6,230 research outputs found
Indications of repair of radon-induced chromosome damage in human lymphocytes: an adaptive response induced by low doses of X-rays.
Naturally occurring radon is a relatively ubiquitous environmental carcinogen to which large numbers of people can be exposed over their lifetimes. The accumulation of radon in homes, therefore, has led to a large program to determine the effects of the densely ionizing alpha particles that are produced when radon decays. In human lymphocytes, low doses of X-rays can decrease the number of chromatid deletions induced by subsequent high doses of clastogens. This has been attributed to the induction of a repair mechanism by the low-dose exposures. Historically, chromosome aberrations induced by radon have been considered to be relatively irreparable. The present experiments, however, show that if human peripheral blood lymphocytes are irradiated with low doses of X-rays (2 cGy) at 48 hr of culture, before being exposed to radon at 72 hr of culture, the yield of chromatid deletions induced by radon is decreased by a factor of two. Furthermore, the numbers of aberrations per cell do not follow a Poisson distribution but are overdispersed, as might be expected because high-linear energy transfer (high LET) alpha particles have a high relative biological effectiveness compared to low-LET radiations such as X-rays or gamma rays. Pretreatment with a low dose of X-rays decreases the overdispersion and leads to a greater proportion of the cells having no aberrations, or lower numbers of aberrations, than is the case in cells exposed to radon alone.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS
Abelhas melíferas: bioindicadores de qualidade ambiental e de sustentabilidade da agricultura familiar de base ecológica.
bitstream/CPACT-2009-09/11875/1/documento_244.pd
Abelhas melíferas: bioindicadores de qualidade ambiental e de sustentabilidade da agricultura familiar de base ecológica.
Apicultura no Brasil. Ação das abelhas. Vida das abelhas. Fisiologia das abelhas. Ciclo de vida das abelhas. Processo de enxameação. Danças das abelhas. Polinização. Espécies de plantas espontâneas. Espécies de plantas cultivadas. Contaminação ambiental. Exposição aos agrotóxicos. Bioindicadores. Criação de abelhas melíferas. Manejo das colméiasbitstream/CNPUV-2009-09/11386/1/documento_244.pd
In-Network Outlier Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks
To address the problem of unsupervised outlier detection in wireless sensor
networks, we develop an approach that (1) is flexible with respect to the
outlier definition, (2) computes the result in-network to reduce both bandwidth
and energy usage,(3) only uses single hop communication thus permitting very
simple node failure detection and message reliability assurance mechanisms
(e.g., carrier-sense), and (4) seamlessly accommodates dynamic updates to data.
We examine performance using simulation with real sensor data streams. Our
results demonstrate that our approach is accurate and imposes a reasonable
communication load and level of power consumption.Comment: Extended version of a paper appearing in the Int'l Conference on
Distributed Computing Systems 200
The Block Spin Renormalization Group Approach and Two-Dimensional Quantum Gravity
A block spin renormalization group approach is proposed for the dynamical
triangulation formulation of two-dimensional quantum gravity. The idea is to
update link flips on the block lattice in response to link flips on the
original lattice. Just as the connectivity of the original lattice is meant to
be a lattice representation of the metric, the block links are determined in
such a way that the connectivity of the block lattice represents a block
metric. As an illustration, this approach is applied to the Ising model coupled
to two-dimensional quantum gravity. The correct critical coupling is
reproduced, but the critical exponent is obscured by unusually large finite
size effects.Comment: 10 page
Occurrence of greedy scale, Hemiberlesia rapax (Comstock) (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), on mahogany in Brazil.
Made available in DSpace on 2020-06-10T04:06:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1
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Previous issue date: 2020bitstream/item/213854/1/Hemiberlesiarapaxemmogno-2-7.pd
Void Analysis of Hadronic Density Fluctuations at Phase Transition
The event-to-event fluctuations of hadron multiplicities are studied for a
quark system undergoing second-order phase transition to hadrons. Emphasis is
placed on the search for an observable signature that is realistic for
heavy-ion collisions. It is suggested that in the 2-dimensional y-phi space the
produced particles selected in a very narrow p_T window may exhibit clustering
patterns even when integrated over the entire emission time. Using the Ising
model to simulate the critical phenomenon and taking into account a p_T
distribution that depends on the emission time, we study in the framework of
the void analysis proposed earlier and find scaling behavior. The scaling
exponents turn out to be larger than the ones found before for pure
configurations without mixing. The signature is robust in that it is
insensitive to the precise scheme of simulating time evolution. Thus it should
reveal whether or not the dense matter created in heavy-ion collisions is a
quark-gluon plasma before hadronization.Comment: 11 pages in LaTeX + 6 figures in p
Quality assurance in stereotactic radiosurgery/radiotherapy according to DIN 6875-1
The new DIN (' Deutsche Industrie- Norm') 6875- 1, which is currently being finalised, deals with quality assurance ( QA) criteria and tests methods for linear accelerator and Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery/ radiotherapy including treatment planning, stereotactic frame and stereotactic imaging and a system test to check the whole chain of uncertainties. Our existing QA program, based on dedicated phantoms and test procedures, has been refined to fulfill the demands of this new DIN. The radiological and mechanical isocentre corresponded within 0.2 mm and the measured 50% isodose lines were in agreement with the calculated ones within less than 0.5 mm. The measured absorbed dose was within 3%. The resultant output factors measured for the 14-, 8- and 4- mm collimator helmet were 0.9870 +/- 0.0086, 0.9578 +/- 0.0057 and 0.8741 +/- 0.0202, respectively. For 170 consecutive tests, the mean geometrical accuracy was 0.48 +/- 0.23 mm. Besides QA phantoms and analysis software developed in- house, the use of commercially available tools facilitated the QA according to the DIN 6875- 1 with which our results complied. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel
Artificial Neural Network to predict mean monthly total ozone in Arosa, Switzerland
Present study deals with the mean monthly total ozone time series over Arosa,
Switzerland. The study period is 1932-1971. First of all, the total ozone time
series has been identified as a complex system and then Artificial Neural
Networks models in the form of Multilayer Perceptron with back propagation
learning have been developed. The models are Single-hidden-layer and
Two-hidden-layer Perceptrons with sigmoid activation function. After sequential
learning with learning rate 0.9 the peak total ozone period (February-May)
concentrations of mean monthly total ozone have been predicted by the two
neural net models. After training and validation, both of the models are found
skillful. But, Two-hidden-layer Perceptron is found to be more adroit in
predicting the mean monthly total ozone concentrations over the aforesaid
period.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figure
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