Converging to the Chase - a Tool for Finite Controllability

We solve a problem, stated in [CGP10], showing that Sticky Datalog, defined in the cited paper as an element of the Datalog\pm project, has the finite controllability property. In order to do that, we develop a technique, which we believe can have further applications, of approximating Chase(D, T), for a database instance D and some sets of tuple generating dependencies T, by an infinite sequence of finite structures, all of them being models of T

Quality of life and rural place of residence in Polish women : population based study

Objective: The purpose of this population-based study was to analyse the association between the health-related quality of life and rural residence among Polish females, including variables related to social environment and clinical characteristics. Methods: The snowball recruitment method was used to invite 1,560 women aged 45-60 to participate in the study. Participants received a questionnaire about demographic characteristics, environmental and work stress, use of anxiolytichypnotic medications and self-reported quality of life based on the SF-36 form. Univariate and multivariate analysis was carried out by means of a logistic regression model. Results: We found worse physical health and better mental health among women living in rural areas compared to those from urban settings. The rural residence was an independent predictor for poor physical health (below 25 percentile) odds ratio [OR] 1.6 95%, confi dence interval [CI] 1.17-2.2). Living in rural areas was also associated at the borderline level of statistical signifi cance, with reduction of risk of low quality of life in mental health (OR = 0.75; 95% CI = 0.55-1.02). According to other results from multivariate analysis, being retired, receiving social pension, long duration of illness symptoms, and consulting a medical specialist were the risk factors of reported bad physical health. Higher education and access to medical specialist protects against having a bad quality of life related to mental health. Being given the sack, stress at work, feeling anger, and long duration of symptoms are the risk factors of poor mental health. Conclusion: The rural residence is strongly associated with environmental and psychosocial factors in women aged 40-65

Composting of Waste from Poultry Breeding – Biological Analysis

The objective of this study was primarily to determine the course of biological composition changes of wastes during composting. Here presented are the results of the bacteriological, mycological and parasitological composition analyses of composts consisting of: goose and broiler excrements from ecological farms, remainders of goose intestines from slaughterhouses, goose feather waste collected on the sieves of the farm wastewater treatment plants, as well as sewage sludge from slaughterhouse wastewater treatment plants and poultry processing plants. Ground pine bark, pine shavings and rye straw chaff was used as an addition to the composting mixture. The investigation of the composting process in static piles lasting 120 days was carried out in winter conditions in the area near the aforementioned wastewater treatment plant of an industrial complex situated in Lower Silesia (the south-western region of Poland), the complex specializing in breeding, slaughtering and processing of poultry

On the k-Boundedness for Existential Rules

The chase is a fundamental tool for existential rules. Several chase variants are known, which differ on how they handle redundancies possibly caused by the introduction of nulls. Given a chase variant, the halting problem takes as input a set of existential rules and asks if this set of rules ensures the termination of the chase for any factbase. It is well-known that this problem is undecidable for all known chase variants. The related problem of boundedness asks if a given set of existential rules is bounded, i.e., whether there is a predefined upper bound on the number of (breadth-first) steps of the chase, independently from any factbase. This problem is already undecidable in the specific case of datalog rules. However, knowing that a set of rules is bounded for some chase variant does not help much in practice if the bound is unknown. Hence, in this paper, we investigate the decidability of the k-boundedness problem, which asks whether a given set of rules is bounded by an integer k. We prove that k-boundedness is decidable for three chase variants, namely the oblivious, semi-oblivious and restricted chase.Comment: 20 pages, revised version of the paper published at RuleML+RR 201

Melatonin and cortisol profiles in patients with pituitary tumors

The optic tract section at the optic chiasm is expected to disturb the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) rhythm, circadian rhythm and melatonin secretion rhythms in humans, although detailed studies have never been conducted. The aim of this paper was to describe melatonin and cortisol profiles in patients with a pituitary tumor exerting optic chiasm compression. Six patients with pituitary tumors of different size, four of whom had significant optic chiasm compression, were examined. In each brain, MRI, an ophthalmological examination including the vision field and laboratory tests were performed. Melatonin and cortisol concentrations were measured at 22:00h, 02:00h, 06:00h, and 10:00h in patients lying in a dark, isolated room. One of the four cases with significant optic chiasm compression presented a flattened melatonin rhythm. The melatonin rhythm was also disturbed in one patient without optic chiasm compression. Larger tumors may play a role in the destruction of neurons connecting the retina with the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and breaking of basic way for inhibiting effect to the SCN from the retina

Utilization of Electrohydrodynamic Cavitation in Primary Sludge Conditioning

This paper presents a brief characterization of the method of electrochemical conditioning of sludge, using the effect of low-temperature plasma. Primary sludge from the municipal wastewater treatment plant in Gorzów was analysed. The sludge was conditioned electrochemically, chemically with calcium hydroxide and dihydrogen dioxide, and using a combined method – electrochemical and chemical. For each conditioned sludge its settlement characteristics, hydration, dry mass content, organic and mineral substances, calculated and measured specific filtration resistance, effectiveness of filtration, iron content in ash, as well as energy-consumption in the process were determined. For the electrochemical, chemical and combined processes of primary sludge conditioning, their courses were compared. It was proved that (1) processes of conditioning cause changes in properties of primary sludge; (2) electrochemical conditioning causes mineralization and stabilization; (3) dewaterability of sludge is improved; (4) the process can be supported using additionally calcium hydroxide and dihydrogen dioxide; (5) optimization of the process can be performed only by improving the effectiveness of selected process parameters

GRB030406 an extremely hard burst outside of the INTEGRAL field of view

Using the IBIS Compton mode, the INTEGRAL satellite is able to detect and localize bright and hard GRBs, which happen outside of the nominal INTEGRAL telescopes field of view. We have developed a method of analyzing such INTEGRAL data to obtain the burst location and spectra. We present the results for the case of GRB030406. The burst is localized with the Compton events, and the location is consistent with the previous Interplanetary Network position. A spectral analysis is possible with the detailed modeling of the detector response for such a far off-axis source with the offset of 36.9 $^\circ$. The average spectrum of the burst is extremely hard: the photon index above 400 \kev is -1.7, with no evidence of a break up to 1.1 \mev at 90% confidence level.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics in pres

Complement activation by in vivo neonatal and in vitro extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Complment activation during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in newborns can be caused by both the underlying disease processes and by blood contact with the ECMO circuit. We investigated the relative importance of these mechanisms by measuring C3a, C5a and sC5b-9 before, during and after neonatal ECMO in six consecutive newborn patients using enzyme-linked immunoassay. In addition complement activation during in vitro ECMO with repeated flow of the same blood volume was measured using blood from healthy adult donors. C3a increased significantly in vivo after 1 h (from 1035+/-193 to 1865+/-419 microg/l) and in vitro ECMO (from 314+/-75 to 1962+/-1062 microg/l). C5a increased during ECMO without significant differences between in vivo and in vitro activation. In neonatal patients, sC5b-9 rose faster than in vitro, but the rapid increase was also significant for in vitro experiments (in vivo: from 328+/-63 to 1623+/-387 microg/l after 2 h; and in vitro: from 78+/-32 to 453+/-179 microg/l after 8 h). After this initial peak at 1-2 h, complement activation decreased gradually until 2-3 days after the initiation of ECMO. We conclude that in newborns the rapid activation of the complement system after the start of ECMO is predominantly caused by contact with artificial surfaces rather than the patient's underlying disease

Aspergillosis of a maxillary sinus – a case study

The symptoms of fungal infections of the nasal sinuses aren't typical, and often are confused with bacterial infections. The aim of study is to present the case of fungal infection in the maxillary sinus as a complication of endodontic treatment in upper second left premolar. The factors and mechanism which have influence on development of fungal infection in the maxillary sinus was presented in the discussion