Search

The terms of the budget equations for turbulence kinetic energy (TKE), heat, flux, and temperature variance are evaluated observationally using 4 levels of turbulence observations made over a period of 10 months at a 30-m tower in southern Brazil. All terms are evaluated, except those associated with horizontal transport or pressure perturbations, which were not observed. The analysis is split between daytime, convective conditions and night-time, stable conditions. In both cases, the terms are initially shown in their original dimensional form as a function of the mean wind speed at 3 m, and the observations are then classified by net radiation. During the day, the TKE budget is dominated by shear and buoyant production, while dissipation is the main removal mechanism and the residual analysis indicates that the pressure transport term is positive near the surface. At night, the TKE budget is dominated by shear production and destruction by dissipation, while the buoyant destruction is about an order of magnitude smaller than both. The inferred role of pressure transport depends on the turbulence regime. In the daytime heat flux budget the dominant production mechanism varies between gradient and buoyant production, depending on mean wind speed and net radiation, while most of the destruction is mainly attributed to the pressure covariance term, inferred from the budget residual. At night, buoyancy becomes a relevant destruction mechanism, and its relationship with gradient production is related to the stable boundary layer turbulence regime. Temperature variance budget is a balance between gradient production and dissipation both at day and night, in which case the residual is larger and its possible causes are discussed. Dimensionless expressions for the dominant terms in the three budgets considered are compared to the data, as a function of the stability parameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Acupuncture has been progressively included in the practice of mainstream medicine in recent decades. The State of Sao Paulo Cancer Institute is a public hospital established in 2008 and its acupuncture service follows the experience and model of several oncology centres in the USA, aiming to optimise the treatment of symptoms such as postoperative pain, oncological pain, neuropathic pain, nausea, vomiting, xerostomia and fatigue induced by chemotherapy. This paper describes the population given acupuncture treatment and the effects of the intervention on symptom management., Methods: One hundred and eighty-three patients from our service were enrolled in the study. Baseline and final symptom intensity was recorded using a visual analogue score (VAS) ranging from 0 to 10 cm, with a higher score meaning higher symptom intensity., Results: Fifty-four (29.50%) were receiving active treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, 29 (15.85%) were receiving hormone therapy and 100 (54.65%) were considered to be in remission. The main symptoms were: oncological pain in 44 (24.04%), chemotoxicity in 34 (18.6%), lumbar pain in 53 (28.96%) and chronic postoperative pain in 54 (28.4%). The mean (SD) initial symptom score was 7.04 (1.8), which was reduced to 2.56 (2.75) after treatment (p<0.001), an improvement of 63.6% in control of the symptoms. Further analysis of the data showed that the effect was similar in different indications for acupuncture treatment., Conclusions: Use of acupuncture may have improved symptom control in patients enrolled in this study.