Prospect, evaluation and characterization of aeolian energy

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Effect of short training on vaginal fluid microscopy (wet mount) learning

Objective: Is it feasible to learn the basics of wet mount microscopy of vaginal fluid in 10 hours?Materials and Methods: This is a pilot project wherein 6 students with different grades of education were invited for being tested on their ability to read wet mount microscopic slides before and after 10 hours of hands-on training. Microscopy was performed according to a standard protocol (Femicare, Tienen, Belgium). Before and after training, all students had to evaluate a different set of 50 digital slides. Different diagnoses and microscopic patterns had to be scored. kappa indices were calculated compared with the expert reading. Results: All readers improved their mean scores significantly, especially for the most important types of altered flora (p < .0001). The mean increase in reading concordance (kappa from 0.64 to 0.75) of 1 student with a solid previous experience with microscopy did not reach statistical significance, but the remaining 5 students all improved their scores from poor performance (all kappa < 0.20) to moderate (kappa = 0.53, n = 1) to good (kappa > 0.61, n = 4) concordance. Reading quality improved and reached fair to good concordance on all microscopic items studied, except for the detection of parabasal cells and cytolytic flora. Conclusions: Although further improvement is still possible, a short training course of 10 hours enables vast improvement on wet mount microscopy accuracy and results in fair to good concordance of the most important variables of the vaginal flora compared to a reference reader.

Prospecção de genes na microbiota do rúmen bovino com propriedades degradadoras da biomassa vegetal

Pós-graduação em Microbiologia Agropecuária - FCAV

Prospect on intergalactic magnetic field measurements with gamma-ray instruments

Observing high-energy gamma-rays from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) offers a unique potential to probe extremely tiny values of the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF), a long standing question of astrophysics, astropa rticle physics and cosmology. Very high energy (VHE) photons from blazars propagating along the line of sight interact with the extragalactic background light (EBL) and produce e + e − pairs. Through inverse-Compton interaction, mainly on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), these pairs generate secondary GeV-TeV compo- nents accompanying the primary VHE signal. Such secondary components would be detected in the gamma-ray range as delayed “pair echos” for very weak IGMF ( B< 10 − 16 G ), while they should result in a spatially extended ga mma-ray emission around the source for higher IGMF values ( B> 10 − 16 G ). Coordinated observations with space (i.e. Fermi) and ground- based gamma-ray instruments, such as the pre sent Cherenkov experiments H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS, the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Observatory, and the wide-field detectors such as HAWC and LHAASO, should allow to analyze and finally detect such echos, extended emission or pair halos, and to further characterize the IGMF.

Nocturnal periodic breathing during acclimatization at very high altitude at Mount Muztagh Ata (7,546 m)

Quantitative data on ventilation during acclimatization at very high altitude are scant. Therefore, we monitored nocturnal ventilation and oxygen saturation in mountaineers ascending Mt. Muztagh Ata (7,546 m).

Impacts of environmental change on water resources in the Mount Kenya Region

Water resources are becoming increasingly scarce in the Mt. Kenya region. Land use and climate change may pose additional challenges to water management in the future. In order to assess the impacts of environmental change, the NRM3 Streamflow Model, a simple, semi-distributed, grid-based water balance model, is evaluated as a tool for discharge prediction in six meso-scale catchments on the western slopes of Mt. Kenya, and used to analyse the impact of land use and climate change scenarios on water resources.

A fuzzy risk attitude classification based on prospect theory

Traditional methods do not actually measure peoples’ risk attitude naturally and precisely. Therefore, a fuzzy risk attitude classification method is developed. Since the prospect theory is usually considered as an effective model of decision making, the personalized parameters in prospect theory are firstly fuzzified to distinguish people with different risk attitudes, and then a fuzzy classification database schema is applied to calculate the exact value of risk value attitude and risk be- havior attitude. Finally, by applying a two-hierarchical clas- sification model, the precise value of synthetical risk attitude can be acquired.