We present a comprehensive review of the properties of the epitaxial 4H silicon carbide polytype (4H-SiC). Particular emphasis is placed on those aspects of this material related to room, ...high-temperature and harsh environment ionizing radiation detector operation. A review of the characterization methods and electrical contacting issues and how these are related to detector performance is presented. The most recent data on charge transport parameters across the Schottky barrier and how these are related to radiation spectrometer performance are presented. Experimental results on pixel detectors having equivalent noise energies of 144 eV FWHM (7.8 electrons rms) and 196 eV FWHM at +27 deg C and +100 deg C, respectively, are reported. Results of studying the radiation resistance of 4H-SiC are analysed. The data on the ionization energies, capture cross section, deep-level centre concentrations and their plausible structures formed in SiC as a result of irradiation with various particles are reviewed. The emphasis is placed on the study of the 1 MeV neutron irradiation, since these thermal particles seem to play the main role in the detector degradation. An accurate electrical characterization of the induced deep-level centres by means of PICTS technique has allowed one to identify which play the main role in the detector degradation.
Objective
Our aim was to evaluate the relationship between evening chronotype, a proxy marker of circadian system dysfunction, and disordered eating behavior and poor dietary habits in individuals ...with bipolar disorder (BD).
Methods
In this cross‐sectional study, we evaluated 783 adults with BD. Chronotype was determined using item 5 from the reduced Morningness‐Eveningness Questionnaire. The Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS) and the Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants—Shortened Version (REAP‐S) were used to assess disordered eating behavior and dietary habits respectively. General linear models and logistic regression models were utilized to evaluate differences between chronotype groups.
Results
Two hundred and eight (27%) BD participants self‐identified as having evening chronotypes. Compared to non‐evening types, evening types were younger (P < 0.01) and, after controlling for age, had higher mean EDDS composite z‐scores (P < 0.01); higher rates of binge‐eating (BE) behavior (P = 0.04), bulimia nervosa (P < 0.01), and nocturnal eating binges (P < 0.01); and a higher body mass index (P = 0.04). Compared to non‐evening types, evening chronotypes had a lower REAP‐S overall score (P < 0.01) and scored lower on the ‘healthy foods’ and ‘avoidance of unhealthy food’ factors. Evening types also skipped breakfast more often (P < 0.01), ate less fruit (P = 0.02) and vegetables (P = 0.04), and consumed more fried foods (P < 0.01), unhealthy snacks (P = 0.02), and soft drinks (P = 0.01).
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that the circadian system plays a role in the disordered eating and unhealthy dietary behaviors observed in BD patients. The circadian system may therefore represent a therapeutic target in BD‐associated morbidity that warrants further investigation.
Space–time seismic clusters, localized bursts of seismic activity, are a feature of background seismicity before the occurrence of large earthquakes, a feature that agrees with observations of ...diminishing Gutenberg–Richter
b
-value, fractal dimension, and entropy, and is therefore suggestive of high stress. However, identification and quantification of these space–time clusters, particularly when they are small, is not an easy task and requires a priori assumptions. A novel method for space–time cluster identification, based on an extension of the concept of apparent velocities, is proposed because space–time clusters in the background seismicity have a particular signature in the apparent velocity domain. The contents of histogram peaks due to clusters in the apparent velocity histogram can be used to quantify the cluster activity compared with null hypothesis levels. Identification of the earthquakes corresponding to the apparent velocities in the peaks allows identification of cluster activity in time and space. Apparent velocity peaks do appear in real catalog data for southern California and northern Baja California before the Landers 1992
M
= 7.3, Hector Mine 1999
M
= 7.1, El Mayor-Cucapah 2010
M
= 7.2, and Ridgecrest 2019
M
= 7.1 earthquakes, and they appear only within 15 to 25 years before the occurrence of large earthquakes. They are not observed either long before the large earthquakes or after them, and hence could be related to high local states of stress and be of value as a possible precursory observable.
•The LA:Glc:W and B:U:W NADES can solubilize BSA and biofilm extracellular polymeric substances.•The NADES can extract up to 69% of the weight of the aerobic granular sludge components.•LA:Glc:W and ...B:U:W have a strong impact on the granule shape, size, and structure.•The NADES B:U:W (1:1:10) can be used as a biofilm structural breaker.•NADES are a green alternative for cleaning and treatment of aerobic granular sludge.
Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) are composed of supramolecular interactions of two or more natural compounds, such as organic acids, sugars, and amino acids, and they are being used as a new media alternative to conventional solvents. In this study, a new application of NADES is presented as a possible technology for biofilm structural breaker in complex systems since the current solvents used for biofilm cleaning and extraction of biofilm components use hazardous solutions. The NADES (betaine:urea:water and lactic acid:glucose:water) were analyzed before and after the biofilm treatment by attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and fluorescence excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy. Our results indicate that the green solvents could solubilize up to ≈70 percent of the main components of the biofilms extracellular matrix. The solubilization of the biomolecules weakened the biofilm structure, which could enhance the biofilm solubilization and removal. The NADES have the potential to be an environment-friendly, green solvent to extract valuable compounds and break the main structure from the biofilm, leading to a greener method for extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) extraction and biofilm treatment in various water treatment systems.
Display omitted
Prisoners have a high prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection but may find it difficult to access healthcare services. This may be related to risk behaviour including history of injecting ...drugs and marginalisation related to problem drug use/ opioid use disorder (OUD). Direct-acting antiviral products with superior efficacy and safety compared to interferon-based regimens offer HCV cure. Many citizens in Europe have been treated, although few received therapy in prisons.
Analysis of prisoner HCV treatment need and policy determinants of clinical practice was completed for 5 EU countries. Evidence was collected from national statistical sources and peer-reviewed publications to describe prison populations and HCV prevalence, to map national prison/ HCV health policy or guidance. A consensus of important principles for prisoner HCV care was developed.
Data from published sources describing prisoner HCV prevalence is limited. Prisoner population requiring HCV treatment is not known; estimated numbers based on analysis of evidence: England and Wales, 9000, France, 8000, Spain, 6000, Italy, 6000, Germany, 6000. Treatment access: national law defines right to equivalent care in all countries implying access to HCV therapy in prison similar to community; useful prisoner HCV guidance facilitating treatment decisions present in: 4 of 5 national/ regional HCV policy documents, 4 of 5 national prison healthcare policies. Four of five had practical prison HCV clinical guidelines. Despite existence of policy, implementation of guidance, and so HCV treatment, is suboptimal in many locations.
Prison is an important location to detect, address and treat HCV infection in people who may be underserved for healthcare and find it difficult to navigate community treatment pathways. This is often related to problems with OUD and resulting social inequity. HCV management in prisons must be improved. Policy and clinical practice guidance must be set to promote treatment, and practical steps to make treatment easy should be followed including education to promote engagement, set-up of optimal screening and work up processes with modern tools to reduce time needed/ achieve efficiency; programs to make it easier to get specialists' input include remote working and nurse-led services.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Rio Grande/Bravo is an arid river basin shared by the United States and Mexico, the fifth-longest river in North America, and home to more than 10.4 million people. By crossing landscapes and ...political boundaries, the Rio Grande/Bravo brings together cultures, societies, ecosystems, and economies, thereby forming a complex social-ecological system. The Rio Grande/Bravo supplies water for the human activities that take place within its territory. While there have been efforts to implement environmental flows (flows necessary to sustain riparian and aquatic ecosystems and human activities), a systematic and whole-basin analysis of these efforts that conceptualizes the Rio Grande/Bravo as a single, complex social-ecological system is missing. Our objective is to address this research and policy gap and shed light on challenges, opportunities, and success stories for implementing environmental flows in the Rio Grande/Bravo. We introduce the physical characteristics of the basin and summarize the environmental flows studies already done. We also describe its water governance framework and argue it is a distributed and nested governance system across multiple political jurisdictions and spatial scales. We describe the environmental flows legal framework and argue that the authority over different aspects of environmental flows is divided across different agencies and institutions. We discuss the prioritization of agricultural use within the governance structure without significant provisions for environmental flows. We introduce success stories for implementing environmental flows that include leasing of water rights or voluntary releases for environmental flow purposes, municipal ordinances to secure water for environmental flows, nongovernmental organizations representing the environment in decision-making processes, and acquiring water rights for environmental flows, among others initiatives. We conclude that environmental flows are possible and have been implemented but their implementation has not been systematic and permanent. There is an emerging whole-basin thinking among scientists, managers, and citizens that is helping find common-ground solutions to implementing environmental flows in the Rio Grande/Bravo basin.
The concept of Poisson renormalized entropy is presented as an observable of background seismicity with precursory possibilities. The usual way of estimating entropies evaluating probabilities ...directly from the normalized number of incidences is shown to be lacking in sensitivity and seriously subject to saturation. As an example, the concept of Poisson renormalized entropy and the associated method are applied to the seismicity previous to the 2011 Tohoku
M
W
= 9.1 megaearthquake, and shown to be able to identify precursory changes in the seismicity. Results are compared with those from fractal dimension and Gutenberg-Richter
b
-value studies.
El Mayor‐Cucapah earthquake occurred on 4 April 2010 in northeastern Baja California just south of the U.S.‐Mexico border. The earthquake ruptured several previously mapped faults, as well as some ...unidentified ones, including the Pescadores, Borrego, Paso Inferior and Paso Superior faults in the Sierra Cucapah, and the Indiviso fault in the Mexicali Valley and Colorado River Delta. We conducted several Global Positioning System (GPS) campaign surveys of preexisting and newly established benchmarks within 30 km of the earthquake rupture. Most of the benchmarks were occupied within days after the earthquake, allowing us to capture the very early postseismic transient motions. The GPS data show postseismic displacements in the same direction as the coseismic displacements; time series indicate a gradual decay in postseismic velocities with characteristic time scales of 66 ± 9 days and 20 ± 3 days, assuming exponential and logarithmic decay, respectively. We also analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data from the Envisat and ALOS satellites. The main deformation features seen in the line‐of‐sight displacement maps indicate subsidence concentrated in the southern and northern parts of the main rupture, in particular at the Indiviso fault, at the Laguna Salada basin, and at the Paso Superior fault. We show that the near‐field GPS and InSAR observations over a time period of 5 months after the earthquake can be explained by a combination of afterslip, fault zone contraction, and a possible minor contribution of poroelastic rebound. Far‐field data require an additional mechanism, most likely viscoelastic relaxation in the ductile substrate.
Key Points
GPS postseismic displacements exhibit rate‐strengthening law time dependence
GPS and InSAR observations explained by a combination of postseismic mechanisms
Combined afterslip, fault zone contraction, and poroelastic rebound
Ground deformation and seismicity in Mexicali Valley, Baja California, Mexico, the southern part of the Mexicali-Imperial valley, are influenced by active tectonics and human activity. In this study, ...data from two successive leveling surveys in 2006 and 2009/2010 are used to estimate the total deformation occurred in Mexicali Valley during 2006–2009. The leveling data span more than 3.5 years and include deformation from several natural and anthropogenic sources that acted at different temporal and spatial scales during the analyzed period. Because of its large magnitude, the aseismic anthropogenic deformation caused by fluid extraction in the Cerro Prieto geothermal field obscures the deformation caused by other mechanisms and sources. The method of differential interferograms stacking was used to estimate the aseismic (interseismic tectonic and anthropogenic) components of the observed displacement, using SAR images, taken in 2007 during a period when no significant seismicity occurred in the study area. After removing the estimated aseismic signal from the leveling data, residual vertical displacement remained, and to identify possible sources and mechanisms of this displacement, a detailed analysis of records from tiltmeters and creepmeters was performed. The results of this analysis suggest that the residual displacement is mainly caused by moderate-sized seismicity in the area of study. Modeling of the vertical ground deformation caused by the coseismic slip on source fault (primary mechanism) of the two most important earthquakes, May 24, 2006 (Mw = 5.4) and December 30, 2009 (Mw = 5.8), was performed. The modeling results, together with the analysis of geotechnical instruments data, suggests that this moderate-sized seismicity influences the deformation in the study area by coseismic slip on the source fault, triggered slip on secondary faults, and soft sediments deformation.
Aim: To determine the association between allergic rhinitis, bottle feeding, non-nutritive sucking habits, and malocclusion in the primary dentition. Methods: Data were collected on 1160 children ...aged 4–5 years, who had been longitudinally followed since the age of 4 months, when they were admitted to nurseries in a suburban area of Tampico–Madero, Mexico. Periodically, physical examinations were conducted and a questionnaire was given to their parents or tutors. Results: Malocclusion was detected in 640 of the children (51.03% had anterior open bite and 7.5% had posterior cross-bite). Allergic rhinitis alone (adjusted odds ratio = 2.87; 95% CI 1.57 to 5.25) or together with non-nutritive sucking habits (adjusted odds ratio = 3.31; 95% CI 1.55 to 7.09) had an effect on anterior open bite. Bottle feeding alone (adjusted odds ratio = 1.95; 95% CI 1.07 to 3.54) or together with allergic rhinitis (adjusted odds ratio = 3.96; 95% CI 1.80 to 8.74) had an effect on posterior cross-bite. Posterior cross-bite was more frequent in children with allergic rhinitis and non-nutritive sucking habits (10.4%). Conclusions: Allergic rhinitis alone or together with non-nutritive sucking habits is related to anterior open bite. Non-nutritive sucking habits together with allergic rhinitis seem to be the most important factor for development of posterior open bite in children under the age of 5 years.
PDF
