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Efficiently modeling thin features using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method involves a considerable reduction in the spatial mesh size. However, in real-world scenarios, such reductions can lead to unaffordable memory and CPU requirements. In this manuscript, we present two stable and efficient techniques in FDTD to handle narrow apertures on conductive thin panels. One technique employs conformal methods, while the other utilizes subgridding methods. We validate their performance compared to the classical Gilbert-Holland model and present experimental results in reverberation environments to shed light on these models’ actual confidence margins in real electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) scenarios.

María Barroso,1–3 Silvia Pérez-Fernández,1,4 M Mar Vila,1,4,5 M Dolors Zomeño,6,7 Ruth Martí-Lluch,8 Ferran Cordon,9 Rafel Ramos,8,10,11 Roberto Elosua,1,4 Irene R Degano,1,4 Montse Fitó,5,12 Carmen Cabezas,13 Gemma Salvador,13 Conxa Castell,13 María Grau1,4,14 1Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Genetics Research Group, IMIM-Hospital del Mar Research Institute, 2Centre d’Atenció Primària La Marina, Direcció d’Atenció Primària Barcelona, Institut Català de la Salut, 3Department of Pediatrics, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 4Consortium for Biomedical Research in Cardiovascular Disease (CIBERCV), 5Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Barcelona, 6Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition, IMIM-Hospital del Mar Research Institute, 7School of Health Sciences, Blanquerna-Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain; 8Unitat de Suport a la Recerca de Girona, Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol, 9Centre d’Atenció Primària Montilivi, Direcció d’Atenció Primària Girona, Institut Català de la Salut, 10Department of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Girona, 11Girona Biomedical Research Institute, Girona, Spain; 12Consortium for Biomedical Research in Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN), 13Catalan Agency of Public Health, 14Department of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Background: The validity of a cardiovascular risk self-screening method was assessed. The results obtained for self-measurement of blood pressure, a point-of-care system’s assessment of lipid profile and glycated hemoglobin, and a self-administered questionnaire (sex, age, diabetes, tobacco consumption) were compared with the standard screening (gold standard) conducted by a health professional. Methods: Crossover clinical trial on a population-based sample from Girona (north-eastern Spain), aged 35–74, with no cardiovascular disease at recruitment. Participants were randomized to one of the two risk assessment sequences (standard screening followed by self-screening or vice versa). Cardiovascular risk was estimated with the Framingham-REGICOR function. Concordance between methods was estimated with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were estimated, considering 5% cardiovascular risk as the cutoff point. ClinicalTrials.gov Registration #NCT02373319. Clinical Research Ethic Committee of the Parc de Salut Mar Registration #2014/5815/I. Results: The median cardiovascular risk in men was 2.56 (interquartile range: 1.42–4.35) estimated by standard methods and 2.25 (1.28–4.07) by self-screening with ICC=0.92 (95% CI: 0.90–0.93). In women, the cardiovascular risk was 1.14 (0.61–2.10) by standard methods and 1.10 (0.56–2.00) by self-screening, with ICC=0.89 (0.87–0.90). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values for the self-screening method were 0.74 (0.63–0.82), 0.97 (0.95–0.99), 0.86 (0.77–0.93), and 0.94 (0.91–0.96), respectively, in men. In women, these values were 0.50 (0.30–0.70), 0.99 (0.98–1), 0.81 (0.54–0.96), and 0.97 (0.95–0.99), respectively. Conclusion: The self-screening method for assessing cardiovascular risk provided similar results to the standard method. Self-screening had high clinical performance to rule out intermediate or high cardiovascular risk. Keywords: risk assessment, cardiovascular diseases, preventive medicine, public health, epidemiology, empowerment

This work provides an in-depth computational performance study of the parallel finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The parallelization is done at various levels including: shared- (OpenMP) and distributed- (MPI) memory paradigms and vectorization on three different architectures: Intel's Knights Landing, Skylake and ARM's Cavium ThunderX2. This study contributes to prove, in a systematic manner, the well-established claim within the Computational Electromagnetic community, that the main factor limiting FDTD performance, in realistic problems, is the memory bandwidth. Consequently a memory bandwidth threshold can be assessed depending on the problem size in order to attain optimal performance. Finally, the results of this study have been used to optimize the workload balancing of simulation of a bioelectromagnetic problem consisting in the exposure of a human model to a reverberation chamber-like environment.

Industry 4.0 is a synonym for the confluence of technologies that allows the integration of information technology, data science, and automated equipment, to produce smart industrial systems. The process of inserting new technologies into current conventional environments involves a wide range of disciplines and approaches. This article presents the process that was followed to identify and upgrade one station in an industrial workshop to make it compatible with the more extensive system as it evolves into the Industry 4.0 environment. An information processing kit was developed to upgrade the equipment from an automated machine to an Industry 4.0 station. The kit includes a structure to support the sensor and the data processing unit; this unit consisted of a minicomputer that records the data, graded the performance of the components, and sent the data to the cloud for storage, reporting, and further analysis. The information processing kit allowed the monitoring of the inspection system and improved the quality and speed of the inspection process.

Objectives:: The purpose of this 5-year study was to improve detection in two consecutive phases: (a) To close the gap between the number of identified cases and the actual number of cases of child abuse by increasing detection; and (b) To increase the possibility of a broader spectrum of detection. Method:: The Balearic Islands (one of the Autonomous Communities of Spain, with 161,287 children under 18 years old) was selected as the study area. Phase 1: front-line professionals (181) from all the health and social services agencies were trained in detection. Phase 2, school professionals (251) from all schools in the territory were also trained. The independent factor was the intervention provided to the professionals with training and support. A pre-post design was used over the area, divided in territories, in which the program was gradually implemented to provide within-territory and between-territories controls. Results:: Phase 1: Comparison before-after implementation of the program showed that detection was tripled in the Balearic Islands (from .58 to 1.77 per 1,000 children). An unplanned generalization effect was found, and post hoc analysis considering only the islands showed the expected increase. Phase 2: A subsequent increased detection rate was found in Child Protection Services cases 2.18 per 1,000. Of those new cases, 24.5% came from schools, after controlling for duplication. Conclusions:: This detection system showed positive changes after training and supporting frontline health and social services professionals. However, these professionals only have occasional contacts with the child population. Therefore, to broaden the spectrum of detection and to reach more maltreated children, who are less likely to be visible to CPS, it is necessary to train and support school professionals because of the frequency of their contacts with children on an almost daily basis.

A estratégia de auto-instruções tem vindo a ser reconhecida como uma relevante forma de regulação cognitivo-comportamental no incremento das capacidades atencionais, nomeadamente em sujeitos com Transtorno do Deficit de Atenção com Hiperatividade (TDAH). Neste artigo foi avaliada a atenção seletiva e a atenção sustentada em 2 grupos, ambos formados por pessoas com e sem TDAH, sendo que a um deles foi solicitada a realização de auto-instrução, com o objetivo de verificar se o uso desta estratégia promove as capacidades da atenção. Os resultados demonstraram que os sujeitos que realizam a estratégia de auto-instruções, quer apresentem ou não TDAH, manifestam melhores resultados do que os sujeitos que não a realizaram.Self-instruction strategy has been recognized as a relevant strategy in cognitive and behavioural regulation as a way of improving attention skills, namely in subjects with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This paper aims at demonstrating the effectiveness of this strategy regarding this disorder in subjects with and without ADHD as a mean of promoting attention skills, particularly selective and sustained attention. The results showed that subjects who performed the verbal self-instruction strategy presented better results in both attention processes assessed, than those who did not do it.

The attention deficit is the major factor of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This paper aims to demonstrate difficulties in selective attention of subjects with ADHD as compared to subjects without ADHD, attempting to verify which mechanisms of selective attention are more affected in subjects with ADHD. For this purpose, we evaluated selective attention in subjects with and without ADHD (152 without and 31 with ADHD), in a population of 183 subjects. The general results show that the subjects with ADHD present lower selective attention skills than the subjects without ADHD, specifically as far as rightness, errors, concentration and processed elements are concerned.

O déficit atencional é o factor primordial da Transtorno do Deficit de Atenção com ou sem Hiperactividade (TDA/H). Neste artigo procura-se comprovar as dificuldades na atenção selectiva dos sujeitos com TDA/H em comparação com os sujeitos sem TDA/H, procurando verificar quais os mecanismos deste processo da atenção que estão mais afectados nos sujeitos com TDA/H. Para isso, avaliou-se a atenção selectiva em sujeitos com e sem TDA/H, numa população de 183 sujeitos, em que 152 não apresentam e 31 apresentam TDA/H. Os resultados gerais comprovam que os sujeitos com TDA/H apresentam piores capacidades de atenção selectiva do que os sujeitos sem TDA/H, nomeadamente ao nível dos acertos, dos erros, da capacidade de concentração e do número de elementos processados.The attention deficit is the major factor of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This paper aims to demonstrate difficulties in selective attention of subjects with ADHD as compared to subjects without ADHD, attempting to verify which mechanisms of selective attention are more affected in subjects with ADHD. For this purpose, we evaluated selective attention in subjects with and without ADHD (152 without and 31 with ADHD), in a population of 183 subjects. The general results show that the subjects with ADHD present lower selective attention skills than the subjects without ADHD, specifically as far as rightness, errors, concentration and processed elements are concerned.

Book Review

It is considered that every newborn that presents a confused aspect of external genitalia, that does not permit to define his phenotypic sex, has Ambiguous Genitals. It includes real cases of intersex abnormalities, or those with severe hypospadia and bilateral chryptorchidism. In spite of the large advances in genetic, hormonal regulation and molecular biology studies in intersex abnormalities, today continues being motive of confussion when a doctor found a newborn with ambiguous genitalia. We presented the Good Clinical Practices Guideline for Intersex and ambiguos genitalia, approved by consensus in the 4th National Good Clinical Practices Workshop in Pediatric Surgery (Las Tunas, Cuba, March, 2005).

Anorectal malformations are one of big causes of de intestinal obstruction in newborns. They constitute around 25% of digestive malformations. Have a frequency of 1 in 4000 born alive. They are more frequent in the male (1.4:1) and 40 to 70% of the patients have one or more associate anomalies. We presented the Good Clinical Practices Guideline for Anorectal malformations, approved by consensus in the 2nd National Good Clinical Practices Workshop in Pediatric Surgery (Manzanillo, Cuba, September 31 - October 3, 2002).