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Water quality is one of the determinants of human well-being and ecosystem health. The increasing deterioration of its quality is one of the most widespread and worrisome environmental problems. In this context, the dynamics of water quality of the Cunas River in rural and urban areas in the central region of Peru during 2017–2019 was evaluated. A total of 168 water samples were collected from 56 sampling sites and nine physicochemical parameters and three heavy metals were determined. The results obtained reveal that the physicochemical parameters did not exceed the environmental quality standards for water, except BOD5 and Fe. Cluster analysis generated three statistically significant clusters based on similar water quality characteristics and the year of study. Group 1 consisted of sectors S6 (2019) and S7 (2017–2019), group 2 consisted of S5 (2017–2019) and S6 (2017 and 2018), and group 3 consisted of S1, S2, S3 and S4 (2017–2019). The PCA generated three main factors with eigenvalues >1, explaining 76.45% of the total variance. PC1, PC2 and PC3 explained 57.6%, 10.08% and 8.70%, respectively. Water quality according to the WQI in the rural sectors was qualified as good quality water and in 67% of the urban sectors, as poor quality water.

Purpose: This study aims to record the current pattern of third molar impactions and relevant reasons for extraction in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We hypothesized that the principal reason for extraction was elective. Material and Methods: Orthopantomograms (OPG) radiographs and electronic files relating to 4000 patients were retrospectively collected from patients between the ages of 21 and 50 years old. Of these, 1014 were included in this study (514 females, 500 males). The classification was determined according to the Winter, Pell, and Gregory classification. The analysis was done using the chi-square (χ2) test, with SPSS version 25 (IBM, Inc, Chicago, IL). A p-value of

Massage therapy (MT) is the physical manipulation of the soft tissues. It primarily consists of manual or hands-on techniques such as applying fixed or movable pressure, holding, and moving muscles and body tissues. MT is beneficial for pain relief, sport-related injury rehabilitation, stress reduction, and to address psychological disorders. MT is the most prevalent form of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapy worldwide. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions regarding MT among the Saudi community. A cross-sectional online survey using WhatsApp©, Google Forms©, Facebook©, and Twitter© was conducted among the general community of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions regarding MT. Data was collected using a 20-item, self-administered questionnaire consisting of a series of both closed-ended and Likert-type questions. A total of 436 respondents completed the survey. Most of the respondents were female 84.2% (n = 367). Approximately 65% resided in the central region of KSA. The majority of the respondents, 81.4%, believed that MT is effective, 27.7% thought that MT leads to complications, and more than half of the residents, 55.7%, believed that patients should consult with their physicians prior to MT. The most common reasons for MT were to treat muscle pain, for relaxation purposes, to treat bone and joint pain, and backache relief, which were reported by 49%, 20%, 19%, and 16% of the participants, respectively. The knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of the Saudi population towards MT are insufficient in some aspects. The establishment of community-based health education programs to improve knowledge of MT is recommended. Keywords: Massage therapy, Swedish massage, Knowledge, Saudi Arabia

We begin with the functions of the striate cortex (area V1 of the visual cortex) and end with a review of the effects of damage to striate cortex or its inputs; namely, homonymous hemifield defects. Clinical and anatomical studies accrued over the past 25 years have modified our understanding of the role of V1 in vision. We discuss the evidence that V1 is not the sole recipient of visual signals; is not the earliest recipient of visual signals; and is not essential for conscious vision. In the second section, we give a brief history of how the visual field was found to be represented in striate cortex, then cover the work that has demonstrated the overrepresentation of the central region of vision in humans. The common patterns of visual field disturbance caused by damage to the retrochiasmal visual system are discussed, with some less common examples shown as brief case studies.

Essential features of different types of buckwheat varieties compared to local populations of Orel region (central Russia) have been reviewed. First breeding generation varieties of the traditional indeterminant morphotype differed very slightly from local populations of the central region. The first variety, Bogatyr (registered in 1938), was bred in the 1900s on Shatilov’s Experimental Station in Orel region by selection of more weighty grain fraction from local population. Varieties of “Krasnostreletskiy” type are characterized by indeterminate morphology, marked larger achenes and physiological limitation of growth. The first such variety, Krasnostreletskaya (registered in 1971), was bred in the Institute of Grain Legumes and Groats Crops (InstGLGC). The indeterminate varieties with limited secondary branching (LSB) were also bred in the InstGLGC. Such varieties are distinguished by increasing (up to 30%–60%) share of plants with reduced branching zone on upper branches from 2–3 to 0–1 vegetative nodes. The first such variety, Ballada, was registered in 1985. Determinate varieties produce shoots with 3–5 inflorescences. The first of them, Sumchanka (registered in 1985), and all following such varieties, have been bred in the InstGLGC. Extending of sowing area under determinate varieties from 8.2% (in 1999) to 56.7% (in 2011) led to a increase in average buckwheat yield in Russia of 1.5.

Aims: To identify the factors associated with good-quality bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (BCPR). Methods: Data were prospectively collected from 553 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs) managed with BCPR in the absence of emergency medical technicians (EMT) during 2012. The quality of BCPR was evaluated by EMTs at the scene and was assessed according to the standard recommendations for chest compressions, including proper hand positions, rates and depths. Results: Good-quality BCPR was more frequently confirmed in OHCAs that occurred in the central/urban region (56.3% [251/446] vs. 39.3% [42/107], p= 0.0015), had multiple rescuers (31.8% [142/446] vs. 11.2% [12/107], p< 0.0001) and received bystander-initiated BCPR (22.0% [98/446] vs. 5.6% [6/107], p< 0.0001). Good-quality BCPR was less frequently performed by family members (46.9% [209/446] vs. 67.3% [72/107], p= 0.0001), elderly bystanders (13.5% [60/446] vs. 28.0% [30/107], p= 0.0005) and in at-home OHCAs (51.1% [228/446] vs. 72.9% [78/107], p< 0.0001). BCPR duration was significantly longer in the good-quality group (median, 8 vs. 6. min, p= 0.0015). Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that multiple rescuers (odds ratio. = 2.8, 95% CI 1.5-5.6), bystander-initiated BCPR (2.7, 1.1-7.3), non-elderly bystanders (1.9, 1.1-3.2), occurrence in the central region (2.1, 1.3-3.3) and duration of BCPR (1.1, 1.0-1.1) were associated with good-quality BCPR. Moreover, good-quality BCPR was initiated earlier after recognition/witness of cardiac arrest compared with poor-quality BCPR (3 vs. 4. min, p= 0.0052). The rate of neurologically favourable survival at one year was 2.7 and 0% in the good-quality and poor-quality groups, respectively (p= 0.1357). Conclusions: The presence of multiple rescuers and bystander-initiated CPR are predominantly associated with good-quality BCPR. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is often characterised as rush-type activity undertaken by people looking to ‘get-rich quick’. An alternative view posits ASM as poverty-driven activity which provides a valuable source of employment to a rural population where agriculture has failed to provide an adequate income. Against this dichotomy, this article critically reviews the short-lived, but high profile, gold rush which occurred on the beaches of Elmina, a fishing town in Ghana's Central Region. At its peak, more than 1000 people, including local fishermen and career miners from the Western Region and Eastern Region of the country, were mining on the beaches. Drawing on interviews with miners and local business owners, the analysis explores the dynamics of the rush and its implications for understanding the ASM sector in Ghana. The discussion highlights the challenges associated with managing resources in dynamic and heterogeneous contexts, reconciling separate and conflicting sectoral priorities and the need to go beyond simplified and dualistic representations of the sector.

Knowledge as an intangible production input not only promotes economic growth but also facilitates structural change in a developing economy. Education is the major means of knowledge accumulation. Higher education in China plays an important role not only in promoting knowledge accumulation, but also in facilitating human capital mobility. This chapter empirically investigates the relationship between regional disparities, college preferences, and admissions under the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) system, and potential interregional human capital mobility in China. Our empirical results show that examinees from western provinces tend to have a strong preference for coastal universities, compared with examinees from central provinces. In this sense, we expect college admissions in China under the NCEE system to exert a stronger impact on potential human capital movement from the western region to the coastal region than from the central region to the coastal region.

We calculate the spectrum of soft bremsstrahlung photons at RHIC and LHC and find that the total energy of these photons is 0.5−1 TeV at RHIC and 10–20 TeV at LHC. This radiation is confined to a very narrow cone around the beam axis. We also find that the contribution of π 0 decays is negligible at small transverse photon momenta.

The freezing rotation illusion arises when a figure is continuously rotating in front of a back and forth rotating ground. The term “freezing rotation” designates the decrease in the perceived rotation speed of a figure when the figure and the ground are turning in equal directions. Subjects had to estimate the rotation speed of a continuously turning figure while the ground was either turning opposite to or with the figure. Their estimations of the figure’s speed were significantly lower, when the ground was moving in the same direction as the figure. In control experiments subjects had to estimate the ground’s speed while the figure was turning opposite to or with the ground. Overall, their estimations of the rotational speed of the ground were not significantly influenced by the rotational direction of the figure.

The official language used in Portugal for all normal purposes is European Portuguese. There are very limited areas in the northeast of the country, adjacent to the border with Spain, where the indigenous form of speech is more akin to the Leonese dialect of Spanish, and one other enclave of strong Spanish influence in the Baixo Alentejo region, although the number of speakers affected is decreasing. In general terms, Portugal may be said to be linguistically one of the most homogenous countries in the world, there being no minority languages indigenous to the country, and all dialects being generally mutually intelligible. There is, however, some variation evident in dialect forms, most notably in the north of the country, as a result of both historical and geographical factors, while the two Atlantic island groups of Madeira and the Azores also show some notable differences from the standard language, which is based upon the speech of the central region between Lisbon and Coimbra.

Only French and English are acknowledged as official languages of Cameroon. However, there are a number of additional important languages of wider communication: Fula, or Fulfulde, spoken in the northern part of the country; Ewondo, the language of the capital, Yaounde, which serves as a lingua franca in the central region; and Duala, a lingua franca in the western region. Cameroon Pidgin English is spoken predominantly as a second language in the South West and North West provinces. Its use ranges far beyond these areas however, and in practice it is the most widely used lingua franca in Cameroon. In addition to widely used languages, Cameroon has a number of lesser used languages, and as many as 31 languages have fewer than 1000 speakers.

A vortex is characterized by the swirling motion of fluid around a central region. This characterization stems from the visual perception of swirling phenomena that are pervasive throughout the natural world. However, translating this intuitive description of a vortex into a formal definition has been quite a challenge. Despite the lack of a formal definition, various detection algorithms have been implemented that can adequately identify vortices in most computational datasets. This chapter presents an overview of existing detection methods; in particular, the focus is on nine methods that are representative of the state of the art. The chapter begins by presenting three taxonomies for classifying these nine detection methods. It then describes each algorithm, along with pseudo-code where appropriate. Next, the chapter describes a recently developed verification algorithm for swirling flows. The chapter also discusses the different visualization techniques for vortices.

Recent results of the NA49 experiment are presented. These cover first results on pion and kaon production, HBT, and charge fluctuations from Pb+Pb reactions at 40A GeV and their comparison to 158A GeV beam energy. Furthermore a study on baryon number transfer in p+p, centrality selected p+Pb and Pb+Pb collisions at 158A GeV and new results on the system size dependence of kaon yields, including C+C and Si+Si data, are presented. Additionally, a first result on $\Lambda$ $\Lambda$ correlations is shown.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the structural setting and stratigraphy of the Iullemmeden basin. The Iullemmeden are a federation of Touareg people who occupy the central region of Niger. The gentle, prolonged downwarping of the Iullemmeden basin during the upper Cretaceous-lower Tertiary is characterized by the widespread continuity of deposits. Doming is also evident to the north of the Iullemmeden, with the northern domes associated with major fault systems. The Lower Cretaceous Assouas and Tchirezrine formations are similar to the Abinky formation in that lenses of feldspathic sandstones are found intercalated with red-brown shales. Both represent the persistence of a meandering river system across the eastern region of the basin. The lower parts of the Terzikasan formation were deposited in a sandy braided fiver environment, with a steady discharge, producing a series of linguoid, sinuous and straight crested bars that migrated downstream to give stacked planar cross-bed sets. It is found that in the north-central region of the basin in the Iguellala mountains, the late Cenomanian-early Turonian succession is 15 m thick and consists of shales with sand intercalations overlying the continental intercalaire.

Streptomyces olivaceoviridis secretes several chitinases. The characterized 59 kDa exochitinase consists of a C-terminal catalytic domain, one central region, and one N-terminal chitin-binding part (12 kDa). The presence of the binding domain was shown to be a prerequisite for an efficient degradation of crystalline α- and β-chitins. In addition to the chitinolytic enzymes, S. olivaceoviridis produces a so far unique chitin-binding protein (CHB1). Biochemical studies and immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that the CHB1 protein binds specifically only to α-chitin from crab shell or fungi. The role of the novel lectinlike protein is at present being investigated.

We have recorded stimulated Raman spectra of the central region of the v1 band of ethylene, both in a jet at temperatures down to ≈25 K, and in a static cell at room temperature and at ≈173 K. The rotational temperatures of the jet are estimated by computer simulation of the observed spectra. Only Q branches are recorded in this experiment. A vib-rotational analysis is performed and improved values are obtained for the band origin and the rotational constants of the v1=1 state of this molecule. Some perturbations are found to affect the rotational levels of this state. © 1994 Elsevier B.V., Financial support from the Spanish DGICYT, Projects PB9 1-O 128 and PB90-0 123. International collaboration was sup- ported by a Cooperation Program between CSIC of Spain and CNR of Italy, and by the Integrated Action HA93-088 between the DGICYT (Spain) and the BMFT (Germany).

Neutral Beam Injection (NBI) was used in the First Tritium Experiment (FTE) not only to provide heating and fuelling by deuterium beams but also, and for the first time, to fuel the central region of the plasma with high power, multi-ampere beams of energetic tritium atoms. An essential feature of employing NBI for the FTE was the extensive development and testing of various aspects of tritium injection, most of which was carried out in the NBI Test Bed. This paper describes the significant modifications and subsequent performance tests of the Positive Ion Neutral Injectors (PINIs) carried out for the FTE. In addition to the modifications to two PINIs and their gas introduction for operation with tritium as the working gas, two more PINIs were modified to achieve increased performance in deuterium.

Flier impact experiments are used in the study of dynamic material response and failure. In general, experiments study the material response to the shock processes within the one-dimensional response region of the target before lateral waves from the plate edges arrive. Prior work has indicated that star-shaped flier and target plates reduce the magnitude of the edge effects or extend the one-dimensional response time within the central region of the target plate. To further quantify this effect, we performed three-dimensional finite element simulations of plate impact experiments with circular and two different star geometries for the flier and target plates. Calculations showed that star-shaped plates indeed reduce the magnitude of the edge effects compared to circular plates. However, the star geometries can reduce the one-dimensional response time at the center of the target plate and are more difficult to fabricate than circular geometries.

Cathodoluminescence contrasts associated with dislocations in GaAs doped with a variety of impurities are investigated. Fresh dislocations of any type, namely α, β or screw type, give rise to dark contrasts in GaAs both undoped and highly doped with In, Si or Zn impurity, showing that they act as effective non-radiative recombination centers. Such contrasts are little affected by annealing of the crystal at temperatures up to 800°C. Remarkable facts are observed in GaAs doped with Te impurity. Fresh dislocations of both α and β types give rise to cathodoluminescence brighter than that in the matrix region in this type of crystal. Around a grown-in dislocation a region is developed where the intensity of cathodoluminescence is much higher than in the matrix region but its spectrum is essentially the same as that of the latter. The cathodoluminescence from the central region of the grown-in dislocation has a spectrum of which peak position is shifted from that of the matrix region.

Radial and axial variations in solids flux have been measured in the 150 mm diameter riser of an experimental circulating fludizied bed using a sampling probe. Solids flux was found to be extremely non-uniform radially, with a net downward flux detected in the region near to the riser wall. Both the upward flux in the central region of the riser and the downward flux in the wall region were found to decrease with increasing height. A mechanism is proposed to explain these observations.

In order to explore the influence of the peptide length on the structure of human β-endorphin, the intact neuropeptide has been studied in SDS micelles by conventional and 2D-NMR spectroscopy and the investigation has been extended to a number of fragments. The NMR results are compared with those obtained from CD experiments and discussed in terms of a helical structure which involves the central region of β-endorphin.

Publisher Summary The diagnostic and therapeutic problems of cerebral arterio–venous angiomas have almost entirely been solved. In respect to the indication of an operation, a uniform view prevails. It is no longer doubtful that the adequate therapy of angiomas is surgery, and the best results can be achieved by radical removal, with an acceptably low mortality rate. The operation of angiomas seated in the central region, that is, in the territory supplying the midcerebral artery is, however, a disputed matter. Many authors, for example, Svien and McRae, abstain from the operation of angiomas localized in this region, not so much because of the operative risk, as of the neurological deficit to be expected. After removal of the malformations causing severe impairment of the cerebral circulation, the latter was restored to normal in the vicinity of the pathologic change, and was improved also in distant cerebral areas, since on the post-operative angiograms there appeared arteries that could hardly have participated in the cerebral circulation before. The radical removal of cerebral arterio-venous malformations is the most effective therapeutic method and one confirms the recommendation of Norlen, Pool, Kunz and other authors, not to restrict the intervention to the polarly seated angiomas only. Since the anomalies often cause epilepsy that is refractory to medicamentous treatment, and since a malformation seated anywhere in the brain constitutes a permanent danger of bleeding, the view supporting preventive removal can also be supported.

Publisher Summary This chapter presents an overview of wake flow. It discusses the problem of the wake flow in terms of wake flow at subsonic speeds and wake flow at super and hypersonic speeds. The wake flow is a very complicated phenomenon. There are two wake regions based upon the downstream distance from the body surface, namely, near and far wakes. In the central region, the variation of the turbulent kinetic energy, the dissipation, and the eddy viscosity are slight and turbulence is practically homogeneous and continuous with respect to time; therefore, this region is called the central continuous turbulent region. The chapter also discusses wake flow at subsonic speeds and the wake flow at supersonic and hypersonic speeds.