starting date
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

104
(FIVE YEARS 39)

H-INDEX

11
(FIVE YEARS 4)

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhard Schlickeiser ◽  
Martin Kroger

Adopting an early doubling time of three days for the rate of new infections with the omicron mutant the temporal evolution of the omicron wave in different countries is predicted. The predictions are based on the susceptible-infectious-recovered/removed (SIR) epidemic compartment model with a constant stationary ratio k=mu(t)/a(t) between the infection (a(t)) and recovery (mu(t)) rate. The fixed early doubling time then uniquely relates the initial infection rate a0 to the ratio k, which therefore determines the full temporal evolution of the omicron waves. For each country three scenarios (optimistic, pessimistic, intermediate) are considered and the resulting pandemic parameters are calculated. These include the total number of infected persons, the maximum rate of new infections, the peak time and the maximum 7-day incidence per 100000 persons. Among the considered European countries Denmark has the smallest omicron peak time and the recently observed saturation of the 7-day incidence value at 2478 is in excellent agreement with the prediction in the optimistic scenario. For Germany we predict peak times of the omicron wave ranging from 32 to 38 and 45 days after the start of the omicron wave in the optimistic, intermediate and pessimistic scenario, respectively, with corresponding maximum SDI values of 7090, 13263 and 28911, respectively. Adopting Jan 1st, 2022 as the starting date our predictions implies that the maximum of the omicron wave is reached between Feb 1 and Feb 15, 2022. Rather similar values are predicted for Switzerland. Due to an order of magnitude smaller omicron hospitalization rate, due to the high percentage of vaccinated and boostered population, the German health system can cope with maximum omicron SDI value of 2800 which is about a factor 2.5 smaller than the maximum omicron SDI value 7090 in the optimistic case. By either reducing the duration of intensive care during this period of maximum, and/or by making use of the nonuniform spread of the omicron wave across Germany, it seems that the German health system can barely cope with the omicron wave avoiding triage decisions. The reduced omicron hospitalization rate also causes significantly smaller mortality rates compared to the earlier mutants in Germany. In the optimistic scenario one obtains for the total number of fatalities 7445 and for the maximum death rate 418 per day which are about one order of magnitude smaller than the beta fatality rate and total number.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (56) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Jarosław Charchuła

The Jubilee Ignatian Year began on 20 May 2021 and it will last until 31 July 2022. In the jubilee year of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) celebrates the 500th anniversary of the conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola and the 400th anniversary of his canonization. The starting date of the jubilee is related to the anniversary of the event that took place in Pamplona on 20 May 1521, when a cannonball injured Ignatius during a battle. It altered the course of his life, marking the beginning of his conversion, and leading to the founding of the Society of Jesus. The date of the end of the jubilee coincides with the liturgical commemoration of St. Ignatius of Loyola, that commemorates the day of his death. The conversion of Ignatius was associated primarily with a change in his lifestyle. Once a vain nobleman focused on world success, he has turned into an ascetic and inner-motivated man. Under the influence of these experiences, Ignatius and his Companions founded an order and initiated the creation of a “new” spirituality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahra Talamo ◽  
Mikołaj Urbanowski ◽  
Andrea Picin ◽  
Wioletta Nowaczewska ◽  
Antonino Vazzana ◽  
...  

AbstractEvidence of mobiliary art and body augmentation are associated with the cultural innovations introduced by Homo sapiens at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. Here, we report the discovery of the oldest known human-modified punctate ornament, a decorated ivory pendant from the Paleolithic layers at Stajnia Cave in Poland. We describe the features of this unique piece, as well as the stratigraphic context and the details of its chronometric dating. The Stajnia Cave plate is a personal 'jewellery' object that was created 41,500 calendar years ago (directly radiocarbon dated). It is the oldest known of its kind in Eurasia and it establishes a new starting date for a tradition directly connected to the spread of modern Homo sapiens in Europe.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael O'Leary

<p>This study explores the reasons why so few women writers in Aotearoa New Zealand were seen as prominent figures in the literary scene from the end of World War Two up to the time when the feminist movement gained momentum, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Using feminist methodology, I examine whether women writers were deliberately under-represented and their work trivialised by the male writers, critics and publishers of the time. What were the factors accounting for this under-representation? I also discuss to what extent there were successes and achievements, either literary or commercial, for the women writers of the time despite their real and/or perceived exclusion from the canon. Literary writers by definition create public documents, including manuscripts, working papers, and letters. The existence of such records means that perhaps more so than for many groups, we have evidence regarding attitudes, intentions, motives and responses to situations of the individual women writers of this period with which to answer these questions. The Georgians vs Modernists debate is examined. The starting date of 1945 for this thesis is significant for it was in that year that Allen Curnow's anthology A Book of New Zealand Verse was published. One of the striking things about the collection is that only two of the sixteen poets represented are women: Ursula Bethell and Robin Hyde. He did invite and encourage Eileen Duggan to contribute but she declined. Curnow‘s book went into a second edition in 1951 with twenty three poets, three of whom were women, Ruth Dallas being the third. In 1953 a book titled POEMS: Anthology of New Zealand Women Writers was published. This could be seen as an attempt to make up for Curnow's omissions. As evidence, I look to women writers of the time to see what restrictions on writing and publishing existed. In 1957 the literary magazine numbers published a letter by Willow Macky in which she criticises the critics of the New Zealand literary scene for their unfavourable reviews of the latest book by the poet Ruth Gilbert, The Sunlit Hour. Macky's letter was both a plea to her male colleagues and an indictment against them for their treatment of their female counterparts. She states: 'Most women, if they wish for success, will try to conform, monkey-like, to the masculine pattern; others, by remaining true to their feminine insight, risk opposition and failure in male-dominated fields' (Macky, 1957: 26). Was this the case and if so why? The 1970 cut-off date for this thesis coincides approximately with the development of the feminist movement in New Zealand. However, according to lesbian-feminist poet Heather McPherson, prejudice continued. McPherson had poems published in Landfall and had approached Leo Bensemann, then Caxton Press and Landfall editor, with a collection of poems. She mentioned to him that she had become a feminist. His reply was that Rita Cook (Rita Angus) had become a feminist 'but it didn‘t do her any good either' (McPherson, 2007: 116). These two examples illustrate some of the difficulties and antipathies that existed between the male and female literary figures, like Curnow and Macky, of the period which inform this thesis. To answer the questions posed above, I explore the social and historical context for women in this period, including the impact of the Second World War, and cover the careers of women poets and novelists, including some detailed case studies. I also examine the particular issues facing Māori and lesbian writers. I conclude that a supportive and encouraging environment was rarely available for women writers from 1945 to 1970, that most struggled to be published and appreciated, and that only later, if at all, were many of these important writers properly recognised.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Michael O'Leary

<p>This study explores the reasons why so few women writers in Aotearoa New Zealand were seen as prominent figures in the literary scene from the end of World War Two up to the time when the feminist movement gained momentum, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Using feminist methodology, I examine whether women writers were deliberately under-represented and their work trivialised by the male writers, critics and publishers of the time. What were the factors accounting for this under-representation? I also discuss to what extent there were successes and achievements, either literary or commercial, for the women writers of the time despite their real and/or perceived exclusion from the canon. Literary writers by definition create public documents, including manuscripts, working papers, and letters. The existence of such records means that perhaps more so than for many groups, we have evidence regarding attitudes, intentions, motives and responses to situations of the individual women writers of this period with which to answer these questions. The Georgians vs Modernists debate is examined. The starting date of 1945 for this thesis is significant for it was in that year that Allen Curnow's anthology A Book of New Zealand Verse was published. One of the striking things about the collection is that only two of the sixteen poets represented are women: Ursula Bethell and Robin Hyde. He did invite and encourage Eileen Duggan to contribute but she declined. Curnow‘s book went into a second edition in 1951 with twenty three poets, three of whom were women, Ruth Dallas being the third. In 1953 a book titled POEMS: Anthology of New Zealand Women Writers was published. This could be seen as an attempt to make up for Curnow's omissions. As evidence, I look to women writers of the time to see what restrictions on writing and publishing existed. In 1957 the literary magazine numbers published a letter by Willow Macky in which she criticises the critics of the New Zealand literary scene for their unfavourable reviews of the latest book by the poet Ruth Gilbert, The Sunlit Hour. Macky's letter was both a plea to her male colleagues and an indictment against them for their treatment of their female counterparts. She states: 'Most women, if they wish for success, will try to conform, monkey-like, to the masculine pattern; others, by remaining true to their feminine insight, risk opposition and failure in male-dominated fields' (Macky, 1957: 26). Was this the case and if so why? The 1970 cut-off date for this thesis coincides approximately with the development of the feminist movement in New Zealand. However, according to lesbian-feminist poet Heather McPherson, prejudice continued. McPherson had poems published in Landfall and had approached Leo Bensemann, then Caxton Press and Landfall editor, with a collection of poems. She mentioned to him that she had become a feminist. His reply was that Rita Cook (Rita Angus) had become a feminist 'but it didn‘t do her any good either' (McPherson, 2007: 116). These two examples illustrate some of the difficulties and antipathies that existed between the male and female literary figures, like Curnow and Macky, of the period which inform this thesis. To answer the questions posed above, I explore the social and historical context for women in this period, including the impact of the Second World War, and cover the careers of women poets and novelists, including some detailed case studies. I also examine the particular issues facing Māori and lesbian writers. I conclude that a supportive and encouraging environment was rarely available for women writers from 1945 to 1970, that most struggled to be published and appreciated, and that only later, if at all, were many of these important writers properly recognised.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose M. G. Vilar ◽  
Leonor Saiz

Assessing a potential resurgence of an epidemic outbreak with certainty is as important as it is challenging. The low number of infectious individuals after a long regression, and the randomness associated with it, makes it difficult to ascertain whether the infectious population is growing or just fluctuating. We have developed an approach to compute confidence intervals for the switching time from decay to growth and to compute the corresponding multiple-location aggregated quantities over a region to increase the precision of the determination. We estimated the aggregate prevalence over time for Europe and the northeast United States to characterize the COVID-19 second surge in these regions during year 2020. We find a starting date as early as 3 July (95% confidence interval (CI): 1–6 July) for Europe and 19 August (95% CI: 16–23 August) for the northeast United States; subsequent infectious populations that, as of 31 December, have always increased or remained stagnant; and the resurgences being the collective effect of each overall region with no location, either country or state, dominating the regional dynamics by itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-30
Author(s):  
Mansour Mohammed Ali Bopaeda ◽  
Ahmed Hassanein Ahmed

The study aims to try to identify the nature of the quality of life of kidney failure patients undergoing dialysis in the light of some demographic variables (gender, age, educational level, marital status, and starting date of hemodialysis). The research sample consisted of 70 dialysis patients (32 males - 38 females) who frequently go to the dialysis unit department (attia al-Kaseh Hospital in Kufra city). The WHO quality of life scale was used (the short picture). The study results revealled that the quality of life for patients with renal failure who are subject to dialysis is low. The results also showed that the physical field is considered one of the lowest fields, and a statistically significant effect was found for each age, gender, and educational level on patients' quality of physical life.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Meszar ◽  
Karin Hain ◽  
Michael Wagreich ◽  
Kira Lappé ◽  
Martin Mosser ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Urban anthropogenic strata forms the layered archaeosphere in the underground of large cities. In a transdisciplinary project involving geosciences, isotope physics and urban archaeology, funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), we looked for artificial isotopes in urban layers around the proposed starting date of the Anthropocene in the middle of the 20th century. The tested archaeological site is situated in the heart of Vienna, in a park area at Karlsplatz, adjacent to the renovated Vienna Museum. Excellent and detailed 3D archaeological stratigraphy sets age constraints around 1922, post-1945, and around the 1960s. A layer on top of the WWII rubble that fills fundaments of a 1922 building post-dates 1945, and pre-dates the finishing shaping of the human-made park ground of 1959, the date of the opening of the Vienna Museum. We focused on the fine-grained (clayey-sandy) sediment matrix on top of the WWII rubble, at the base of and mixed with backfilled soil material. The sieved fraction below 2 mm grain size was dried and pulverised. This sediment sample was prepared for chemical separation of actinides which were then analysed by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) using the setup at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA, Isotope Physics Group). We identified several artificial radionuclides including U-236, Np-237, Pu-239, Pu-240. Isotope ratios like Pu-240/Pu-239 and in particular U-233/U-236, which was only recently introduced as anthropogenic tracer by the VERA group, clearly point to atmospheric atomic bomb fallout material of the 1950s to 1960s. A significant input of Chernobyl (1986) material can be excluded based on the ratio Pu-241/Pu-239. Thus, the 1952-1964 bomb-spike as the possible primary (GSSP) marker of the Anthropocene can be identified and used even in coarse urban anthropogenic sediments of big cities, exemplifying the correlation potential of these radionuclide markers.&lt;/p&gt;


2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2199475
Author(s):  
Young-Seok Jo ◽  
Yeon-Soo Jang

In this study, characteristics of the long-term landfill settlement are analysed and the starting date of residual settlement is deduced using the data of the landfill 1 of the Gimpo Metropolitan Landfill (GML) measured for 27 years. The landfill 1 is a multi-staged municipal solid waste landfill where dykes are constructed after landfilling for subsequent waste fills. The landfilling began in 1992 and finished in 2000, and the waste settlement measurement continued throughout this period. The older waste of the lower lift shows higher biodegradation and larger settlement than the waste of the upper lift, which acts as vertical load. Large settlement occurred in the lower lifts due to the collapse of waste voids caused by the overburden load of the upper lifts after biodegradation of waste in the lower lifts during long-term landfilling. In the conventional landfills, that is, mono-layer landfills, the time-dependent settlement generally occurs after the stress-dependent settlement. But, most of the time, this landfill showed mainly the time-dependent settlement. The duration, at which the biodegradation of organic matters is reduced and the residual settlement begins, was 8.8 years in average and the date range was from 7.6 to 11.7 years considering each disposed block in landfill 1. This date is obtained by calculating from the mid-point time of the landfilling duration.


Author(s):  
Annette Gough

The term “Anthropocene” was coined in 2000 by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer to denote the present time interval as a new epoch of geological time dominated by human impact on the Earth. The starting date for the epoch is contentious—around the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (ca. 1800 ce), at the start of the nuclear age, or some other time, both earlier and later than these dates. The term itself is also contentious because of its humanist and human supremacy focus, and the way it hides troublesome differences between humans (including gender and cultural differences) and the intimate relationships among technology, humans, and other animals. Endeavors such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aim to achieve gender equality by empowering women to participate in society. However, within this goal is the assumption that women and “other marginalized Others” can be assimilated within the dominant social paradigm rather than questioning the assumptions that maintain the subordination of these social groups. The goals also overlook the divergent impacts on women around the globe. Education in an Anthropocene context necessitates a different pedagogy that provides opportunities for learning to live in and engage with the world and acknowledges that we live in a more-than-human world. It also requires learners to critique the Anthropocene as a concept and its associated themes to counter the humanist perspective, which fails to consider how the nonhuman and material worlds coshape our mutual worlds. In particular, education in the Anthropocene will need to be interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, or cross-disciplinary; intersectional; ecofeminist or posthumanist; indigenous; and participatory.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document