On the Estimation of the Short-Circuit Impedance of Power Transformers Using Fractional Order Calculus

This paper reports investigation on the estimation of the short circuit impedance of power transformers, using fractional order calculus to analytically study the influence of the diffusion phenomena in the windings. The aim is to better characterize the medium frequency range behavior of leakage inductances of power transformer models, which include terms to represent the magnetic field diffusion process in the windings. Comparisons between calculated and measured values are shown and discussed.

Embolisation of Prostatic Arteries as Treatment of Moderate to Severe Lower Urinary Symptoms (LUTS) Secondary to Benign Hyperplasia: Results of Short- and Mid-Term Follow-Up

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the short- and medium-term results of prostatic arterial embolisation (PAE) for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). METHODS: This was a prospective non-randomised study including 255 patients diagnosed with BPH and moderate to severe lower urinary tract symptoms after failure of medical treatment for at least 6 months. The patients underwent PAE between March 2009 and April 2012. Technical success is when selective prostatic arterial embolisation is completed in at least one pelvic side. Clinical success was defined as improving symptoms and quality of life. Evaluation was performed before PAE and at 1, 3, 6 and every 6 months thereafter with the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), quality of life (QoL), International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), uroflowmetry, prostatic specific antigen (PSA) and volume. Non-spherical polyvinyl alcohol particles were used. RESULTS: PAE was technically successful in 250 patients (97.9 %). Mean follow-up, in 238 patients, was 10 months (range 1-36). Cumulative rates of clinical success were 81.9 %, 80.7 %, 77.9 %, 75.2 %, 72.0 %, 72.0 %, 72.0 % and 72.0 % at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months, respectively. There was one major complication. CONCLUSIONS: PAE is a procedure with good results for BPH patients with moderate to severe LUTS after failure of medical therapy. KEY POINTS: • Prostatic artery embolisation offers minimally invasive therapy for benign prostatic hyperplasia. • Prostatic artery embolisation is a challenging procedure because of vascular anatomical variations. • PAE is a promising new technique that has shown good results.

Risky behavior regarding drug use and HIV infection: an Internet questionnaire coupled with short education texts for Portuguese speakers

Surveys of risky behavior relating to HIV/AIDS are generally made for groups at risk of infection, for which HIV/AIDS prevalence is usually expected to be higher than in the general population. Therefore, an educational homepage in Portuguese was created on the Internet to inform/ask internauts regarding knowledge and behavior. The internauts were classified as adolescents (13 to 25 years) and adults (>25 years). The number of STDs was reported as 1. 8 ± 2. 6 infections (range: 1 to 20 infections); 43% used condoms during sexual intercourse. Alcohol consumption was reported by 63% and illicit drug use by 32% (marijuana 24% and inhalants 15%). Among the adolescents, 31% did not classified alcohol as a drug. The adults more frequently reported homosexuality, anal intercourse and STDs, although the adolescents also presented high rates of risky behavior. These results show the need to reach out to internauts through better control strategies. Different types of strategies must be encouraged, in order to reach people that use this means of communication and entertainment.

A technical investigation of an oil painting on copper support, including a study on consolidants for treatment

Paper submitted to e-conservation Journal: Maria Leonor Oliveira, Leslie Carlyle, Sara Fragoso, Isabel Pombo Cardoso and João Coroado, “Investigations into paint delamination and consolidation of an oil painting on copper support”.

Energy and carbon prices: a comparison of interactions in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Western Climate Initiative market

We provide a comparative analysis of how short-run variations in carbon and energy prices relate to each other in the emerging greenhouse gas market in California (Western Climate Initiative [WCI], and the European Union Emission Trading Scheme [EU ETS]). We characterize the relationship between carbon, gas, coal, electricity and gasoline prices and an indicator for economic activity, and present a first analysis of carbon prices in the WCI. We also provide a comparative analysis of the structures of the two markets. We estimate a vector autoregressive model and the impulse--response functions. Our main findings show a positive impact from a carbon shock toward electricity, in both markets, but larger in the WCI electricity price, indicating more efficiency. We propose that the widening of carbon market sectors, namely fuels transport and electricity imports, may contribute to this result. To conclude, the research shows significant and coherent relations between variables in WCI, which demonstrate some degree of success for a first year in operation. Reversely, the EU ETS should complete its intended market reform, to allow for more impact of the carbon price. Finally, in both markets, there is no evidence of carbon pricing depleting economic activity.

Current advances on the study of snail-snail interactions, with special emphasis on competition process

Field work research on population dynamic of snails from the regions of Belo Horizonte and Lagoa Santa give much information about interactions among two or more species of mollusks: Pomacea haustrum, Biomphalaria glabrata, B. tenagophila, B. straminea and Melanoides tuberculata. Data ranging from two years to several decades ago suggest that the Pampulha reservoir is like a cemetery of B. glabrata and B. straminea, species that coexist for more than 14 years in a small part of a stream, whereas only B. glabrata lives in all the streams of the basin. In the last ten to twenty years B. tenagophila has coexisted with P. haustrum and M. tuberculata in the Serra Verde ponds and in the Pampulha dam. However these species have not settled in any of the brooks, except temporarily. The data suggest that the kind of biotope and the habitat conditions are decisive factors for the permanence of each species in its preferencial biotope. B. glabrata, natural from streams and riverheads, quickly disappears from the reservoirs and ponds where it coexists with other species for a short time, independently of the competitive process. Competition needs to be better studied, since in Central America and Caribean islands this kind of study has favored the biological control of planorbid species.

Efficacité a court et moyen termes des traitements d'urgence-crise pour couples et families: résultats et perspectives [Short and medium-term effectiveness of the emergency-crisis treatments for couples and families: results and perspectives].

From 2007 to 2010, the emergency-crisis unit of the Couple and Family Consultation Unit -UCCF (West Psychiatric Service, Prangins Psychiatric Hospital, Psychiatric Department of CHUV) has carried out a research about the relevance and usefulness of emergency-crisis, systemic-oriented treatments, for deeply distressed couples and families. Besides epidemiologic data, we present results demonstrating the efficiency of those treatments, both at short-term and at a one year's range. The global impact of such treatments in terms of public health, but also economical issues, make us believe that they should be fully included in the new trend of psychiatric ambulatory care, into the social net.

Hierarchy of Notch-Delta interactions promoting T cell lineage commitment and maturation.

Notch1 (N1) receptor signaling is essential and sufficient for T cell development, and recently developed in vitro culture systems point to members of the Delta family as being the physiological N1 ligands. We explored the ability of Delta1 (DL1) and DL4 to induce T cell lineage commitment and/or maturation in vitro and in vivo from bone marrow (BM) precursors conditionally gene targeted for N1 and/or N2. In vitro DL1 can trigger T cell lineage commitment via either N1 or N2. N1- or N2-mediated T cell lineage commitment can also occur in the spleen after short-term BM transplantation. However, N2-DL1-mediated signaling does not allow further T cell maturation beyond the CD25(+) stage due to a lack of T cell receptor beta expression. In contrast to DL1, DL4 induces and supports T cell commitment and maturation in vitro and in vivo exclusively via specific interaction with N1. Moreover, comparative binding studies show preferential interaction of DL4 with N1, whereas binding of DL1 to N1 is weak. Interestingly, preferential N1-DL4 binding reflects reduced dependence of this interaction on Lunatic fringe, a glycosyl transferase that generally enhances the avidity of Notch receptors for Delta ligands. Collectively, our results establish a hierarchy of Notch-Delta interactions in which N1-DL4 exhibits the greatest capacity to induce and support T cell development.

Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of the new targeted anticancer agents imatinib, nilotinib, dasatinib, sunitinib, sorafenib and lapatinib by LC tandem mass spectrometry.

The treatment of some cancer patients has shifted from traditional, non-specific cytotoxic chemotherapy to chronic treatment with molecular targeted therapies. Imatinib mesylate, a selective inhibitor of tyrosine kinases (TKIs) is the most prominent example of this new era and has opened the way to the development of several additional TKIs, including sunitinib, nilotinib, dasatinib, sorafenib and lapatinib, in the treatment of various hematological malignancies and solid tumors. All these agents are characterized by an important inter-individual pharmacokinetic variability, are at risk for drug interactions, and are not devoid of toxicity. Additionally, they are administered for prolonged periods, anticipating the careful monitoring of their plasma exposure via Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) to be an important component of patients' follow-up. We have developed a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method (LC-MS/MS) requiring 100 microL of plasma for the simultaneous determination of the six major TKIs currently in use. Plasma is purified by protein precipitation and the supernatant is diluted in ammonium formate 20 mM (pH 4.0) 1:2. Reverse-phase chromatographic separation of TKIs is obtained using a gradient elution of 20 mM ammonium formate pH 2.2 and acetonitrile containing 1% formic acid, followed by rinsing and re-equilibration to the initial solvent composition up to 20 min. Analyte quantification, using matrix-matched calibration samples, is performed by electro-spray ionization-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry by selected reaction monitoring detection using the positive mode. The method was validated according to FDA recommendations, including assessment of extraction yield, matrix effects variability (<9.6%), overall process efficiency (87.1-104.2%), as well as TKIs short- and long-term stability in plasma. The method is precise (inter-day CV%: 1.3-9.4%), accurate (-9.2 to +9.9%) and sensitive (lower limits of quantification comprised between 1 and 10 ng/mL). This is the first broad-range LC-MS/MS assay covering the major currently in-use TKIs. It is an improvement over previous methods in terms of convenience (a single extraction procedure for six major TKIs, reducing significantly the analytical time), sensitivity, selectivity and throughput. It may contribute to filling the current knowledge gaps in the pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics relationships of the latest TKIs developed after imatinib and better define their therapeutic ranges in different patient populations in order to evaluate whether a systematic TDM-guided dose adjustment of these anticancer drugs could contribute to minimize the risk of major adverse reactions and to increase the probability of efficient, long lasting, therapeutic response.

The additive genetic variance after bottlenecks is affected by the number of loci involved in epistatic interactions.

We investigated the role of the number of loci coding for a neutral trait on the release of additive variance for this trait after population bottlenecks. Different bottleneck sizes and durations were tested for various matrices of genotypic values, with initial conditions covering the allele frequency space. We used three different types of matrices. First, we extended Cheverud and Routman's model by defining matrices of "pure" epistasis for three and four independent loci; second, we used genotypic values drawn randomly from uniform, normal, and exponential distributions; and third we used two models of simple metabolic pathways leading to physiological epistasis. For all these matrices of genotypic values except the dominant metabolic pathway, we find that, as the number of loci increases from two to three and four, an increase in the release of additive variance is occurring. The amount of additive variance released for a given set of genotypic values is a function of the inbreeding coefficient, independently of the size and duration of the bottleneck. The level of inbreeding necessary to achieve maximum release in additive variance increases with the number of loci. We find that additive-by-additive epistasis is the type of epistasis most easily converted into additive variance. For a wide range of models, our results show that epistasis, rather than dominance, plays a significant role in the increase of additive variance following bottlenecks.

A discrete forest in a continuous landscape : investigating interactions between natural resource management and sustainable development

Summary Forests are key ecosystems of the earth and associated with a large range of functions. Many of these functions are beneficial to humans and are referred to as ecosystem services. Sustainable development requires that all relevant ecosystem services are quantified, managed and monitored equally. Natural resource management therefore targets the services associated with ecosystems. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that the spatial and temporal domains of relevant services do not correspond to a discrete forest ecosystem. As a consequence, the services are not quantified, managed and monitored in an equal and sustainable manner. The thesis aims were therefore to test this hypothesis, establish an improved conceptual approach and provide spatial applications for the relevant land cover and structure variables. The study was carried out in western Switzerland and based primarily on data from a countrywide landscape inventory. This inventory is part of the third Swiss national forest inventory and assesses continuous landscape variables based on a regular sampling of true colour aerial imagery. In addition, land cover variables were derived from Landsat 5 TM passive sensor data and land structure variables from active sensor data from a small footprint laserscanning system. The results confirmed the main hypothesis, as relevant services did not scale well with the forest ecosystem. Instead, a new conceptual approach for sustainable management of natural resources was described. This concept quantifies the services as a continuous function of the landscape, rather than a discrete function of the forest ecosystem. The explanatory landscape variables are therefore called continuous fields and the forest becomes a dependent and function-driven management unit. Continuous field mapping methods were established for land cover and structure variables. In conclusion, the discrete forest ecosystem is an adequate planning and management unit. However, monitoring the state of and trends in sustainability of services requires them to be quantified as a continuous function of the landscape. Sustainable natural resource management iteratively combines the ecosystem and gradient approaches. Résumé Les forêts sont des écosystèmes-clés de la terre et on leur attribue un grand nombre de fonctions. Beaucoup de ces fonctions sont bénéfiques pour l'homme et sont nommées services écosystémiques. Le développement durable exige que ces services écosystémiques soient tous quantifiés, gérés et surveillés de façon égale. La gestion des ressources naturelles a donc pour cible les services attribués aux écosystèmes. L'hypothèse principale de cette thèse est que les domaines spatiaux et temporels des services attribués à la forêt ne correspondent pas à un écosystème discret. Par conséquent, les services ne sont pas quantifiés, aménagés et surveillés d'une manière équivalente et durable. Les buts de la thèse étaient de tester cette hypothèse, d'établir une nouvelle approche conceptuelle de la gestion des ressources naturelles et de préparer des applications spatiales pour les variables paysagères et structurelles appropriées. L'étude a été menée en Suisse occidentale principalement sur la base d'un inventaire de paysage à l'échelon national. Cet inventaire fait partie du troisième inventaire forestier national suisse et mesure de façon continue des variables paysagères sur la base d'un échantillonnage régulier sur des photos aériennes couleur. En outre, des variables de couverture ? terrestre ont été dérivées des données d'un senseur passif Landsat 5 TM, ainsi que des variables structurelles, dérivées du laserscanning, un senseur actif. Les résultats confirment l'hypothèse principale, car l'échelle des services ne correspond pas à celle de l'écosystème forestier. Au lieu de cela, une nouvelle approche a été élaborée pour la gestion durable des ressources naturelles. Ce concept représente les services comme une fonction continue du paysage, plutôt qu'une fonction discrète de l'écosystème forestier. En conséquence, les variables explicatives de paysage sont dénommées continuous fields et la forêt devient une entité dépendante, définie par la fonction principale du paysage. Des méthodes correspondantes pour la couverture terrestre et la structure ont été élaborées. En conclusion, l'écosystème forestier discret est une unité adéquate pour la planification et la gestion. En revanche, la surveillance de la durabilité de l'état et de son évolution exige que les services soient quantifiés comme fonction continue du paysage. La gestion durable des ressources naturelles joint donc l'approche écosystémique avec celle du gradient de manière itérative.

Time-series regression models to study the short-term effects of environmental factors on health

Time series regression models are especially suitable in epidemiology for evaluating short-term effects of time-varying exposures on health. The problem is that potential for confounding in time series regression is very high. Thus, it is important that trend and seasonality are properly accounted for. Our paper reviews the statistical models commonly used in time-series regression methods, specially allowing for serial correlation, make them potentially useful for selected epidemiological purposes. In particular, we discuss the use of time-series regression for counts using a wide range Generalised Linear Models as well as Generalised Additive Models. In addition, recently critical points in using statistical software for GAM were stressed, and reanalyses of time series data on air pollution and health were performed in order to update already published. Applications are offered through an example on the relationship between asthma emergency admissions and photochemical air pollutants

Amoebae as a tool to isolate new bacterial species, to discover new virulence factors and to study the host-pathogen interactions.

Amoebae are unicellular protozoan present worldwide in several environments mainly feeding on bacteria. Some of them, the amoebae-resistant bacteria (ARBs), have evolved mechanisms to survive and replicate inside amoebal species. These mainly include legionella, mycobacteria and Chlamydia-related bacteria. Amoebae can provide a replicative niche, can act as reservoir for bacteria whereas the cystic form can protect the internalized bacteria. Moreover, the amoebae represent a Trojan horse for ARBs to infect animals. The long interaction between amoebae and bacteria has likely selected for bacterial virulence traits leading to the adaptation towards an intracellular lifestyle, and some ARBs have acquired the ability to infect mammals. This review intends to highlight the important uses of amoebae in several fields in microbiology by describing the main tools developed using amoebal cells. First, amoebae such as Acanthamoeba are used to isolate and discover new intracellular bacterial species by two main techniques: the amoebal co-culture and the amoebal enrichment. In the second part, taking Waddlia chondrophila as example, we summarize some important recent applications of amoebae to discover new bacterial virulence factors, in particular thanks to the amoebal plaque assay. Finally, the genetically tractable Dictyostelium discoideum is used as a model organism to study host-pathogen interactions, in particular with the development of several approaches to manipulate its genome that allowed the creation of a wide range of mutated strains largely shared within the Dictyostelium community.

Genetic evidence that the higher plant Rab-D1 and Rab-D2 GTPases exhibit distinct but overlapping interactions in the early secretory pathway.

GTPases of the Rab1 subclass are essential for membrane traffic between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi complex in animals, fungi and plants. Rab1-related proteins in higher plants are unusual because sequence comparisons divide them into two putative subclasses, Rab-D1 and Rab-D2, that are conserved in monocots and dicots. We tested the hypothesis that the Rab-D1 and Rab-D2 proteins of Arabidopsis represent functionally distinct groups. RAB-D1 and RAB-D2a each targeted fluorescent proteins to the same punctate structures associated with the Golgi stacks and trans-Golgi-network. Dominant-inhibitory N121I mutants of each protein inhibited traffic of diverse cargo proteins at the ER but they appeared to act via distinct biochemical pathways as biosynthetic traffic in cells expressing either of the N121I mutants could be restored by coexpressing the wild-type form of the same subclass but not the other subclass. The same interaction was observed in transgenic seedlings expressing RAB-D1 [N121I]. Insertional mutants confirmed that the three Arabidopsis Rab-D2 genes were extensively redundant and collectively performed an essential function that could not be provided by RAB-D1, which was non-essential. However, plants lacking RAB-D1, RAB-D2b and RAB-D2c were short and bushy with low fertility, indicating that the Rab-D1 and Rab-D2 subclasses have overlapping functions.

Repeating with the right hemisphere: reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic systems in crossed aphasia?

Knowledge on the patterns of repetition amongst individuals who develop language deficits in association with right hemisphere lesions (crossed aphasia) is very limited. Available data indicate that repetition in some crossed aphasics experiencing phonological processing deficits is not heavily influenced by lexical-semantic variables (lexicality, imageability, and frequency) as is regularly reported in phonologically-impaired cases with left hemisphere damage. Moreover, in view of the fact that crossed aphasia is rare, information on the role of right cortical areas and white matter tracts underpinning language repetition deficits is scarce. In this study, repetition performance was assessed in two patients with crossed conduction aphasia and striatal/capsular vascular lesions encompassing the right arcuate fasciculus (AF) and inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), the temporal stem and the white matter underneath the supramarginal gyrus. Both patients showed lexicality effects repeating better words than non-words, but manipulation of other lexical-semantic variables exerted less influence on repetition performance. Imageability and frequency effects, production of meaning-based paraphrases during sentence repetition, or better performance on repeating novel sentences than overlearned clichés were hardly ever observed in these two patients. In one patient, diffusion tensor imaging disclosed damage to the right long direct segment of the AF and IFOF with relative sparing of the anterior indirect and posterior segments of the AF, together with fully developed left perisylvian white matter pathways. These findings suggest that striatal/capsular lesions extending into the right AF and IFOF in some individuals with right hemisphere language dominance are associated with atypical repetition patterns which might reflect reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic processes.