Impact of Cognitive Impairment on Functional Outcome in Stroke

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the cognitive impairment on functional status in patients with subacute stroke. Fifty-two patients with subacute stroke were included in the study. Mini mental state examination (MMSE) test was used for the evaluation of cognitive status. Patients were separated into two groups according to their cognitive functions. Functional follow-up parameters were activities of daily living (ADL), global recovery and ambulation status. All patients were evaluated on admission to rehabilitation unit, at discharge and 6 months after discharge. Forty-four patients were completed the study. Mean age was 66 and 57 years; disease duration on admission was 4,8 and 3,5 months in the cognitively impaired and normal groups, respectively. Significant improvement was found in terms of functional follow-up parameters in both groups at discharge (P < .05). Functional follow-up parameters did not show statistically significant difference between the groups. But community ambulation rate was higher in cognitively normal group at the sixth month visit. As a result of this study, inpatient rehabilitation was effective both cognitively normal and impaired subacute stroke patients

Clarity and Visual Ratios of the Vibrant Place Making

One of the most important components of the city is the place, which generates interest in it being the city’s basic urban structure, This concern has led to the emergence of a new concept, the placemaking, where the concept of placemaking is not based on the dimensions of physical space, but also focuses on social dimensionsand the satisfaction of the population and their wishes and needs, And emerged several trends for the urban placemaking, and because the center of the city of Diwaniya suffers from neglect and deterioration and the migration of activities to the outskirts of the city, Where it is necessary to find a trend that reinvigorates thecenter, which is the orientation of the vibrant placemaking, which deals exclusively with the centers of cities and combines within it several other directions for the placemaking, The problem of research is reflected in the lack of clarity of the relationship between urban planning and urban design and the assumption that the relationship between design and urban planning is produced through the vibrant placemaking, and in order to determine the relationship and build indicators from the relationship between urban planning and urban design for the vibrant placemaking, The main vocabulary, which has been tested with the tasks and objectives of urban planning and urban design standards to extract the final indicators, which interact as a system and integrated unit, Two quantitative indicators, which are directly measurable and qualitative indicators, measured by the questionnaire, And the most important conclusions and recommendations increase the amount of diversity in activities and intensities and exclusion of inappropriate uses and attention to individuals and buildings heritage and the positive interaction resulting from the establishment of rituals, which creates perception and memory Assembly, Enhancing the spatial character through the human scale, adopting a clear methodology for urban development, preparing detailed plans, raising the functional efficiency of the planningstaff, and attracting large investments for the purpose of the vibrant placemaking in the city center of Diwaniyah city

Static Safety for an Actor Dedicated Process Calculus by Abstract Interpretation

The actor model eases the definition of concurrent programs with non uniform behaviors. Static analysis of such a model was previously done in a data-flow oriented way, with type systems. This approach was based on constraint set resolution and was not able to deal with precise properties for communications of behaviors. We present here a new approach, control-flow oriented, based on the abstract interpretation framework, able to deal with communication of behaviors. Within our new analyses, we are able to verify most of the previous properties we observed as well as new ones, principally based on occurrence counting

AMR, stability and higher accuracy

Efforts to achieve better accuracy in numerical relativity have so far focused either on implementing second order accurate adaptive mesh refinement or on defining higher order accurate differences and update schemes. Here, we argue for the combination, that is a higher order accurate adaptive scheme. This combines the power that adaptive gridding techniques provide to resolve fine scales (in addition to a more efficient use of resources) together with the higher accuracy furnished by higher order schemes when the solution is adequately resolved. To define a convenient higher order adaptive mesh refinement scheme, we discuss a few different modifications of the standard, second order accurate approach of Berger and Oliger. Applying each of these methods to a simple model problem, we find these options have unstable modes. However, a novel approach to dealing with the grid boundaries introduced by the adaptivity appears stable and quite promising for the use of high order operators within an adaptive framework

NPTX1 Regulates Neural Lineage Specification from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

SummaryNeural induction is the first fundamental step in nervous system formation. During development, a tightly regulated niche modulates transient extracellular signals to influence neural lineage commitment. To date, however, the cascade of molecular events that sustain these signals in humans is not well understood. Here we show that NPTX1, a secreted protein, is rapidly upregulated during neural induction from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). By manipulating its expression, we were able to reduce or initiate neural lineage commitment. A time-course transcriptome analysis and functional assays show that NPTX1 acts in part by binding the Nodal receptor cofactor TDGF1, reducing both Nodal and BMP signaling. Our findings identify one of the earliest genes expressed upon neural induction and provide insight into human neural lineage specification

An Image-Based Method for Determining Bulk Density and the Soil Shrinkage Curve

Current laboratory methods for determining volume and bulk density of soil clods include dipping saran-coated clods in water (a destructive process due to the permanent coating), performing physical measurements on samples with well-defined geometries, or using expensive equipment and proprietary software (such as laser scanners). We propose an alternative method for determining the volume and bulk density of a soil clod, which is non-destructive, low-cost and utilizes free and open-source software. This method (the clodometer method) uses a standard digital camera to image a rotating clod, which allows for reconstruction of its three-dimensional surface and subsequent calculation of its volume. We validated the method through comparison to the standard displacement method, and then used the method to create a soil shrinkage curve for the Waldo silty clay loam soil. The method had acceptable precision (relative standard errors of the mean between 0.4 – 1.6%), which may be further improved through future software development.This is the author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by the Soil Science Society of America and can be found at: https://www.soils.org/publications/sssaj

Measurement Tool for Dynamics of Soil Cracks

Shrinkage cracks in soil function as a dominant control on the partitioning and distribution of moisture fluxes in the vadose zone. Their dynamics influence moisture balance and control water availability for runoff, deep infiltration, and near-surface storage. We present a new low-cost field instrument to monitor the temporal change in crack volume as affected by shrinkage and swelling cycles. The proposed crack-o-meter is composed of a sealed impermeable bag connected by a hose to a standpipe. An automated level logger records changes in water level in the standpipe, which correspond to volumetric changes of the crack. Results from two laboratory experiments show that the volume change observed by the crack-o-meter instruments scales linearly with the actual volume change, with an average error of 3%. The instrument was then used in a field experiment in Chile, where it measured the closing of cracks due to soil swelling

Mixed formulation for an easy and robust numerical computation of sorptivity

Sorptivity is one of the most important parameters for the quantification of water infiltration into soils. proposed a specific formulation to derive sorptivity as a function of the soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions, as well as initial and final soil water contents. However, this formulation requires the integration of a function involving hydraulic diffusivity, which may be undefined or present numerical difficulties that cause numerical misestimations. In this study, we propose a mixed formulation that scales sorptivity and splits the integrals into two parts: the first term involves the scaled degree of saturation, while the second involves the scaled water pressure head. The new mixed formulation is shown to be robust and well-suited to any type of hydraulic function - even with infinite hydraulic diffusivity or positive air-entry water pressure heads - and any boundary condition, including infinite initial water pressure head, h→-∞. Lastly, we show the benefits of using the proposed formulation for modeling water into soil with analytical models that use sorptivity. Copyright

A scaling procedure for straightforward computation of sorptivity

This research has been supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (grant no. ANR-17-CE04-010).Sorptivity is a parameter of primary importance in the study of unsaturated flow in soils. This hydraulic parameter is required to model water infiltration into vertical soil profiles. Sorptivity can be directly estimated from the soil hydraulic functions (water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves), using the integral formulation of Parlange (1975). However, calculating sorptivity in this manner requires the prior determination of the soil hydraulic diffusivity and its numerical integration between initial and final saturation degrees, which may be difficult in some situations (e.g., coarse soil with diffusivity functions that are quasi-infinite close to saturation). In this paper, we present a procedure to compute sorptivity using a scaling parameter, cp, that corresponds to the sorptivity of a unit soil (i.e., unit values for all parameters and zero residual water content) that is utterly dry at the initial state and saturated at the final state. The cp parameter was computed numerically and analytically for five hydraulic models: delta (i.e., Green and Ampt), Brooks and Corey, van Genuchten–Mualem, van Genuchten–Burdine, and Kosugi. Based on the results, we proposed brand new analytical expressions for some of the models and validated previous formulations for the other models. We also tabulated the output values so that they can easily be used to determine the actual sorptivity value for any case. At the same time, our numerical results showed that the relation between cp and the hydraulic shape parameters strongly depends on the chosen model. These results highlight the need for careful selection of the proper model for the description of the water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions when estimating sorptivity.French National Research Agency (ANR) European Commission ANR-17-CE04-01