ProQuest (United States)

By addressing performance requirements, 100% solids coatings provide superior protection.

This article analyzes the extent to which Colombia’s departmental governments have integrated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their 2024–2027 Territorial Development Plans (TDPs). While Colombia is internationally recognized for its commitment to sustainable development, this study reveals a significant gap between national discourse and subnational implementation. Drawing on a systematic review of all thirty-two departmental indicative plans and cross-referencing them with the official product catalog of the Adjusted General Methodology (AGM), the research develops a scoring model to measure SDG coverage and balance across social, economic, and environmental spheres. Findings show a disproportionate focus on infrastructure-related goals (especially SDG 9), with limited integration of structural dimensions such as inequality (SDG 10), circular economy (SDG 12), or climate action (SDG 13). Environmental goals remain the least represented, even in ecologically strategic regions like the Pacific coast and the Chocó biogeographic region. The results also indicate a fragmented planning logic, shaped by sectoral constraints, technical limitations, and a top-down localization approach that overlooks local agency. Despite national efforts to support territorial planning, institutional and conceptual weaknesses persist—often reinforced by misunderstandings of the SDG framework. This study highlights the need to rethink Colombia’s territorialization strategy, emphasizing systemic planning, local ownership, and citizen engagement. Further research is needed to evaluate SDG integration at the municipal level and to assess whether similar patterns of fragmentation and misalignment persist in local governance.

Hospitalization and emergency department (ED) visits are an underutilized opportunity to reach high-risk patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) with buprenorphine (BUP) treatment and reduce the ongoing and widespread treatment gap. Monthly extended-release BUP (XR-BUP) potentially facilitates successful initiation and delivers sustained treatment. XR-BUP provides up to 30 days of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) with each administration and could improve retention in care during transition to outpatient addiction treatment. We aim to describe the patient characteristics and clinical outcomes of hospitalized and ED patients with OUD treated with monthly XR-BUP. We conducted a retrospective chart review of a cohort of ED or hospitalized patients who received monthly XR-BUP at an urban, safety-net hospital over a 6-month period from September 2023 through March 2024. There were 61 patient encounters where XR-BUP was administered. Within 30 days of discharge, 40/61 (65.6%) patients who received XR-BUP engaged in outpatient addiction treatment through an in-person or telemedicine provider visit; within 45 days, 29/61 (47.5%) patients received a subsequent XR-BUP. Thirty-eight (62.3%) initiated XR-BUP with low-dose initiation of sublingual buprenorphine with full agonist opioid continuation, 20 (32.8%) started after high-dose sublingual buprenorphine, 2 (3.3%) after low-dose initiation of IV buprenorphine, and 1 (1.6%) received "direct to inject" XR-BUP. In this observational retrospective study, rates of engagement in addiction treatment after discharge among patients with OUD receiving XR-BUP were high. Clinical teams utilized novel strategies to initiate XR-BUP during ED and hospital-based encounters.

The rapid evolution of the energy sector demands intelligent, sustainable, and agile digital transformation strategies. This chapter presents a Hybrid Intelligent Cloud Architecture tailored for Oil & Gas operations, integrating SAP enterprise systems with AI-powered Business Technology Platform (BTP) solutions. By leveraging the scalability of cloud computing, the predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence, and the robust transactional management of SAP, this architecture addresses operational inefficiencies, enhances decision-making, and accelerates sustainability goals. The proposed framework enables seamless integration of on-premises and cloud environments, ensuring data security, regulatory compliance, and interoperability across diverse industrial systems. AI-driven analytics embedded within the BTP environment support real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and optimized resource allocation, contributing to sustainable industrial processes. Through practical use cases and architectural blueprints, the chapter demonstrates how Oil & Gas enterprises can harness hybrid cloud capabilities to drive innovation, reduce carbon footprints, and ensure operational resilience in the context of the global energy transition.

This article examines the evolution of network infrastructures supporting large-scale educational and industrial environments facing increasing demands for reliability, performance, and security. Through a comprehensive analysis of standardized architectures, hybrid cloud integrations, and advanced monitoring frameworks, the article explores how modern network designs address complex operational challenges. Standardized approaches incorporating stakeholder feedback and systems thinking methodologies enable consistent deployments across distributed environments while maintaining flexibility for local requirements. The integration of software-defined networking capabilities transforms provisioning, traffic optimization, and security segmentation, creating adaptable infrastructures responsive to changing operational needs. AI-driven monitoring frameworks shift organizations from reactive to proactive postures through anomaly detection, automated compliance validation, and real-time telemetry. Zero-trust security models fundamentally transform protection strategies through micro-segmentation, continuous authorization, and comprehensive encryption. The transformation roadmap addresses legacy integration challenges while positioning organizations for emerging edge computing paradigms and sustainability imperatives.

We provide a transparent discussion of the high temperature asymptotic behaviour of Cosmology in a dilaton-Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (dEGB) scenario of modified gravity with vanishing scalar potential. In particular, we show that it has a clear interpretation in terms of only three attractors (stable critical points) of a set of autonomous differential equations: $w=-\frac{1}{3}$, $w=1$ and $1<w<\frac{7}{3}$, where $w\equiv p/\rho$ is the equation of state, defined as the ratio of the total pressure and the total energy density. All the possible different high-temperature evolution histories of the model are exhausted by only eight paths in the flow of the set of the autonomous differential equations. Our discussion clearly explains why five out of them are characterized by a swift transition of the system toward the attractor, while the remaining three show a more convoluted evolution, where the system follows a meta-stable equation of state at intermediate temperatures before eventually jumping to the real attractor at higher temperatures. Compared to standard Cosmology, the regions of the dEGB parameter space with $w=-\frac{1}{3}$ show a strong enhancement of the expected Gravitational Wave stochastic background produced by the primordial plasma of relativistic particles of the Standard Model. This is due to the very peculiar fact that dEGB allows to have an epoch when the energy density $\rho_{\rm rad}$ of the relativistic plasma dominates the energy of the Universe while at the same time the rate of dilution with $T$ of the total energy density is slower than what usually expected during radiation dominance. This allows to use the bound from BBN to put in dEGB a constraint $T_{\rm RH}\lesssim 10^8 - 10^9$ GeV on the reheating temperature of the Universe $T_{\rm RH}$. Such BBN bound is complementary to late-time constraints from compact binary mergers.

Compact lasers monolithically composed of only a laser crystal were proposed in the late 1980s.Such lasers, called microchip lasers, have the advantages of simple configuration and robustness, and have been actively studied as candidates for realizing low-cost, compact power lasers.We have received support from Impulsing Paradigm Change through Disruptive Technologies Program (ImPACT) "Ubiquitous Power Laser for Achieving a Safe Secure and Longevity Society" led by the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, and have been developing commercialization of high-power microchip lasers developed in the program since FY2017.This paper describes the background of the development of the microchip lasers and reports the current status of commercial deployments.