The Fundamental Properties of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies in Clusters

We present preliminary results of an extensive study of the fundamental properties of dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) in the Coma cluster. Our study will combine HST surface photometry with ground-based UBRIJK photometry and optical spectroscopy. The combined data set will be used to investigate the intrinsic correlations among global parameters in cluster dEs, including the Fundamental Plane, the color-magnitude relation, the Faber-Jackson and Kormendy relation, and velocity dispersion versus line strength indices. These empirical correlations have provided important constraints to theoretical models of galaxy formation and evolution for "normal" elliptical galaxies. Although dEs are the most abundant galaxy population in clusters their properties remain, however, largely unknown. Our study aims to provide an essential reference for testing current theories on the formation and evolution of dEs in clusters, and understanding their relation to more massive elliptical galaxies.Comment: 10 pages. To appear in "Star Formation through Time", 2003, ASP Conf. Ser. ed. Perez, Gonzalez Delgado, Tenorio-Tagl

Population variability of weedy sunflower as invasive species

Three populations of weedy sunflower were investigated with the aim to assess its population variability. The following parameters were evaluated: vegetative parameters - plant height (cm), leaf lenght (cm), leaf width (cm), number of ray flowers, number of bract; generative parameters - head diametar (cm), mass of achene per head (g), number of achene per head; and achene parameters - achene lenght (µm), achene width (µm), mass of 100 achenes (g). Except that, achene morphology as indicator of population variability was studied. The studied populations significantly differed regarding to most measured parameters, while only plant height and number of ray flowers were similar in all three populations

CROATIAN SOCIETY OF CLINICAL EMBRYOLOGISTS – GUIDELINES ON THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MEDICALLY ASSISTED REPRODUCTION (MAR) PROCEDURES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC REGARDING THE SAFETY OF PATIENTS AND MEDICAL HEALTH WORKERS

Due to the high virulence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the infection rate in the community has led to a state of pandemic, leading to the introduction of new emergency measures all over the world. With the aim of controlling and preventing the SARS-CoV-2 viral epidemic, the health institutions performing medically assisted reproduction (MAR) suspended any new MAR treatments in order to reduce the burden on the health care system and implement current social distancing recommendations. Considering the favorable epidemiological situation in Croatia, our perspective is that it is time to conceive, plan and bring forth guidelines for restarting work in MAR centres, taking into account the selection of patients and organization of good laboratory and clinical practices with emphasis on the safety of patients and health workers. In regard to epidemiological knowledge, it is important to establish the reorganization of work in MAR centres including epidemiological measures of reducing unnecessary stays in closed spaces, the usage of protective gear by patients and health workers and disinfection of the working spaces and equipment

Evaluation of health care systems and primary health care strategy

Objetivo: evaluar la calidad de los sistemas de salud y la estrategia de Atención Primaria de la Salud (APS) en distintas áreas geográficas del país. Método: estudio de corte transversal con abordaje metodológico triangular que involucró: a) encuestas a las personas que demandan la atención, b) entrevistas a referentes claves del equipo de salud y c) grupos focales con los equipos de salud. Los componentes de estructura, proceso y resultados de los sistemas de salud basados en APS se evaluaron por medio de indicadores específicos. Resultados: el análisis de la información muestra un déficit evidente de la integración del equipo profesional, principalmente en la actividad comunitaria y social, la carencia de normativas adecuadas y problemas de accesibilidad estructural para población discapacitada. Se destaca, además, el alto porcentaje de personal que desconoce los programas en ejecución dentro de la institución, así como la falta de un sistema de información adecuado sobre la población del área y de registros de los procesos de gestión en la mayoría de las unidades analizadas. Conclusión: a pesar de los esfuerzos para definir y ejecutar la estrategia de APS, los centros de salud continúan realizando sus actividades en base al modelo tradicional de atención exclusiva de la demanda.Objective: the aim of this project was to evaluate the quality of health care systems based on the strategy of Primary Health Care in different areas of the country. Method: cross-sectional study with a triangular approach, including a) a survey to the population demanding care, b) interviews to key referents of the health team, and c) health team focus groups. The components of structure, process and outcomes of the health system based on PHC were evaluated by specific indicators. Results: the analysis of the information shows an evident deficit of the integration of the professional team, mainly in the activities towards community, the lack of norms and lack of facilities for disable people. It must be noted also the high percentage of the health care team that does not know about current institutional health programs and the lack of an adequate information system for the area population and for the administrative process in most of the sites studied. Conclusion: in spite of the efforts to implement the PHC strategy, most of health centers evaluated are still providing care based on the traditional model oriented to the demands of care.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey. II. Data Description and Source Catalogs

The Coma cluster was the target of a HST-ACS Treasury program designed for deep imaging in the F475W and F814W passbands. Although our survey was interrupted by the ACS instrument failure in 2007, the partially completed survey still covers ~50% of the core high-density region in Coma. Observations were performed for 25 fields that extend over a wide range of cluster-centric radii (~1.75 Mpc) with a total coverage area of 274 arcmin^2. The majority of the fields are located near the core region of Coma (19/25 pointings) with six additional fields in the south-west region of the cluster. In this paper we present reprocessed images and SExtractor source catalogs for our survey fields, including a detailed description of the methodology used for object detection and photometry, the subtraction of bright galaxies to measure faint underlying objects, and the use of simulations to assess the photometric accuracy and completeness of our catalogs. We also use simulations to perform aperture corrections for the SExtractor Kron magnitudes based only on the measured source flux and half-light radius. We have performed photometry for ~73,000 unique objects; one-half of our detections are brighter than the 10-sigma point-source detection limit at F814W=25.8 mag (AB). The slight majority of objects (60%) are unresolved or only marginally resolved by ACS. We estimate that Coma members are 5-10% of all source detections, which consist of a large population of unresolved objects (primarily GCs but also UCDs) and a wide variety of extended galaxies from a cD galaxy to dwarf LSB galaxies. The red sequence of Coma member galaxies has a constant slope and dispersion across 9 magnitudes (-21<M_F814W<-13). The initial data release for the HST-ACS Coma Treasury program was made available to the public in 2008 August. The images and catalogs described in this study relate to our second data release.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJS. A high-resolution version is available at http://archdev.stsci.edu/pub/hlsp/coma/release2/PaperII.pd

Nucleated Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies in the Coma Cluster

Recent studies show that most dwarf elliptical galaxies (dE) in nearby clusters possess nuclear star clusters. Earlier studies used photographic plates and frequently missed the faint nuclei in dEs. For the first time, we are able to identify nuclei in a large number of dE galaxies in the Coma cluster with ACS/HST Coma Cluster Treasury Survey images. This data allows us to compare the properties of nuclei to their underlying galaxies, to study the properties of galaxies with and without the nuclei, and to compare dE and dE,N galaxies to those studied in the Fornax and the Virgo cluster. In order to shed some light on the formation mechanism of nuclei in dE galaxies we first identify nuclei in dE galaxies using aperture photometry and 2D Sersic profile fitting. We then, investigate relations between the nuclei and the underlying galaxy properties and compare them to previous studies done in Fornax and Virgo. We show relations between the nuclei color and the underlying galaxy light, difference in color between non-nucleated and nucleated dE's, and we investigate whether nucleated dE's are more strongly concentrated toward the cluster center as found in earlier studies

Isolation of pectin-enriched products from red beet (Beta vulgaris L. var. conditiva) wastes: Composition and functional properties

The present work was dedicated to the development of an extraction process for red beet (Beta vulgaris L. var. conditiva) by-products that preserves the high molecular weight of the macromolecules with the primary aim of waste upgrading. Our study concerns the extraction of pectin-enriched products with potential thickening properties for their usage in food formulation, as well as with some healthy physiological effect, by using citrate buffer (pH=5.2) either alone or with enzymes (hemicellulase or cellulase) active on cell wall polysaccharide networks. Considering that red beet tissue contains ferulic acid, which cross-links pectin macromolecules through arabinose residues to anchor them into the cell wall, an alkaline pretreatment was also evaluated in order to perform polysaccharide hydrolysis in the cell wall network to accomplish higher renderings. Chemical composition and yield, as well as the in vitro glucose retention exerted by the isolated fiber products were finally analyzed.Fil: Fissore, Eliana Noemi. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Industrias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Ponce, Nora Marta Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; ArgentinaFil: Matkovic, Laura Beatriz. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Química Biológica; ArgentinaFil: Stortz, Carlos Arturo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones en Hidratos de Carbono; ArgentinaFil: Rojas, Ana Maria Luisa. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Industrias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Gerschenson, Lia Noemi. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Industrias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Evaluación de los sistemas de salud y estrategia de APS

Evaluar la calidad de los sistemas de salud y la estrategia de la atención primaria en distintas áreas geográficas del país. Método: estudio de corte transversal con abordaje metodológico triangular que involucró: a) encuestas a las personas que demandan la atención, b) entrevistas a referentes clave del equipo de salud y c) grupos focales con los equipos de salud.Los componentes de estructura, procesos y resultados de la atención basados en APS se evaluaron por medio de indicadores específicos. Resultados: el análisis de la información muestra un déficit evidente de la integración del equipo profesional, principalmente en la actividad comunitaria y social, la carencia de normativas adecuadas y barreras de accesibilidad estructural para población discapacitada. Se destaca además el alto porcentaje de personal que desconoce los programas en ejecución dentro de la institución, así como la falta de un sistema de información adecuado sobre la población del área y de registro de los procesos de gestión en la mayoría de las unidades analizadas. Conclusión: a pesar de los esfuerzos para definir y ejecutar la estrategia de ASPS, los centros de salud continúan realizando sus actividades en base al modelo tradicional de atención exclusiva de la demanda.Fil: Paganini, José M.. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Cs.médicas. Centro Interdisc.universitario Para la Salud; ArgentinaFil: Etchegoyen, Graciela Susana. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Cs.médicas. Centro Interdisc.universitario Para la Salud; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Bo, Ana. UNLP. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Cátedra de Salud y Medicina Comunitaria; ArgentinaFil: Rubio, Ana M.. Universidad Blas Pasca. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo del Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Stival, Juan J.. Universidad Blas Pasca. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo del Medio Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Fredeimberg, Abel. Instituto Atenea; ArgentinaFil: Matkovic, Graciela. Hospital de Niños Sor María Ludovica. Instituto de Desarrollo e Investigaciones Pediátricas (IDIP). ; ArgentinaFil: Hipperdinger, Adriana Maria. Asociación Civil: Un Techo para mi Hermano; ArgentinaFil: Pérez Raventós, Alicia. Asociación Civil: Un Techo para mi Hermano; ArgentinaFil: González, Mónica. Asociación Civil: Un Techo para mi Hermano; ArgentinaFil: Zelayeta, Adrián. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Facultad de Cs.médicas. Centro Interdisc.universitario Para la Salud; Argentin