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Background As future health educators, nursing and physiotherapy students will play an essential role in the prevention of smoking. Aim To determine the prevalence of smoking among students and to analyse their knowledge of and attitudes towards smoking. Method This was a descriptive cross-sectional study using an anonymous questionnaire and conducted in a Spanish Faculty of Health Sciences in 2013. Findings 247 nursing and physiotherapy students (82.33%) participated in the study. The global prevalence of smoking (18.2%) was lower compare with the general population group of the same age. We have observed statistical significance in relation to previous studies. Nursing and physiotherapy students showed a low nicotine dependence. We found a lack of knowledge about the harmful effects of cigarette consumption on health. Statistically significant results were also found in relation to degree courses (p < 0.01) as regards students' opinions about their knowledge of strategies and methods to help patients stop smoking. Conclusion Most students started smoking before commencing their university studies; consequently, interventions should focus on cessation programmes. An analysis of university curricula leading to the award of a degree in the health sciences could serve to identify educational deficiencies in order to implement the necessary modifications. Implications for nursing and health policy This paper presents an update in tobacco use characteristics amongst nursing and physiotherapy students. Those results have showed a need to improve the curricula in order to develop specific programmes to improve knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. Measures to prevent smoking must be taken at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor for an article "Topical anticholinergic drugs in the treatment of multiple hidrocystomas: a cross-over, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study" published in the previous issue is presented.

Abstract: A solution of the Abel equation such that is called a periodic orbit of the equation. Our main result proves that if there exist two real numbers a and b such that the function is not identically zero, and does not change sign in then the Abel differential equation has at most one non-zero periodic orbit. Furthermore, when this periodic orbit exists, it is hyperbolic. This result extends the known criteria about the Abel equation that only refer to the cases where either or does not change sign. We apply this new criterion to study the number of periodic solutions of two simple cases of Abel equations: the one where the functions and are 1-periodic trigonometric polynomials of degree one and the case where these two functions are polynomials with three monomials. Finally, we give an upper bound for the number of isolated periodic orbits of the general Abel equation , when , and satisfy adequate conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The development of dedicated positron emission tomography scanners is an active area of research, especially aiming at the improvement of lesion detection and in support of cancer treatment and management. Recently, dedicated Positron Emission Tomography (PET) systems with different configurations for specific organs have been developed for improving detection effectiveness. Open geometries are always subject to distortion and artifacts in the reconstructed images. Therefore, the aim of this work is to determine the optimal geometry for a novel cardiac PET system that will be developed by our team, and determine the time resolution needed to achieve reasonable image quality for the chosen geometry. The proposed geometries consist of 36 modules. These modules are arranged in two sets of two plates, each one with different configurations. We performed Monte Carlo simulations with different TOF resolutions, in order to test the image quality improvement in each case. Our results show, as expected, that increasing TOF resolution reduces distortion and artifact effects. We can conclude that a TOF resolution of the order of 200 ps is needed to reduce the artifacts, to acceptable levels, generated in the simulated cardiac-PET open geometries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study the existence of limit cycles for a family of generalized Abel equations x ′ = A (t) x m + B (t) x n , m , n ≥ 2. Under certain assumptions, it is proved that there exists a non-trivial limit cycle. This limit cycle has the characteristic that it arises from neither a Hopf bifurcation nor a perturbation of periodic orbits in a period annulus around the centre at the origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the most important challenges that confronts less-than-truckload carriers serving many-to-many distribution networks consists of determining how to consolidate flows of small shipments. The objective is to determine a route for each origin–destination pair that minimizes the cost while still guaranteeing a certain level of service. This research studies different aspects of the problem and provides a metaheuristic algorithm (based on Ant Colony Optimization techniques) capable of solving real-life problems in a reasonable computational time. The viability of the approach has been tested with a real case in Spain and encouraging results have been obtained. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]