The air in Kraków is one of the most polluted in Europe. Polish standards for notification and alert levels for PM10 particulate matter are one of the the highest in Europe and exceed the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) for safe daily con - centrations by several times. The article presents the results of airborne dust measurements in three districts of Kraków. The study has shown that the concentration of PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter exceeded the annual average permissible levels. Empirical mea - surements of PM2.5 show significantly higher air pollution values than the data notified by stationary monitoring stations installed in two locations. The high value of Pearson linear correlation coefficient confirms that weather conditions have a significant impact on air quality in Kraków. Wind speed in the autumn and winter seasons has by far the greatest influence on air quality in al. Krasińskiego, in the Ruczaj and Kurdwanów districts. A strong negative correlation was displayed. Manual measurements should be used to verify data obtained from air monitoring stations. It is to be expected that, in Kraków, air purity will improve due to the implementation of an anti-smog resolution and subsidies for the replacement of obsolete heating systems with more environmentally friendly solutions.
We are interested in the conceptualizations of death in Spanish through the study of signifiers, considered as vectors of meaning. Observation of the Castilian lexicon of death reveals phonic recurrences and we postulate that these phonic units convey a very general meaning and are therefore submorphemes, units inferiors to the morpheme that carries meaning. To test this hypothesis, we built a lexical corpus of death words. We compare the frequency of phonemes in the corpus and in the general lexicon, and show that the semantic field of death is structured around a few submorphemes that represent different conceptualizations of death. Beyond this diversity of points of view, we observe a certain unity through the velar feature.
A general model is presented for coupling of high-Q whispering-gallery modes in optical microsphere resonators with coupler devices that possess a discrete and continuous spectrum of propagating modes. By contrast to conventional high-Q optical cavities, in microspheres the independence of high intrinsic quality-factor and controllable parameters of coupling via an evanescent field offer a variety of regimes similar to those that are already available in rf devices. The theory is applied to data reported earlier on different types of couplers to microsphere resonators and is complemented by the experimental demonstration of enhanced coupling efficiency (∼80%) and variable loading regimes with Q>108 fused-silica microspheres.
Using a combination of resist reflow to form a highly circular etch mask pattern and a low-damage plasma dry etch, high-quality-factor silicon optical microdisk resonators are fabricated out of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Quality factors as high as Q = 5x10(6) are measured in these microresonators, corresponding to a propagation loss coefficient as small as alpha ~ 0.1 dB/cm. The different optical loss mechanisms are identified through a study of the total optical loss, mode coupling, and thermally-induced optical bistability as a function of microdisk radius (5-30 microm). These measurements indicate that optical loss in these high-Q microresonators is limited not by surface roughness, but rather by surface state absorption and bulk free-carrier absorption.
F. Dolan, H. Osborn, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhailé
et al.
Abstract The results of Romelsberger for an N = 1 superconformal index counting protected operators, satisfying a BPS condition and which cannot be combined to form long multiplets, are analysed further. The index is expressible in terms of single particle superconformal characters for N = 1 scalar and vector multiplets. For SQCD, involving SU ( N c ) gauge groups and appropriate numbers of flavours N f , the formula used to construct the index may be proved to give identical results for theories linked by Seiberg duality using recently proved theorems for q -series elliptic hypergeometric integrals. The discussion is also extended to Kutasov–Schwimmer dual theories in the large N c , N f limit and to dual theories with Sp ( N ) and SO ( N ) gauge groups. For the former, a transformation identity for elliptic hypergeometric integrals directly verifies that the index is the same for the electric and magnetic theory. For SO ( N ) theories the corresponding result may also be obtained from the same basic identity. An expansion of the index to several orders is also obtained in a form where the detailed protected operator content may be read off. Relevant mathematical results are reviewed.
Q fever is a disease of humans, caused by Coxiella burnetii, and a large range of animals can be infected. This paper presents a review of the epidemiology of Q fever in humans and farm animals between 1982 and 2010, using case studies from four European countries (Bulgaria, France, Germany and the Netherlands). The Netherlands had a large outbreak between 2007 and 2010, and the other countries a history of Q fever and Q fever research. Within all four countries, the serological prevalence of C. burnetii infection and reported incidence of Q fever varies broadly in both farm animals and humans. Proximity to farm animals and contact with infected animals or their birth products have been identified as the most important risk factors for human disease. Intrinsic farm factors, such as production systems and management, influence the number of outbreaks in an area. A number of disease control options have been used in these four countries, including measures to increase diagnostic accuracy and general awareness, and actions to reduce spillover (of infection from farm animals to humans) and human exposure. This study highlights gaps in knowledge, and future research needs.
In this paper, the $(p,q)$-derivative and the $(p,q)$-integration are investigated. Two suitable polynomials bases for the $(p,q)$-derivative are provided and various properties of these bases are given. As application, two $(p,q)$-Taylor formulas for polynomials are given, the fundamental theorem of $(p,q)$-calculus is included and the formula of $(p,q)$-integration by part is proved.