NUMBER OF FINE PARTICLES’ AND THEIR MASS CONCENTRATION: COMPARISON OF EMISSION OF NEW PRINTING TECHNOLOGY VERSUS TRADITIONAL LASER TECHNOLOGY

For many years the printers have been essential part of our offices and exposures from various printing technologies have been widely researched. The main objective of this study was to compare emitted number and mass of fine particles from laser printers and new Micro Piezo technology ink jet printers during the printing process and one hour afterwards as these emissions have potential for negative health effects.Air samples were taken with the particle size spectrometer for real-time ELPI+, Dekati (air flow rate 10 l/min). Measurements were taken ~0.5 m from the printers: one hour before the test, during printing and one hour afterwards. Similar class blackwhite (b/w) and colour printer of each technology were tested. Each printer performed a 10-page and a 100-page test according to ECMA 328-1 Standard [1].During laser printer tests from 8324 to 19943 pt/cm3 fine particles were determined on printing phase from b/w and colour printers. Ink jet (Micro Piezo) printers produced less: from 3239 to 5247 pt/cm3. One hour after the printing phase for both types of laser printers’ there were 54722 to 152351 pt/cm3 particles in air and 4270 to 9579 pt/cm3 particles for ink jet printers. Detected particle mass differences was insignificant: in range of 0.002 to 0.012 mg/m³ for laser printers and 0.002 to 0.019 mg/m³ for ink jet printers. Micro Piezo technology printers emitted mass particles were with bigger median size μm.The highest number of particles was observed one hour after the printing for both tested printer technologies. Laser printers’ emitted 2.5 to 3.8 times more particles in printing phase and 12.8 to 15.9 times more after printing phase. Particle mass in mg/m³ was detected in the size range 6nm - 2.5 μm with no significant mass differences.

Service Delivery and Accountability of Urban Officials: Evidence from Urban-based Local Government in Bangladesh

This study compares the state of city government service delivery for communities living in different areas with different level of affluence in Rajshahi City in Bangladesh. Based on the results of a qualitative study, we found a significant service disparity between the affluent and the poor communities. This disparity is due to the inability of the poor to hold service providers accountable, attributable to a lack of knowledge about services and a lack of social status. Lack of quality monitoring and a marked bias in the quality of interactions between the poor and the affluent contribute to the service disparity This disparity is largely invisible to the poor who, instead of comparing themselves with the affluent citizens, compare themselves with a similar class of people.

Association of B cell profile and receptor repertoire with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia. Numerous reports have revealed that peripheral immune systems are linked to neuropathology; however, little is known about the contribution of B lymphocytes in AD. For this longitudinal study, one hundred-thirty-three participants were included in both baseline and follow-up 2nd year. Next, we performed next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based B cell receptor (BCR) repertoire profiling followed by pair-wise overlap analysis. The longitudinal change in the B lymphocytes population was associated with increased cerebral amyloid deposition. Furthermore, patients with AD shared highly similar class-switched BCR sequences with identical isotypes despite the high somatic hypermutation rate of BCR sequences. These commonalities of BCR repertoires of the patients with AD show the possibility of immunological stimuli by amyloid precursor protein (APP). Thus, we provide evidence for both quantitative and qualitative changes in B lymphocytes during AD pathogenesis. The genetic information of patients from the NGS-based BCR repertoire profiling can lead to the development of immune-based therapeutics and treatments for AD.

Frost quakes – the sound of a dynamic cryosphere and a convenient source for passive surface wave imaging of permafrost

<p>A class of short-duration seismic events were recorded on dense, temporary geophone arrays deployed in Adventdalen, Svalbard in spring and autumn 2019. A similar class of events have also been detected in seismic records from the SPITS seismic array located on Janssonhaugen in Adventdalen, that has been in continuous operation since the 1990’s. In both cases, estimated source positions are dominantly local and cluster around frost polygon, ice-wedge geomorphologies. Correlation with periods of rapidly cooling air temperature and consequent thermal stress build-up in the near surface are also observed. These events are consequently interpreted as frost quakes, a class of cryoseism. The dense, temporary arrays allowed high quality surface-wave dispersion images to be generated, that show potential to monitor structure and change in permafrost through passive seismic deployments. While the lower wavenumber resolution of the sparser SPITS array is less suited to imaging the near-surface in detail, the long continuous recording period gives us a unique insight into the temporal occurrence of frost quakes. This allows us, for example, to better understand the dynamic processes leasing to frost quakes by correlating temporal occurrence with models of thermal stress in the ground, constrained by thermistor temperature measurements from a nearby borehole.</p>

Performance of BDS B1 frequency standard point positioning during the main phase of different classes of geomagnetic storms in China and its surrounding area

Geomagnetic storms are one of the space weather events. The radio signals transmitted by modern navigation systems suffer from the effects of storms which can degrade the performance of the whole system. In this study, the performance of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) B1 frequency standard point positioning in China and its surrounding area during different classes of storms is investigated for the first time. The analysis of the results revealed that BDS B1 frequency standard point positioning accuracy was deteriorated during the storms. The probability of the extrema in the statistics of positioning errors during strong storms is the largest, followed by moderate and weak storms. The positioning accuracy for storms of a similar class is found not to be at the same level. The root mean square error (RMSE) in position for the different classes of storms could be at least tens of centimeters in the East, North and Up directions.

The age of reaction: Retrenchment populism in India and Brazil

Two of the largest democracies in the global south – India and Brazil – have witnessed a dramatic turn to right-wing populism. Careful historical comparison reveals that the form of reaction is markedly different from other recent cases of democratic backsliding. In both cases, reaction has been driven by elites in response to a previous expansion of democratic rights and social inclusion. This form of retrenchment populism is rooted in very similar class realignments that are configured both by economic and socio-cultural interests. Globalization has played a role, but not through the conventionally identified pathways of neoliberalism or modernization. Instead, reaction has been driven by an expanded middle class’s efforts to hoard opportunity and public resources and preserve traditional status privileges.

A Phenomenographic Study on Views About Entertaining and Boring Situations in Learning Process

In the learning process, it is accepted that learning with entertainment is important in participation in the process and retention of learning. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the views of students and teachers on entertaining and boring settings in the learning process. Phenomenography method was used in the study. The study group included fourth grade teachers and students in public and private schools in Adiyaman province central district in Turkey. In this context, seven schools, four private and three public schools, were selected among the schools, where students of the parents with different socio-economic background attended, with purposive sampling method. A total of 10 primary school 4th grade teachers employed these schools participated in the study on a voluntary basis. The study group included 80 students. Individual and focus group interview and photointerviewing techniques were used in data collection Data were analyzed with content analysis method. In the study, it was concluded that teachers and students liked similar class settings and both teachers and students liked classrooms that were furnished with sufficient number of tools and equipment, heating and lighting, where colorful and plenty of activities could be conducted and equipped with technological tools. Furthermore, it was determined that the teachers and students criticized the photographs they disliked due to the lack of facilities in the classroom to implement different methods, similarities with their own classrooms, or for being dark and old-looking, and the unhappy demeanor of the students and teachers on the photographs. The study findings were discussed and interpreted within the framework of the literature.

Unexpected Behaviors in a Single Mesh Josephson Junction Based Self-Reproducing Autonomous System

In the literature, existing Josephson junction based oscillators are mostly driven by external sources. Knowing the different limits of the external driven systems, we propose in this work a new autonomous one that exhibits the unusual and striking multiple phenomena among which coexist the multiple hidden attractors in self-reproducing process under the effect of initial conditions. The eight-term autonomous chaotic system has a single nonlinearity of sinusoidal type acting on only one of the state variables. A priori, the simplicity of the system does not predict the richness of its dynamics. We also find that a limit cycle attractor widens to a parameter controlling coexisting multiple-scroll attractors through the splitting and the inverse splitting of periods. Multiple types of bifurcations are found including period-doubling and period-splitting (antimonotonicity) sequences to chaos, crisis and Hopf type bifurcation. To the best of our knowledge, some of these interesting phenomena have not yet been reported in similar class of autonomous Josephson junction based circuits. Moreover, analytical investigations based on the Hopf theory analysis lead to the expressions that determine the direction of appearance of the Hopf bifurcation, confirming the existence and determining the stability of bifurcating periodic solutions. To observe this latter bifurcation and to illustrate the theoretical analysis, numerical simulations are performed. Chaos can be easily controlled by the frequency of the linear oscillator, the superconducting junction current, as well as the gain of the amplifier or circuit component values. The circuit and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)-based implementation of the system are presented as well.

NUMERICAL AND ANALITICAL SCHEMES OF DISTRIBUTED MODELING OF ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

This paper purpose is to construct maximally parallel algorithms for solving economy problems that are described by dynamic models. The problems of mathematical modeling of a similar class of problems on parallel cluster-type computing systems are considered. Most conventional algorithms for solving such problems (methods of runs, decomposition of a matrix into two diagonal matrices, doubling, etc.), with several processors, usually work no faster than with a single processor. This is caused by significant computations’ sequence of such algorithms. The developed procedure of numerical and analytical sampling is quite simply generalized to other types of differential equations of mathematical physics. In particular, in stationary problems it is easier to localize features and apply high-order schemes in the smoothness areas.