266 research outputs found
Use of a total traffic count metric to investigate the impact of roadways on asthma severity: A case-control study
Background: This study had two principal objectives: (i) to investigate the relationship between asthma severity and proximity to major roadways in Perth, Western Australia; (ii) to demonstrate a more accurate method of exposure assessment for traffic pollutants using an innovative GIS-based measure that fully integrates all traffic densities around subject residences. Methods. We conducted a spatial case-control study, in which 'cases' were defined as individuals aged under 19 years of age with more severe asthma (defined here as two or more emergency department contacts with asthma in a defined 5-year period) versus age- and gender-matched 'controls' with less severe asthma (defined here as one emergency department contact for asthma). Traffic exposures were measured using a GIS-based approach to determine the lengths of the roads falling within a buffer area, and then multiplying them by their respective traffic counts. Results: We examined the spatial relationship between emergency department contacts for asthma at three different buffer sizes: 50 metres, 100 metres and 150 metres. No effect was noted for the 50 metre buffer (OR = 1.07; 95% CI: 0.91-1.26), but elevated odds ratios were observed with for crude (unadjusted) estimates OR = 1.21 (95% CI: 1.00-1.46) for 100 metre buffers and OR = 1.25 (95% CI: 1.02-1.54) for 150 metre buffers. For adjusted risk estimates, only the 150 metre buffer yielded a statistically significant finding (OR = 1.24; 95% CI:1.00-1.52). Conclusions: Our study revealed a significant 24% increase in the risk of experiencing multiple emergency department contacts for asthma for every log-unit of traffic exposure. This study provides support for the hypothesis that traffic related air pollution increases the frequency of health service contacts for asthma. This study used advanced GIS techniques to establish traffic-weighted buffer zones around the geocoded residential location of subjects to provide an accurate assessment of exposure to traffic emissions, thereby providing a quantification of the ranges over which pollutants may exert a health effect
Dual Isomonodromic Deformations and Moment Maps to Loop Algebras
The Hamiltonian structure of the monodromy preserving deformation equations
of Jimbo {\it et al } is explained in terms of parameter dependent pairs of
moment maps from a symplectic vector space to the dual spaces of two different
loop algebras. The nonautonomous Hamiltonian systems generating the
deformations are obtained by pulling back spectral invariants on Poisson
subspaces consisting of elements that are rational in the loop parameter and
identifying the deformation parameters with those determining the moment maps.
This construction is shown to lead to ``dual'' pairs of matrix differential
operators whose monodromy is preserved under the same family of deformations.
As illustrative examples, involving discrete and continuous reductions, a
higher rank generalization of the Hamiltonian equations governing the
correlation functions for an impenetrable Bose gas is obtained, as well as dual
pairs of isomonodromy representations for the equations of the Painleve
transcendents and .Comment: preprint CRM-1844 (1993), 28 pgs. (Corrected date and abstract.
Hydrodynamic excitations of trapped dipolar fermions
A single-component Fermi gas of polarized dipolar particles in a harmonic
trap can undergo a mechanical collapse due to the attractive part of the
dipole-dipole interaction. This phenomenon can be conveniently manipulated by
the shape of the external trapping potential. We investigate the signatures of
the instability by studying the spectrum of low-lying collective excitations of
the system in the hydrodynamic regime. To this end, we employ a time-dependent
variational method as well as exact numerical solutions of the hydrodynamic
equations of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, final versio
Photocatalytic hydrogen production from a noble metal free system based on a water soluble porphyrin derivative and a cobaloxime catalyst
A combination of noble-metal free components, a water soluble
porphyrin photosensitizer zinc meso-tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-
4-yl)porphyrin chloride [ZnTMPyP4+]Cl4 (1) with cobaloxime complex
[CoIII(dmgH)2(py)Cl] (2) as a catalyst, creates an efficient system for
photochemical hydrogen production acting under visible light with 280
TONs. This is the first example of a water soluble porphyrin acting as a
photosensitizer for cobaloxime catalysed H2 production
Superfluid pairing in a polarized dipolar Fermi gas
We calculate the critical temperature of a superfluid phase transition in a
polarized Fermi gas of dipolar particles. In this case the order parameter is
anisotropic and has a nontrivial energy dependence. Cooper pairs do not have a
definite value of the angular momentum and are coherent superpositions of all
odd angular momenta. Our results describe prospects for achieving the
superfluid transition in single-component gases of fermionic polar molecules.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
From the Allerød to the mid-Holocene: Palynological evidence from the south basin of the Caspian Sea
This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ The Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works License, which permits
non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original author and source are credited.Pollen and dinoflagellate cysts have been analysed in a core from the south basin of the Caspian Sea, providing a picture of respectively past vegetation and water salinity for the Late Pleistocene to middle Holocene. A relatively sharp lithological change at 0.86 m depth reflects a shift from detrital silts to carbonates-rich fine silts. From this depth upwards, a Holocene chronology is built based on ten radiocarbon dates on ostracod shells and bulk carbonates. From the vegetation point of view, the Late Pleistocene deserts and steppes were partially replaced in the most sheltered areas by an open woodland with Pinus, Juniperus-Hippophae-Elaeagnus and even Alnus-Quercus-Pterocarya and Fraxinus, related to the Allerød palynozone. This was interrupted by the Younger Dryas palynozone when Artemisia reaches a maximum in a first instance followed by a very dry phase with only a slight return of Pinus and Quercus and the rare presence of Ulmus-Zelkova. From 11.5 to 8.4 cal. ka BP, an open landscape dominated by shrubs such as Ephedra and progressively increasing Quercus appeared. The final spread of diverse evergreen and deciduous trees is delayed and occurs after 8.4 cal. ka BP. It is suggested that this delay is caused by an arid climate in the Early Holocene linked to high insolation and perhaps to a lake effect. The dinocyst assemblages fluctuate between slightly brackish (Pyxidinopsis psilata and Spiniferites cruciformis, 7 psu and lower) and more brackish (Impagidinium caspienense, ∼13 psu). In the Lateglacial (Khvalynian highstand), the assemblages remained dominated by relative low salinity taxa. A late and brief increase of salinity occurred prior to 11.2 cal. ka BP associated with the Mangyshlak lowstand. It is suggested that it was caused by a brief drop in meltwater flow from both the north and the southeast (Uzboy) and a likely evaporation increase. This lowstand occurs quasi at the same time as the end of a longer lowstand in the Black Sea. The freshest waters are then inferred as having occurred between 8.4 and ≤4.4 cal. ka BP, linked to a connection with the Amu Darya and the melting glaciers on the Pamir Mountains. The Caspian Sea is a sensitive environment, easily perturbed by global climatic changes, such as the Allerød and Holocene warming, and the Lateglacial and Younger Dryas cooling, as well as by regional changes in its hydrography, such as shifts in the Eurasian meltwater and the Volga and Amu Darya inflows.Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Franc
Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost
universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade.
Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this
time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of
available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the
modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of
multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed
galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major
ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay
between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models,
and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic
measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting
can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies,
such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and
metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet
there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in
a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the
influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The
challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the
observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will
be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where
the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the
text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Scienc
Detector Description and Performance for the First Coincidence Observations between LIGO and GEO
For 17 days in August and September 2002, the LIGO and GEO interferometer
gravitational wave detectors were operated in coincidence to produce their
first data for scientific analysis. Although the detectors were still far from
their design sensitivity levels, the data can be used to place better upper
limits on the flux of gravitational waves incident on the earth than previous
direct measurements. This paper describes the instruments and the data in some
detail, as a companion to analysis papers based on the first data.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures 17 Sept 03: author list amended, minor editorial
change
An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types
Modernization and Its Discontents
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67022/2/10.1177_000276427702100208.pd
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