FEATURES OF MENTAL CONDITIONS OF THE PATIENTS HAVING OBLITERATING ATHEROSCLEROSIS OF THE LOWER EXTREMITIES AT A STAGE OF AN AGGRAVATION AND REMISSION

Цель. Статья посвящена актуальной проблеме психических состояний больных страдающих облитерирующим атеросклерозом нижних конечностей. Авторы ставят целью проанализировать психических состояний больных, страдающих облитерирующим атеросклерозом нижних конечностей на стадии обострения и ремиссии.Методы исследования. Психодиагностические методы исследования: опрос, наблюдение, контент-анализ медицинской документации.Результаты. В исследовании показано, что у больных как на стадии ремиссии как и на стадии обострения эмоциональные состояния имеют выраженный неблагоприятный характер. Дана характеристика особенностей субъективного самочувствия, активности и настроения, показатели личностной и ситуативной тревожности больных, находящихся на разных стадиях заболевания и здоровых людей. Выявлены значимые различия, в особенностях эмоционального реагирования у пациентов с облитерирующим атеросклерозом, с преобладанием невротических расстройств по типу неврастении, наличие тревоги как ситуационно – обусловленной, так и а качестве личностной характеристики.Область применения результатов. Результаты исследования могут быть использованы в процессе медико-психологического сопровождения и реабилитации больных облитерирующим атеросклерозом нижних конечностей на стадии обострения и ремиссии.Purpose. Article is devoted to an urgent problem of mental conditions of patients of the lower extremities having obliterating atherosclerosis. Authors set as the purpose to analyse mental conditions of the patients having obliterating atherosclerosis of the lower extremities at a stage of an aggravation and remission.Research techniques. Psychodiagnostic research techniques: poll, observation, content analysis of medical documentation.Results. In a research it is shown that at patients as at a stage of remission as well as at an aggravation stage emotional states have the expressed adverse character. The characteristic of features of subjective health, activity and mood, indexes of personal and situational uneasiness of the patients who are at different stages of a disease and healthy people is given. Significant distinctions, in features of emotional reaction at patients with an obliterating atherosclerosis, with a dominance of neurotic frustration as a neurasthenia, existence of the alarm as situationally – caused, and quality of the personal characteristic are revealed.Range of application of results. Results of a research can be used in the course of medico-psychological maintenance and rehabilitation of patients with an obliterating atherosclerosis of the lower extremities at a stage of an aggravation and remission

Piezo-Optical Transducers in High Sensitive Strain Measurements

New piezo-optical sensors based on the piezo-optical effect for high sensitive mechanical stress measurements have been proposed and developed. The piezo-optical method provides the highest sensitivity to strains compared to sensors based on any other physical principles. Piezo-optical sensors use materials whose parameters practically not change under load or over time, therefore piezo-optical sensors are devoid of the disadvantages inherent in strain-resistive and piezoelectric sensors, such as hysteresis, parameters degradation with time, small dynamic range, low sensitivity to strains, and high sensitivity to overloads. Accurate numerical simulation and experimental investigations of the piezo-optical transducer output signal formation made it possible to optimize its design and show that the its gauge factor is two to three orders of magnitude higher than the gauge factors of sensors of other types. The cruciform shape of the transducer photoelastic element made it possible to significantly increase the stresses in its working area at a given external force. Combining compactness, reliability, resistance to overloads, linearity and high sensitivity, in terms of the all set of these parameters, piezo-optical sensors significantly surpass the currently widely used strain-resistive, piezoelectric and fiber-optic sensors and open up new, previously inaccessible, possibilities in the tasks of measuring power loads

The AST3-NIR Camera for the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey

AST3-NIR is a new infrared camera for deployment with the AST3-3 wide-field survey telescope to Dome A on the Antarctic plateau. This project is designed to take advantage of the low Antarctic infrared sky thermal background (particularly within the Kdark near infrared atmospheric window at 2.4 μm) and the long Antarctic nights to provide high sensitivity temporal data from astronomical sources. The data collected from the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS) will be used to conduct a range of astronomical science cases including the study of supernovae, exo-planets, variable stars, and the cosmic infrared background

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer Book 2018

(Abridged) This is the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer 2018 book. It is intended as a concise reference guide to all aspects of the scientific and technical design of MSE, for the international astronomy and engineering communities, and related agencies. The current version is a status report of MSE's science goals and their practical implementation, following the System Conceptual Design Review, held in January 2018. MSE is a planned 10-m class, wide-field, optical and near-infrared facility, designed to enable transformative science, while filling a critical missing gap in the emerging international network of large-scale astronomical facilities. MSE is completely dedicated to multi-object spectroscopy of samples of between thousands and millions of astrophysical objects. It will lead the world in this arena, due to its unique design capabilities: it will boast a large (11.25 m) aperture and wide (1.52 sq. degree) field of view; it will have the capabilities to observe at a wide range of spectral resolutions, from R2500 to R40,000, with massive multiplexing (4332 spectra per exposure, with all spectral resolutions available at all times), and an on-target observing efficiency of more than 80%. MSE will unveil the composition and dynamics of the faint Universe and is designed to excel at precision studies of faint astrophysical phenomena. It will also provide critical follow-up for multi-wavelength imaging surveys, such as those of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, Gaia, Euclid, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, the Square Kilometre Array, and the Next Generation Very Large Array.Comment: 5 chapters, 160 pages, 107 figure

The AST3-NIR Camera for the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey

AST3-NIR is a new infrared camera for deployment with the AST3-3 wide-field survey telescope to Dome A on the Antarctic plateau. This project is designed to take advantage of the low Antarctic infrared sky thermal background (particularly within the Kdark near infrared atmospheric window at 2.4 μm) and the long Antarctic nights to provide high sensitivity temporal data from astronomical sources. The data collected from the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS) will be used to conduct a range of astronomical science cases including the study of supernovae, exo-planets, variable stars, and the cosmic infrared background

Veloce Rosso: Australia's new precision radial velocity spectrograph

Veloce is an ultra-stable fibre-fed R4 echelle spectrograph for the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope. The first channel to be commissioned, Veloce ‘Rosso’, utilises multiple low-cost design innovations to obtain Doppler velocities for sun-like and M-dwarf stars at 75,000 spectra over a 580-930 nm range for the Rosso channel. Simultaneous calibration is provided by a single-mode pulsed laser frequency comb in tandem with a traditional arc lamp. A bundle of 19 object fibres ensures full sampling of stellar targets from the AAT site. Veloce is housed in dual environmental enclosures that maintain positive air pressure at a stability of ±0.3 mbar, with a thermal stability of ±0.01 K on the optical bench. We present a technical overview and early performance data from Australia's next major spectroscopic machine

Billing and credit risk (bcr) activity optimization and customer journey enhancement to improve customer experience

The global landscape of telecommunication industry is changing faster than ever. Over the last decade, the industry has witnessed a decline in revenue from traditional services due to the widespread technology waves and the digital disruption. The sector is vulnerable to shifts in technology cycles, competitor actions and changing customer needs, which forces them to undertake digital transformation to remain relevant to consumer and enterprise customers. Hence, this in-company project between Proximus and students of the Vlerick Business School is one of many efforts of the company to become a customer-centric company and to adapt to the changing environment. The project focuses on optimizing the operation of billing and collection, as well as to enhance the customer journey throughout the customer life cycle to improve customer experience. The core aim here is to deflate the number of customers entering collection (CACS) or bad debt flows (OCA) and to deflate other costs caused by customer dissatisfaction (churn, calling costs). After an initial customer journey analysis and the market research in order to discover pain-points and quick win solutions, we narrowed down our research focus to the topics we identified as yielding the highest benefits to Proximus and which were feasible to build detailed proposals for within the 8 week timeframe. We identified that renewing the profiling system, conceptualizing and drafting a predictive collections risk model for new customers, enhancing proactive communication strategies, and identifying customers towards whom to push direct debit adoption, were all fundamental to improve within the Billing and collection process for the residential customer segment of Proximus. Due to the step-by-step implementation structure at Proximus, in which each step has to be clearly outlined, conceptualized and drafted before development, we were encouraged to approach all these topics and to conceptualize and draft systems that can be “handed over” to the digital transformation Proximus team a er the end of our project. Within the scope of our in-company project, we developed solutions based on best practices, market research, interviews with Proximus experts and by analyzing available literature. Given this we proposed to change the current static profiling system with limited segmentations based only on payment behavior, to an updated profilling system that is more dynamic but s ll employs the inputs available within Proximus in their already existing profiling system. From drafting the predictive CACS profiling system for new customers not only did we indicate the benefits of its inclusion to the profiling system, but we also indicated data integration necessary to further improve the profiling system. Most of this data are available within Proximus already and can be integrated, while some can be sourced during the screening process as many of its competitors do (data on profession, education) in order to enhance both the profiling system and to increase fraud prevention at screening. The predictive model should be rerun once these input variables have been integrated. In the appendix we attached a short guideline on our steps towards this end. The proactive communication strategies are built upon the profiling analysis proposals and indicate how customers can be targeted proactively based on the profiling outcomes. Hence, the first recommendation was taken as foundation. The proactive communication comprises of the enhanced communication approach, which is based on new segmentations according to the age groups and the stage of technology adoption. Lastly, the third solution related to the direct debit push where we made several recommendations in order to strengthen the promotion of the direct debit as an effective payment method. Hence, we identified customer segments to enhance the direct debit push towards and proposed ways to improve the direct debit promotion to customers, its operations and the experience of customers when using direct debit. These solutions aim to decrease customer dissatisfaction by tackling key pain-points and proposing proactive communication that prevents customers from misunderstandings or from entering the collection (CACS) and bad debt (OCA) )flows. This will result in an improvement of the customer effort score (CES), the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and the residential wide Net promotor score (NPS), which, according to the latest obtained es mates, was worrying (November 2019, NPS: -19). Due to the increased understanding on procedures and self-help channels and given the prevention from customers entering collection or bad debt flows, the proposals deflate the number of costly agent calls customers make to Proximus