Auditory Blast Injury

The frequency of of blast injury incidents raised incredibly during the last years of XX century. This is due to the industrial expansion, the increased use of explosive weapons and the tremendous enhancement of world’s terrorism.Auditory blast injuries are frequent in the military contingent, but also encountered among civilians after terroristic attacks, public incidents and production crashes. The main symptoms are pain, hearing loss, tinnitus and otohemorrhage.Approximately 70 – 80% of tympanic blast ruptures have heal spontaneously; 40 – 50% during the 1st month and the others till the end of the 2nd. Spontaneous healing depends on the size and location of the rupture.Studying the causes and clinic of acute acoustic blast injury will lead to early recognition and adequate treatment of this pathology, decreasing the complications, improving the outcome, better life quality and earlier social reintegration of the victims with acute acoustic blast injury.----------------------------------Взривните травми значително зачестиха през последните години на ХХ век. Това се дължи както на индустриалната експанзия, така и на увеличената употреба на взривни оръжия и неимоверното разрастване на терористичната активност в световен мащаб.Взривната травма на слуховата система се наблюдава най-често сред военни, но се среща и сред цивилния контингент при терористични атаки, битови инциденти и производствени аварии. Основни симптоми при взривна травма на ухото са болка, намален слух, шум в ушите и отохематорея.Около 70 – 80% от взривните руптури на тъпанчевата мембрана заздравяват спонтанно, 40 – 50% през първия месец, а останалите до 2 месеца след нараняването. Спонтанното зарастване зависи от размера и разположението на руптурата.Изучаването на причините, демографската характеристика и клиника на взривната травма на слуховия анализатор ще доведе до ранно разпознаване и адекватно лечение на тази патология. Това е свързано с намаляване на усложненията, подобряване на изхода, качеството на живот и социална реинтеграция на пострадали с взривна травма на слуховия анализатор

Provision of local bus services in Japan: focusing on the roles for local governments and nonprofit organisations

Japan’s bus deregulation program (coach and local) was carried out in February 2002. Its main point was to loosen or eliminate Demand-Supply Balancing (Jukyu-Chosei.) This regulation was a licensing system and functioned as entry/exit regulation. It defended incumbents (approximately 360 operators) and did not let potential entrants respond to increasing demand for some services. It also forced the incumbents to cross-subsidise noncommercial services. In other words, the incumbents were allowed to enjoy a situation of local monopoly but forced to maintain non-commercial services. Although five years have passed since the deregulation, we have not seen major changes in the structure of the local bus market, as there have been few entrants. On the other hand, the incumbents are apt to abandon non-commercial services, because they now have freedom of exit and cross-subsidisation is no longer sustainable. The supply of commercial services can be left to the market mechanism, but the problem is who is in charge of maintaining noncommercial but indispensable services, especially in rural areas. This is why the deregulation has had impact on the transport policy by local governments. In fact, local governments all over Japan have been more involved in policies for public transport. But many of them are now facing a budget deficit and need to cut expenditures, including subsidies for bus services. Thus, nonprofit organisations (NPOs) are also expected to play a crucial role in the local transport market, like community transport in England. Some NPOs have been founded by the inhabitants and have tried to form a partnership with bus operators, local governments, shops, hospitals and so on in their local communities. The aim of this paper is to analyse the roles for NPOs in the local bus market, in comparison with those for local government. First, we describe the Japanese local bus market before and after the deregulation. Secondly, we consider the roles for local governments and NPOs in the local bus market. Next, we analyse some pioneering cases. In conclusion, we give a future prospect of local bus service provision in Japan, from the viewpoint of partnerships among local governments, private operators and NPOs.Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

Frequency Comb Assisted Diode Laser Spectroscopy for Measurement of Microcavity Dispersion

While being invented for precision measurement of single atomic transitions, frequency combs have also become a versatile tool for broadband spectroscopy in the last years. In this paper we present a novel and simple approach for broadband spectroscopy, combining the accuracy of an optical fiber-laser-based frequency comb with the ease-of-use of a tunable external cavity diode laser. This scheme enables broadband and fast spectroscopy of microresonator modes and allows for precise measurements of their dispersion, which is an important precondition for broadband optical frequency comb generation that has recently been demonstrated in these devices. Moreover, we find excellent agreement of measured microresonator dispersion with predicted values from finite element simulations and we show that tailoring microresonator dispersion can be achieved by adjusting their geometrical properties

Comparative Analysis Of The Structure And Content Of Faculties Of Pharmacy Curricula For Pharmacy Master Degree In Bulgaria

Фармацевтичната професия е регулирана, защото представлява дейност от обществена значимост и е от съществено значение за живота и здравето на хората. Правото за упражняването ѝ е определено чрез законови, подзаконови или административни разпоредби. Проучени и анализирани са актуалните учебни планове в петте факултета по фармация в България. Минималният хорариум по задължителните, общо 26 учебни дисциплини е 3015 часа, съгласно Единните държавни изисквания (ЕДИ). Всеки един от петте фармацевтични факултета в България се характеризира с различия в заложената в учебния план теоретична подготовка и брой учебни дисциплини.The pharmaceutical profession is regulated because it is an activity of social significance and is essential for the lifeand health of people. The right to practice it is determined by laws, regulations or administrative provisions. The current curricula at the five faculties of pharmacy in Bulgaria have been studied and analyzed. The minimum horarium of the compulsory, totally 26 subjects is 3015 hours, according to the Unified State Requirements. Each of the five faculties of pharmacy in Bulgaria is characterized by differences in the theoretical education set in the curriculum and the number of subjects

Investigating poultry trade patterns to guide avian influenza surveillance and control: a case study in Vietnam

Live bird markets are often the focus of surveillance activities monitoring avian influenza viruses (AIV) circulating in poultry. However, in order to ensure a high sensitivity of virus detection and effectiveness of management actions, poultry management practices features influencing AIV dynamics need to be accounted for in the design of surveillance programmes. In order to address this knowledge gap, a cross-sectional survey was conducted through interviews with 791 traders in 18 Vietnamese live bird markets. Markets greatly differed according to the sources from which poultry was obtained, and their connections to other markets through the movements of their traders. These features, which could be informed based on indicators that are easy to measure, suggest that markets could be used as sentinels for monitoring virus strains circulating in specific segments of the poultry production sector. AIV spread within markets was modelled. Due to the high turn-over of poultry, viral amplification was likely to be minimal in most of the largest markets. However, due to the large number of birds being introduced each day, and challenges related to cleaning and disinfection, environmental accumulation of viruses at markets may take place, posing a threat to the poultry production sector and to public health

A duplication at chromosome 11q12.2–11q12.3 is associated with spinocerebellar ataxia type 20

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 20 (SCA20) has been linked to chromosome 11q12, but the underlying genetic defect has yet to be identified. We applied single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping to detect structural alterations in the genomic DNA of patients with SCA20. We found a 260 kb duplication within the previously linked SCA20 region, which was confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and fiber fluorescence in situ hybridization, the latter also showing its direct orientation. The duplication spans 10 known and 2 unknown genes, and is present in all affected individuals in the single reported SCA20 pedigree. While the mechanism whereby this duplication may be pathogenic remains to be established, we speculate that the critical gene within the duplicated segment may be DAGLA, the product of which is normally present at the base of Purkinje cell dendritic spines and contributes to the modulation of parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapses

Unmixing oscillatory brain activity by EEG source localization and empirical mode decomposition

Neuronal activity is composed of synchronous and asynchronous oscillatory activity at different frequencies. The neuronal oscillations occur at time scales well matched to the temporal resolution of electroencephalography (EEG); however, to derive meaning from the electrical brain activity as measured from the scalp, it is useful to decompose the EEG signal in space and time. In this study, we elaborate on the investigations into source-based signal decomposition of EEG. Using source localization, the electrical brain signal is spatially unmixed and the neuronal dynamics from a region of interest are analyzed using empirical mode decomposition (EMD), a technique aimed at detecting periodic signals. We demonstrate, first in simulations, that the EMD is more accurate when applied to the spatially unmixed signal compared to the scalp-level signal. Furthermore, on EEG data recorded simultaneously with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the hand area of the primary motor cortex, we observe a link between the peak to peak amplitude of the motor-evoked potential (MEP) and the phase of the decomposed localized electrical activity before TMS onset. The results thus encourage combination of source localization and EMD in the pursuit of further insight into the mechanisms of the brain with respect to the phase and frequency of the electrical oscillations and their cortical origin

Investigating the association between obesity and asthma in 6- to 8-year-old Saudi children:a matched case-control study

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated an association between obesity and asthma, but there remains considerable uncertainty about whether this reflects an underlying causal relationship. Aims: To investigate the association between obesity and asthma in pre-pubertal children and to investigate the roles of airway obstruction and atopy as possible causal mechanisms. Methods: We conducted an age- and sex-matched case–control study of 1,264 6- to 8-year-old schoolchildren with and without asthma recruited from 37 randomly selected schools in Madinah, Saudi Arabia. The body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and skin fold thickness of the 632 children with asthma were compared with those of the 632 control children without asthma. Associations between obesity and asthma, adjusted for other potential risk factors, were assessed separately in boys and girls using conditional logistic regression analysis. The possible mediating roles of atopy and airway obstruction were studied by investigating the impact of incorporating data on sensitisation to common aeroallergens and measurements of lung function. Results: BMI was associated with asthma in boys (odds ratio (OR)=1.14, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08–1.20; adjusted OR=1.11, 95% CI, 1.03–1.19) and girls (OR=1.37, 95% CI, 1.26–1.50; adjusted OR=1.38, 95% CI, 1.23–1.56). Adjusting for forced expiratory volume in 1 s had a negligible impact on these associations, but these were attenuated following adjustment for allergic sensitisation, particularly in girls (girls: OR=1.25; 95% CI, 0.96–1.60; boys: OR=1.09, 95% CI, 0.99–1.19). Conclusions: BMI is associated with asthma in pre-pubertal Saudi boys and girls; this effect does not appear to be mediated through respiratory obstruction, but in girls this may at least partially be mediated through increased risk of allergic sensitisation

Conductivity and quasinormal modes in holographic theories

We show that in field theories with a holographic dual the retarded Green's function of a conserved current can be represented as a convergent sum over the quasinormal modes. We find that the zero-frequency conductivity is related to the sum over quasinormal modes and their high-frequency asymptotics via a sum rule. We derive the asymptotics of the quasinormal mode frequencies and their residues using the phase-integral (WKB) approach and provide analytic insight into the existing numerical observations concerning the asymptotic behavior of the spectral densities.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure