ALBERT

Description: The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the global community in terms of every imaginable parameter. The research output on COVID-19 has been nothing short of phenomenal, especially in the medical and biomedical sciences, where the search for a potential vaccine has been conducted in earnest. Much of the advanced research has been distributed in leading medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), where the latest research is distributed on a daily basis. The purpose of this paper is to provide some perspectives on 44 interesting and highly topical research papers that have been published in JAMA, at the time of writing, within the past two weeks. The diverse topics include public health, general medicine, internal medicine, oncology, pediatrics, geriatrics, and biostatistics.

Description: We present a method using contour integration to derive definite integrals and their associated infinite sums which can be expressed as a special function. We give a proof of the basic equation and some examples of the method. The advantage of using special functions is their analytic continuation, which widens the range of the parameters of the definite integral over which the formula is valid. We give as examples definite integrals of logarithmic functions times a trigonometric function. In various cases these generalizations evaluate to known mathematical constants, such as Catalan’s constant C and π.

Description: Permeable pavements have been the subject of numerous studies in recent decades. The possibility of dissipating stormwater more smoothly and generating numerous benefits to the environment and users makes the use of permeable pavements an excellent possibility of integration into sustainable and resilient water management systems in cities. In Brazil, numerous studies on the quantity and quality of infiltrated water, permeability of the coating, clogging, environmental burden, and feasibility, among other characteristics, have been researched. Within this theme, the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) has contributed with ten papers in the research of permeable pavements in the last six years, which address various topics about the effectiveness and applicability of permeable pavements. This paper reviews the studies conducted at UFSC on permeable pavements and discusses the different results within the main issues found. In general, the selected documents addressed seven themes in the studies: potential for potable water savings, clogging, quantity and quality of the water infiltrated into the pavement, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its variants, and hydraulic and structural design details. More specifically, many selected papers assess the potential use of stormwater harvested through permeable pavements in non-potable uses of buildings. The possibility of aligning the benefits of green infrastructure with the rational use of water expands the advantages of the system and can help prevent future water scarcity, as well as reduce the environmental impacts of paving.

Description: We outline and test a new methodology for genuine simulation of stochastic processes with any dependence structure and any marginal distribution. We reproduce time dependence with a generalized, time symmetric or asymmetric, moving-average scheme. This implements linear filtering of non-Gaussian white noise, with the weights of the filter determined by analytical equations, in terms of the autocovariance of the process. We approximate the marginal distribution of the process, irrespective of its type, using a number of its cumulants, which in turn determine the cumulants of white noise, in a manner that can readily support the generation of random numbers from that approximation, so that it be applicable for stochastic simulation. The simulation method is genuine as it uses the process of interest directly, without any transformation (e.g., normalization). We illustrate the method in a number of synthetic and real-world applications, with either persistence or antipersistence, and with non-Gaussian marginal distributions that are bounded, thus making the problem more demanding. These include distributions bounded from both sides, such as uniform, and bounded from below, such as exponential and Pareto, possibly having a discontinuity at the origin (intermittence). All examples studied show the satisfactory performance of the method.

Description: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is being included formally in EcoDesign regulations. Especially product carbon footprint will be mandatory in Europe. However, life cycle impact assessment, including global warming potential (GWP) in LCA, is hampered by several challenges. One of these is a lack of water vapor characterization indexes for GWP. A life cycle inventory profile for air transport fuel, including water vapor emissions, is evaluated with state-of-the-art practice, i.e., Environmental Footprint (EF) Method and International Life Cycle Data (ILCD) 2011 Mid-point+, neglecting water vapor’s high altitude GWP compared to carbon dioxide. Then, the characterization factor in GWP over 100 years (GWP100) for water vapor and alternate normalization for particulates are introduced. The results are compared. The main findings are that the previous EF method and ILCD both generate rather realistic results for Particulate Matter and Respiratory Inorganics mid-point indicators, respectively, but the number of premature deaths should be better allocated to different specific emissions, and that water vapor may dominate the GWP100 result over the usual carbon dioxide. Respiratory inorganics may need one impact category, each starting with particles smaller than 2.5 µm. LCIA mid-points need measurable and understandable bases. The common knowledge of water vapor’s GWP100 should not be neglected in LCIA for air transport and beyond where relevant.

Description: Nizatidine is a gastroprotective drug with a short biological half-life and narrow absorption window. This study aimed at developing floating tablets of nizatidine using various HPMC viscosity grades, namely K4M, E4M, K15 and K200M. Directly compressed tablets revealed an excellent uniformity in hardness, thickness and weight and nizatidine was evenly distributed within the matrix floating tablets. Buoyancy study revealed floating lag time as low as 18–38 s, and tablets remain buoyant for upto 24 h. However, the later depended upon viscosity grade of HPMC and that the higher the viscosity, the less was the total floating time. In vitro dissolution indicated viscosity dependent nizatidine release from the floating tablets. HPMC K4M and E4M based floating tablets released almost 100% drug in 12 h, whilst higher viscosity polymers such as K15 and K200M only released 81.88% and 75.81% drug, respectively. The drug release followed non-Fickian diffusion from tablets formulated with K4M, K15 and K200M, whilst super case II transport was observed with E4M based tablets. More interestingly, K4M and E4M polymers have similar viscosity yet exhibited different drug release mechanism. This was attributed to the difference in degree of substitution of methoxyl- and hydroxypropoxyl- groups on polymer backbone.

Description: Background: Renewed measles outbreaks in recent years indicate that despite the routine availability of vaccines for a disease that is considered contagious, dangerous and deadly, many anti-vaccinationists do not vaccinate their children, which consequently endangers public health. This study aimed to investigate the factors that influence mothers to vaccinate their children, and whether the Health Belief Model (HBM) could predict compliance or non-compliance. Methods: This was a quantitative correlational research, using a 40-item questionnaire administered to 181 mothers in Israel. Results: The findings indicated two main factors that affected mothers’ intention to vaccinate their children against measles: first, their perception of the vaccine’s advantages, and second, their perception of the severity of the disease. It was also found that the HBM variables significantly affected the intention to administer vaccines. Conclusion: Consequently, raising public awareness of the vaccine’s advantages and importance to preventing mass infection, as well as attempts by the health system and practitioners to understand the motivations of anti-vaccinationists (including health beliefs and cultural sensitivities) could significantly increase the percentage of vaccinated children, and eradicate the measles epidemic.

Description: Injuries to ligaments of the knee are extremely common among athletes who participate in high-risk sports or any sport that requires frequent cutting motions, jumping, or contact. In order to determine the best way to heal these injuries, it is important to understand not just the pathology of the injury but also the biomechanical factors that are affected, including stability and steadiness. While many studies have been conducted to examine the stability of healthy knees, there is little to no existing literature on stability of knees afflicted by injury. In order to surpass this obstacle, static steadiness and dynamic stability data were collected using the Lockhart Monitor phone application and Xsens accelerometers, respectively, both before and after completion of a course of physical therapy in a subject with a grade 2 medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear. These results were then used to determine the degree to which the prescribed physical therapy protocol was effective in healing the MCL, which can be useful for adjusting the individual protocol for future conservative treatment and management of the injury.

Description: The bond between England and the UAE date back to over 220 years ago. This article explored the interference of Arabic prepositions in the English used in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their occurrences in light of gender and level of education, two important social variables related to linguistic behavior. To do so, participants translated 20 sentences in Arabic into English as well as filled in 30 gaps in sentences in English with the missing prepositions. We also experimented how musical intelligence improved the Emiratis’ performance regarding prepositions. An experiment was carried out to verify if participants from the experimental group, who received training on prepositions through music, obtained better results compared to the control group, who received training through a more traditional way (by listening to the instructor and repeating).

Description: The soil has lost organic matter in the past centuries. Adding organic matter to soils is one of the management practices applied to recover the levels of soil carbon of the past and to improve soil properties. Is it a good practice to reduce global warming? In fact, one of the practices promoted to combat climate change is increasing soil organic matter. However, the addition of organic residues to the soil could facilitate the liberation of CO2 and wastes could also have no positive effects on soil properties (i.e., pollution). In this sense, what it is important is: (a) to know which is the expected effect of the organic matter added to the soil; (b) how this application alters the soil processes; (c) which are the management practices that should be applied; (d) how much is the real amount of carbon sequester by the soil and; (e) the balance at short and long period after the application of the organic matter. The adequate strategy should be to favour the increment of biologically stabilized soil organic matter considering medium and long time. However, it is necessary to adapt the strategies to the local environmental conditions.