Introduction
. Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is extremely common in the structure of gastroenterological diseases. Aim. To conduct a prospective observational post-marketing study of ...rabeprazole (Razo®) 20 mg taking once daily in patients with non-erosive reflux disease (NERD) after 2 and 4 weeks of therapy and esophagitis stage A and B after 4 weeks of therapy (GERBERA).
Materials and methods
. 75 patients with GERD were included in the study (36 men and 39 women, mean age 41.7 ± 1.5 years). Clinical examination with the completion of standard questionnaires, assessment of the quality of life of patients were performed at three visits: before the start of the treatment, after 2 and 4 weeks of therapy. Fibroesophagogastroduodenoscopy was performed in all patients before treatment and in patients with esophagitis after 4 weeks of therapy. All patients received rabeprazole (Razo®) at a dose of 20 mg once a day for the treatment of GERD. The diagnosis of heartburn and sour eructation was carried out according to the recommendations of the Montreal Consensus, the diagnosis of esophagitis was performed based on the Los Angeles classification.
Results and discussion
. Among patients with NERD, 74.1% of patients responded to Razo® therapy after 2 weeks of treatment, after 4 weeks the proportion of responders increased to 94.4% (p = 0.008). Healing of erosions after 4 weeks was observed in 90.5% of patients with esophagitis. Razo® therapy was accompanied by a pronounced improvement in GERD patients in all parameters of quality of life and patient satisfaction with the results of Razo® treatment.
Conclusion
. Based on the results of our study, we obtained high efficacy of Razo® at a dose of 20 mg once a day for the treatment of patients with NERD and erosive esophagitis.
We present the results of simulations carried out with the Met Office Unified Model at 12, 4 and 1.5 km resolution for a large region centred on West Africa using several different representations of ...the convection processes. These span a range of resolutions from much coarser than the size of the convection processes to cloud‐system‐resolving and thus encompass the intermediate ‘grey zone’. The diurnal cycle in the extent of convective regions in the models is tested against observations from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument on Meteosat‐8. By this measure, the two best‐performing simulations are a 12 km model without convective parametrization, using Smagorinsky‐style subgrid‐scale mixing in all three dimensions, and a 1.5 km simulation with two‐dimensional Smagorinsky mixing. Of these, the 12 km model produces a better match to the magnitude of the total cloud fraction but the 1.5 km one results in better timing for its peak value. The results suggest that the previously reported improvement in the representation of the diurnal cycle of convective organization in the 4 km model compared with the standard 12 km configuration is principally a result of the convection scheme employed rather than the improved resolution per se. The details of this result and implications for high‐resolution model simulations are discussed.
The article discusses the prerequisites and results of the fifth elections to the People’s Assembly called during the two year period and held on April 2, 2023 It analyses the dispositions of the ...electorate in view of the Eurobarometer polls data and the election results. The past vote, despite some changes in the party structure of the People’s Assembly, testified once again to the deep disappointment of the weary Bulgarian voter in the entire political class. At the same time, it has recreated the stalemate in Parliament. The leaders of the warring majority camps (GERB-SDS vs «We Continue the changes» – «Democratic Bulgaria») already fear of being branded as the culprits of a new failure leading to appointment of one more temporary technocratic government by the president and the next snap elections. Such a prospect does not bode well for them, while their coalition is potential of seriously damaging their reputation. In such circumstances, the fighting forces are trying to find a magic formula for formation of a coalition cabinet. The near future will show whether the instinct of self-preservation will work or selfish party interests will prevail followed by déjà vu. However, in any development no change in the general anti-Russian vector of Bulgarian foreign policy is expected.
This article analyzes the background and results of the fourth elections held within 18 months to elect members of the National Assembly (02.10.2022). As predicted, the coalition government formed on ...the third attempt and led by Kiril Petkov, a leader of the new movement «We Continue the Change» did not last long. It fell victim to a no-confidence vote initiated by its main opponent, the GERB party of ex-premier Boyko Borisov. The latter gained unexpected support from Slavi Trifonov’s «There is such a people» movement, a member of the previous multi-party cabinet. This election, despite some changes in the party structure of the National Assembly, actually testified to the deep disappointment of the disillusioned Bulgarian voters in the entire political spectre. At the same time, they replicated the stalemate in the Parliament. Under such conditions, the formation of a new coalition cabinet is extremely unlikely and one should expect «déjà vu»: another caretaker government appointed and next elections announced by the president. The general conclusion to be drawn from the present developments is that the political system with parties being called upon as the main subjects of the parliamentary model and diligently exercising in discrediting parliamentarism instead is deeply sick. There is seemingly no way out of the protracted political crisis!
Prime Ministers (PMs) in Central and Eastern Europe have been relatively weak, although substantial variation in the survival both within and across countries exists. In Bulgaria, Boyko Borissov came ...to power in 2009 in most unfavourable situation: leader of a new party, he faced minority situation in parliament and had to cope with an ideologically heterogeneous coalition. Still, Borissov has become the longest serving PM in the country. This article examines the cabinet governance of Borissov I, II and III explores the PM's relationship with other parties inside and outside parliament as well as the mechanisms of cabinet management.
The article analyzes the preconditions, course and outcome of this year third consecutive elections to the National Assembly (14th November) and of the Head of State (14th November to 11th November). ...The epilogue of the protracted political crisis caused by the inflexibility of the leadership of the new «protest parties» (ETN, DB and «Stand Up Bulgaria...») resulted in their loss of both people’s trust and a significant number of parliamentary seats. The «We continue the change» movement hastily put together by two Harvard graduates Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev, both former ministers of the interim cabinet who proved themselves sensible managers, turned out to be able to respond to surviving hopes of the electorate for changes for the better. They were backed both by the President and external partners (Washington and Brussels). The President’s upright behavior in a complex situation ensured his re-election for a second term thus demonstrating obvious superiority over his main electoral contender. Based on the tough lessons learned by the hapless former leaders of the protest, the new movement changed the course of action, and Petkov managed to form a coalition government with the participation of socialists, although the same could have been achieved immediately after the first elections. The rather diverse new cabinet faces difficult tasks of tackling the pandemic in a country with a majority actively advocating against vaccination, of putting an end to the corrupt practices of the former regime whose members still retain strong political positions, and of starting economic and social recovery. These challenges do not promise an easy or a long life to the government. The general conclusion that can be drawn from the recent developments is that brought to power on the tide of a mass protest political amateurs might be able to play the role of a battering ram against a rotten regime but they turn out to be less competent in effectively exercising their authority. It remains only to believe that the government that has got to work will be able to prove the opposite.
We introduce a technique for assessing the diurnal development of convective storm systems based on outgoing longwave radiation fields. Using the size distribution of the storms measured from a ...series of images, we generate an array in the length scale‐time domain based on the standard score statistic. It demonstrates succinctly the size evolution of storms as well as the dissipation kinematics. It also provides evidence related to the temperature evolution of the cloud tops. We apply this approach to a test case comparing observations made by the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument to output from the Met Office Unified Model run at two resolutions. The 12 km resolution model produces peak convective activity on all length scales significantly earlier in the day than shown by the observations and no evidence for storms growing in size. The 4 km resolution model shows realistic timing and growth evolution, although the dissipation mechanism still differs from the observed data.
This study examines the evolution of the GERB-2 and GERB-1 Edition 1 shortwave radiance calibration between 2004–2007 and 2007–2012 respectively, through comparison with CERES instrument FM1 Edition ...3A SSF instantaneous radiances. Two periods when simultaneous observations from both GERB-2 and GERB-1 were available, January 13th to February 11th 2007 and May 1st to May 10th 2007, are also compared. For these two overlap periods respectively, averaged over all CERES ‘unfiltered-to-filtered radiance ratio’ subsets, the GERB-1/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio is on average found to be 1.6% and 1.9% lower than the associated GERB-2/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio. Over the two longer time series the GERB/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio shows a general decrease with time for both GERB-2 and GERB-1. The rate of decrease varies through time but no significant seasonal dependence is seen. Averaged over all subsets the GERB-2/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio showed a decrease of 1.9% between June 2004 and June 2006. Between June 2007 and June 2012, the corresponding decrease in the GERB-1/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio was 6.5%. The evolution of the GERB/CERES unfiltered radiance ratio for both GERB-2 and GERB-1 shows a strong dependence on the CERES unfiltered-to-filtered radiance ratio, indicating that it is spectrally dependent. Further time-series analysis and theoretical work using simulated spectral radiance curves suggests that for GERB-1 the evolution is consistent with a darkening in the GERB shortwave spectral response function which is most pronounced at the shortest wavelengths. For GERB-2, no single spectral cause can be identified, suggesting that the evolution is likely due to a combination of several different effects.
•GERB shortwave (SW) calibration evolution is considered via comparison with CERES.•Both GERB-2 and GERB-1 SW radiances exhibit a linear decrease through time.•The rate of decrease varies with the spectral properties of the scene.
Whenever possible, intercomparisons of Earth radiation budget data from different spaceborne instruments should be made as they are important steps in the overall validation process. Intercomparisons ...are also key elements to compile long-term climate datasets by merging data from several instruments. In this study the GERB Edition-1 and CERES Edition-2 data are compared for June and December 2004. The comparisons concern shortwave and longwave radiance and flux at the top-of-atmosphere. Three different GERB level-2 data products with differing space–time characteristics are compared with data from the 4 CERES instruments. In general, the GERB unfiltered radiances and fluxes are found to be 5.9% and 7.5% higher than CERES for the shortwave. The GERB longwave radiance and flux are 1.3% lower than CERES. Analysis separated by scene type reveals differences between the GERB products. These differences should be taken into account by the user of the GERB data. The LW flux intercomparison shows angular dependency problem affecting the GERB dataset in cloudy and aerosol regions.
Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) is the broadband radiometer onboard the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) platform, launched at the end of August 2002 and still in commissioning phase. ...GERB data is planned to be used in many applications concerning Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) calculation. In order to evaluate the impact of clouds on ERB, a cloud detection is required and, at present, a cloud mask based on higher spatial and spectral resolution data acquired by Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI), the imager onboard the same MSG platform, is planned to be used in order to identify cloudy GERB soundings.
As an alternative, a self-sufficient (only based on GERB data) method (OCA, the One-channel Cloudy-radiance-detection Approach) is proposed, as a time-saving and, probably, more suitable solution than the planned co-location approach.
In this paper, preliminary results obtained by using several years of Meteosat data as well as GERB synthetic radiances (produced from Meteosat-7 observations) are presented. It is shown how results obtained by using GERB data alone can be comparable (and better in terms of number and spatial distribution of clear-sky GERB soundings identified) to the ones achieved if the co-location of a higher resolution cloud mask is used.
PDF
