The effect of increased weight on peak pressures: implications for obesity and diabetic foot pathology

The purpose of this study was to determine if increased weight contributes to increased mean peak plantar foot pressures when foot function, deformity, and structure are controlled. Ten male and nine female volunteers without sensory neuropathy or other systemic disease were evaluated in the study. Using a repeated measures design, peak plantar foot pressures were compared using the Novel Pedar in-shoe pressure measurement system under three conditions. Baseline measurements were made while volunteers wore the standard test footwear, a thin-soled rubber oxford sneaker. The second and third test conditions involved pressure measurements with an additional 9.1 kg (20 lb) and 18.2 kg (40 lb), respectively, of weight evenly distributed in pockets on the front and back of a workout vest. There was a significant increase in mean peak plantar foot pressures under the metatarsal heads, heel, and midfoot for each incremental increase of weight (baseline vs. 9.1 kg, p < .05; 9.1 kg vs. 18.2 kg, p < .05). The authors conclude that increases in weight increased plantar foot pressures for the first metatarsal, lesser metatarsal, midfoot, and heel regions in both men and women.     

Extending the Argia software with a dynamic optical multicast service to support high performance digital media

Data-intensive high performance, high quality digital media traffic cannot be accommodated on traditional Layer 3 networks. Alternative technologies to transmit this traffic through the network, such as optical multicast, are being investigated. A prototype of an optical multicast service was showcased during the 7th Annual LambdaGrid Workshop celebrated in Prague last September. The prototype used Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology as the data plane and Argia (the evolution of UCLP) as the control/service plane. This paper describes the extensions that were done to the Argia Software to provide the Dynamic Optical Multicast Service and shows the results achieved during the Prague demonstration.     

Energy-saving scheduling on IaaS HPC cloud environments based on a multi-objective genetic algorithm

The Journal of Supercomputing - Nowadays, cloud computing is a growing scenario applied to many scientific and manufacturing areas due to its flexibility for adapting to highly demanding computing...     

Nanomotion Detection Method for Testing Antibiotic Resistance and Susceptibility of Slow‐Growing Bacteria

Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms and are often severe. Time to fully characterize an infectious agent after sampling and to find the right antibiotic and dose are important factors in the overall success of a patient's treatment. Previous results suggest that a nanomotion detection method could be a convenient tool for reducing antibiotic sensitivity characterization time to several hours. Here, the application of the method for slow‐growing bacteria is demonstrated, taking Bordetella pertussis strains as a model. A low‐cost nanomotion device is able to characterize B. pertussis sensitivity against specific antibiotics within several hours, instead of days, as it is still the case with conventional growth‐based techniques. It can discriminate between resistant and susceptible B. pertussis strains, based on the changes of the sensor's signal before and after the antibiotic addition. Furthermore, minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations of clinically applied antibiotics are compared using both techniques and the suggested similarity is discussed.     

Urban data and urban design: A data mining approach to architecture education

The configuration of urban projects using Information and Communication Technologies is an essential aspect in the education of future architects. Students must know the technologies that will facilitate their academic and professional development, as well as anticipating the needs of the citizens and the requirements of their designs. In this paper, a data mining approach was used to outline the strategic requirements for an urban design project in an architecture course using a Project-Based Learning strategy. Informal data related to an award-winning public space (Gillett Square in London, UK) was retrieved from two social networks (Flickr and Twitter), and from its official website. The analysis focused on semantic, temporal and spatial patterns, aspects generally overlooked in traditional approaches. Text-mining techniques were used to relate semantic and temporal data, focusing on seasonal and weekly (work-leisure) cycles, and the geographic patterns were extracted both from geotagged pictures and by geocoding user locations. The results showed that it is possible to obtain and extract valuable data and information in order to determine the different uses and architectural requirements of an urban space, but such data and information can be challenging to retrieve, structure, analyze and visualize. The main goal of the paper is to outline a strategy and present a visualization of the results, in a way designed to be attractive and informative for both students and professionals – even without a technical background – so the conducted analysis may be reproducible in other urban data contexts.     

Water quality and diatom communities in two catalan rivers (N.E. Spain)

Benthic diatom assemblages have been used to evaluate the water quality of two rivers subjected to marked human influences. These rivers, the Llobregat and the Ter, are located in N.E. Spain, and supply water for industrial, agricultural and urban requirements of roughly three million people. The diatom communities in the headwaters are similar in both rivers (Achnanthes minutissima, Cymbella ventricosa, Gomphonema anguslatum). Species of Navicula, Nitzschia and Gomphonema develop in the middle reaches of both rivers when not disrupted by extraneous factors. In the river Ter significant pollution modifies this community and Nitzschia palea, Nitzschia gandersheimiensis and Gomphonema parvulum appear as the most tolerant species. In the Llobregat, the pollution from the salt mine operations also modifies the diatom assemblage and Nitzschia frustulum, Surirella ovata, Navicula atomus are the most abundant species. Reservoirs in the river Ter improve the quality of water and a community of Fragilaria sp. pl. becomes dominant downstream.     

DOSIMAP: a high-resolution 2-D tissue equivalent dosemeter for linac QA and IMRT verification

New generation of radiation therapy accelerators requires highly accurate dose measurements with high spatial resolution patterns. IMRT is especially demanding since the positioning accuracy of all the multi-leafs should be verified for each applied field and at any incidence. A new 2-D tissue equivalent dosemeter is presented with high spatial resolution that can fulfil these tasks. A plastic scintillator sheet is sandwiched between two polystyrene cubes, and the emitted light is observed by a high-resolution camera. A patented procedure allows efficient discrimination of the scintillation proportional to the dose from the parasitic Cerenkov radiation. This extraction made on the cumulated images taken during an irradiation field at a rate of 10 images s(-1) provides high-resolution mapping of the dose rate and cumulated dose in quasi real time. The dosemeter is tissue equivalent (ICRU-44) and works both for electrons and photons without complex parameter adjustment, since phantom and detector materials are identical. The calibration is simple and independent of the irradiation conditions (energy, fluence, quality and so on). The principle of the dosemeter and its calibration procedure are discussed in this paper. The results and, in particular, the dose depth profiles are compared with standard ionisation chamber measurements in polystyrene for both photons and electrons. Finally, the detector specifications are summarised and one example of complex IMRT field is discussed.     

Prestige oil spill. III. Fate of a heavy oil in the marine environment

More than 200 oil samples were collected along the Northern Spanish coast, from December 2002 to December 2003, as part of the extensive monitoring program carried out by the Spanish Marine Safety Agency after the Prestige heavy oil spill (November 13, 2002). The GC FPD/ FID and comprehensive GC x GC/TOFMS sample profiles revealed the main characteristics of the oil residues. Chemical fingerprinting of the aliphatic and aromatic fractions by GC/ MS was performed to determine the source of the oil as well as to follow its weathering at sea. The (n-C13 + n-C14)/(n-C25 + n-C26), n-C18/phytane, and methylnaphthalene [(N + N1)/N2] ratios were found to be useful for assessing the evaporation, biodegradation, and dissolution processes, respectively. Other indicators of more advanced degradation processes, including photo-oxidation, were unaltered, showing the low incidence of natural weathering processes on the spilled heavy oil 1 year after the accident. The survey also demonstrated the occurrence of continued discharges of ballast waters at sea and the need for a more stringent surveillance of the area, beyond accidental oil spills.     

General contribution of nonspecific interactions to fluorescence intensity

Many chemical compounds, including nonfluorescent ones, induce changes in the fluorescence spectra of certain probes, such as berberine cation and Reichardt's betaine, both in the absence and the presence of solvent, that affect almost exclusively emission intensity. In this work, the application of fluorescence detection by intensity changes (FDIC) to HPLC and TLC chromatographic systems with fluorescence detectors has been studied. FDIC detection is of special interest in detecting nonfluorescent analytes, either in HPLC or in TLC mode. It does not involve covalent interactions, and the dielectric permittivity (epsilon) of the medium plays an important role. The balance between nonspecific and specific interactions produces either an increase or a decrease in fluorescence intensity. Therefore, the influence of chromatographic conditions and chemical structure of analytes on the sign and magnitude of fluorescence peaks for sample detection in HPLC and TLC systems has been discussed. In general, probe nature and concentration determine response and detection sensitivity for a given sample in TLC and HPLC. As solubility and fluorescence properties in solvents determine the operating conditions for a FDIC probe in HPLC mode, nature and flows of mobile phase and solvent are important for chromatographic response and detection sensitivity.