Nature vs policy: drought and famine in the northeast of Brazil, 1877-79

Droughts followed by famines were common in Brazil, mainly in Northeast Brazil, until the 1980s and were frequently devastating, destroying livelihoods. A succession of droughts resulted in harvest failure, triggering famines in some cases. Famine-like conditions prevailed mainly in the 1877-79 Grande Seca (Great Drought), in which many died of malnutrition-related causes. In subsequent droughts, famine-like conditions reoccurred, but the extent of starvation-induced deaths declined to almost zero. Do only available political theories and known natural and socio-political factors, such as climate, topography, and market viability, provide sufficient data to investigate the causes of the drought of 1877-1879? The author concludes that there is little or no research, accumulated knowledge and information on the possible factors that satisfactorily explain why the drought and famine episodes were so impactful in that period.

Measurement of The Cycloidal Drive Sleeves and Pins

In the paper, an issue of CMM measurement strategy of the sleeves and pins designed for wear tests in the cycloidal drive. The measurement strategy was proposed, based on initial out-of-roundness measurement in scanning mode. Proposed approach ensured that the pin was measured along its entire 40 mm length with only small area of fixation ca. 5 mm left out, and all probing points for cylindricity deviation assessment were collected in one fixation. It was demonstrated that the cylindricity and roundness measurement results based on 8, 16 and 48 probing points provided sufficient data for further wear analysis. In some cases, the circles calculated from 4 points gave additional insights allowing to accept the part that otherwise might be possibly rejected.

Framework for TCAD augmented machine learning on multi- I–V characteristics using convolutional neural network and multiprocessing

In a world where data is increasingly important for making breakthroughs, microelectronics is a field where data is sparse and hard to acquire. Only a few entities have the infrastructure that is required to automate the fabrication and testing of semiconductor devices. This infrastructure is crucial for generating sufficient data for the use of new information technologies. This situation generates a cleavage between most of the researchers and the industry. To address this issue, this paper will introduce a widely applicable approach for creating custom datasets using simulation tools and parallel computing. The multi-I–V curves that we obtained were processed simultaneously using convolutional neural networks, which gave us the ability to predict a full set of device characteristics with a single inference. We prove the potential of this approach through two concrete examples of useful deep learning models that were trained using the generated data. We believe that this work can act as a bridge between the state-of-the-art of data-driven methods and more classical semiconductor research, such as device engineering, yield engineering or process monitoring. Moreover, this research gives the opportunity to anybody to start experimenting with deep neural networks and machine learning in the field of microelectronics, without the need for expensive experimentation infrastructure.

Country-Specific Magnitudes of Migration between Rural and Urban Sectors

Across seventy-four countries, six migration propensities of men and women are tabulated in this chapter: notably, for gross and net, lifetime and five-year flow, rural-urban and urban-rural moves. China is purported to have the highest rate of rural-urban migration in recent history, but neither reliable estimates nor sufficient data to permit computations appear to be available. The conventional wisdom is that India has a low rural-urban migration rate, but our estimates contradict this claim. The five-year flow rates are only loosely correlated with lifetime movements. It is important to understand the situation in each country at the time of enumeration, and these specific circumstances are described in the second half of the chapter. Gross rural-urban migration rates increase at higher urbanization levels, but net rural-urban migration proves positive virtually everywhere. Yet a decomposition for twenty-two countries indicates that reclassification of rural areas as urban is far more important than net rural-urban moves in incremental urbanization.

THE MONASTERY OF MAR SABA -SOUTH EAST OF JERUSALEM :THE AVANT GARDE OF THE JERUSALEMITE MONASTRIES

This scientific paper aims to identify an important monastery that was established in the fifth century AD southeast of Jerusalem i.e. two centuries before the arrival of Islam. That monastery is: Mar Saba Monastery: After Saint Saba (439-532 A.D.) who lived an ascetic life in a cave 15 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem over a valley that extends from the foothill of Mount Al-Tur in Jerusalem and runs into the Dead Sea. The Valley is mentioned in the Bible as “Kidron” while others call it “Yehushevat” or the Valley of Tears (People call it now Wadi Al-Nar or the Inferno Valley ). Saint Saba was followed by other monks who lived in the surrounding caves. In 483 A.D. Saint Saba and his followers began to build a monastery in the place which became of its proximity to Jerusalem. It hosted a large number of monks from different denominations, and contained a distinguished library throughout history. That monastery became a place of pilgrimages for travelers, researchers, and Jerusalem visitors over a period of sixteen centuries. It was also known for Christian pilgrims, since it hosted thousands of monks. This study also aims to provide sufficient data about Saint Saba and his monastery. It also discusses how the monastery was developed throughout history, its pertinence to Jerusalem, and the role it played in attracting tourists and travelers to the Holy Land as well as in the cultural development in Jerusalem and the vicinity. Keywords: Jerusalem (Bayt al-maqdes), Monastery, Mar Saba

WHICH HAS NO EQUIVALENT IN THE WORDS OF THE ARABS, AN APPLIED STUDY IN VERBS

This scientific paper aims to identify an important monastery that was established in the fifth century AD southeast of Jerusalem i.e. two centuries before the arrival of Islam. That monastery is: Mar Saba Monastery: After Saint Saba (439-532 A.D.) who lived an ascetic life in a cave 15 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem over a valley that extends from the foothill of Mount Al-Tur in Jerusalem and runs into the Dead Sea. The Valley is mentioned in the Bible as “Kidron” while others call it “Yehushevat” or the Valley of Tears (People call it now Wadi Al-Nar or the Inferno Valley ). Saint Saba was followed by other monks who lived in the surrounding caves. In 483 A.D. Saint Saba and his followers began to build a monastery in the place which became of its proximity to Jerusalem. It hosted a large number of monks from different denominations, and contained a distinguished library throughout history. That monastery became a place of pilgrimages for travelers, researchers, and Jerusalem visitors over a period of sixteen centuries. It was also known for Christian pilgrims, since it hosted thousands of monks. This study also aims to provide sufficient data about Saint Saba and his monastery. It also discusses how the monastery was developed throughout history, its pertinence to Jerusalem, and the role it played in attracting tourists and travelers to the Holy Land as well as in the cultural development in Jerusalem and the vicinity. Key words: Keywords: Equivalen, Verbs, Words of The Arabs

Scaled-down test arrangements for characterizing high explosives

Newly formulated explosives and the optimization of explosive mixtures requires an experimental determination of detonation parameters, especially detonation velocity, pressure and metal accelerating ability. Increasing material and labour costs force researchers to reduce test quantities and therefore to develop smaller scale experiments which provide sufficient data to determine an explosive’s properties. Seven test set-ups found in literature are described and compared in this paper.

Diversity, Status and Phenology of the Dragonflies and Damselflies of Cyprus (Insecta: Odonata)

Based on literature data, unpublished material and the results of the year-round monitoring at selected sites island-wide by the Cyprus Dragonfly Study Group since 2013, we acquired an excellent knowledge of the diversity and status of the Odonata of Cyprus. Altogether, 37 species are on the island’s checklist. Ischnura pumilio, Aeshna affinis and Brachythemis impartita were only very rarely recorded in the past but are considered to be no longer present. The single record of Calopteryx virgo from 1930 is in our opinion a misidentification and has been removed from the checklist. The island has a rather impoverished odonate fauna compared to neighbouring countries. There are no endemic species, but the island is home to some range of restricted species of which Ischnura intermedia is the most important. Flight seasons determined for the 31 species with sufficient data were generally found to be longer than reported for other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. This may be due to intensive year-round monitoring but could also result from Cyprus’ warmer climate. Very wide annual variations were found in the abundance of all species over the seven years and show an almost immediate response to the wide fluctuations in Cyprus’ annual rainfall levels.

Does TENS Reduce the Intensity of Acute and Chronic Pain? A Comprehensive Appraisal of the Characteristics and Outcomes of 169 Reviews and 49 Meta-Analyses

Background and Objectives: Uncertainty about the clinical efficacy of transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) to alleviate pain spans half a century. There has been no attempt to synthesise the entire body of systematic review evidence. The aim of this comprehensive review was to critically appraise the characteristics and outcomes of systematic reviews evaluating the clinical efficacy of TENS for any type of acute and chronic pain in adults. Materials and Methods: We searched electronic databases for full reports of systematic reviews of studies, overviews of systematic reviews, and hybrid reviews that evaluated the efficacy of TENS for any type of clinical pain in adults. We screened reports against eligibility criteria and extracted data related to the characteristics and outcomes of the review, including effect size estimates. We conducted a descriptive analysis of extracted data. Results: We included 169 reviews consisting of eight overviews, seven hybrid reviews and 154 systematic reviews with 49 meta-analyses. A tally of authors’ conclusions found a tendency toward benefits from TENS in 69/169 reviews, no benefits in 13/169 reviews, and inconclusive evidence in 87/169 reviews. Only three meta-analyses pooled sufficient data to have confidence in the effect size estimate (i.e., pooled analysis of >500 events). Lower pain intensity was found during TENS compared with control for chronic musculoskeletal pain and labour pain, and lower analgesic consumption was found post-surgery during TENS. The appraisal revealed repeated shortcomings in RCTs that have hindered confident judgements about efficacy, resulting in stagnation of evidence. Conclusions: Our appraisal reveals examples of meta-analyses with ‘sufficient data’ demonstrating benefit. There were no examples of meta-analyses with ‘sufficient data’ demonstrating no benefit. Therefore, we recommend that TENS should be considered as a treatment option. The considerable quantity of reviews with ‘insufficient data’ and meaningless findings have clouded the issue of efficacy. We offer solutions to these issues going forward.