Time-Varying Electromagnetic Analysis

A conversion matrix approach to solving network problems involving time-varying circuit components is applied to the method of moments for electromagnetic scattering analysis. Detailed formulations of this technique's application to the scattering analysis of structures loaded with time-varying circuit networks or constructed from general time-varying media are presented. The computational cost of the method is discussed, along with an analysis of compression techniques capable of significantly reducing computational cost for partially loaded systems. Several numerical examples demonstrate the capabilities of the technique along with its validation against conventional methods of modeling time-varying electromagnetic systems, such as finite difference time domain and transient circuit co-simulation.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Model of organizational management: barriers and opportunities in thecreation and strengthening of an institutional network of healthresearch. Descriptive study of transverse cutting

La gestión implica comprender la lógica de las instituciones para poder construir redes de trabajo que significan interrelación entre sujetos, organizaciones e instituciones, considerar las micro prácticas locales para la implementación de prácticas contextualizadas Objetivo: describir los factores que favorecen y/u obstaculizan la constitución de una red institucional de investigación para la salud, desde las percepciones de los distintos actores del ministerio de salud de las provincias del nuevo cuyo y de las instituciones académicas de Mendoza

Modelo de gestión organizacional: barreras y oportunidades en la conformación y fortalecimiento de una red institucional de investigación en salud

En este proyecto se pretende describir los factores que favorecen y/u obstaculizan la constitución de una red institucional de investigación para la salud, desde las propias expresiones de los actores/agentes del Estado (Ministerio de Salud) y de las instituciones académicas de la provincia de Mendoza. Es un estudio descriptivo de corte transversal, que realizará un análisis centrado en el concepto de problema, desde la concepción de planificación situacional. Se utilizarán técnicas de recolección de información con una metodología mixta cuanti y cualitativa. La población accesible de este estudio está conformada por las áreas de investigación formalmente establecidas, por norma, de los ministerios de Salud de las provincias de Mendoza, San Luis y La Rioja y las Universidades con sus unidades académicas y/o facultades del sector público y privado de la provincia de Mendoza, quedando excluidas las universidades y/o facultades que no posean carreras afines a la salud de la provincia de Mendoza, y el área de investigación del ministerio de Salud de San Juan por no contar con referente técnico de investigación a nivel ministerial. Se pretende indagar sobre factores que permitan la posterior elaboración de indicadores para medir las acciones de la red local y la posible construcción de una red regional como política de Salud

(Photo)physical properties of new molecular glasses end-capped with thiophene rings composed of diimide and imine units

New symmetrical arylene bisimide derivatives formed by using electron-donating-electron-accepting systems were synthesized. They consist of a phthalic diimide or naphthalenediimide core and imine linkages and are end-capped with thiophene, bithiophene, and (ethylenedioxy)thiophene units. Moreover, polymers were obtained from a new diamine, N,N′-bis(5- aminonaphthalenyl)naphthalene-1,4,5,8-dicarboximide and 2,5- thiophenedicarboxaldehyde or 2,2′-bithiophene-5,5′-dicarboxaldehyde. The prepared azomethine diimides exhibited glass-forming properties. The obtained compounds emitted blue light with the emission maximum at 470 nm. The value of the absorption coefficient was determined as a function of the photon energy using spectroscopic ellipsometry. All compounds are electrochemically active and undergo reversible electrochemical reduction and irreversible oxidation processes as was found in cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) studies. They exhibited a low electrochemically (DPV) calculated energy band gap (Eg) from 1.14 to 1.70 eV. The highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital levels and Eg were additionally calculated theoretically by density functional theory at the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) level. The photovoltaic properties of two model compounds as the active layer in organic solar cells in the configuration indium tin oxide/poly(3,4-(ethylenedioxy)thiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)/active layer/Al under an illumination of 1.3 mW/cm2 were studied. The device comprising poly(3-hexylthiophene) with the compound end-capped with bithiophene rings showed the highest value of Voc (above 1 V). The conversion efficiency of the fabricated solar cell was in the range of 0.69-0.90%

Olfactory discrimination predicts cognitive decline among community-dwelling older adults

The presence of olfactory dysfunction in individuals at higher risk of Alzheimer's disease has significant diagnostic and screening implications for preventive and ameliorative drug trials. Olfactory threshold, discrimination and identification can be reliably recorded in the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases. The current study has examined the ability of various olfactory functions in predicting cognitive decline in a community-dwelling sample. A group of 308 participants, aged 46–86 years old, were recruited for this study. After 3 years of follow-up, participants were divided into cognitively declined and non-declined groups based on their performance on a neuropsychological battery. Assessment of olfactory functions using the Sniffin' Sticks battery indicated that, contrary to previous findings, olfactory discrimination, but not olfactory identification, significantly predicted subsequent cognitive decline (odds ratio=0.869; P<0.05; 95% confidence interval=0.764−0.988). The current study findings confirm previously reported associations between olfactory and cognitive functions, and indicate that impairment in olfactory discrimination can predict future cognitive decline. These findings further our current understanding of the association between cognition and olfaction, and support olfactory assessment in screening those at higher risk of dementia

Psycholinguistic variables matter in odor naming

People from Western societies generally find it difficult to name odors. In trying to explain this, the olfactory literature has proposed several theories that focus heavily on properties of the odor itself but rarely discuss properties of the label used to describe it. However, recent studies show speakers of languages with dedicated smell lexicons can name odors with relative ease. Has the role of the lexicon been overlooked in the olfactory literature? Word production studies show properties of the label, such as word frequency and semantic context, influence naming; but this field of research focuses heavily on the visual domain. The current study combines methods from both fields to investigate word production for olfaction in two experiments. In the first experiment, participants named odors whose veridical labels were either high-frequency or low-frequency words in Dutch, and we found that odors with high-frequency labels were named correctly more often. In the second experiment, edibility was used for manipulating semantic context in search of a semantic interference effect, presenting the odors in blocks of edible and inedible odor source objects to half of the participants. While no evidence was found for a semantic interference effect, an effect of word frequency was again present. Our results demonstrate psycholinguistic variables-such as word frequency-are relevant for olfactory naming, and may, in part, explain why it is difficult to name odors in certain languages. Olfactory researchers cannot afford to ignore properties of an odor's label