Applications of Operational Research Techniques in Optimization to Visit Tourist Points of Vina del Mar

Chile is a country with great attractions for tourists in South America and the whole world. Among the many tourist Chilean attractions the city of Vina del Mar is one of the highlights, recognized nationally and internationally as one of the most beautiful places for summer. In Vina del Mar tourists have many options for leisure, besides pretty beaches, e.g. playa renaca, the city has beautiful squares and castles, e.g. Castillo Wulff built more than 100 (one hundred) years ago. It is noteworthy that already exist over there five (5) tourist itineraries, so this work was developed in order to determine the best routes to these existing itineraries, and create a unique route that includes all the tourist points in Vina del Mar, because in this way, the tourists visiting this city can minimize the time spent in traveling, as well as optimize their moments of leisure, taking the opportunity to know all the city attractions. To determine shorter ways to do it and then propose some suggestions for improvement of the quality of the tourist service offered, it had used the exact method, by solving the mathematical model of the TSP (Traveling Salesman Problem), and the heuristic method, using the most economic insertion algorithm

Charge transport across metal/molecular (alkyl) monolayer-Si junctions is dominated by the LUMO level

We compare the charge transport characteristics of heavy doped p- and n-Si-alkyl chain/Hg junctions. Photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS, IPES and XPS) results for the molecule-Si band alignment at equilibrium show the Fermi level to LUMO energy difference to be much smaller than the corresponding Fermi level to HOMO one. This result supports the conclusion we reach, based on negative differential resistance in an analogous semiconductor-inorganic insulator/metal junction, that for both p- and n-type junctions the energy difference between the Fermi level and LUMO, i.e., electron tunneling, controls charge transport. The Fermi level-LUMO energy difference, experimentally determined by IPES, agrees with the non-resonant tunneling barrier height deduced from the exponential length-attenuation of the current

Examining the Regulation of Kv7 K+ Channels in Airway Smooth Muscle Cells and Their Potential as Novel Therapeutic Targets for the Treatment of Asthma

Asthma is a disease characterized by nonspecific and exaggerated airway narrowing, termed airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), which involves the excessive contraction of airway smooth muscle. Despite the fact that airway smooth muscle is widely studied and understood to play a role in AHR, little is known about the specifics of that role. Our laboratory recently found that Kv7 potassium (K+) channels are expressed in airway smooth muscle cells (ASMCs). Kv7 channels are voltage sensitive K+ channels whose outward flux of K+ ions promotes a negative resting membrane voltage in excitable cells, thereby opposing electrical excitability. Inhibition of K+ channels is known to induce membrane depolarization, resulting in the activation of voltage-sensitive calcium (Ca2+) channels (VSCCs) and an increase in intracellular Ca2+ concentrations. Our laboratory hypothesizes that Kv7 channels are also involved in the regulation of ASMC excitability and therefore in the regulation of airway diameter. Pharmacological Kv7 channel activators attenuated bronchoconstrictor-induced airway constriction, leading us to speculate that Kv7 channels may be novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of asthma. In order to understand the role and regulation of Kv7 channels in airway smooth muscle and test my hypothesis that Kv7 channels represent a novel therapeutic target for asthma, I propose the following aims: Aim 1: Elucidate the mechanism by which bronchoconstrictor agonists regulate Kv7 channels in airway smooth muscle. Aim 2: Determine the efficacy of Kv7 channel activators in attenuating agonist-induced bronchoconstriction and explore their therapeutic potential for the treatment of asthma. By accomplishing these aims, the intention is to understand the role that Kv7 channels play in ASMCs and the regulation of airway diameter and determine if Kv7 channel activators represent a novel class of asthma therapeutics

Artificially intelligent nanosensors for personalized diagnosis and monitoring

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Silicon Nanowire Sensors Enable Diagnosis of Patients via Exhaled Breath

Two of the biggest challenges in medicine today are the need to detect diseases in a noninvasive manner and to differentiate between patients using a single diagnostic tool. The current study targets these two challenges by developing a molecularly modified silicon nanowire field effect transistor (SiNW FET) and showing its use in the detection and classification of many disease breathprints (lung cancer, gastric cancer, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). The fabricated SiNW FETs are characterized and optimized based on a training set that correlate their sensitivity and selectivity toward volatile organic compounds (VOCs) linked with the various disease breathprints. The best sensors obtained in the training set are then examined under real-world clinical conditions, using breath samples from 374 subjects. Analysis of the clinical samples show that the optimized SiNW FETs can detect and discriminate between almost all binary comparisons of the diseases under examination with >80% accuracy. Overall, this approach has the potential to support detection of many diseases in a direct harmless way, which can reassure patients and prevent numerous unpleasant investigations

Near-field interactions between metal nanoparticle surface plasmons and molecular excitons in thin-films: part I: absorption

In this and the following paper (parts I and II, respectively), we systematically study the interactions between surface plasmons of metal nanoparticles (NPs) with excitons in thin-films of organic media. In an effort to exclusively probe near-field interactions, we utilize spherical Ag NPs in a size-regime where far-field light scattering is negligibly small compared to absorption. In part I, we discuss the effect of the presence of these Ag NPs on the absorption of the embedding medium by means of experiment, numerical simulations, and analytical calculations, all shown to be in good agreement. We observe absorption enhancement in the embedding medium due to the Ag NPs with a strong dependence on the medium permittivity, the spectral position relative to the surface plasmon resonance frequency, and the thickness of the organic layer. By introducing a low index spacer layer between the NPs and the organic medium, this absorption enhancement is experimentally confirmed to be a near field effect In part II, we probe the impact of the Ag NPs on the emission of organic molecules by time-resolved and steady-state photoluminescence measurements

A tradução como ferramenta para a visibilidade científica da Revista Pan-Amazônica de Saúde: do norte do Brasil para o mundo

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução, Florianópolis, 2022.O objetivo geral deste trabalho é destacar o papel da tradução como ferramenta para a visibilidade da Revista Pan-Amazônica de Saúde (RPAS), no período de 2010 a 2020, mediante pesquisa exploratória, com o fim de acompanhar o percurso da revista, desde a sua criação no Instituto Evandro Chagas (IEC), no estado do Pará, para poder compreender o papel do periódico para a comunidade científica local e internacional. Entre os objetivos específicos estão reconhecer o papel da RPAS na divulgação da ciência da Amazônia, resgatar a sua história e o papel da tradução como ferramenta para a disseminação e visibilidade da ciência; traçando a história do IEC e da criação da RPAS, por meio de levantamento dos documentos do periódico. A metodologia adotada prevê um estudo que se caracteriza pela abordagem descritiva e levantamento documental. Os resultados obtidos apontam para a reafirmação da RPAS como veículo de informação para a área da saúde e, também, destacam a contribuição da tradução para a disseminação do conhecimento científico, cuja visibilidade está refletida nas publicações e temáticas recorrentes no período estudado.Abstract: The general objective of this study is to highlight the role of translation as a tool for the visibility of the Revista Pan-Amazônica de Saúde (RPAS) from 2010 to 2020, through exploratory research to follow the journal's path, since its creation in the Evandro Chagas Institute (IEC), in the state of Pará, in order to understand the role of the journal for the local and international scientific community. Among the specific objectives are to recognize the role of the journal in the dissemination of Amazonian science to rescue the history of RPAS, and the role of translation in this journal as a tool for the dissemination and visibility of science; tracing the history of the IEC and the creation of RPAS, throughout a survey of the journal's documents. The methodology adopted provides for a study characterized by a descriptive approach and documentary survey. The results show that RPAS plays an important role as a means of information for the health area and also highlights the contribution of translation to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, whose visibility is reflected in the publications and recurrent themes in that period studied