Search

Featured Application: This article proposes a solution for reducing and even eliminating flood effects in Prahova County, Romania, by extending the length of a bridge and reducing its embankment. Recently, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have increased in many regions worldwide. Among them, floods, whose effects are devastating in many cases, have been recorded in Romania in the last few years. Built to reduce the flooding effects on the communities, structures such as embankments can sometimes accentuate the hazard. This article investigates such a situation and proposes solutions to reduce or even eliminate the flood impact on the community living in the Vărbilău Catchment in Romania. Recorded data series, field observations, GIS techniques, and hydraulic modeling were used to design the hazard maps and perform the 3D representations that illustrate the actual situation (when the small opening of the bridge favors the flooding) and the proposed solutions (extending the bridge opening and shortening the embankment). It is shown that adding seven pillars to the bridge would reduce the flooded surface by more than 1.5 times and the affected buildings' surface by more than 3.5 times compared to the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambient concentrations of carbon monoxide in the vicinity of or inside urban and industrial areas can substantially exceed environmental background levels and can be detrimental to human health and welfare. In this period of analysis (July 2006 – March 2007), the maximum allowable concentration (MAC) was exceeded especially at Mihai Bravu and Cercul Militar. The accompanying diagrams showing the time evolution and charts revealing the spatial distribution of CO ambient air concentrations (based on GIS techniques) can be useful instruments in identifying the potential risk areas, like the important streets in the center of Bucharest.

The article demonstrates that the Romanian scientist Stefan Odobleja (1902-1978), in his work "Consonantist Psychology" elaborated the principles and laws that are the basis of artificial thinking. The fascination with artificial intelligence began last century, when humanity was very far from the technologies without which we cannot imagine life today. Artificial intelligence refers to the phenomenon where a machine acts like a human mind. The history of artificial intelligence can include the scientist Stefan Odobleja, as the father of artificial thinking, described in his work, which is actually a generalized cybernetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epiploic appendagitis is a rare entity, a less frequent, benign, self-limiting inflammatory process of epiploic attachments. It is a pathology that must be considered in the differential diagnoses of abdominal pain. We present the case of a 52-year-old patient who is presented to the medical office with severe pain in the right hypochondrium. Ultrasound examination showed an oval image of about 4 cm in the right colic angle with hypoechogenic halo (in the cockroach). The diagnosis was confirmed by CT examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]