Comparing the Court and Medical Interpreters in the USA: the certification process.

The scope of the paper is to provide information on the current Court and Medical Interpreting certification process in the USA. It includes information on the administrative aspects of certification for both Courts and Healthcare institutions. In the United States of America, the term Community Interpreting is not commonly used. There are two major types of interpretation: Court and Medical. The first is offered in US State and Federal courts to all LEP clients; the second is offered to the Healthcare Institutions as hospitals, healthcarecenters and clinics to name a few. As the space is limited for this authoring, the paper won’t include data and statistics from different states that showcase and document success and failure rates of the certification examinations. Thismay well be the topic of a different paper. This paper does not include information on the Court Interpreting for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Comparing the Court and Medical Interpreters in the USA: the certification process.

The scope of the paper is to provide information on the current Court and Medical Interpreting certification process in the USA. It includes information on the administrative aspects of certification for both Courts and Healthcare institutions. In the United States of America, the term Community Interpreting is not commonly used. There are two major types of interpretation: Court and Medical. The first is offered in US State and Federal courts to all LEP clients; the second is offered to the Healthcare Institutions as hospitals, healthcarecenters and clinics to name a few. As the space is limited for this authoring, the paper won’t include data and statistics from different states that showcase and document success and failure rates of the certification examinations. Thismay well be the topic of a different paper. This paper does not include information on the Court Interpreting for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Reuse of By-Products from Ready-Mixed Concrete Plants for the Production of Cement Mortars

This study was motivated by the necessity to recycle sludge water resulting from washing out concrete mixing trucks - a problem of both environmental and economic importance for the ready-mixed concrete industry. Sludge water from ready-mixed concrete plants as well as dry sludge, which is derived from the settling of the water, are hazardous for disposal due to their high pH value (pH>11.5). In this work, cement mortars were composed using either sludge water after various treatment, or dry sludge in several ratios. The cement mortars were tested for their workability and strength development. The purpose of this experimental design was to prove that sludge water, as well as sludge in a wet or dry form, can be used in the production of mortars without degrading any of their properties

Η υπεροχή του κοινοτικού δικαίου και οι περιπτώσεις παραβίασης του απ’ την Ελλάδα.

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας εργασίας αποτελεί η μελέτη του κοινοτικού δικαίου, της υπερέχουσας θέσης του έναντι του εθνικού δικαίου των κρατών μελών της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης και των επιταγών εναρμόνισης του τελευταίου με το πρώτο, ως απόρροια της διαδικασίας της ευρωπαϊκής ενοποίησης. Επί τούτοις, διερευνάται και ο βαθμός συμμόρφωσης της Ελλάδας με το δίκαιο της Ε.Ε. καθώς παρατίθενται ορισμένες περιπτώσεις απόκλισης του δικαίου της χώρας μας από εκείνο της Ε.Ε. σε τομείς όπως το περιβάλλον και ο αθέμιτος ανταγωνισμός.The subject of this paper is the study of community law, its supreme position in contrast to the national law of the Member States of the European Union and the requirements of harmonization of the last one with the first one, as a result of the European integration process. However, the degree of compliance of Greece with EU law is being investigated as there are some cases of deviation of the law of our country from that of the EU in sectors such as the environment and the unfair competition

Biofunctional Characteristics of Lignite Fly Ash Modified by Humates: A New Soil Conditioner

Fly ash superficially modified with humic substances from the Megalopolis lignitic power plant was prepared and evaluated for agricultural uses. UV-vis spectrophotometry and IR spectroscopy revealed that fly ash shows high sorption efficiency towards humic substances. Adsorption proceeds stepwise via strong Coulombic and hydrophophic forces of attraction between guest and host materials. Langmuir, Freundlich, BET, Harkins-Jura, and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm models were employed to evaluate the ongoing adsorption and shed light to the physicochemical properties of the sorbent-adsorbate system. Humic substances desorption and microbial cultivation experiments were also carried out to examine the regeneration of the humates under washing and explore the possibility of this material acclimatizing in real soil conditions, both useful for biofunctional agricultural applications

EUROMAT 2019 Symposia on Processing

This issue of JMEP contains invited, peer-reviewed papers presented at the European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes (EUROMAT 2019), held on September 1–5, 2019, in Stockholm, Sweden, in two symposia from the Area C “Processing”: C6 “Joining,” organized by Anna Zervaki (University of Thessaly, Greece), Ivan Kaban (IFW Dresden, Germany), and C. Sommitsch (Technische Universität Graz, Austria) C8 “Interface Design and Modelling, Wetting, and High-Temperature Capillarity,” organized by Pavel Protsenko (M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation), Fabrizio Valenza (CNR—ICMATE, Genoa, Italy), and Simeon Agathopoulos (University of Ioannina, Greece) The research works in the field of joining technologies, presented at the C6 symposium, concerned soldering, brazing, diffusion bonding, resistance spot welding, friction stir welding, and riveting techniques. The symposium C8 covered research topics on grain boundary wetting, surface energy of liquid metals and interfacial phenomena, considering fundamental as well as applied issues related to materials joining, and interface design. We wish to thank the authors for the written contributions and acknowledge the reviewers for their careful reading and evaluation of the manuscripts and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of the papers. We are grateful to the editor-in-chief of JMEP, Dr. Rajiv Asthana, and the ASM journal staff, including Mary Anne Fleming, senior content developer; Kate Doman, content developer (journals); and Vincent Katona, production coordinator; for the opportunity to publish the symposia contributions in this issue and for their professional and friendly support during the entire reviewing and publication process. We hope this collection will stimulate fresh thinking and promote further research on joining and interfacial phenomena

Coagulated Mineral Adsorbents for Dye Removal, and Their Process Intensification Using an Agitated Tubular Reactor (ATR)

The aim of this study was to understand the efficacy of widely available minerals as dual-function adsorbers and weighter materials, for the removal of toxic azo-type textile dyes when combined with coprecipitation processes. Specifically, the adsorption of an anionic direct dye was measured on various mineral types with and without the secondary coagulation of iron hydroxide (‘FeOOH’) in both a bench-scale stirred tank, as well as an innovative agitated tubular reactor (ATR). Talc, calcite and modified bentonite were all able to remove 90–95% of the dye at 100 and 200 ppm concentrations, where the kinetics were fitted to a pseudo second-order rate model and adsorption was rapid (99% of the dye was achieved for all the coagulated systems, where additionally, they produced significantly enhanced settling rates and bed compression. The greatest settling rate (9 mm min−1) and solids content increase (450% w/w) were observed for the calcium carbonate system, which also displayed the most homogenous distribution. This system was selected for scale-up and benchmarking in the ATR. Dye removal and sediment dispersion in the ATR were enhanced with respect to the bench scale tests, although lower settling rates were observed due to the relatively high shear rate of the agitator. Overall, results highlight the applicability of these cost-effective minerals as both dye adsorbers and sludge separation modifiers to accelerate settling and compression in textile water treatment. Additionally, the work indicates the suitability of the ATR as a flexible, modular alternative to traditional stirred tank reactors

Automated office blood pressure measurements in primary care are misleading in more than one third of treated hypertensives: The VALENTINE-Greece Home Blood Pressure Monitoring study

Abstract Background This study assessed the diagnostic reliability of automated office blood pressure (OBP) measurements in treated hypertensive patients in primary care by evaluating the prevalence of white coat hypertension (WCH) and masked uncontrolled hypertension (MUCH) phenomena. Methods Primary care physicians, nationwide in Greece, assessed consecutive hypertensive patients on stable treatment using OBP (1 visit, triplicate measurements) and home blood pressure (HBP) measurements (7 days, duplicate morning and evening measurements). All measurements were performed using validated automated devices with bluetooth capacity (Omron M7 Intelli-IT). Uncontrolled OBP was defined as ≥140/90 mmHg, and uncontrolled HBP was defined as ≥135/85 mmHg. Results A total of 790 patients recruited by 135 doctors were analyzed (age: 64.5 ± 14.4 years, diabetics: 21.4%, smokers: 20.6%, and average number of antihypertensive drugs: 1.6 ± 0.8). OBP (137.5 ± 9.4/84.3 ± 7.7 mmHg, systolic/diastolic) was higher than HBP (130.6 ± 11.2/79.9 ± 8 mmHg; difference 6.9 ± 11.6/4.4 ± 7.6 mmHg, p Conclusions In primary care, automated OBP measurements are misleading in approximately 40% of treated hypertensive patients. HBP monitoring is mandatory to avoid overtreatment of subjects with WCH phenomenon and prevent undertreatment and subsequent excess cardiovascular disease in MUCH

United Nations at Crossroads: International Administration of Territories and Domestic Political Culture. The Kosovo and East Timor Experiences

El Capítulo VII solo ha sido invocado en dos ocasiones para el establecimiento de administraciones territoriales internacionales, en el caso de Timor Leste y Kosovo. A pesar del legado institucional y político de estas operaciones similares bajo el mandato de la Liga de Naciones y el marco de las Naciones Unidas, parecen establecerse no sólo en un vacío institucional debido a la ausencia de una definición en la Carta de las Naciones Unidas, sino también de una forma no sistemática, siguiendo un enfoque casuístico en relación con la selección de los territorios a ser administrados, los medios para la ejecución de la “gobernanza internacional” y los fines últimos de estas operaciones. Estas deficiencias estructurales influencian los procesos de construcción de identidad cívica, lo cual es esencial para la ejecución de las reformas institucionales y la resolución consensual de conflictos, elementos que constituyen los principales pilares de las operaciones de construcción de paz. En este artículo el marco institucional y conceptual de esta nueva generación de operaciones es presentado con un examen a continuación, de la evolución del concepto de gobernanza internacional y su contribución al proceso de transición y las culturas políticas domésticas en los territorios concernidos

Human security and climate change mitigation: The case of ocean governance

This paper focuses on the relationship of climate change mitigation and human security and its implications for ocean governance. The analysis of the existing maritime climate change mitigation landscape begins with a mapping of the different actors involved and their empowerment in this domain. This is followed by a presentation of the institutional framework for maritime climate change mitigation, moving from the international to the EU level, with a special focus on the Baltic Sea, which is highlighted as an example of a regional sea environmental system that has incorporated climate change mitigation in its objectives and operational actions within the broader aim of securability. Finally, the prevailing and emerging norms in the domain of maritime climate change mitigation efforts at the international and regional levels are being discussed. © 2018 Elsevier Lt