Determination of anthropogenic changes on the urbanized territories using GIS technology

The research aim is to obtain a cartographic model of an urbanized territory by means of thermal survey in an infrared range. With this cartographic model, it will be then possible to reduce the zones in the urbanized territories differing in the level of superficial heat. Further, we will be able to reduce the proof thermal anomalies and thermal structures of the localities that are related to the natural and anthropogenic systems. On the examples of the cities of Ukraine – Energodar and Nikopol, we defined the sources of caloradiances from major industrial concerns as well as from thermal and nuclear power plants. For comparison, we built the model of thermal structure of the city of Tokai and the nuclear power plant with the same name Tokai (Japan). The sources of caloradiances can be, for example, pipes of thermal power stations, ponds-coolers, corps of steel-making production, and other similar objects. If the sizes of such source are known, then we are able to get the absolute values of temperatures

HARDWARE RESILIENCE: A WAY TO ACHIEVE RELIABILITY AND SAFETY IN NEW NUCLEAR REACTORS I&C SYSTEMS

The idea that systems have a property called ‘resilience’ has emerged in the last decade [1]. In this paper we intend to bring the idea of resilient systems for the hardware applied in safety-critical systems, such as the new nuclear reactor instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The new systems (based in hardware description language (HDL) programmable devices) have been developed in response to the obsolescence of old analog technologies and current microprocessor-based digital technologies. Although HDL programmable devices have been widely used in various other industries for decades, they are still very new in nuclear reactors systems, which can be seen as a challenge and risk in the safety analyses and licensing efforts for utilities and designers. The goal of this work is to develop and test hardware architectures to tolerate the occurrence of faults, including multiple faults, minimizing the impact of the recovery process on system availability. Basic concepts of resilience in complex systems, as “return to equilibrium”, “robustness” and “extra adaptive capacity” were analyzed from the point of view of hardware architectures, leading to linkages between concepts and methods for resilience using an approach that increases reliability and simplifies the licensing process of systems based in HDL programmable devices in nuclear plants

Complementary feeding practices and associated factors of dietary diversity among uncomplicated severe acute malnourished children aged 6-23 months in Burkina Faso

Nutritional treatment of children with uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is based on ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF). With treatment provided at community level, children could have access to other foods, and a reduction in the dose of RUTF could further increase dietary diversity during treatment. We assessed the dietary diversity score (DDS), the minimum dietary diversity (MDD), the minimum meal frequency (MMF) and the minimum acceptable diet (MAD) of 459 infants and young children aged 6-23 months being treated for SAM with different doses of RUTF. We also investigated the factors associated with DDS. Dietary intake was estimated using a single 24-h multipass dietary recall, 1 month after starting treatment, from December 2016 to August 2018. The DDS was calculated on the basis of eight food groups. Differences between children receiving the reduced RUTF and the standard RUTF dose and factors associated with DDS were assessed by Poisson and logistic regression models. RUTF dose was not associated with DDS (4.07 +/- 1.25 for reduced RUTF and 4.01 +/- 1.26 for standard RUTF; P = 0.77). Food groups most consumed by children were grains, roots or tubers (96%) and legumes and nuts (72%). Eggs consumption was low (3%). DDS was positively associated with child's age, mother's education, household wealth index, urban residence and rainy season. The present findings show that children with SAM consumed a variety of foods during treatment in addition to the RUTF ration prescribed to them. Reducing the dose of RUTF during SAM treatment did not impact DDS

Desenvolvimento de um equipamento portátil para identificação de radionuclídeos

A identificação rápida e automática de radionuclídeos, presentes em uma amostra radioativa detectada no campo, é uma informação que ajuda na tomada de decisão. Em áreas de grande trânsito de pessoas e materiais, como portos e aeroportos, bem como em grandes eventos, a monitoração de radiação, acompanhada da identificação do radionuclídeo, é aconselhável dentro das normas de proteção ao público. A identificação correta de radionuclídeos depende da capacidade de determinar se picos específicos de energia estão presentes no espectro de fontes emissoras de radiação gama. Radionuclídeos podem ser identificados por estas energias características, no sentido em que o valor da energia associada a estes picos no espectro corresponde às fontes de radiação presentes na amostra. Há muitos métodos que podem ser utilizados para identificação automática de radionuclídeos. A maioria deles são baseados em algoritmos de software para a detecção dos picos de energia no espectro. O tempo de processamento dessas tarefas pode ser muito grande para aplicações que exigem respostas rápidas, como em equipa- mentos portáteis. Um hardware digital dedicado oferece um melhor desempenho para tarefas com alta demanda de processamento como esta. Este trabalho mostra o desenvolvimento de um identificador de radionuclídeos portátil com base em uma solução de hardware digital, utilizando um dispositivo FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) para a execução de um algoritmo de agrupamento para a detecção dos picos de energia

Adequacy of nutrient intakes of severely and acutely malnourished children treated with different doses of ready-to-use therapeutic food in Burkina Faso

Background: Ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) are designed to cover the daily nutrient requirements of children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM). However, with the transfer of uncomplicated SAM care from the hospital environment to the community level, children will be able to consume complementary and family foods (CFF) in addition to RUTF, and this might decrease the quantity of RUTF needed for recovery. Objectives: Using an individually randomized clinical trial, we investigated the effects of a reduced RUTF dose on the daily energy and macronutrient intakes, the proportion of energy coming from CFF, and the mean probability of adequacy (MPA) of intake in 11 micronutrients of 516 children aged 6–59 mo who were treated for SAM in Burkina Faso. Methods: The data were collected using a single 24-h multipass dietary recall, 1 mo after starting treatment, from December 2016 to August 2018, repeated on a subsample of 66 children. Differences between children receiving the reduced RUTF (intervention arm) and those receiving standard RUTF (control arm) were assessed by linear mixed models. Results: Daily energy intake was lower (P < 0.01) in the intervention arm (mean ± SD 1321 ± 339 kcal) than in the control arm (1467 ± 319 kcal). CFF contributed to 40% of the daily energy intake in the intervention and 35% in the control arm. The MPA for 11 micronutrients was 0.89 ± 0.1 in the intervention arm and 0.95 ± 0.07 in the control arm (P = 0.06). Conclusions: Reducing the dose of RUTF during SAM treatment had a negative impact on daily energy intake of the children. Despite this, children covered their recommended energy intake. The energy intake coming from CFF was similar between arms, suggesting that children’s feeding practices did not change due to the reduction in RUTF in this context. This trial was registered at the IRSCTN registry as ISRCTN5003902

Role of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in innate defense against uropathogenic Escherichia coli infection

Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) is the primary cause of urinary tract infections (UTI) affecting approximately 150 million people worldwide. Here, we revealed the importance of transcriptional regulator hypoxia-inducible factor-1 α subunit (HIF-1α) in innate defense against UPEC-mediated UTI. The effects of AKB-4924, a HIF-1α stabilizing agent, were studied using human uroepithelial cells (5637) and a murine UTI model. UPEC adherence and invasion were significantly reduced in 5637 cells when HIF-1α protein was allowed to accumulate. Uroepithelial cells treated with AKB-4924 also experienced reduced cell death and exfoliation upon UPEC challenge. In vivo, fewer UPEC were recovered from the urine, bladders and kidneys of mice treated transurethrally with AKB-4924, whereas increased bacteria were recovered from bladders of mice with a HIF-1α deletion. Bladders and kidneys of AKB-4924 treated mice developed less inflammation as evidenced by decreased pro-inflammatory cytokine release and neutrophil activity. AKB-4924 impairs infection in uroepithelial cells and bladders, and could be correlated with enhanced production of nitric oxide and antimicrobial peptides cathelicidin and β-defensin-2. We conclude that HIF-1α transcriptional regulation plays a key role in defense of the urinary tract against UPEC infection, and that pharmacological HIF-1α boosting could be explored further as an adjunctive therapy strategy for serious or recurrent UTI

A Decidable Characterization of a Graphical Pi-calculus with Iterators

This paper presents the Pi-graphs, a visual paradigm for the modelling and verification of mobile systems. The language is a graphical variant of the Pi-calculus with iterators to express non-terminating behaviors. The operational semantics of Pi-graphs use ground notions of labelled transition and bisimulation, which means standard verification techniques can be applied. We show that bisimilarity is decidable for the proposed semantics, a result obtained thanks to an original notion of causal clock as well as the automatic garbage collection of unused names.Comment: In Proceedings INFINITY 2010, arXiv:1010.611

Multi-Lead Wavelet-Based ECG Delineation on a Wearable Embedded Sensor Platform

This work is dedicated to the sensible optimization and porting of a multi-lead (ML) wavelet-transform (WT)-based electrocardiogram (ECG) wave delineator to a state-of-the-art commercial wearable embedded sensor platform with limited processing and storage resources. The original offline algorithm was recently proposed and validated in the literature, as an extension of an earlier well-established single-lead (SL) WT-based ECG delineator. Several ML ECG delineation approaches, including SL selection according to various criteria and lead combination into a single root-mean-squared (RMS) curve, are carefully optimized for real-time operation on a state-of-the-art commercial wearable embedded sensor platform. Furthermore, these ML ECG delineation approaches are contrasted in terms of their delineation accuracy, complexity and memory usage, as well as suitability for ambulatory real-time operation. Finally, the robustness and stability of the ML ECG delineation approaches are benchmarked with respect to a validated SL implementation

Modeling the Impact of Retention Interventions on Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV: Results From INSPIRE Studies in Malawi, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe

Six implementation research studies in Malawi, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe tested approaches for improving retention in care among women living with HIV. We simulated the impact of their interventions on the probability of HIV transmission during pregnancy and breastfeeding