Hasil untuk "By period"

Халіл Улла Мохаммад, Мухаммад Кашір, Нур-Уль-Хая Аднан

Economic policy uncertainty has been increasing globally, with consequences for financial sector stability. This paper investigates its influence on the risk-taking behavior of banks. The study examines the functional form of responses of banks to economic policy uncertainty and explores how regulatory quality and safety nets change bank behavior in periods of high uncertainty. We utilize data from 1999 to 2023 of 796 banks in 21 countries, employing a quadratic two-step system GMM estimation technique to evaluate the impact of economic policy uncertainty on banks' risk-taking. Using the U-test, we confirm the nonlinear relationship and identify its threshold point. Finally, we show the consistency of the estimates by controlling for multiple major crisis periods during the sample period. We find that economic policy uncertainty generally increases risk-taking among banks. However, beyond a certain point, further increases in economic policy uncertainty could lead to diminishing returns and heightened risk aversion, resulting in decreased risk-taking behavior. Stronger regulatory quality mitigates this effect; however, the reduction in risk-taking is less pronounced when economic policy uncertainty increases. Safetynets moderate the relationship by impacting bank risk-taking sensitivity. Additionally, we find cross-country heterogeneity in the size of economic policy uncertainty and risk-taking. Lastly, we find that the nonlinear effects are robust after controlling for major events like the global financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, COVID-19, and the Ukraine war. We provide evidence of nonlinearity in the nexus of economic policy uncertainty, regulatory frameworks, safety nets, and bank risk-taking behavior. The findings underscore the significance of robust regulatory quality and safety nets in moderating banks' risk-taking behavior during economic policy uncertainty.

Conor M. Larsen, James MacDonald

Many of the current problems related to the evolution of cataclysmic variables revolve around the magnetic nature of the main sequence secondary. It is known that magnetic fields alter the structure of low mass stars. In particular, they inhibit convection, leading to inflated radii. Here we present a simple model to demonstrate the impact of magneto-convection on the evolution of short period cataclysmic variables. We find that the inclusion of magneto-convection leads to larger secondaries, longer orbital periods and smaller mass-loss rates. When including magnetic effects, the minimum orbital period is increased by 14 minutes, indicating that this could help alleviate the period minimum problem in cataclysmic variable evolution. We also examine the effect of the white dwarf mass on the minimum period. While increasing the white dwarf mass does increase the minimum period, it is not substantial. Therefore it is unlikely that the period minimum problem can be solved with a larger white dwarf mass or with mass growth of white dwarf.

Hansong Zhu, Si Chen, Weixia Qin et al.

Abstract Objective At different times, public health faces various challenges and the degree of intervention measures varies. The research on the impact and prediction of meteorology factors on influenza is increasing gradually, however, there is currently no evidence on whether its research results are affected by different periods. This study aims to provide limited evidence to reveal this issue. Methods Daily data on influencing factors and influenza in Xiamen were divided into three parts: overall period (phase AB), non-COVID-19 epidemic period (phase A), and COVID-19 epidemic period (phase B). The association between influencing factors and influenza was analysed using generalized additive models (GAMs). The excess risk (ER) was used to represent the percentage change in influenza as the interquartile interval (IQR) of meteorology factors increases. The 7-day average daily influenza cases were predicted using the combination of bi-directional long short memory (Bi-LSTM) and random forest (RF) through multi-step rolling input of the daily multifactor values of the previous 7-day. Results In periods A and AB, air temperature below 22 °C was a risk factor for influenza. However, in phase B, temperature showed a U-shaped effect on it. Relative humidity had a more significant cumulative effect on influenza in phase AB than in phase A (peak: accumulate 14d, AB: ER = 281.54, 95% CI = 245.47 ~ 321.37; A: ER = 120.48, 95% CI = 100.37 ~ 142.60). Compared to other age groups, children aged 4–12 were more affected by pressure, precipitation, sunshine, and day light, while those aged ≥ 13 were more affected by the accumulation of humidity over multiple days. The accuracy of predicting influenza was highest in phase A and lowest in phase B. Conclusions The varying degrees of intervention measures adopted during different phases led to significant differences in the impact of meteorology factors on influenza and in the influenza prediction. In association studies of respiratory infectious diseases, especially influenza, and environmental factors, it is advisable to exclude periods with more external interventions to reduce interference with environmental factors and influenza related research, or to refine the model to accommodate the alterations brought about by intervention measures. In addition, the RF-Bi-LSTM model has good predictive performance for influenza.

Xinyi Wei, Yanding Su, Qian Cheng et al.

Objective: A remarkably sensitive, accurate, and efficient ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) approach was developed as a facile and expeditious method for measuring cilofexor concentration in beagle dogs, the herb-drug interactions between silybinin and cilofexor was explored based on pharmacokinetics.Methods: The plasma sample protein of the beagles were rapidly sedimented with acetonitrile, and cilofexor and tropifexor (internal standard, ISTD) were separated by gradient elution using a 0.1% formic acid aqueous solution and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The concentrations were detected using positive ion multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Mass transfer pairs were m/z 587.91→267.91 for cilofexor and m/z 604.08→228.03 for ISTD, respectively. A two-period self-controlled experimental design was adopted for the HDIs experiment. In the first period (Group A), six beagle dogs were orally administered cilofexor at a dose of 1 mg/kg. In the second period (Group B), silybinin (3 mg/kg) was orally administered to the six beagle dogs twice a day for seven consecutive days, after which cilofexor was orally administered. The cilofexor concentration in beagle dogs was determined, and HDIs were evaluated based on their pharmacokinetics.Results: The accuracy and precision of cilofexor were both less than 15%, and the recoveries, matrix effects, and stability met the relevant requirements. The Cmax of cilofexor in group B was 49.62% higher than that in group A, whereas the AUC(0-t) and AUC(0−∞) of cilofexor in group B were 47.85% and 48.52% higher, respectively, than those in group A. Meanwhile, the t1/2 extended from 7.84 h to 9.45 h, CL and Vz decreased in Group B.Conclusion: A novel UPLC-MS/MS approach was successfully applied for the measurement of cilofexor in beagle dog plasma. Silybinin can alter the pharmacokinetics of cilofexor in beagle dogs, thereby increasing plasma exposure to cilofexor.

Dessie Salilew-Wondim, Michael Hoelker, Eva Held-Hoelker et al.

A skewed male-to-female ratio in cattle is believed to be due to the biased embryo losses during pregnancy. The changes in biochemical secretion such as miRNAs by the embryo due to altered maternal environment could cause a sex biased selective implantation resulting in a skewed male to female ratio at birth. Nevertheless, it is still not clear whether the male and female embryos could modify their miRNA expression patterns differently in response to altered physiological developmental conditions. Therefore, this study was focused on identifying sex specific miRNA expression patterns induced in the embryo during the elongation period in response to the maternal environment. For this, in vitro produced day female and male embryos were transferred to Holsteins Frisian cows and heifers. The elongated female and male embryos were then recovered at day 13 of the gestation period. Total RNA including the miRNAs was isolated from each group of elongated embryo samples were subjected to the next generation miRNA sequencing. Sequence alignment, identification and quantification of miRNAs were done using the miRDeep2 software package and differential miRNA expression analyses were performed using the edgeR bioconductor package. The recovery rate of viable elongating embryos at day 13 of the gestation period was 26.6%. In cows, 2.8 more viable elongating male embryos were recovered than female embryos, while in heifers the sex ratio of the recovered elongating embryos was close to one (1.05). The miRNA analysis showed that 254 miRNAs were detected in both male and female elongated embryos developed either in cows or heifers, of which 14 miRNAs including bta-miR-10b, bta-miR-148a, bta-miR-26a, and bta-miR-30d were highly expressed. Moreover, the expression level of 32 miRNAs including bta-let-7c, bta-let-7b, bta-let-7g, bta-let-7d and bta-let-7e was significantly different between the male and female embryos developed in cows, but the expression level of only 4 miRNAs (bta-miR-10, bta-mR-100, bta-miR-155 and bta-miR-6119-5p) was different between the male and female embryos that were developed in heifers. Furthermore, 19 miRNAs including those involved in cellular energy homeostasis pathways were differentially expressed between the male embryos developed in cows and heifers, but no significantly differentially expressed miRNAs were detected between the female embryos of cows and heifers. Thus, this study revealed that the sex ratio skewed towards males in embryos developed in cows was accompanied by increased embryonic sexual dimorphic miRNA expression divergence in embryos developed in cows compared to those developed in heifers. Moreover, male embryos are more sensitive to respond to the maternal reproductive microenvironment by modulating their miRNA expression.

J. S. Canovas

We consider the periodic model introduced in [20] and disprove the conjectures on the number of periodic orbits the model can have. We rebuild the conjecture to prove that for periodic sequences of maps of any period, the number of non-zero periodic trajectories is bounded by two.

Satoshi Usui

For an eventually periodic module, we have the degree and the period of its first periodic syzygy. This paper studies the former under the name \lq\lq periodic dimension\rq\rq. We give a bound for the periodic dimension of an eventually periodic module with finite Gorenstein projective dimension. We also provide a method of computing the Gorenstein projective dimension of an eventually periodic module under certain conditions. Besides, motivated by recent results of Dotsenko, Gélinas and Tamaroff and of the author, we determine the bimodule periodic dimension of an eventually periodic Gorenstein algebra. Another aim of this paper is to obtain some of the basic homological properties of eventually periodic algebras. We show that a lot of homological conjectures hold for this class of algebras. As an application, we characterize eventually periodic Gorenstein algebras in terms of bimodules Gorenstein projective dimensions.

Noriaki Sunaga, Yasuhiko Koga, Yoshimasa Hachisu et al.

Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatous disease of unknown etiology. The diagnosis of sarcoidosis is based on clinicopathologic findings accompanied by the formation of granulomas in multiple organs, including the lung. Although angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and soluble interleukin 2 receptor (sIL-2R) are traditionally used for the diagnosis of sarcoidosis, specific diagnostic markers remain to be determined. In the current study, we found that serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE) levels were elevated in patients with sarcoidosis. Serum NSE levels were positively correlated with serum ACE and sIL-2R levels. The sensitivity of NSE alone was modest, but its combination with sIL-2R and ACE had the highest sensitivity compared to those of each single marker. When comparing serum NSE and pro-gastrin-releasing peptide (ProGRP) levels in SCLC patients with those in patients with sarcoidosis and nonsarcoidotic benign diseases, serum NSE could be used to distinguish SCLC from sarcoidosis and nonsarcoidosis by setting at a cutoff value of 17.0 ng/ml with a sensitivity of 73.5% and a specificity of 90.2%, which were comparable to those of ProGRP. Serum NSE levels were associated with organ involvement and were higher in sarcoidosis patients who had been treated with oral corticosteroid (OCS) than in those who had never received OCS therapies; there was a positive association between elevated serum NSE levels and OCS use. Increased concentrations of serum NSE in patients at the nonremission phase decreased after spontaneous remission, whereas serum NSE levels fluctuated in accordance with serum ACE or sIL-2R levels during the follow-up period in patients with sarcoidosis. These findings suggest that NSE could be a marker for the diagnosis and monitoring of the clinical outcome of patients with sarcoidosis.

Sadaf Zohra, Uzma Urooj, Nayla Khalid et al.

Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of modified early obstetric warning system for predicting maternal morbidity keeping ICU admission as “gold standard”. Study Design: Cross sectional validation study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pak Emirates Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, from Oct 2018 to Apr 2019. Methodology: A total of 205 patients of singleton pregnancy, post-natal period <6 weeks, history of hypertension and diabetes were considered in the study. Women were followed up to 6 weeks for maternal morbidity in term of intensive care admission. All the data regarding findings of Modified early obstetric warning system and intensive care admission was noted. Results: The age range of patients was 18-40 years with mean age of 31.585 ± 3.31 years, mean gestational age was 37.595 ± 1.84 weeks and mean parity was 1.839 ± 1.59. Modified early obstetrics warning system as shown sensitivity of 84.38%, specificity 97.11%, diagnostic accuracy by 95%, positive predictive value of 84.38%, negative predictive value of 97.11%, (p=0.001) for prediction of maternal morbidity. Conclusion: Modified early obstetrics warning system chart fulfills most of criteria of ideal screening tool making it a significant bedside screening tool which can predict obstetric morbidity and mortality in pregnant patients.

Abdullah E. Akay, Hasan Serin, John Sessions et al.

Forest roads are the key infrastructures that provide access to forest areas for sustainable management, protection, and utilization of forest resources. In order to benefit from the important functions of forest roads, they should be built in with adequate technical road standards. The road network with low technical standards require more frequent major repairs to ensure continues access to forest resources. In addition, only small trucks with low load capacity can move on the low standard roads. Furthermore, the low road standards limit the truck speed that increases vehicle travel time. These negative effects increase the transportation costs which are an important part of the timber production costs in Turkey. Thus, improving the road standards and developing forest transportation planning should be evaluated together in the most appropriate way. Large logging trucks with high load capacity are generally preferred for efficient transportation of wood-based forest products. In Turkey, large logging trucks, however, cannot operate on the most of the forest roads because insufficient technical road standards (road width, curve radius, surface materials, road structures) limit the maneuverability of large logging trucks. In this study, the objective is to determine the effects of improving forest road standards on total net profit of forest products by using the NETWORK 2000 program, a heuristic approach for solving forest transportation problems. Three Forest Enterprise Chiefs (FECs) located in Mustafakemalpaşa Forest Enterprise Directorate (FED) in Bursa Forest Regional Directorate were selected as the study area. The digital data layers for forest road network was generated by using ArcGIS 10.4 software. In the solution process, firstly, the optimum routes that minimize the transportation cost and maximize the total net profit of forest products on existing forest road networks were investigated for a truck type (15 ton) currently used in the region. In the second case, forest transportation was planned for the high load capacity truck (29 ton) moving on the forest roads with improved standards. In the first case, the transportation costs and annual major repair costs were considered in the calculation of the net profit of forest products, while one time cost of road improvement activities (i.e. road improvement construction, road structure installation, road surface construction) and annual maintenance costs were considered along with transportation costs in the second case. In both cases, the costs of other forest operations (i.e. felling, logging, etc.) were not considered since it was assumed that they do not vary with the forest transportation alternatives. As a result of the transportation plan developed for high load capacity truck, the annual transportation cost decreased by 46.85% comparing to the local logging trucks with low load capacity. Using improved road standards, the total road costs computed for the time period of 30 years (i.e. the average expected life cycle of forest roads) were reduced by 4.64%. The total net profit of forest products transported by using a high load capacity truck was 473 340 Euro more than that of using low load capacity truck on the existing forest road network. Thus, improving road standards might result in some additional costs in the road construction stage, but total net profit of forest products increase since transportation costs along with maintenance and repair costs considerably decrease in the long term.

Jenny L. Kim, Nicholas E. Bulthuis, Heather A. Cameron

In animal studies, prolonged sedation with general anesthetics has resulted in cognitive impairments that can last for days to weeks after exposure. One mechanism by which anesthesia may impair cognition is by decreasing adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Several studies have seen a reduction in cell survival after anesthesia in rodents with most studies focusing on two particularly vulnerable age windows: the neonatal period and old age. However, the extent to which sedation affects neurogenesis in young adults remains unclear. Adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus (DG) was analyzed in male and female rats 24 h after a 4-h period of sedation with isoflurane, propofol, midazolam, or dexmedetomidine. Three different cell populations were quantified: cells that were 1 week or 1 month old, labeled with the permanent birthdate markers EdU or BrdU, respectively, and precursor cells, identified by their expression of the endogenous dividing cell marker proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) at the time of sacrifice. Midazolam and dexmedetomidine reduced cell proliferation in the adult DG in both sexes but had no effect on postmitotic cells. Propofol reduced the number of relatively mature, 28-day old, neurons specifically in female rats and had no effects on younger cells. Isoflurane had no detectable effects on any of the cell populations examined. These findings show no general effect of sedation on adult-born neurons but demonstrate that certain sedatives do have drug-specific and sex-specific effects. The impacts observed on different cell populations predict that any cognitive effects of these sedatives would likely occur at different times, with propofol producing a rapid but short-lived impairment and midazolam and dexmedetomidine altering cognition after a several week delay. Taken together, these studies lend support to the hypothesis that decreased neurogenesis in the young adult DG may mediate the effects of sedation on cognitive function.

Stephanie Soerodjo

As a developing country, Indonesia shows a quite interesting phenomenon, which is the high rate of debt of many companies in Indonesia. This fact shows that the policy of leverage plays an important role for the viability of the company. The main purpose of this research was to test empirically factors influencing leverage, for there are still inconsistencies in research results from the prior studies. Based on the data of the mining companies listed on BEI for period 2009-2011, in addition of using tax factors that consisted of Corporate tax rate and Non-debt tax shield, influencing the leverage, there are also another factors influencing leverage, which are Investment opportunity set, Profitability, Past debt, Tangibility of fixed assets, Firm size, and Cost of financial distress. The analyzed data are the combination of time series and cross-section data or, panel data, utilizing the regression model supported by the software SPSS 20 on 0,05 or 5% of significance level. The result of the study shows that at the significance level of 0,05 Corporate Tax Rate (0,543), Non–debt Tax Shield (0,518), Investment Opportunity Set (0,442), Tangibility of Fixed Assets (0,544), Firm Size (0,500), and Cost of Financial Distress (0,380) have no significant effect for the leverage. While Profitability (0,028) negatively has significance effect for the leverage at the significance of 0,05. While Past Debt (0,000) has significant positive effect on the leverage at the significance of 0,05.

Ndèye Marème Sougou, Jean Baptiste Diouf

INTRODUCTION: In Senegal, the fight for newborn and child survival is a public health priority. The aim of this study is to analyze the factors associated with neonatal deaths in Senegal in 2017. METHODS: this article uses data from the Senegal Demographic and Health Survey 2017. It covered 6073 children under the age of 5. The sample from the 2017 Continuous DHS is nationally representative. A bivariate analysis was conducted. The multivariate analysis was performed using STATA 15 software. Adjusted odds ratios had been calculated for variables with significant p values. The dependent variable was neonatal death. RESULTS: a total of 6,073 children had been investigated. The neonatal death rate is 2.12%. Neonatal deaths account for 50.97% of all infant and child deaths. Newborns with a low birth weight 2500 g are 2.3 times more likely to die with an ORaj of 2.3 [1.01-5.28]. Newborns who are considered "very small" by their mother at birth are 2.5 times more likely to die in the neonatal period ORaj=2.5 [1.04-6.04]. The last risk factor identified is birth by caesarean section (ORaj=3.97 [1.68-9.39]). CONCLUSION: this study concludes that low birth weight is an important risk factor for neonatal deaths in Senegal. These results suggest better management of antenatal care. However, this study showed that there was a deficit in the provision of perinatal services in Senegal. A qualitative analysis of Caesarean section in the context of universal coverage could be a perspective for further reflection on improving newborn survival in Senegal.

Kai Li, Chun-Hwey Kim, Qi-Qi Xia et al.

In this paper, we present the first light curve synthesis and orbital period change analysis of nine contact binaries around the short period limit. It is found that all these systems are W-subtype contact binaries. One of them is a medium contact system while the others are shallow contact ones. Four of them manifest obvious O'Connell effect explained by a dark spot or hot spot on one of the component stars. Third light was detected in three systems. By investigating orbital period variations, we found that four of the targets display a secular period decrease while the others exhibit a long-term period increase. The secular period decrease is more likely caused by angular momentum loss while the long-term period increase is due to mass transfer from the less massive component to the more massive one. Based on the statistic of 19 ultrashort period contact binaries with known orbital period changes, we found that seven of them display long-term decrease (three of them also exhibit cyclic variations), ten of them manifest long-term increase while two of them only show cyclic variation and that most of them are shallow contact binaries supporting the long timescale angular momentum loss theory suggested by Stepien. For the three deep contact systems, we found that they are probably triple systems. The tertiary companion plays an essential role during their formation and evolution.

Sevak Mkrtchyan

We study random plane partitions with respect to volume measures with periodic weights of arbitrarily high period. We show that near the vertical boundary the system develops up to as many turning points as the period of the weights, and that these turning points are separated by vertical facets which can have arbitrary rational slope. In the lozenge tiling formulation of the model the facets consist of only two types of lozenges arranged in arbitrary periodic deterministic patterns. We compute the correlation functions near turning points and show that the point processes at the turning points can be described as several GUE-corners processes which are non-trivially correlated. The weights we study introduce a first order phase transition in the system. We compute the limiting correlation functions near this phase transition and obtain a process which is translation invariant in the vertical direction but not the horizontal.

Benjamin B. Clissold, Benjamin B. Clissold, Benjamin B. Clissold et al.

BackgroundEvidence of a decline in the incidence of stroke has emerged from population-based studies. These have included retrospective and prospective cohorts. However, in Australia and other countries, government bodies and stroke foundations predict a rise in the prevalence of stroke that is anticipated to increase the burden of stroke across the entire domain of care. This increase in prevalence must be viewed as different from the decline in incidence being observed, a measure of new stroke cases. In Victoria, all public emergency department visits and public and private hospital admissions are reported to the Department of Health and Human Services and include demographic, diagnostic, and procedural/treatment information.MethodsWe obtained data from financial years 1997/1998 to 2007/2008 inclusive, for all cases with a primary stroke diagnosis (ICD-10-AM categories) with associated data fields. Incident cases were established by using a 5-year clearance period.ResultsFrom 2003/2004 to 2007/2008 inclusive, there were 53,425 patients with a primary stroke or TIA diagnosis. The crude incident stroke rate for first ever stroke was 211 per 100,000 per year (95% CI 205–217) [females—205 per 100,000 per year (95% CI 196–214) and males—217 per 100,000 per year (95% CI 210–224)]. The overall stroke rates were seen to significantly decline over the period [males (per 100,000 per year) 227 in 2003/2004 to 202 in 2007/2008 (p = 0.0157) and females (per 100,000 per year) 214 in 2003/2004 to 188 in 2007/2008 (p = 0.0482)]. Ischemic stroke rates also appeared to decline; however, this change was not significant.ConclusionThese results demonstrate a significant decline in stroke incidence during the study period and may suggest evidence for effectiveness of primary and secondary prevention strategies in cerebrovascular risk factor management.

Mehrdad Nikooy, Farzam Tavankar

Logging secondary damages on remained trees are one of the challenges in management of uneven-aged stands which have been less studied in the northern forests of Iran. In this research decay frequency and volume of bole trees after 15 years from wound occurrence were studied through systematic-random sample plots with 1000m2 plots in the Nav-e Asalem forests, Iran. The conditions of trees were registered in two types: safe and wounded, the wounds were registered in two types: open and decayed; and volume of decayed bole was calculated by Smalian formula. Results indicated that 16.1% of wounds were led to bole decay. Decay frequency and volume were estimated to 5.5 trees ha-1 and 1.7 m3ha-1, respectively, that includes 1.96% of total trees and 0.72% of total stand volume. Coefficients of decay frequency and volume on the base of frequency of logging primary damage (12.2%) were calculated 0.16 and 0.06, respectively. Decay frequency of wounded trees bole were related with tree species, wound location, diameter at breast height (DBH), situation of wounded tree in stand, and slope aspect. Decay frequency and volume in the trees of lime and oak were more than other tree species. Decay frequency was increased by decreasing wounds distance from ground. Decay frequency and volume in the high diameter wounded trees were more than low diameter wounded trees. The wounds on the trees in edge of skid trails were more decayed than the other wounds. Decay frequency of wounded trees on the northern aspect slopes were more than the southern aspect slopes. In general, minimizing of primary logging damages, reducing harvest intensity, increasing logging period, and harvesting bole-decayed trees in the next logging periods are suggested.

F. Ding, F. Ding, T. Mao et al.

We use the Global Positioning System (GPS) network in northwest China and central Asia to monitor traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs), which were possibly excited by the large meteorite blast over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on 15 February 2013. Two TIDs were observed. The first TID was observed 13 min after the blast within a range of 270–600 km from the blast site. It propagated radially from the blast site with a mean velocity and period of 369 m s⁻¹ and 12 min, respectively. The second TID was found in northwest China, 1.5 h after the time of the blast, at  ∼  2500–3100 km from the blast site. This latter TID propagated southeastward with a velocity and period of 410 m s⁻¹ and 23 min, respectively. Severe dissipation of the perturbation total electronic content (TEC) amplitude was observed. Any TIDs propagating in a global range was not found after the meteorite blast. Features of TIDs were compared with those excited by early nuclear explosion tests. It is inferred from our analysis that the energy release of the Chelyabinsk meteorite blast may not be large enough to excite such ionospheric disturbances in a global range as some nuclear explosions did.

J. Kalibová, L. Jačka, J. Petrů

Vegetation cover is found to be an ideal solution to most problems of erosion on steep slopes. Biodegradable geotextiles (GTXs) have been proved to provide sufficient protection against soil loss in the period before vegetation reaches maturity, so favouring soil formation processes. In this study, 500 g m⁻² jute (J500), 400 g m⁻² (C400), and 700 g m⁻² coir (C700) GTXs were first installed on a 9° slope under “no-infiltration” laboratory conditions, then on a 27° slope under natural field conditions. The impact of GTXs on run-off and soil loss was investigated to compare the performance of GTXs under different conditions. Laboratory run-off ratio (percentage portion of control plot) equalled 78, 83, and 91 %, while peak discharge ratio equalled 83, 91, and 97 % for J500, C700, and C400 respectively. In the field, a run-off ratio of 31, 62, and 79 %, and peak discharge ratio of 37, 74, and 87 % were recorded for C700, J500, and C400 respectively. All tested GTXs significantly decreased soil erosion. The greatest soil loss reduction in the field was observed for J500 (by 99.4 %), followed by C700 (by 97.9 %) and C400 (by 93.8 %). Irrespective of slope gradient or experimental condition, C400 performed with lower run-off and peak discharge reduction than J500 and C700. The performance ranking of J500 and C700 in the laboratory differed from the field, which may be explained by different slope gradients, and also by the role of soil, which was not included in the laboratory experiment.

M.C. Azevedo, E.D.R.P. Velloso, V. Buccheri et al.

In adults with non-promyelocytic acute myeloid leukemia (AML), high-dose cytarabine consolidation therapy has been shown to influence survival in selected patients, although the appropriate doses and schemes have not been defined. We evaluated survival after calculating the actual dose of cytarabine that patients received for consolidation therapy and divided them into 3 groups according to dose. We conducted a single-center, retrospective study involving 311 non-promyelocytic AML patients with a median age of 36 years (16-79 years) who received curative treatment between 1978 and 2007. The 131 patients who received cytarabine consolidation were assigned to study groups by their cytarabine dose protocol. Group 1 (n=69) received <1.5 g/m2 every 12 h on 3 alternate days for up to 4 cycles. The remaining patients received high-dose cytarabine (≥1.5 g/m2 every 12 h on 3 alternate days for up to 4 cycles). The actual dose received during the entire consolidation period in these patients was calculated, allowing us to divide these patients into 2 additional groups. Group 2 (n=27) received an intermediate-high-dose (<27 g/m2), and group 3 (n=35) received a very-high-dose (≥27 g/m2). Among the 311 patients receiving curative treatment, the 5-year survival rate was 20.2% (63 patients). The cytarabine consolidation dose was an independent determinant of survival in multivariate analysis; age, karyotype, induction protocol, French-American-British classification, and de novo leukemia were not. Comparisons showed that the risk of death was higher in the intermediate-high-dose group 2 (hazard ratio [HR]=4.51; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.81-11.21) and the low-dose group 1 (HR=4.43; 95% CI: 1.97-9.96) than in the very-high-dose group 3, with no significant difference between those two groups. Our findings indicated that very-high-dose cytarabine during consolidation in adults with non-promyelocytic AML may improve survival.