Stochastic modelling of the spatial spread of influenza in Germany

In geographical epidemiology, disease counts are typically available in discrete spatial units and at discrete time-points. For example, surveillance data on infectious diseases usually consists of weekly counts of new infections in pre-defined geographical areas. Similarly, but on a different time-scale, cancer registries typically report yearly incidence or mortality counts in administrative regions. A major methodological challenge lies in building realistic models for space-time interactions on discrete irregular spatial graphs. In this paper, we will discuss an observation-driven approach, where past observed counts in neighbouring areas enter directly as explanatory variables, in contrast to the parameter-driven approach through latent Gaussian Markov random fields (Rue and Held, 2005) with spatio-temporal structure. The main focus will lie on the demonstration of the spread of influenza in Germany, obtained through the design and simulation of a spatial extension of the classical SIR model (Hufnagel et al., 2004)

Flammability Tests on Hot Surface for Several Hydraulic Fluids

Industrial equipment using hydraulic fluids are design to accept higher load and speed, implicitly higher temperatures, including for fluids. Leakages from enclosures like gear boxes or hydraulic systems could increase the risk of fluid reaching hot surfaces, thus producing fires hard to be controlled and isolated. The designer have to evaluate the flammability of fluids and they should select several solutions for a particular application in order to estimate the costs of different solutions and to mitigate the risk of having accidental fires due to a specific fluid grade. The tests were done with the help of an original equipment allowing a dedicated soft assistance in order to protect the operator and to sustain reproducibility, according to the standard SR EN ISO 20823:2004 Petroleum and related products. The determination of the flammability characteristics of fluids in contact with hot surfaces - Manifold ignition test, There were tested the following grades of hydraulic oil HLP 68 X-Oil, HFC Prista, MHE 40 Prista (100% oil), a rapeseed oil (obtained after a dewaxing process) and an emulsion oil-in-water (5% vol. MHE 40 Prista). There were identified distinct behaviours of these fluids under the test condition

Genetic survey of alveolar and cystic echinococcoses in Romania: first molecular evidence of Echinococcus multilocularis in humans in the country

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE) are considered as one of the most important zoonotic diseases in Romania, where they are subject to mandatory reporting. To obtain more knowledge about the genetic diversity of Echinococcus causative agents of these diseases, 11 isolates from humans and ungulate intermediate hosts from the two regions of Romania were genotyped using mitochondrial markers. In clinical samples of fi ve patients from north-eastern Romania (Iasi, Botosani, Vaslui counties), Echinococcus multilocularis was identifi ed as causal agent by cox1 sequence analysis. To the best of our knowledge this fi nding presents the fi rst molecular evidence of E. multilocularis in humans from Romania. Only two cases of AE in patients were previously documented in the country by serological methods. In our four patients the most widespread European variant E5 of E. multilocularis was recorded, whereas in isolate from Vaslui county three nucleotide substitutions were detected as compared to the most related E5 haplotype. One of these mutations (411T/G) matched N1 and N2 haplotypes described previously from North America. In six CE samples retrieved from western Romania (Caras-Severin and Timis counties), two human isolates were diagnosed as Echinococcus canadensis G7, one as E. granulosus s.s. G1 and one as E. granulosus s.s. G3 using atp6 and rrnS sequencing. In ungulates, the cattle isolate was allocated to E. granulosus s.s. G1 and pig isolate to E. canadensis G7. The two G7 fi ndings in humans reinforced the recent view that G7 was underestimated as compared to the E. granulosus s.s. regarding human CE threat that can be further employed for identifying sources of infections and establishing suitable preventive measures

Properties of nanostructured chia seeds and prospects of their application in functional foodstuffs

The research paper sets out the results of the examination of nanostructured chia seed properties by the methods of self-organization and nanoparticle tracking analysis. The research results show that the chia seed nanoparticles exhibit supramolecular properties and are water-soluble; a nanocapsule medium size is from 214 to 291 nm. That said, the size of chia seed nanocapsules depends on the nature of a carbohydrate shel

Full Scale Field Test on a Slope Progressive Failure

In order to obtain the mechanical behaviour parameters of the red structured clays from the Danube- Black Sea Canal and to estimate the behavior of the slopes cut in such clays, an experimental programme was carried out. A checked failure was provoked for a slope dug in red fissured clays. The paper presents the results of the field investigations and the laboratory test regarding the, characteristics of the structured clays, as well as the in situ measurements during the experimental programme. The results of these measurements are compared with those obtained by numerical symulation using a computer program