Comparison of Diabetes Mellitus Risk Factors in Mexico in 2003 and 2014

Objective: The prevalence of diabetes mellitus in Mexico is very high. This study aimed to compare the risk factors of diabetes mellitus in Mexican adults in 2003 and in 2014. Methods: This study had a repeated cross-sectional design. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE) from Mexico (Wave 0, 2003, and Wave 2, 2014) were compared. Self-reported diabetes mellitus (outcome) was evaluated with the yes/no question: “Have you ever been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (high blood sugar)?” Bivariate analyses and multivariable logistic regression analyses adjusted for potential risk factors were conducted. Results: In 11 years (2003–2014), the prevalence of self-reported diabetes mellitus in Mexican adults increased by 2.6 times in those younger than 50 years (2003: 2.1%; 2014: 5.5%) and by 1.9 times in those ≥50 years (2003: 12.7%; 2014: 24.2%). In 2003, the risk factors associated with diabetes mellitus were female sex (OR 1.344, 95% CI 1.176–1.536), age ≥50 years (OR 6.734, 95% CI 5.843–7.760), being overweight (OR 1.359, 95% CI 1.175–1.571), obesity (OR 1.871, 95% CI 1.583–2.211), and lower physical activity of <600 MET-minutes/week (OR 1.349, 95% CI 1.117–1.630). In 2014, the exposure characteristics significantly associated with diabetes mellitus were female sex (OR 1.244, 95% CI 1.025–1.511), older age ≥50 years (OR 4.608, 95% CI 3.260–6.515), being overweight (OR 1.649, 95% CI 1.305–2.083), obesity (OR 1.778, 95% CI 1.398–2.261), and in those who had not attended/completed primary school (OR 1.360, 95% CI 1.042–1.773). Conclusion: The prevalence of diabetes mellitus in Mexico significantly increased from 2003 to 2014. Female sex, age older than 50 years, and being overweight or obese were significant risk factors in both 2003 and 2014. Not having completed primary school was a new significant risk factor in 2014. Public health policies and strategies should prioritize decreasing the high levels of overweight and obesity, and improve health literacy in Mexico

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

Multiple Scenario Generation of Subsurface Models:Consistent Integration of Information from Geophysical and Geological Data throuh Combination of Probabilistic Inverse Problem Theory and Geostatistics

Neutrinos with energies above 1017 eV are detectable with the Surface Detector Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The identification is efficiently performed for neutrinos of all flavors interacting in the atmosphere at large zenith angles, as well as for Earth-skimming \u3c4 neutrinos with nearly tangential trajectories relative to the Earth. No neutrino candidates were found in 3c 14.7 years of data taken up to 31 August 2018. This leads to restrictive upper bounds on their flux. The 90% C.L. single-flavor limit to the diffuse flux of ultra-high-energy neutrinos with an E\u3bd-2 spectrum in the energy range 1.0 7 1017 eV -2.5 7 1019 eV is E2 dN\u3bd/dE\u3bd &lt; 4.4 7 10-9 GeV cm-2 s-1 sr-1, placing strong constraints on several models of neutrino production at EeV energies and on the properties of the sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Facial Recognition for Drunk People Using Thermal Imaging

Face recognition using thermal imaging has the main advantage of being less affected by lighting conditions compared to images in the visible spectrum. However, there are factors such as the process of human thermoregulation that cause variations in the surface temperature of the face. These variations cause recognition systems to lose effectiveness. In particular, alcohol intake causes changes in the surface temperature of the face. It is of high relevance to identify not only if a person is drunk but also their identity. In this paper, we present a technique for face recognition based on thermal face images of drunk people. For the experiments, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso-Drunk Thermal Face database (PUCV-DTF) was used. The recognition system was carried out by using local binary patterns (LBPs). The LBP features were obtained from the bioheat model from thermal image representation and a fusion of thermal images and a vascular network extracted from the same image. The feature vector for each image is formed by the concatenation of the LBP histogram of the thermogram with an anisotropic filter and the fused image, respectively. The proposed technique has an average percentage of 99.63% in the Rank-10 cumulative classification; this performance is superior compared to using LBP in thermal images that do not use the bioheat model

Incorporation of photoactive TiO2 in an aluminosilicate inorganic polymer by ion exchange

In the present paper, it is described a procedure to ion exchange in an aluminosilicate inorganic polymer (geopolymer) in order to incorporate photoactive TiO 2. Metakaolin base geopolymers synthesized at 40 and 90 °C were chosen to be ion-exchanged with a solutions of (NH 4) 2 TiO (C 2O 4) 2-H 2O with and without previous treatment with NH 4Cl. The final geopolymers were characterized by SEM, FT-IR, Raman, XRD, BET, UV/Vis spectroscopy and fluorescence. It was confirmed that ion-exchange method incorporated anatase TiO 2 particles inside the geopolymer, affecting the geopolymers bond vibration modes of the AlO 4-SiO 4 framework. The observed blue shift in the UV/Vis spectra, suggest that those TiO 2 nanoparticles grew inside the micropores of the geopolymer producing quantum size effects. The photoactivity of such particles was determined by means of photoluminescent spectra and bleaching of methylene blue (MB), which confirms the potential applications of ion-exchanged geopolymers (IEGs) for photocatalytic purposes. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.J.R. Gasca-Tirado wants to thank CONACYT for scholarship and to A. Galindo-Sifuentes, M.A. Hernandez-Landaverde, J.E. Urbina-Alvarez, F. Rodriguez-Melgarejo, A. Mauricio-Sanchez, J.L. Ojeda-Elizarraras, M.S. Garcia-Guillen, C. Vazquez-Ramos and G. Fonseca-Hernandez for their kind technical assistance.Gasca-Tirado, JR.; Manzano Ramirez, A.; Villaseñor-Mora, C.; Muñiz-Villarreal, MS.; Zaldivar-Cadena, AA.; Rubio-Ávalos, JC.; Amigó Borrás, V.... (2012). Incorporation of photoactive TiO2 in an aluminosilicate inorganic polymer by ion exchange. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials. 153:282-287. doi:10.1016/j.micromeso.2011.11.026S28228715