Fighting Novel Diseases amidst Humanitarian Crises

Humanitarian crises are becoming more prevalent and, frequently, more complex, in zones of mis-governance, lack of government presence, and even active conflict, marked by public mistrust and insecurity. The WHO and other health emergency responders lack the capacities and mandate to adequately respond. The current Ebola outbreak in an area of an active insurgency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is just such a crisis. The State Department has banned U.S. personnel from the outbreak zone due to safety concerns, leaving the population feeling abandoned, potentially increasing the threat to the few brave health workers who remain. We need is to rethink health emergency response during complex crises and devise new strategies. We offer a blueprint for responding to health emergencies amidst complex humanitarian crises. This blueprint includes peacekeepers who have the mandate and modalities fit for the purpose of quelling a health emergency; “smart” diplomacy to negotiate with belligerents and community members to ensure health and humanitarian worker safety; and deploying all needed health, security, and diplomatic assets. We also call for international development assistance for health, including to support states in developing core public health capacities, creating inclusive health systems, and meeting other need like clean water and nutritious food. Political actors will need to assume their responsibilities if humanitarians and health workers are to carry out theirs

Design and simulation of thin-film silicon quantum well photovoltaic cell

A new thin-film silicon photovoltaic cell could be designed by inserting quantum well layers in the intrinsic region. Calculations show the improvement in spectral absorption due to the quantum well layer insertion. This article reports the design parameters and enhanced spectral absorption for a newly designed thin-film silicon quantum well photovoltaic cell. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/1057

Mill House Refractories

Some of the important aspects involved in designing a furnace relate generally to (I) robustness of construction (2) ease of control, (3) ease of maintenance and (4) maximum utilisation of heat energy produced in the furn- ace. With a view to ensuring improved performances, the reheating and heat treatment furnaces are now being designed as complicated and precise units In place of simple bricklined boxes, hitherto employed. The demand on the quality of refractories for application in the different zones of such furnaces have become increasingly stringent

Phosphate bonded monolithics for reheating furnaces

Use of monolithic construction in reheating furnaces for roofs, hearths and burner blocks is gradually on the increase, Phosphate bonded sintered corundum and electro corundum have been reportedly used with considerable success in U. S. S. R. N. V. Pitak3 etal observed that such ramming mass for the bottoms of soaking pit furnaces offered high resistances to thermal shock and to action of ferrunginous 'slag at elevated temperature. According to S. R. Zamyatin4 etal phosphate bonded fireclay blocks could be recommended for use in blooming soaking pits

Magnetic and structural properties of GeMn films: precipitation of intermetallic nanomagnets

We present a comprehensive study relating the nanostructure of Ge_0.95Mn_0.05 films to their magnetic properties. The formation of ferromagnetic nanometer sized inclusions in a defect free Ge matrix fabricated by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy is observed down to substrate temperatures T_S as low as 70 deg. Celsius. A combined transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) analysis of the films identifies the inclusions as precipitates of the ferromagnetic compound Mn_5Ge_3. The volume and amount of these precipitates decreases with decreasing T_S. Magnetometry of the films containing precipitates reveals distinct temperature ranges: Between the characteristic ferromagnetic transition temperature of Mn_5Ge_3 at approximately room temperature and a lower, T_S dependent blocking temperature T_B the magnetic properties are dominated by superparamagnetism of the Mn_5Ge_3 precipitates. Below T_B, the magnetic signature of ferromagnetic precipitates with blocked magnetic moments is observed. At the lowest temperatures, the films show features characteristic for a metastable state.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B 74 (01.12.2006). High resolution images ibide

Pricing Options in Incomplete Equity Markets via the Instantaneous Sharpe Ratio

We use a continuous version of the standard deviation premium principle for pricing in incomplete equity markets by assuming that the investor issuing an unhedgeable derivative security requires compensation for this risk in the form of a pre-specified instantaneous Sharpe ratio. First, we apply our method to price options on non-traded assets for which there is a traded asset that is correlated to the non-traded asset. Our main contribution to this particular problem is to show that our seller/buyer prices are the upper/lower good deal bounds of Cochrane and Sa\'{a}-Requejo (2000) and of Bj\"{o}rk and Slinko (2006) and to determine the analytical properties of these prices. Second, we apply our method to price options in the presence of stochastic volatility. Our main contribution to this problem is to show that the instantaneous Sharpe ratio, an integral ingredient in our methodology, is the negative of the market price of volatility risk, as defined in Fouque, Papanicolaou, and Sircar (2000).Comment: Keywords: Pricing derivative securities, incomplete markets, Sharpe ratio, correlated assets, stochastic volatility, non-linear partial differential equations, good deal bound

Design and Modeling of Membrane-Based Evaporative Cooling Devices for Thermal Management of High Heat Fluxes

We present a high-heat-flux cooling device for advanced thermal management of electronics. The device incorporates nanoporous membranes supported on microchannels to enable thin-film evaporation. The underlying concept takes advantage of the capillary pressure generated by small pores in the membrane, and minimizes the viscous loss by reducing the membrane thickness. The heat transfer and fluid flow in the device were modeled to determine the effect of different geometric parameters. With the optimization of various parameters, the device can achieve a heat transfer coefficient in excess of 0.05 kW/cm²-K, while dissipating a heat flux of 1 kW/cm². When applied to power electronics, such as GaN high-electron-mobility transistors, this membrane-based evaporative cooling device can lower the near-junction temperature by more than 40 K compared with contemporary single-phase microchannel coolers