A suitable integral equation for the quasi-TEM analysis of hybrid strip/slot-like structures

This paper reports on a suitable formulation of the spectraldomain/integral-equation method for the quasi-TEM analysis of hybrid strip/slot-like planar lines. The free surface charge distribution is used as an unknown on the strip-like interface, whereas the electric field is used on the slot-like region. This formulation allows us to reduce the number of basis functions and makes possible a unified treatment of the problem. A single type of basis functions is used, leading to a quasi-analytical evaluation of the Galerkin matrix entries. The performance of the method is illustrated with a practical example structure useful for coupler design

Applications of CBCT in Endodontics

There are many articles published in recent years on the use of CBCT in endodontics and this diagnostic technique is increasingly required in order to have a more accurate prognosis of the teeth to be treated. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the use of Conical Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) in the field of endodontics. This issue is controversial at the moment because of the increase in the radiation to which patients are being subjected; however, we know that sometimes the X-rays taken with different angles in relation to some teeth depending on the different cases are incompatible in form and density, which does not allow us to make an exact diagnosis. The use of CBCT would have provided an image of greater diagnostic value in those cases. In addition, the use guidelines published by the American Endodontics Association and the American Radiology Association jointly mark the way forward and the use we can give the CBCT for the diagnosis of complex cases

Effect of Sky Discretization for Shading Device Calculation on Building Energy Performance Simulations

The calculation of sunlit surfaces in a building has always been a relevant aspect in building energy simulation programs. Due to the high computational cost, some programs use algorithms for shading calculation for certain solar positions after discretization of hemispherical sky. The influence of the level of discretization on the estimation of incident direct radiation on building surfaces, as well as on the required computational times, are studied in this work. The direct solar energy on a window for a year, with simulation time steps of five minutes, has been simulated by using an algorithm based on Projection and Clipping Methods. A total of 6144 simulations have been carried out, varying window sizes, window orientations, typologies of shading devices, latitudes and discretization levels of the hemispherical sky. In terms of annual incident solar energy, the results show that maximum error values are about 5% for a low level of angular discretization. Errors up to 22% in hourly incident solar energy have been estimated for some of the configurations analysed. Furthermore, a great number of configurations show errors of shading factor on a window of up to 30%, which could be most relevant in studies of natural lighting. The study also shows that the improvement achieved by the most accurate discretization level implies an increase in computational cost of about 30 times

Proceso de corrección de errores técnicos en atletas en formación

The main purpose of this article is to analyze the process of correcting technical errors in athletes in training. It is descriptive research, with correlated study, using empirical methods observation and survey. The population investigated corresponds to 109 athletes of the categories (10-11; 12-13 and 14-15 years), of athletics sport who account for 100%. The technical tests were carried out in two moments, 6 months apart; in addition, the statistical method for processing the obtained data, with the SPSS version 23 program, was applied. The parents of families and managers of the Hermosillo Multi-Use Center, Sonora, provided us with their consents to access the research.El presente artículo tiene como principal propósito analizar el proceso de corrección de errores técnicos en atletas en formación. Es una investigación descriptiva, con estudio correlacional, empleando los métodos empíricos observación y encuesta. La población investigada corresponde a 109 atletas de las categorías (10-11; 12-13 y 14-15 años), del deporte atletismo que representan el 100%. Las pruebas técnicas, se realizaron en dos momentos, durante con un periodo de diferencia de 6 meses; además, se aplicó el método estadístico para procesar los datos obtenidos, con el programa SPSS, versión 23. Los padres de familias y directivos del Centro de Usos Múltiples de Hermosillo, Sonora, facilitaron sus consentimientos para acceder a la investigación

Electrochemical incorporation of carbon dioxide into fluorotoluene derivatives under mild conditions

One of the main challenges to combat climate change is to eliminate or reuse Carbon dioxide (CO), the largest contributor to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. It is also important to synthesize compounds through greener technologies in order to obtain more environmentally friendly solutions. This study describes the electrocarboxylation process of α,α,α-trifluorotoluene using different working electrodes (glassy carbon, silver and copper) and electrolytes (polar aprotic solvent and ionic liquid). Carboxylated compounds were obtained in the same way in both electrolytic medias with more than 80% conversion rates, high yields, good selectivity, and moderate efficiencies using silver and copper as cathodes in organic electrolytes and ionic liquids

The Beauty of Symmetry: Common-mode rejection filters for high-speed interconnects and balanced microwave circuits

Common-mode rejection filters operating at microwave frequencies have been the subject of intensive research activity in the last decade. These filters are of interest for the suppression of common-mode noise in high-speed digital circuits, where differential signals are widely employed due to the high immunity to noise, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and crosstalk of differential-mode interconnects. These filters can also be used to improve common-mode rejection in microwave filters and circuits dealing with differential signals. Ideally, common-mode stopband filters should be transparent for the differential mode from DC up to very high frequencies (all-pass), should preserve the signal integrity for such mode, and should exhibit the widest and deepest possible rejection band for the common mode in the region of interest. Moreover, these characteristics should be achieved by means of structures with the smallest possible size. In this article, several techniques for the implementation of common-mode suppression filters in planar technology are reviewed. In all the cases, the strategy to simultaneously achieve common-mode suppression and all-pass behavior for the differential mode is based on selective mode-suppression. This selective mode suppression (either the common or the differential mode) in balanced lines is typically (although not exclusively) achieved by symmetrically loading the lines with symmetric resonant elements, opaque for the common-mode and transparent for the differential mode (common-mode suppression), or vice versa (differential-mode suppression).MINECO, Spain-TEC2013-40600-R, TEC2013-41913-PGeneralitat de Catalunya-2014SGR-15

Triiodothyronine is required for the stimulation of type II 5'-deiodinase mRNA in rat brown adipocytes

10 pages, 6 figures.Type II 5'-iodothyronine deiodinase (D2), produces triiodothyronine (T(3)) and is stimulated by cold exposure via norepinephrine (NE) release in brown adipose tissue. Cultured rat brown adipocytes require T(3) for the adrenergic stimulation of D2 activity. D2 mRNA expression in cultured brown adipocytes is undetectable with the use of basal conditions or NE without T(3). Full D2 expression is achieved using NE + T(3), especially after prolonged T(3) exposure. beta(3)-Adrenergic agonists mimic the NE action, whereas cAMP analogs do not. Prolonged exposure to T(3) alone increases D2 mRNA. High T(3) doses (500 nM) inhibit the adrenergic stimulation of D2 activity while increasing D2 mRNA. The effects obtained with NE + T(3) or T(3) alone are suppressed by actinomycin, but not by cycloheximide, which leads to accumulation of short D2 mRNA transcripts. Prolonged or short exposure to T(3) did not change D2 mRNA half-life, but T(3) seemed to elongate it. In conclusion, T(3) is an absolute requirement for the adrenergic stimulation of D2 mRNA in brown adipocytes. T(3) upregulates D2 mRNA, an effect that might involve stimulation of factors required for transcription or for stabilization of D2 mRNA.This work was supported by research grants PB 95–0097 from Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica, FISS 94/0274 and 99/0813 from Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (FIS), and CAM 08.6/0030/1998 from Comunidad de Madrid (CAM) (Spain). R. Martínez de Mena was supported by research grants FISS 94/0274 (predoctoral studies) and CAM 08.6/0030/1998 (as postdoctoral).Peer reviewe

ScriptLattes: an open-source knowledge extraction system from the Lattes platform

The Lattes platform is the major scientific information system maintained by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). This platform allows to manage the curricular information of researchers and institutions working in Brazil based on the so called Lattes Curriculum. However, the public information is individually available for each researcher, not providing the automatic creation of reports of several scientific productions for research groups. It is thus difficult to extract and to summarize useful knowledge for medium to large size groups of researchers. This paper describes the design, implementation and experiences with scriptLattes: an open-source system to create academic reports of groups based on curricula of the Lattes Database. The scriptLattes system is composed by the following modules: (a) data selection, (b) data preprocessing, (c) redundancy treatment, (d) collaboration graph generation among group members, (e) research map generation based on geographical information, and (f) automatic report creation of bibliographical, technical and artistic production, and academic supervisions. The system has been extensively tested for a large variety of research groups of Brazilian institutions, and the generated reports have shown an alternative to easily extract knowledge from data in the context of Lattes platform. The source code, usage instructions and examples are available at http://scriptlattes.sourceforge.net/.Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES)CNPqFAPES

Explainable artificial intelligence to predict and identify prostate cancer tissue by gene expression

This work was supported by the ERDF and the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Science of the Regional Government of Andalusia (grant number P18-RT-2248)Background and Objective: Prostate cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer in men worldwide. Traditional screening strategies such as serum PSA levels, which are not necessarily cancer-specific, or digital rectal exams, which are often inconclusive, are still the screening methods used for the disease. Some studies have focused on identifying biomarkers of the disease but none have been reported for diagnosis in routine clinical practice and few studies have provided tools to assist the pathologist in the decision-making process when analyzing prostate tissue. Therefore, a classifier is proposed to predict the occurrence of PCa that provides physicians with accurate predictions and understandable explanations. Methods: A selection of 47 genes was made based on differential expression between PCa and normal tissue, GO gene ontology as well as the literature to be used as input predictors for different machine learning methods based on eXplainable Artificial Intelligence. These methods were trained using different class-balancing strategies to build accurate classifiers using gene expression data from 550 samples from ’The Cancer Genome Atlas’. Our model was validated in four external cohorts with different ancestries, totaling 463 samples. In addition, a set of SHapley Additive exPlanations was provided to help clinicians understand the underlying reasons for each decision. Results: An in-depth analysis showed that the Random Forest algorithm combined with majority class downsampling was the best performing approach with robust statistical significance. Our method achieved an average sensitivity and specificity of 0.90 and 0.8 with an AUC of 0.84 across all databases. The relevance of DLX1, MYL9 and FGFR genes for PCa screening was demonstrated in addition to the important role of novel genes such as CAV2 and MYLK. Conclusions: This model has shown good performance in 4 independent external cohorts of different ancestries and the explanations provided are consistent with each other and with the literature, opening a horizon for its application in clinical practice. In the near future, these genes, in combination with our model, could be applied to liquid biopsy to improve PCa screening.European Union (EU)Ministry of Econ-omy, Innovation and Science of the Regional Government of Andalusia P18-RT-224