Epidemic (rheumatic) facial nerve palsy

Herzog, (Zeitschr fr die gesamte N. und P. 119 Band. 1929), excluding cases of paralysis n. facialis, as a separate symptom in diseases of the middle ear, brain tumors or luese, as well as in cases of infection with herpes zoster, stops at the group of peripheral lesions n. facialis of an epidemic nature. The symptomatology of this form is characterized by a slight swelling of the skin of the face in front of and under the ear, a slight increase in the area of ​​the salivary glands, and a slight rise in temperature. In some cases, a. finds inflammation of the salivary glands of the mouth, especially gl. parotis, which is often the starting point of facial nerve disease. The author gives 4 cases of paralysis n. facialis observed by him in the same autumn month.

Macrofloral and microfloral changes in the Middle Jurassic plant assemblages of the Cianowice 2 borehole (southern Poland)

The flora of the Cianowice 2 borehole (c. 20 km NW of Cracow, Poland), dominated by cycadophytes (mainly bennettitaleans) and conifers, shows high taxonomic diversity relative to the low number of specimens. Twenty species were identified in the 96 determinable plant fragments found in 27 core samples: Cladophlebis sp. (ferns), Pachypteris rhomboidalis (Ettingshausen) Nathorst and Ptilozamites cycadea (Berger) Möller (seed ferns), Anomozamites nilssonii (Phillips) Seward, Nilssoniopteris solitaria (Phillips) Cleal & Rees, Otozamites mimetes Harris, Otozamites parallelus Phillips, Pterophyllum thomasii Harris, Pterophyllum cf. aequale (Brongniart) Nathorst, Ptilophyllum cf. okribense forma ratchiana Doludenko & Svanidze, Ptilophyllum pecten Phillips, Ptilophyllum sirkennethii Watson & Sincock, Cycadolepis sp. (bennettitaleans), Pseudotorellia grojecensis Reymanówna, Pseudotorellia samylinae Nosova & Kiritchkova, Pseudotorellia sp. (Gymnospermae incertae sedis), Bilsdalea dura Harris, Mirovia szaferi Reymanówna, and Brachyphyllum stemonium Kendall (conifers). The floristic composition is supplemented by palynological data. The taxa were connected to five depositional successions distinguished along the core: one, alluvial fans; two, four and five, meandering/anastomosing river depositional systems with fluvial plain deposits; and three, lacustrine/backswamp environment developed on fluvial plain. The composition of the fossil plant assemblage changes with the depositional setting within the same range of taxa, seen mainly in changed combinations of taxa, which are most diverse in the fluvial plain deposits. Some taxa occur in a single depositional succession; some are present in two or three. The sporomorph assemblages of particular depositional environments differ significantly from the composition of the co-occurring macroflora: ferns occur sporadically in the macroflora of each depositional environment but they strongly dominate the sporomorph assemblage. Our proposed reconstruction of the palaeoenvironment is a slight rise descending into a valley with a depositionary basin, with gymnosperms on the slope and ferns at the base. Some species are shared between Cianowice and nearby Middle Jurassic localities in Grojec and Zabierzów, and the majority of taxa are known from the Middle Jurassic, suggesting that the Cianowice deposits are of that age.

Uncovering Retail Trading in Bitcoin: The Impact of COVID-19 Stimulus Checks

In April 2020, the US government sent economic impact payments (EIPs) directly to households, as part of its measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic. We characterize these stimulus checks as a wealth shock for households and examine their effect on retail trading in Bitcoin. We find a significant increase in Bitcoin buy trades for the modal EIP amount of $1,200. The rise in Bitcoin trading is highest among individuals without families and at exchanges catering to nonprofessional investors. We estimate that the EIP program has a significant but modest effect on the US dollar–Bitcoin trading pair, increasing trade volume by about 3.8 percent. Trades associated with the EIPs result in a slight rise in the price of Bitcoin of 7 basis points. Nonetheless, the increase in trading is small compared to the size of the stimulus check program, representing only 0.02 percent of all EIP dollars. We repeat our analysis for other countries with similar stimulus programs and find an increase in Bitcoin buy trades in these currencies. Our findings highlight how wealth shocks affect retail trading.

Modelling Heat Transfer in Solar Distiller with Additional Condenser Studying

The sun is the main source of energy that reaches the surface of the earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation called solar radiation and when it reaches the outer surface of the glass hood of the solar distillation, the process of energy transferring as the heat begins. the energy transfer process between parts of solar distillates greatly controls its performance, so the greater amount of energy gained and the less energy lost, leads to higher productivity and efficiency of the solar distillery. in this paper, a mathematical model was constructed to calculate the amount of thermal energy in each part of a monoclinic solar distiller equipped with an additional capacitor during its operation. as a result of this model showed that the temperature, after a series of heat energy exchanges between the glass cover and all the internal parts of the distillate, with the absorbent part at the base of the distillate, exhibited the same behavior, which is increasing in its temperature steadily during the first hours of the day from (32.5-41.7 ) at (08:30 am) in the morning down to its top value (61.4-76.7 ) at (02:30 pm) and decline after this hour in the same bullish pattern. this is due to the greater difference between the amount of energy lost and acquired by the absorbent portion during the same daylight hours, as the amount of energy gained increases and the amount of lost energy decreases, leading to the highest energy gain and the least energy lost by the absorbent part at (02:30 pm), except the outer part of the additional condenser, which followed a similar behavior of air temperature, with its temperature gradually increasing slightly during the first hours of the day from (27 ) at (08:30 am) until it reached its peak (36.2 ) at (01:30 pm), then it decreases after this time slightly. this slight rise and slight decrease are due to the constant state of thermal balance between the two ends of the additional condenser by the heat exchange process between the outer part of the additional condenser and the cooling water.

Surface Modification of the EBM Ti-6Al-4V Alloy by Pulsed Ion Beam

The effect of surface modification of Ti-6Al-4V samples manufactured by electron beam melting (EBM) using a pulsed carbon ion beam is studied in the present work. Based on the results of XRD, SEM, and TEM analysis, patterns of changes in the microstructure and phase composition of the EBM Ti-6Al-4V alloy, depending on the number of pulses of pulsed ion beam exposure, are revealed. It was found that gradient microstructure is formed as a result of pulsed ion beam irradiation of the EBM Ti-6Al-4V samples. The microstructure of the surface layer up to 300 nm thick is represented by the (α + α”) phase. At depths of 0.3 μm, the microstructure is mixed and contains alpha-phase plates and needle-shaped martensite. The mechanical properties were investigated using methods of uniaxial tensile tests, micro- and nanohardness measurements, and tribological tests. It was shown that surface modification by a pulsed ion beam at an energy density of 1.92 J/cm2 and five pulses leads to an increase in the micro- and nanohardness of the surface layers, a decrease in the wear rate, and a slight rise in the plasticity of EBM Ti-6Al-4V alloy.

Iraqi Kurdistan could see oil and gas advances

Significance The oil sector managed a slight rise in oil production in 2020, despite the challenges of the pandemic and low oil prices. The KRG mostly managed to keep up payments to oil companies but did not assist Baghdad in making production cuts under the OPEC+ agreement. Impacts Combined new gas projects could meet domestic needs and potentially allow exports by the later 2020s. The government could resume payments of overdue amounts to international oil companies from this month. Talks with Baghdad will become more complex around planned elections in October 2021 and depending on legal developments with Turkey.

Probing within the bondi radius of the ultramassive black hole in NGC 1600

We present deep (250 ks) Chandra observations of the nearby galaxy group NGC 1600, which has at its centre an ultramassive black hole (17±1.5 billion M⊙). The exceptionally large mass of the black hole coupled with its low redshift makes it one of only a handful of black holes for which spatially resolved temperature and density profiles can be obtained within the Bondi radius with the high spatial resolution of Chandra. We analyzed the hot gas properties within the Bondi accretion radius R$_\rm {B}=1{_{.}^{\prime\prime}} 2 - 1{_{.}^{\prime\prime}} 7= 0.38 - 0.54~\rm {kpc}$. Within a ∼3 kpc radius, we find two temperature components with statistical significance. Both the single temperature and two temperature models show only a very slight rise in temperature towards the centre, and are consistent with being flat. This is in contrast with the expectation from Bondi accretion for a temperature profile which increases towards the centre, and appears to indicate that the dynamics of the gas are not being determined by the central black hole. The density profile follows a relatively shallow ρ∝ r−[0.61 ± 0.13] relationship within the Bondi radius, which suggests that the true accretion rate on to the black hole may be lower than the classical Bondi accretion rate.

Context effects on the acoustic realization of stops and affricates in Northern Pwo Karen

Studies have shown that the voice onset time (VOT) of alveolo-palatal affricates is the longest, followed by velars, dental/alveolars, and bilabials. In a reciprocal pattern, closure duration is the longest for bilabials, followed by dental/alveolars, and then velars. Longer VOT is also associated with high and front vowels and tones with rising components. Moreover, the VOT of voiceless unaspirated stops is reported to be longer and closure duration shorter in nasal words. Finally, the voiceless interval has been described as constant in some languages and inconstant in others. Given the evidence of previous research, this study investigates the effects of place, nasality, tone, and vowel quality on the VOT, closure duration, and voiceless interval of the voiced and voiceless obstruents of Northern Pwo Karen (N. Pwo), a language of Thailand. N. Pwo (ISO 639-3 pww) is a ‘true voicing’ language with a three-way distinction in stops, voiceless aspirated and unaspirated affricates, oral and nasal vowels, and six tones (four modal tones and two glottalized tones). In N. Pwo, the place effects on VOT and closure duration pattern reciprocally. Whereas, both VOT and the voiceless interval are longer before oral vowels compared to nasal vowels. VOT is longest before the mid tone, which has a slight rise, while it is the shortest before the falling-glottalized tone. This pattern is reversed for the closure duration of aspirates and voiced stops. Finally, VOT, closure duration, and the voiceless interval are the longest before high and front vowels.

Prenatal screening diagnosis and management in the era of coronavirus: the Sardinian experience

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a new coronavirus, was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly, affecting many other countries. The disease is now referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).The Italian government declared a state of emergency on 31st January 2020 and on 11th March World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. Although the COVID-19 incidence remained considerably lower in Sardinia than in the North Italy regions, which were the most affected, the field of prenatal screening and diagnosis was modified because of the emerging pandemic. Data on COVID-19 during pregnancy are so far limited. Since the beginning of the emergency, our Ob/Gyn Department at Microcitemico Hospital, Cagliari offered to pregnant patients all procedures considered essential by the Italian Ministry of Health. To evaluate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the activities of our center, we compared the number of procedures performed from 10th March to 18th May 2020 with those of 2019. Despite the continuous local birth rate decline, during the 10-week pandemic period, we registered a 20% increment of 1st trimester combined screening and a slight rise of the number of invasive prenatal procedures with a further increase in chorionic villi sampling compared to amniocentesis. Noninvasive prenatal testing remained unvariated. The request for multifetal pregnancy reduction as a part of the growing tendency of voluntary termination of pregnancy in Sardinia increased. The COVID-19 pandemic provides many scientific opportunities for clinical research and study of psychological and ethical issues in pregnant women.

Peculiarities of seasonal changes of taxonomic structure and number of weevil-beetles (Coleoptera, Curculionidae) of herptobios in Kharkiv urbocenoses (Ukraine)

A total of 54 species in 35 genera of Curculionidae are registered in the urbocenoses of Kharkiv city. Only three species, Exomias pellucidus, Otiorhynchus raucus and Ot. ovatus, are recorded as dominants. Some other species (Urometopus nemorum, Sciaphobus squalidus and Glocianus punctiger) are sporadically noted in some sites as subdominants. The total number of species turned out to be higher in the herpetobios of plantings at periphery (31), slightly lower in private farmlands of the city (21), parks and plantings of the center (17 each), but minimal in suburban forests (11 species). The highest quantity of specimens were observed for the plantations of the center and margins of city: nevertheless, minimal quantity of specimens was registered at parks and woods. The maximum number of species (including all cenoses) was recorded from the end of April to first decade of May (28 species). From May to the end of June 15–18 species were registered. Ten species were recorded at July, and only six species at August. A slight rise was noted from the end of August to mid-September (11 species). In biotopes where Exomias pellucidus appeared to be the monodominant, the seasonal dynamic density of weevils reached a peak at late May or early June, but the significant decline was observed from early June to July. At the sites with several dominants, two or three peaks were registered: at spring (May) and at mid-summer (end of June or beginning of July). Furthermore, the number of weevils decreased gradually, but some species of Curculionidae were rather abundant even from the end of summer to September–October. The spring increase is reasoned by high density of species in the genus Otiorhynchus; the peak in early summer (maximum) is caused by the increased activity of majority of dominant species; the autumn peak is also caused by the high number of species of the genus Otiorhynchus. The level of sex index (by the example of E. pellucidus) differed significantly at all plots. It was higher for the plantations at the periphery of the city (0.70), and it was minimal at private farmlands (0.20). Relative conjugacy of sex index and dynamic density were not observed: the maximum abundances of quantity of Curculionidae were recorded 20–30 days earlier than the maximal numbers of the sex index.