BILSAT: Advancing Smallsat Capabilities

Small spacecraft technologies and capabilities are evolving to the point where the BILSAT 120kg spacecraft will this year demonstrate capabilities and performance similar to the 320kg UoSAT-12 mission launched in 1999. Over the past few years, the design of small satellites has evolved from simple curiosities to effective, high performance systems, capable of competing with much bigger and much more expensive spacecraft. Within the framework of an agreement between SSTL and TUBITAK-BILTEN (The Information Technologies and Electronics Research Institute), a non-profit government laboratory located in Ankara, Turkey, a Technology Transfer Program was started in August 2001. This program includes the design, manufacture and launch of one Enhanced SSTL microsatellite platform, one engineering model for use in Turkey and the training of engineers in all aspects of the spacecraft design. Detailed design began using the Enhanced SSTL microsatellite platform as the starting point. The end product that will be launched in the summer of 2003, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed by SSTL, carrying two advanced payloads developed by TUBITAK-BILTEN. The spacecraft is a highly optimised satellite, with a mass of 120kg and including 14 cameras (in several imager arrangements), a 10m/s class resistojet propulsion system, VHF/UHF and S-band RF systems, tried and tested OBDH units in parallel with newly designed mass data storage and processing units, all this topped by a high performance AODCS subsystem, including two star trackers, GPS receiver (for both orbit and attitude determination), rate gyros, four momentum/reaction wheels, and what will be the first operational use of Control Momentum Gyros on a small spacecraft, to perform high agility manoeuvres. These units will be used to achieve the missions specified for this project, mainly full imaging of Turkey, stereoscopic imaging of selected targets, a Digital Elevation Map of Turkey, and communications. The present paper discusses briefly the technical characteristics of the spacecraft, but focuses on the mission aspects and how the different subsystems (namely the new subsystems and payloads) will be used to accomplish the mission. The operational modes of the spacecraft are discussed and the interaction of the AODCS subsystem with the OBDH and Imaging system is described in detail

Mean platelet volume could be a promising biomarker to monitor dietary compliance in celiac disease

Background. Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease that develops in patients with a genetic predisposition, incurring a susceptibility to gluten-containing foods such as barley, wheat, and rye. The elimination of gluten from the diet is the main therapeutic approach and usually leads to clinical and laboratory improvement. There are no ideal markers that objectively assess dietary compliance in CD patients. Materials and methods. Sixty newly diagnosed CD patients (male/female: 43/17) and 40 healthy subjects (male/female: 23/17) were enrolled in this study. The diagnosis of CD was established by both histological findings of duodenum biopsy (total villous atrophy and lymphocytic infiltration) and positive antibodies against endomysium or gliadin. Results. A significantly higher mean platelet volume (MPV) was observed in the CD group compared with healthy subjects (8.45 +/- 0.96 fL versus 7.93 +/- 0.63 fL; p = 0.004). After introduction of a gluten-free diet, the MPV of CD patients in the dietary adherent group was significantly lower than that of the non-adherent group (8.09 +/- 0.6 fL versus 8.9 +/- 1.08 fL; p = 0.001). Overall dietary adherence rate was 71.6% (43/60 CD patients). In the dietary compliant group, initiation of gluten-free diet was associated with a significant decrease in MPV from base-line values (8.56 fL versus 8.25 fL; p = 0.008). In the non-adherent group, MPV on 3-month follow-up was higher than at base-line (8.05 fL versus 8.91 fL; p = 0.001). Conclusion. MPV could be a promising and easily available biomarker for monitoring of dietary adherence in CD patients at a low cost in comparison with other modalities.WoSScopu

Ideal and actual involvement of community pharmacists in health promotion and prevention: a cross-sectional study in Quebec, Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An increased interest is observed in broadening community pharmacists' role in public health. To date, little information has been gathered in Canada on community pharmacists' perceptions of their role in health promotion and prevention; however, such data are essential to the development of public-health programs in community pharmacy. A cross-sectional study was therefore conducted to explore the perceptions of community pharmacists in urban and semi-urban areas regarding their ideal and actual levels of involvement in providing health-promotion and prevention services and the barriers to such involvement.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using a five-step modified Dillman's tailored design method, a questionnaire with 28 multiple-choice or open-ended questions (11 pages plus a cover letter) was mailed to a random sample of 1,250 pharmacists out of 1,887 community pharmacists practicing in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) and surrounding areas. It included questions on pharmacists' ideal level of involvement in providing health-promotion and preventive services; which services were actually offered in their pharmacy, the employees involved, the frequency, and duration of the services; the barriers to the provision of these services in community pharmacy; their opinion regarding the most appropriate health professionals to provide them; and the characteristics of pharmacists, pharmacies and their clientele.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In all, 571 out of 1,234 (46.3%) eligible community pharmacists completed and returned the questionnaire. Most believed they should be very involved in health promotion and prevention, particularly in smoking cessation (84.3%); screening for hypertension (81.8%), diabetes (76.0%) and dyslipidemia (56.9%); and sexual health (61.7% to 89.1%); however, fewer respondents reported actually being very involved in providing such services (5.7% [lifestyle, including smoking cessation], 44.5%, 34.8%, 6.5% and 19.3%, respectively). The main barriers to the provision of these services in current practice were lack of: time (86.1%), coordination with other health care professionals (61.1%), staff or resources (57.2%), financial compensation (50.8%), and clinical tools (45.5%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although community pharmacists think they should play a significant role in health promotion and prevention, they recognize a wide gap between their ideal and actual levels of involvement. The efficient integration of primary-care pharmacists and pharmacies into public health cannot be envisioned without addressing important organizational barriers.</p

Electrical performance of conducting polymer (SPAN) grown on GaAs with different substrate orientations

This article reports the effect of n-type GaAs substrate orientation, namely (100), (311)A and (311)B, on the electrical properties of sulfonated polyaniline (SPAN)/GaAs heterojunction devices. In addition, the inhomogeneity of the interface between various GaAs substrates and SPAN is investigated in terms of barrier height and ideality factor by performing I–V measurements at different temperatures (20–420K). The I–V results indicate that the value of the rectification ratio (IF/IR) at 0.5V is higher for SPAN/(311)B GaAs samples than for SPAN/(100) GaAs and SPAN/(311)A GaAs samples. Moreover, the barrier height decreases and the ideality factor increases with decreasing temperature for all three heterostructure devices. The high value of mean barrier ˚¯ b of SPAN/(311)B (calculated from the plots of ˚b0 as a function of 1/2kT) confirms that the GaAs substrate orientation results in an increase of barrier homogeneities. Furthermore,the C-V characteristics were obtained at room temperature. The C-V measurements showed that the carrier distributions at the interface and away from the interface in high index (311) GaAs orientations are more uniform and have better barrier homogeneity than those grown on the conventional (100) GaAs substrates

The impact of residents' informedness and involvement on their perceptions of tourism impacts: The case of Bled

The tourism development debate includes many studies on how residents perceive positive or negative tourism impacts, based on sustainability, as understood by a three-pillar concept. However, so far studies were very limited in addressing certain requirements for sustainable tourism, such as informed stakeholders’ participation and cooperation – which represent the subject of this study. The survey that was undertaken follows previous ones in using the established three-pillar sustainability concept in order to define impacts of tourism. Further, it adds to tourism research by surveying informedness and developmental involvement. A four-dimensional informedness–involvement tourism grid is used to segment residents and their perceptions on tourism impacts in each segment are analysed. The model is empirically applied to the Slovenian lake and mountain destination of Bled. The findings confirm that highly informed and highly involved residents had better perceptions of tourism than all other groups, whereas those residents who were lowly informed and lowly involved had more negative perceptions of tourism. The survey contributes by expanding knowledge on resident perceptions of tourism by adding in the aspects of informedness and involvement. The proposed model can be applied to any destination to help manage residents’ opinions and consequently their support for tourism development

Clinical information modeling processes for semantic interoperability of electronic health records: systematic review and inductive analysis

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association following peer review. The version of record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv008[EN] [Objective] This systematic review aims to identify and compare the existing processes and methodologies that have been published in the literature for defining clinical information models (CIMs) that support the semantic interoperability of electronic health record (EHR) systems. [Material and Methods] Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses systematic review methodology, the authors reviewed published papers between 2000 and 2013 that covered that semantic interoperability of EHRs, found by searching the PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and ScienceDirect databases. Additionally, after selection of a final group of articles, an inductive content analysis was done to summarize the steps and methodologies followed in order to build CIMs described in those articles. [Results] Three hundred and seventy-eight articles were screened and thirty six were selected for full review. The articles selected for full review were analyzed to extract relevant information for the analysis and characterized according to the steps the authors had followed for clinical information modeling. [Discussion] Most of the reviewed papers lack a detailed description of the modeling methodologies used to create CIMs. A representative example is the lack of description related to the definition of terminology bindings and the publication of the generated models. However, this systematic review confirms that most clinical information modeling activities follow very similar steps for the definition of CIMs. Having a robust and shared methodology could improve their correctness, reliability, and quality. [Conclusion] Independently of implementation technologies and standards, it is possible to find common patterns in methods for developing CIMs, suggesting the viability of defining a unified good practice methodology to be used by any clinical information modeler.This research has been partially funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Platform for Innovation in Medical Technologies and Health), grant PT13/0006/0036 and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grants TIN2010-21388-C02-01 and PTQ-12-05620.Moreno-Conde, A.; Moner Cano, D.; Da Cruz, WD.; Santos, MR.; Maldonado Segura, JA.; Robles Viejo, M.; Kalra, D. (2015). 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Care after premenopausal risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy in high-risk women: Scoping review and international consensus recommendations

Women at high inherited risk of ovarian cancer are offered risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) from age 35 to 45 years. Although potentially life-saving, RRSO may induce symptoms that negatively affect quality of life and impair long-term health. Clinical care following RRSO is often suboptimal. This scoping review describes how RRSO affects short- and long-term health and provides evidence-based international consensus recommendations for care from preoperative counselling to long-term disease prevention. This includes the efficacy and safety of hormonal and non-hormonal treatments for vasomotor symptoms, sleep disturbance and sexual dysfunction and effective approaches to prevent bone and cardiovascular disease

In-plane behavior of cavity masonry infills and strengthening with textile reinforced mortar

The seismic vulnerability of masonry infilled reinforced concrete (rc) frames observed during past earthquakes in some south European countries resulted in losses of human lives and huge repair or reconstruction costs, justifies the need of deeper study of the seismic behavior of masonry infills enclosed in rc frames. Therefore, the main goals of this study are related to: (1) better understanding of the cyclic in-plane behavior of traditional brick infills built in the past decades as enclosures in rc buildings in Portugal; (2) analysis of a strengthening technique based on textile reinforced mortar (TRM) aiming at enhancing the in-plane behavior. To accomplish the objectives, an extensive experimental campaign based on in-plane static cyclic tests on seven reduced scale rc frames with masonry infill walls was carried out. The performance of strengthening of masonry infill based on textile reinforced mortar was also evaluated experimentally. Among the conclusions of this research, it should be stressed that: (1) the presence of infill inside the bare frame could significantly enhance the in-plane stiffness and resistance of bare frame; (2) TRM technique could enhance the in-plane behavior of infilled frames by improving the lateral strength and by reducing significantly the damage of the brick infill walls.The authors would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for funding the research project ASPASSI – Assessment of the safety and strengthening of masonry infill walls subjected to seismic action (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016898) (PTDC/ECMEST/3790/2014).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ovarian damage from chemotherapy and current approaches to its protection

BACKGROUND: Anti-cancer therapy is often a cause of premature ovarian insufficiency and infertility since the ovarian follicle reserve is extremely sensitive to the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. While oocyte, embryo and ovarian cortex cryopreservation can help some women with cancer-induced infertility achieve pregnancy, the development of effective methods to protect ovarian function during chemotherapy would be a significant advantage.OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE: This paper critically discusses the different damaging effects of the most common chemotherapeutic compounds on the ovary, in particular, the ovarian follicles and the molecular pathways that lead to that damage. The mechanisms through which fertility-protective agents might prevent chemotherapy drug-induced follicle loss are then reviewed.SEARCH METHODS: Articles published in English were searched on PubMed up to March 2019 using the following terms: ovary, fertility preservation, chemotherapy, follicle death, adjuvant therapy, cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, doxorubicin. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the analysis of the protective agents.OUTCOMES: Recent studies reveal how chemotherapeutic drugs can affect the different cellular components of the ovary, causing rapid depletion of the ovarian follicular reserve. The three most commonly used drugs, cyclophosphamide, cisplatin and doxorubicin, cause premature ovarian insufficiency by inducing death and/or accelerated activation of primordial follicles and increased atresia of growing follicles. They also cause an increase in damage to blood vessels and the stromal compartment and increment inflammation. In the past 20 years, many compounds have been investigated as potential protective agents to counteract these adverse effects. The interactions of recently described fertility-protective agents with these damage pathways are discussed.WIDER IMPLICATIONS: Understanding the mechanisms underlying the action of chemotherapy compounds on the various components of the ovary is essential for the development of efficient and targeted pharmacological therapies that could protect and prolong female fertility. While there are increasing preclinical investigations of potential fertility preserving adjuvants, there remains a lack of approaches that are being developed and tested clinically

The Human Phenotype Ontology in 2024: phenotypes around the world

\ua9 The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research. The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English. Since our last report, a total of 2239 new HPO terms and 49235 new HPO annotations were developed, many in collaboration with external groups in the fields of psychiatry, arthrogryposis, immunology and cardiology. The Medical Action Ontology (MAxO) is a new effort to model treatments and other measures taken for clinical management. Finally, the HPO consortium is contributing to efforts to integrate the HPO and the GA4GH Phenopacket Schema into electronic health records (EHRs) with the goal of more standardized and computable integration of rare disease data in EHRs