Intrinsically radiopaque biomaterial assortments: A short review on the physical principles, X-ray imageability and state-of-the-art developments.

X-ray attenuation ability, otherwise known as radiopacity of a material could be indisputably tagged as the central and decisive parameter that produces contrast in an X-ray image. Radiopaque biomaterials are...

Time Evolution of CO2 Diffusivity of Carbonated Concrete

Carbonation of cementitious materials is one of main causes of reinforcement corrosion and CO2 diffusivity influenced by microstructural characteristics of the cementitious materials is a decisive parameter for the carbonation rate. This study focused on establishing a multifactor functional model to calculate the CO2 diffusivity of carbonated cementitious materials. Because CO2 gas flows through carbonated zone, it is necessary to estimate CO2 diffusivity of carbonated concrete. Many factors on the CO2 diffusivity, such as the diffusivity in vapor, tortuosity, microstructural characteristics of cement paste, contribution of aggregate, and reduction of porosity due to carbonation, were considered. Apparent and effective CO2 diffusivity were calculated according to the absence or presence of moisture in the pore system of concrete, and the results were compared with previous research.

A stoic and altruistic orientation towards their work: a qualitative study of healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a COVID-19 test result

Background Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 are required to control the current outbreak. Special attention is directed at healthcare professionals as reducing the risk of infection in healthcare is essential. The purpose of this study was to explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a test result for a potential COVID-19 infection. Methods Qualitative interviews with 15 healthcare professionals were performed, underpinned by a phenomenological hermeneutical analytical framework. Results The participating healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a COVID-19 test result were found to be associated with a stoic and altruistic orientation towards their work. These healthcare professionals presented a strong professional identity overriding most concerns about their own health. The result of the coronavirus test was a decisive parameter for whether healthcare professionals could return to work. The healthcare professionals were aware that their family and friends were having a hard time knowing that the COVID-19 infection risk was part of their jobs. This concern did not, however, cause the healthcare professionals to falter in their belief that they were doing the right thing by focusing on their core area. The threat to own health ran through the minds of the healthcare professionals occasionally, which makes access to testing particularly important. Conclusion The participating healthcare professionals had a strong professional identity. However, a discrepancy between an altruistic role as a healthcare professional and the expectations that come from the community was illuminated. A mental health coronavirus hotline for healthcare professionals is suggested.

A Stoic and Altruistic Orientation Towards Their Work: A Qualitative Study of Healthcare Professionals’ Experiences of Awaiting A COVID-19 Test Result

Background: Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 are required to control the current outbreak. Special attention is directed at healthcare professionals as reducing the risk of infection in healthcare is essential. The purpose of this study was to explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a test result for a potential COVID-19 infection.Methods: Qualitative interviews with 15 healthcare professionals were performed, underpinned by a phenomenological hermeneutical analytical framework. Results: The participating healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a COVID-19 test result were found to be associated with a stoic and altruistic orientation towards their work. These healthcare professionals presented a strong professional identity overriding most concerns about their own health. The result of the coronavirus test was a decisive parameter for whether healthcare professionals could return to work. The healthcare professionals were aware that their family and friends were having a hard time knowing that the COVID-19 infection risk was part of their jobs. This concern did not, however, cause the healthcare professionals to falter in their belief that they were doing the right thing by focusing on their core area. The threat to own health ran through the minds of the healthcare professionals occasionally, which makes access to testing particularly important.Conclusion: The participating healthcare professionals had a strong professional identity. However, a discrepancy between an altruistic role as a healthcare professional and the expectations that come from the community was illuminated. A mental health coronavirus hotline for healthcare professionals is suggested.

A stoic and altruistic orientation towards their work: a qualitative study of healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a COVID-19 test result

Background: Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 are required to control the current outbreak. Special attention is directed at healthcare professionals as reducing the risk of infection in healthcare is essential. The purpose of this study was to explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a test result for a potential COVID-19 infection.Methods: Qualitative interviews with 15 healthcare professionals were performed, underpinned by a phenomenological hermeneutical analytical framework. Results: The participating healthcare professionals’ experiences of awaiting a COVID-19 test result were found to be associated with a stoic and altruistic orientation towards their work. These healthcare professionals presented a strong professional identity overriding most concerns about their own health. The result of the coronavirus test was a decisive parameter for whether healthcare professionals could return to work. The healthcare professionals were aware that their family and friends were having a hard time knowing that the COVID-19 infection risk was part of their jobs. This concern did not, however, cause the healthcare professionals to falter in their belief that they were doing the right thing by focusing on their core area. The threat to own health ran through the minds of the healthcare professionals occasionally, which makes access to testing particularly important.Conclusion: The participating healthcare professionals had a strong professional identity. However, a discrepancy between an altruistic role as a healthcare professional and the expectations that come from the community was illuminated. A mental health coronavirus hotline for healthcare professionals is suggested.

Influence of Natural Cavities on the Design of Shallow Foundations

When inner cavities of significant dimensions exist in natural rocks, problems arise when a shallow foundation for a building, bridge or other structure is builtonthem. Thus, taking one of the most representative cavity geometries in nature, the ellipsoidal horizontal shape, the main objective of this study is to obtain the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation with cavities of different sizes and positions, on rock masses with different strengths and deformation characteristics. The study focuses on natural rocks of karst origin (in limestones, dolomites or gypsums) and of volcanic origin. The ultimate bearing capacity is determined relative to a situation without the existence of the cavity for different cavern positions and sizes, rock types (mi), strengths (UCS), and states (GSI) of the rock mass. The results showed that the most decisive parameter is the relative eccentricity. The influence of the rock type (Hoek’s parameter mi) is, for practical purposes, negligible (lower than 10%). The strength and condition of the rock mass (parameters UCS and GSI) have relatively little influence on the results obtained. This study aims to provide a simple design criteria for universal use, with different geometric configurations and qualities of rock masses that can be used directly without the need for sophisticated calculations by the designer.

Privileged Authenticity in Reconstruction of Digital Encrypted Shares

Efficient message reconstruction mechanism depends on the entire partial shares received in random manner. This paper proposed a technique to ensure the authenticated accumulation of shares based on the privileged share.Threshold number of received shares inclusive of the privileged share, were being accumulated together to validate the original message. Although attaining threshold number of shares or more excluding the privileged share, it would not be possible to reconstruct the original message. Encryptional procedure has been put into the desired partial shares to confuse the evaesdroppers. Decisive parameter termed as hash tag has been extracted from the cumulative shares and bitwise checking procedure has been carried out. In first appearance of first mismatch, rests of the checking bits were ignored, as test case put under failure transaction. Different statistical tests namely floating frequency, entropy value have proved the robustness of the proposed technique. Thus, extensive experiments were conducted to evaluate the security and efficiency with better productivity.<strong> </strong>

Influence of Binder Saturation Level on Compressive Strength and Dimensional Accuracy of Powder-Based 3D Printed Geopolymer

Powder-based 3D concrete printing (3DCP) process is highly suitable for producing building components and interior structures that can be later assembled on site. The accuracy and strength of 3D printed concrete components heavily rely on printing parameters, among which the binder saturation is the most decisive parameter. This paper reports the effects of binder saturation level on linear dimensional accuracy and compressive strength of 3D printed geopolymer. A geopolymer composition suitable for the powder-based 3DCP process previously developed by the authors was used in this study. 20 mm cubic specimens were printed with five binder saturation levels (75%, 100%, 125%, 150% and 170%). The results indicated that the increase in binder saturation level resulted in significant increase in compressive strengths of both green and post-processed samples in both directions. Nevertheless, the rate of increase in compressive strength of green samples was significantly higher than the post-processed samples. On the other hand, the increase in binder saturation level significantly reduced the linear dimensional accuracy of green samples in all directions. Nonetheless, the rate of reduction in linear dimensional accuracy in Z-direction was lower than the other two directions.

Vulnerability Discovery Modeling for Open and Closed Source Software

With growing concern for security, the researchers began with the quantitative modeling of vulnerabilities termed as vulnerability discovery models (VDM). These models aim at finding the trend of vulnerability discovery with time and facilitate the developers in patch management, optimal resource allocation and assessing associated security risks. Among the existing models for vulnerability discovery, Alhazmi-Malaiya Logistic Model (AML) is considered the best fitted model on all kinds of datasets. But, each of the existing models has a predefined basic shape and can only fit datasets following their basic shapes. Thus, shape of the dataset forms the decisive parameter for model selection. In this paper, the authors have proposed a new model to capture a wide variety of datasets irrespective of their shape accounting for better goodness of fit. The proposed model has been evaluated on three real life datasets each for open and closed source software and the models are ranked based on their suitability to discover vulnerabilities using normalized criteria distance (NCD) technique.

Auctorialité et autorité dans les lettres de Paul

Writing in Antiquity was an eminently collective process, a process in which the modern categories of author, scriptor, editor and lector often superpose and merge. Valuing this decisive parameter of any communication in the 1st century, the present study aims, following others, to reopen the exegetical file of the authorship of Pauline letters. Defending the hypothesis of a participative composition of the latter, it is in particular the use of the “I” in Paul that is under revision and reassessed. More precisely, the article demonstrates that, in the proto-Pauline writings, it is less a question of an early author’s consciousness than the construction of a posture of personal authority.