Notes

Wetting Behavior of a Area together with Dual-Scale Constructions.
Due to the suspension of in-person classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at universities with earlier spring breaks traveled and returned to campus while those with later spring breaks largely did not. We use variation in academic calendars to study how travel affected the evolution of COVID-19 cases and mortality. Estimates imply that counties with more early spring break students had a higher growth rate of cases than counties with fewer early spring break students. The increase in case growth rates peaked two weeks after spring break. Effects are larger for universities with students more likely to travel through airports, to New York City, and to popular Florida destinations. Consistent with secondary spread to more vulnerable populations, we find a delayed increase in mortality growth rates. Lastly, we present evidence that viral infection transmission due to college student travel also occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.Fiscal rules in general and the Stability and Growth Pact in particular are repeatedly used to effectively limit public debt and achieve fiscal sustainability. In this context, the concept of the unobservable output gap deserves special attention.Additional "capital buffers", such as the countercyclical capital buffer, were introduced after the 2008/09 crisis. These buffers were requested in addition to banks' minimum capital requirements. They should be built up during good times and can be used during bad times. While buffer requirements were reduced quickly in the spring of 2020, financial institutions have been reluctant to use the additional leeway as they may fear market stigma effects if capital ratios fall and they might abstain from new loans due to high uncertainty. The article argues in favor of a more simple and transparent organisation of macroprudential regulation as measures to raise the effectiveness of capital buffers, especially during a downturn.The year 2020 was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences. In Germany, government deficits as well as the debt ratio rose to an estimated 5 % and 75 % of GDP respectively as a result of the decline in economic output. In order not to jeopardise the post-pandemic economic recovery by returning to a rigid austerity policy, it is now of particular importance to abandon misconceptions regarding the financing as well as the sustainability of government expenditure surpluses. This is the only way to set the right course for an economic policy of the 21st century.In the spring of 2020, the skilled crafts sector was simultaneously affected by two different policy measures the COVID-19-induced lockdown measures and a new market entry regulation. We use administrative data from the German Chambers of Skilled Crafts to analyse the effects of both of these policy changes on firms' registration rates. The results provide no evidence of possible structural damage in business formation as a consequence of corona measures. Instead, we find a reduction in entrepreneurial activity due to the new regulation policy consistent with prior expectations.The economic slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is accompanied by structural change in Germany, driven in particular by the need for digital transformation and decarbonization as well as demographic change. On the one hand, the coronavirus economic stimulus package and the EU recovery fund are responding to the crisis in the short term. On the other hand, the authors criticize a long-standing investment gap and the obstacles to the use of existing funds. The authors discuss what fiscal leeway is available and in which ways and in which areas public investment would have to be made in Germany in order to enable sustainable economic growth.Identifying the spatial distribution and magnitude of seepage flux across the groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interface is critical for assessing potential impairments and restoration alternatives for water bodies adjacent to sites with groundwater contamination. Measurement of the vertical distribution and time-varying characteristics of temperature in sediments provides an indirect way to map out spatial and temporal patterns of seepage flux into surface water. Two spreadsheet-based calculation tools are introduced that implement four one-dimensional analytical solutions to calculate the magnitude and direction of seepage flux based on measurement of steady-state vertical temperature profiles or transient diel temperature signals at two depths within sediment. Performance of these calculation tools is demonstrated for a pond receiving contaminated groundwater discharge from an adjacent landfill. Panobinostat Transient versus steady-state model performance is compared, and limitations of transient modelsare illustrated for a situation with unfavorable sediment characteristics and inadequate sensor spacing. The availability of a range of analytical solutions implemented within Microsoft Excel® is intended to encourage practitioners to explore use of this seepage flux characterization method and develop greater insight into best practices for model selection and use.In this paper, we define and operationalise three modes of research engagement using qualitative secondary analysis (QSA). We characterise these forms of engagement as continuous, collective and configurative. Continuous QSA involves modes of engagement that centre on asking new questions of existing datasets to (re)apprehend empirical evidence, and develop continuous (or contiguous) samples in ways that principally leverage epistemic distance. Collective QSA characteristically involves generating dialogue between members of different research teams to establish comparisons and linkages across studies, and formulate new analytic directions harnessing relational distance. Configurative QSA refers to how existing data are brought into conversation with broader sources of theory and evidence, typically in ways which exploit greater temporal distance. In relation to each mode of engagement we discuss how processes of both (re)contextualisation and (re)connection offer opportunities for new analytical engagement through different combinations and degrees of proximity to, and distance from, the formative contexts of data production.Advocacy for pediatric care ("Politische Kindermedizin") is an Austrian association of engaged pediatricians, aiming at identifying, analyzing and evaluating pressing issues of pediatric care and to suggest improvements to the responsible politicians. The aim was and is to achieve an improvement of pediatric care for children and adolescents in the sense of patient advocacy. The history and concerns of the initiative "Politische Kindermedizin" from 1997 until the present are presented.Febrile neutropenia is the most common potential emergency situation in children and adolescents with cancer. The host response of these patients is severely compromised by treatment-induced immunosuppression resulting in a lack of important defence mechanisms, so that bacterial infections and in certain risk groups also fungal infections can be life threatening. As the clinical course of these infectious complications may be rapid and fatal, early antibiotic treatment can save lives. This article aims to raise awareness to this emergency situation and gives an overview of the management of pediatric cancer patients with febrile neutropenia.We present a new theoretical analysis of local superlinear convergence of classical quasi-Newton methods from the convex Broyden class. As a result, we obtain a significant improvement in the currently known estimates of the convergence rates for these methods. In particular, we show that the corresponding rate of the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno method depends only on the product of the dimensionality of the problem and the logarithm of its condition number.We study minimization of a structured objective function, being the sum of a smooth function and a composition of a weakly convex function with a linear operator. Applications include image reconstruction problems with regularizers that introduce less bias than the standard convex regularizers. We develop a variable smoothing algorithm, based on the Moreau envelope with a decreasing sequence of smoothing parameters, and prove a complexity of O ( ϵ - 3 ) to achieve an ϵ -approximate solution. This bound interpolates between the O ( ϵ - 2 ) bound for the smooth case and the O ( ϵ - 4 ) bound for the subgradient method. Our complexity bound is in line with other works that deal with structured nonsmoothness of weakly convex functions.The stable isotope ratios of stream water can be used to trace water sources within river basins; however, drivers of variation in water isotopic spatial patterns across basins must be understood before ecologically relevant and isotopically distinct water sources can be identified and this tool efficiently applied. We measured the isotope ratios of surface-water samples collected during summer low-flow across five basins in Washington and southeast Alaska (Snoqualmie, Green, Skagit, and Wenatchee Rivers, and Cowee Creek) and compared models (isoscapes) describing the spatial variation in surface-water isotope ratios across a range of hydraulic and climatic conditions. We found strong correlations between mean watershed (MWE) elevation and surface-water isotopic ratios on the windward west side of the Cascades and in Alaska, explaining 48-90% of variation in δ18O values. Conversely, in the Wenatchee basin, located leeward of the Cascade Range, MWE alone had no predicative power. The elevation relationship and predictive isoscapes varied between basins, even those adjacent to each other. Applying spatial stream network models (SSNMs) to the Snoqualmie and Wenatchee Rivers, we found incorporating Euclidean and flow-connected spatial autocovariance improved explanatory power. SSNMs improved the accuracy of river water isoscapes in all cases; however, their utility was greater for the Wenatchee basin, where covariates explained only a small proportion of total variation. Our study provides insights into why basinscale surface-water isoscapes may vary even in adjacent basins and the importance of incorporating spatial autocorrelation in isoscapes. For determining source water contributions to downstream waters, our results indicate that surface water isoscapes should be developed for each basin of interest.South Asian region possess an abundant growth of seaweeds. Due to unappealing taste of seaweeds, most South Asians reject seaweed based products in the global market. Thus, the research aims to develop a seaweed snack appealing to the taste of South Asians using Ulva fasciata with the intention of popularizing seaweed consumption in the South Asia. Ulva fasciata samples were collected from Matara, Sri Lanka. Snack was developed by the traditional nori making technique. Flavor is enhanced by ginger oleoresin. The moisture content (%), total fat content (%), protein content (%) and ash content (%) of the unroasted snack was determined according to the AOAC procedures and resulted 12.52 ± 0.48, 0.26 ± 0.042, 19.18 ± 0.53 and 13.91 ± 0.46 respectively. Total carbohydrate content (%) was analyzed according to the Dubois method and recorded as 9.48 ± 0.14. The arithmetic difference was taken to determine the total fibre content (%) which was recorded as 44.64 ± 0.23. The elemental composition of the processed snack was determined by X-ray fluorescence elemental analysis.
Read More: https://www.selleckchem.com/products/LBH-589.html