Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity/Expression Discrimination and Victimization among Self-Identified LGBTQI Native Hawaiians in Hawai‘i

Little is known about Native Hawaiian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) people, given the long colonial history of suppressing a variety of indigenous conceptualizations of sexuality, sexual orientation, and ge

Mesure de la satisfaction des patients migrants en milieu hospitalier: analyse des lacunes existantes et recommandations

L'étude porte sur les lacunes existantes en matière de mesure de la satisfaction des patients migrants en milieu hospitalier et formule des recommandations à l'adresse des établissements hospitaliers et autorités compétentes. Les résultats démontrent que les outils d'évaluation de la satisfaction des patients migrants comportent des problèmes liés à la fois à la procédure d'enquête et aux instruments, susceptibles de limiter la pertinence des résultats obtenus en vue de l'amélioration de la qualité des soins. Une approche tenant compte des besoins des migrants représente, pour un système de mesure de la qualité, une excellente occasion d'affiner sa sensibilité à la diversité des patients

Nandrolone Decanoate associated with exercise training inhibit vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA expression in rat soleus muscle

Androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) have been used for both performance improvement and aesthetic reasons. It is well know that high doses of AAS induce serious adverse effects such as skeletal muscle injuries, including increase in the rate of muscle strains/ruptures. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key factor in angiogenesis induction on both physiological and pathological conditions The aim of this study was to investigate VEGF mRNA expression in rat soleus muscle after jumping training associated with AAS administration. Wistar rats were grouped into: sedentary (S); trained without AAS (T); sedentary nandrolone decanoate (ND)-treated (AAS); and trained with AAS (AAST). The trained groups carried out jumps in water at 32°C.: 4 series of 10 jumps each, with a 30-second interval among series, for 7 weeks, with 50-80% overload of the animal corporal mass. The AAS (Decadurabolin® - 5mg/kg) was injected subcutaneously in the animal’s back twice a week. Real-time PCR analyses showed that training significantly increased VEGF mRNA expression in comparison with the S and AAS groups. When exercise training was associated with nandrolone decanoate, the VEGF mRNA expression was inhibited compared with T group. The inhibition of VEGF expression by AAS administration can decrease angiogenesis in skeletal muscle. These results suggest that the AAS may be strongly prejudicial to muscle remodeling and performance

Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays and Stable H-dibaryon

It is shown that an instanton induced interaction between quarks produces a very deeply bound H-dibaryon with mass below 2M_N, M_H=1718 MeV. Therefore the H-dibaryon is predicted to be a stable particle. The reaction of photodisintegration of H-dibaryon to $2\Lambda$ in during of its penetration into cosmic microwave background will result in a new possible cut-off in the cosmic-ray spectrum. This provides an explanation of ultra-high energy cosmic ray events observed above the GZK cut-off as a result of the strong interaction of high energy H-dibaryons from cosmic rays with nuclei in Earth's atmosphere.Comment: 5 pages, Late

Aquatic Plyometric Training Associated with Androgenic Anabolic Steroids do not Increase Muscle Mass in Rats

To improve athletic performance or for aesthetic reasons, athletes and no athletes may use androgenic anabolic steroids (AAS). Numerous studies have reported that aquatic plyometric training (APT) can improve muscular strength and vertical jump; however the effect of these training protocols on muscular mass are poorly investigated. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of APT associated with AAS in the soleus, gastrocnemius (Gastro), extensor digitorium longus (EDL) and tibialis anterior (TA) skeletal muscles in rats. Animals were grouped into: sedentary (S); S with AAS (AAS); trained (T); and T with AAS (AAST). Exercised groups performed jumps in water: 4 series of 10 jumps each and 30-second rest interval between series, for 7 weeks with a progressive overload of 50 to 80% of body weight and were killed after the last exercise session. Nandrolone decanoate (5 mg/kg – supraphysiological dose) was injected subcutaneously twice a week. One way analyses of variance was performed and there was no statistically significant difference between groups in EDL (p=0.169), TA (p=0.739), Gastro (p=0.722) and Soleus (p=1.000) muscles. AAS, training or their association induced no alterations in the weight of the studied muscles. In conclusion, the APT did not increase the muscle weight as well as the association with AAS treatment

Strength training and nandrolone decanoate decreased myostatin expression

Nandrolone decanoate is a androgenic anabolic steroid (AAS) which targets the satellite cells in skeletal muscles. These cells are considered the stem cells of skeletal muscle, and they are essential for muscle growth and repair. Myostatin is a negative regulator of muscle mass that inhibits myoblast proliferation and differentiation. Recognizing the mechanisms related to AAS action in skeletal muscle is critical for a better understand of muscular physiology under AAS use. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of aquatic plyometric training (APT) with overload associated with AAS on the gastrocnemius muscle of rats. Animals were grouped into: sedentary (S); S with AAS (AAS); trained (T); and T with AAS (AAST). Exercised groups performed jumps in water: 4 sets of 10 jumps each and 30-second rest interval between series, for 7 weeks with a progressive overload of 50 to 80% of body weight and were killed after the last exercise session. AAS (5 mg/kg – supraphysiological dose) was injected subcutaneously. One-way Anova and Turkey post hoc tests were used. Myostatin mRNA expression was determined by real-time RT-PCR. p\u3c0.05 was considered statistically significant. APT did not change myostatin expression (p=0.873). However, the interaction with AAS downregulated myostatin (p=0.039). EAA and EAAT groups expressed less myostatin than the group T (p=0.013 and p=0.009, respectively). These results should be taken with care, since other variables related to muscle remodeling should be evaluated

Towards an OpenMP Specification for Critical Real-Time Systems

OpenMP is increasingly being considered as a convenient parallel programming model to cope with the performance requirements of critical real-time systems. Recent works demonstrate that OpenMP enables to derive guarantees on the functional and timing behavior of the system, a fundamental requirement of such systems. These works, however, focus only on the exploitation of fine grain parallelism and do not take into account the peculiarities of critical real-time systems, commonly composed of a set of concurrent functionalities. OpenMP allows exploiting the parallelism exposed within real-time tasks and among them. This paper analyzes the challenges of combining the concurrency model of real-time tasks with the parallel model of OpenMP. We demonstrate that OpenMP is suitable to develop advanced critical real-time systems by virtue of few changes on the specification, which allow the scheduling behavior desired (regarding execution priorities, preemption, migration and allocation strategies) in such systems.The research leading to these results has received funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under contract TIN2015-65316-P, and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme under the CLASS Project (www.classproject. eu), grant agreement No 780622.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Value added strategies in Swedish tomato production

Som en konsekvens av högre produktionskostnader behöver svenska tomatproducenter erbjuda mervärden för att vara konkurrenskraftiga, det vill säga skapa egenskaper som värderas högt av konsument och som differentierar tomaterna från importerade tomater som till exempel närhet till konsument, produktförädling, miljömässiga värden, smak och utseende. Denna studie utgår från intervjuer med svenska tomatodlare och handlar om hur olika odlare arbetar med mervärdesstrategier i svensk tomatodling. För att kunna identifiera odlarnas mervärdestrategier besvaras frågorna: • Vilka mervärden uppfattar odlarna finns i deras produkter? • Vilka aktiviteter utför odlarna för att skapa dessa mervärden? • Under vilka förhållanden leder mervärden till ökade intäkter för odlaren? Resultaten visar att smak, närodlat och miljövänligt är de mervärden som odlarna anser finns i sina produkter. För att addera mervärden och förmedla dessa till konsument utför odlarna aktiviteter kopplat till: • Produktion; sortval, odlingsteknik, certifieringar • Relationsbyggande; direktförsäljning i gårdsbutik, medlemskap i producentorganisation, samarbete med distributionskedja, marknadsföring och varumärkesbyggande • Aktiviteter som normalt utförs i ett annat led av distributionskedjan; paketering, produktförädling, direktförsäljning, vinterodling De värdeskapande aktiviteterna som odlarna utför formar deras mervärdesstrategi. Att addera mervärden till sina produkter leder inte per automatik till ökade intäkter för odlaren. För att mervärdena ska leda till ökade intäkter behöver aktiviteterna som utförs förstärka varandra och forma en strategi, samtidigt som strategin anpassas efter odlarens egna förutsättningar och resurser. I studien identifieras tre skilda strategier som används: Mervärdesstrategi 1 - Odling i Sverige för den svenska marknaden. Odlarföretaget har tillgång till marknadsplatsen genom medlemskap i en producentorganisation som marknadsför och säljer deras produkter. De fokuserar sina resurser på effektiv produktion för att nå kostnadsledarskap inom valt produktsegment. Det faktum att tomaten är svenskodlad och producerad till en lägre kostnad än hos övriga svenska odlare i samma produktsegment är tillräckligt för att mervärdet svenskodlat ska leda till ökade intäkter för odlaren. Mervärdesstrategi 2 - Differentieringsfokus för det valda segmentet närodlat. Odlarföretaget utför aktiviteter i produktionen som differentierar produkten och gör att konsumenterna värderar produkten högre än konkurrerande. De jobbar aktivt med att skapa och stärka relationer till andra aktörer i distributionskedjan och till konsument. Strategin är lyckosam då odlaren har möjlighet att segregera sina produkter från andra medlemmar i producentorganisationen och därmed kunna förhandla pris separat. Den främsta distributionskanalen är ett vertikalt marknadsföringssystem som fokuserar på närområdet. Mervärdesstrategi 3 - Differentieringsfokus med vertikal integrering av distributionskedjan. Odlarföretaget använder sig inte utav konventionella distributionskanaler utan säljer all produktion direkt till konsument. Odlaren är inte längre primärt en råvaruproducent utan en företagsledare vars väg till framgång är aktiviteter för att bygga upp kundbas som är stor nog för en livskraftig verksamhet.The production costs for tomatoes produced in Sweden are higher than those imported to the Swedish market. Still, 25% of all tomatoes sold during the summer is produced locally. To have a competitive offer Swedish tomato producers needs to add value to their products that are valued by the consumers, e.g. locally produced, processed products, superior taste and appearance. This study, based on case methodology, investigates how different tomato producers in Sweden apply value-added agriculture in their practice by answering the questions: • What are the value-added features recognized in their products? • By which activities to they achieve those value-added features? • Under which circumstances do a value-added approach lead to increased revenues to the producer? The study shows that taste, locally produced and environmentally friendly production are the attributes put in the highest regard by the tomato producers. To add value and communicate said value to the consumer, the producers conducts following activities: • Activities in production; cultivars grown and growing procedures • Relation forming activities; direct sales, horizontal marketing systems, vertical marketing systems and branding • Activities that are normally performed further down in the supply chain; packaging, sales, off season production The value-adding activities form the producers value-added agricultural strategy. Adding value is not enough to increase the revenue part for the producer, the activities must build upon- and enhance each other to form a viable strategy that is adapted to individual resources and settings. The study identifies three different strategies applied by the producers: Cost leadership in the focus segment tomatoes produced in Sweden. The producer combines resources for sale and marketing horizontally with other producers in the market. They focus their activities on efficient production to achieve cost leadership within the segment Swedish produced tomatoes. The added value produced in Sweden is enough to increase the valueadded revenue for the producer. Differentiation focus for the segment locally produced. The producer differentiates the product from competing offers by adding value in production. They work actively to form and build relations with their supply chain and consumers. The strategy is successful if the producer manages to segregate its offer from other members of their horizontal market system and has the ability to negotiate its own price. Their distribution channel consists of a vertical marketing system that is focused on the local market Differentiation focus with direct sales. The producer does not use indirect distribution channels but sales their products directly to the end customer. The role of the producer has shifted to an agri-businessowner by performing activities beyond producing and selling a raw commodity and is now capturing value down the supply chain

Photography in Madagascar: Magical realism as an ambiguous space

The visual component of this project consists of a photographic representation of my experience in a Vezo fishing village on the southwest coast of Madagascar. In the exegesis, magical realism provides a theoretical framework to describe both the use of the photographic medium and the content of my images. Away from both the rigid narratives of modernity and its realist perspective and from the sceptical nihilism of extreme postmodemity, magical realism allows for an ambiguous space in which expression and subjectivity are interconnected with empirical reality. Moreover, this concept which acknowledges a plurality of small and, sometimes contradictory, narratives to inter-dependently co-exist is useful to describe the syncretism of the presence of the supernatural that is embedded in the Vezo everyday life

Deltaron Dibaryon Structure in Chiral SU(3) Quark Model

We discuss the structure of Deltaron dibaryon in the chiral SU(3) quark model. The energy of Deltaron is obtained by considering the coupling of the $\Delta\Delta$ and $CC$ (hidden color) channels. The effects of various parameters on the Deltaron mass are also studied. It is shown that the mass of Deltaron is lower than the mass of $\Delta\Delta$ but higher than the mass of $\Delta N \pi$.Comment: 15 pages, Late