Concentration of floating biogenic material in convergence zones

Some organisms that live just below the sea surface (the neuston) are known more as a matter of curiosity than as critical players in biogeochemical cycles. The hypothesis of this work is that their existence implies that they receive some food from an upward flux of organic matter. The behaviour of these organisms and of the associated organic matter, hereafter mentioned as floating biogenic material (FBM) is explored using a global physical-biogeochemical coupled model, in which its generation is fixed to 1% of primary production, and decay rate is of the order of I month. The model shows that the distribution of FBM should depart rapidly from that of primary production.. and be more sensitive to circulation patterns than to the distribution of primary production. It is trapped in convergence areas, where it reaches concentrations larger by a factor 10 than in divergences, thus enhancing and inverting the contrast between high and low primary productivity areas. Attention is called on the need to better understand the biogeochemical processes in the first meter of the ocean, as they may impact the distribution of food for fishes, as well as the conditions for air-sea exchange and for the interpretation of sea color.

LEISURE AND MENTAL HEALTH IN PEOPLE WITH HYPERTENSION: CONVERGENCE IN HEALTH EDUCATION

People with hypertension constantly deal with issues related to mental health due to the psychosocial determinants of this illness, and leisure is an important control strategy. The objective of this study was to promote health education to a group of hypertensive patients, through research-action, based on critical-social pedagogy, and taking into consideration the participants' perception of leisure. Educational activities were conducted and, following, an evaluation was performed regarding the subjects' opinion about the impact of leisure on their lives and mental health. The group perceived leisure as a coping strategy for loneliness and also as a late development of independence; it was also regarded as a means of socialization and as a promotion of mental health. These perceptions revealed two themes: aging, leisure, and chronic disease; and knowledge and leisure experiences. Educational actions, such as group dynamics and discussions, were planned considering these themes with the purpose of providing the necessary conditions for socializing and exchanging experiences.

The exponential COM-Poisson distribution

The Conway-Maxwell Poisson (COMP) distribution as an extension of the Poisson distribution is a popular model for analyzing counting data. For the first time, we introduce a new three parameter distribution, so-called the exponential-Conway-Maxwell Poisson (ECOMP) distribution, that contains as sub-models the exponential-geometric and exponential-Poisson distributions proposed by Adamidis and Loukas (Stat Probab Lett 39:35-42, 1998) and KuAY (Comput Stat Data Anal 51:4497-4509, 2007), respectively. The new density function can be expressed as a mixture of exponential density functions. Expansions for moments, moment generating function and some statistical measures are provided. The density function of the order statistics can also be expressed as a mixture of exponential densities. We derive two formulae for the moments of order statistics. The elements of the observed information matrix are provided. Two applications illustrate the usefulness of the new distribution to analyze positive data.

The Poisson-exponential regression model under different latent activation schemes

In this paper, a new family of survival distributions is presented. It is derived by considering that the latent number of failure causes follows a Poisson distribution and the time for these causes to be activated follows an exponential distribution. Three different activation schemes are also considered. Moreover, we propose the inclusion of covariates in the model formulation in order to study their effect on the expected value of the number of causes and on the failure rate function. Inferential procedure based on the maximum likelihood method is discussed and evaluated via simulation. The developed methodology is illustrated on a real data set on ovarian cancer.

Exponential depletion of neutral dangling bonds density (D-0) by rare-earth doping in amorphous Si films

In this work we study the effect reduction in the density of dangling bond species D-0 states in rare-earth (RE) doped a-Si films as a function concentration for different RE-specimens. The films a-Si-1_(x) REx, RE=Y3+, Gd3+, Er3+, Lu3+) were prepared by co-sputtering and investigated by electron spin resonance (ESR) and Raman scattering experiments. According to our data the RE-doping reduces the ESR signal intensity of the D-0 states with an exponential dependence on the rare-concentration. Furthermore, the reduction produced by the magnetic rare-earths Gd3+ and Er3+ is remarkably greater than that caused by Y3+ and Lu3+, which led us to suggest an exchange-like coupling between the spin of the magnetic REs3+ and the spin of silicon neutral dangling bonds. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Describing fatigue crack growth and load ratio effects in Al 2524 T3 alloy with an enhanced exponential model

The fatigue crack behavior in metals and alloys under constant amplitude test conditions is usually described by relationships between the crack growth rate da/dN and the stress intensity factor range Delta K. In the present work, an enhanced two-parameter exponential equation of fatigue crack growth was introduced in order to describe sub-critical crack propagation behavior of Al 2524-T3 alloy, commonly used in aircraft engineering applications. It was demonstrated that besides adequately correlating the load ratio effects, the exponential model also accounts for the slight deviations from linearity shown by the experimental curves. A comparison with Elber, Kujawski and "Unified Approach" models allowed for verifying the better performance, when confronted to the other tested models, presented by the exponential model. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Weibull and generalised exponential overdispersion models with an application to ozone air pollution

We consider the problem of estimating the mean and variance of the time between occurrences of an event of interest (inter-occurrences times) where some forms of dependence between two consecutive time intervals are allowed. Two basic density functions are taken into account. They are the Weibull and the generalised exponential density functions. In order to capture the dependence between two consecutive inter-occurrences times, we assume that either the shape and/or the scale parameters of the two density functions are given by auto-regressive models. The expressions for the mean and variance of the inter-occurrences times are presented. The models are applied to the ozone data from two regions of Mexico City. The estimation of the parameters is performed using a Bayesian point of view via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.

MULTIPLICITY OF NONRADIAL SOLUTIONS FOR A CLASS OF QUASILINEAR EQUATIONS ON ANNULUS WITH EXPONENTIAL CRITICAL GROWTH

In this paper, we establish the existence of many rotationally non-equivalent and nonradial solutions for the following class of quasilinear problems (p) {-Delta(N)u = lambda f(vertical bar x vertical bar, u) x is an element of Omega(r), u > 0 x is an element of Omega(r), u = 0 x is an element of Omega(r), where Omega(r) = {x is an element of R-N : r < vertical bar x vertical bar < r + 1}, N >= 2, N not equal 3, r >0, lambda > 0, Delta(N)u = div(vertical bar del u vertical bar(N-2)del u) is the N-Laplacian operator and f is a continuous function with exponential critical growth.

Exponential stability for a plate equation with p-Laplacian and memory terms

This paper is concerned with the energy decay for a class of plate equations with memory and lower order perturbation of p-Laplacian type, utt+?2u-?pu+?0tg(t-s)?u(s)ds-?ut+f(u)=0inOXR+, with simply supported boundary condition, where O is a bounded domain of RN, g?>?0 is a memory kernel that decays exponentially and f(u) is a nonlinear perturbation. This kind of problem without the memory term models elastoplastic flows.

Kurzweil integral for Riesz space-valued functions: Uniform convergence theorem

Our objective here is to prove that the uniform convergence of a sequence of Kurzweil integrable functions implies the convergence of the sequence formed by its corresponding integrals.

Convergence of two major pathophysiologic mechanisms in nasal polyposis: immune response to Staphylococcus aureus and airway remodeling

This review is addressed two pathophysiologic mechanisms implicated in the pathogenesis of nasal polyposis: the unique remodeling process found in nasal polyp tissue and the immune response of patients with nasal polyposis to Staphylococcus aureus. These two theories converge to the same direction in different aspects, including decreased extracellular matrix production, impaired T regulation and favoring of a Th2 immune response. In patients with nasal polyposis, an exaggerated immune response to Staphylococcus aureus may aggravate the airway remodeling process.

Pullback exponential attractors for evolution processes in Banach spaces: properties and applications

This article is a continuation of our previous work [5], where we formulated general existence theorems for pullback exponential attractors for asymptotically compact evolution processes in Banach spaces and discussed its implications in the autonomous case. We now study properties of the attractors and use our theoretical results to prove the existence of pullback exponential attractors in two examples, where previous results do not apply.

Incorporating IT & AT Convergence into Lean Thinking/Six Sigma via the Smarter Operation Transformation (SOT) Methodology

The growing demands for industrial products are imposing an increasingly intense level of competitiveness on the industrial operations. In the meantime, the convergence of information technology (IT) and automation technology (AT) is showing itself to be a tool of great potential for the modernization and improvement of industrial plants. However, for this technology fully to achieve its potential, several obstacles need to be overcome, including the demonstration of the reasoning behind estimations of benefits, investments and risks used to plan the implementation of corporative technology solutions. This article focuses on the evolutionary development of planning and adopting processes of IT & AT convergence. It proposes the incorporation of IT & AT convergence practices into Lean Thinking/Six Sigma, via the method used for planning the convergence of technological activities, known as the Smarter Operation Transformation (SOT) methodology. This article illustrates the SOT methodology through its application in a Brazilian company in the sector of consumer goods. In this application, it is shown that with IT & AT convergence is possible with low investment, in order to reduce the risk of not achieving the goals of key indicators.