2,350 research outputs found
How Does Culture Appear in Interviews?: Focus on "Treating" in Korea and "Going Dutch" in Japan
研究ノー
Money and the Life Worlds of Children in Korea: Examining the Phenomenon of Ogori (Treating) from Cultural Psychological Perspectives
Trends in dermatomyositis- and polymyositis-related mortality in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, 1985-2007: multiple cause-of-death analysis
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dermatomyositis (DM) and polymyositis (PM) are rare systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases with high fatality rates. There have been few population-based mortality studies of dermatomyositis and polymyositis in the world, and none have been conducted in Brazil. The objective of the present study was to employ multiple-cause-of-death methodology in the analysis of trends in mortality related to dermatomyositis and polymyositis in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, between 1985 and 2007.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed mortality data from the São Paulo State Data Analysis System, selecting all death certificates on which DM or PM was listed as a cause of death. The variables sex, age and underlying, associated or total mentions of causes of death were studied using mortality rates, proportions and historical trends. Statistical analysis were performed by chi-square and H Kruskal-Wallis tests, variance analysis and linear regression. A p value less than 0.05 was regarded as significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over a 23-year period, there were 318 DM-related deaths and 316 PM-related deaths. Overall, DM/PM was designated as an underlying cause in 55.2% and as an associated cause in 44.8%; among 634 total deaths females accounted for 71.5%. During the study period, age- and gender-adjusted DM mortality rates did not change significantly, although PM as an underlying cause and total mentions of PM trended lower (p < 0.05). The mean ages at death were 47.76 ± 20.81 years for DM and 54.24 ± 17.94 years for PM (p = 0.0003). For DM/PM, respectively, as underlying causes, the principal associated causes of death were as follows: pneumonia (in 43.8%/33.5%); respiratory failure (in 34.4%/32.3%); interstitial pulmonary diseases and other pulmonary conditions (in 28.9%/17.6%); and septicemia (in 22.8%/15.9%). For DM/PM, respectively, as associated causes, the following were the principal underlying causes of death: respiratory disorders (in 28.3%/26.0%); circulatory disorders (in 17.4%/20.5%); neoplasms (in 16.7%/13.7%); infectious and parasitic diseases (in 11.6%/9.6%); and gastrointestinal disorders (in 8.0%/4.8%). Of the 318 DM-related deaths, 36 involved neoplasms, compared with 20 of the 316 PM-related deaths (p = 0.03).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study using multiple cause of deaths found that DM/PM were identified as the underlying cause of death in only 55.2% of the deaths, indicating that both diseases were underestimated in the primary mortality statistics. We observed a predominance of deaths in women and in older individuals, as well as a trend toward stability in the mortality rates. We have confirmed that the risk of death is greater when either disease is accompanied by neoplasm, albeit to lesser degree in individuals with PM. The investigation of the underlying and associated causes of death related to DM/PM broaden the knowledge of the natural history of both diseases and could help integrate mortality data for use in the evaluation of control measures for DM/PM.</p
Scalar Three-point Functions in a CDL Background
Motivated by the FRW-CFT proposal by Freivogel, Sekino, Susskind and Yeh, we
compute the three-point function of a scalar field in a Coleman-De Luccia
instanton background. We first compute the three-point function of the scalar
field making only very mild assumptions about the scalar potential and the
instanton background. We obtain the three-point function for points in the FRW
patch of the CDL instanton and take two interesting limits; the limit where the
three points are near the boundary of the hyperbolic slices of the FRW patch,
and the limit where the three points lie on the past lightcone of the FRW
patch. We expand the past lightcone three-point function in spherical
harmonics. We show that the near boundary limit expansion of the three-point
function of a massless scalar field exhibits conformal structure compatible
with FRW-CFT when the FRW patch is flat. We also compute the three-point
function when the scalar is massive, and explain the obstacles to generalizing
the conjectured field-operator correspondence of massless fields to massive
fields.Comment: 42 pages + appendices, 10 figures; v2, v3: minor correction
Ferromagnetism in semiconductors and oxides: prospects from a ten years' perspective
Over the last decade the search for compounds combining the resources of
semiconductors and ferromagnets has evolved into an important field of
materials science. This endeavour has been fuelled by continual demonstrations
of remarkable low-temperature functionalities found for ferromagnetic
structures of (Ga,Mn)As, p-(Cd,Mn)Te, and related compounds as well as by ample
observations of ferromagnetic signatures at high temperatures in a number of
non-metallic systems. In this paper, recent experimental and theoretical
developments are reviewed emphasising that, from the one hand, they disentangle
many controversies and puzzles accumulated over the last decade and, on the
other, offer new research prospects.Comment: review, 13 pages, 8 figures, 109 reference
Generalized nonreciprocity in an optomechanical circuit via synthetic magnetism and reservoir engineering
Synthetic magnetism has been used to control charge neutral excitations for
applications ranging from classical beam steering to quantum simulation. In
optomechanics, radiation-pressure-induced parametric coupling between optical
(photon) and mechanical (phonon) excitations may be used to break time-reversal
symmetry, providing the prerequisite for synthetic magnetism. Here we design
and fabricate a silicon optomechanical circuit with both optical and mechanical
connectivity between two optomechanical cavities. Driving the two cavities with
phase-correlated laser light results in a synthetic magnetic flux, which in
combination with dissipative coupling to the mechanical bath, leads to
nonreciprocal transport of photons with 35dB of isolation. Additionally,
optical pumping with blue-detuned light manifests as a particle non-conserving
interaction between photons and phonons, resulting in directional optical
amplification of 12dB in the isolator through direction. These results indicate
the feasibility of utilizing optomechanical circuits to create a more general
class of nonreciprocal optical devices, and further, to enable novel
topological phases for both light and sound on a microchip.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 4 appendice
Controlling Curie temperature in (Ga,Ms)As through location of the Fermi level within the impurity band
The ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As has emerged as the most studied
material for prototype applications in semiconductor spintronics. Because
ferromagnetism in (Ga,Mn)As is hole-mediated, the nature of the hole states has
direct and crucial bearing on its Curie temperature TC. It is vigorously
debated, however, whether holes in (Ga,Mn)As reside in the valence band or in
an impurity band. In this paper we combine results of channeling experiments,
which measure the concentrations both of Mn ions and of holes relevant to the
ferromagnetic order, with magnetization, transport, and magneto-optical data to
address this issue. Taken together, these measurements provide strong evidence
that it is the location of the Fermi level within the impurity band that
determines TC through determining the degree of hole localization. This finding
differs drastically from the often accepted view that TC is controlled by
valence band holes, thus opening new avenues for achieving higher values of TC.Comment: 5 figures, supplementary material include
Revealing the footprints of squark gluino production through Higgs search experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at 7 TeV and 14 TeV
The invariant mass distribution of the di-photons from the decay of the
lighter scalar Higgs boson(h) to be carefully measured by dedicated h search
experiments at the LHC may be distorted by the di-photons associated with the
squark-gluino events with much larger cross sections in Gauge Mediated
Supersymmetry Breaking (GMSB) models. This distortion if observed by the
experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at 7 TeV or 14 TeV, would disfavour
not only the standard model but various two Higgs doublet models with
comparable h - masses and couplings but without a sector consisting of new
heavy particles decaying into photons. The minimal GMSB (mGMSB) model
constrained by the mass bound on h from LEP and that on the lightest neutralino
from the Tevatron, produce negligible effects. But in the currently popular
general GMSB(GGMSB) models the tail of the above distribution may show
statistically significant excess of events even in the early stages of the LHC
experiments with integrated luminosity insufficient for the discovery of h. We
illustrate the above points by introducing several benchmark points in various
GMSB models - minimal as well as non-minimal. The same conclusion follows from
a detailed parameter scan in a simplified GGMSB model recently employed by the
CMS collaboration to interpret their searches in the di-photon + \etslash
channel. Other observables like the effective mass distribution of the
di-photon + X events may also reveal the presence of new heavy particles beyond
the Higgs sector. The contamination of the h mass peak and simple remedies are
also discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, title and organization of the paper is changed,
detailed parameter scan in a simplified GGMSB model is added, conclusions and
old numerical results remain unchange
An interspecific linkage map of SSR and intronic polymorphism markers in tomato
Despite the collection and availability of abundant tomato genome sequences, PCR-based markers adapted to large scale analysis have not been developed in tomato species. Therefore, using public genome sequence data in tomato, we developed three types of DNA markers: expressed sequence tag (EST)-derived simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers (TES markers), genome-derived SSR markers (TGS markers) and EST-derived intronic polymorphism markers (TEI markers). A total of 2,047 TES, 3,510 TGS and 674 TEI markers were established and used in the polymorphic analysis of a cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) ‘LA925’ and its wild relative Solanum pennellii ‘LA716’, parents of the Tomato-EXPEN 2000 mapping population. The polymorphic ratios between parents revealed by the TES, TGS and TEI markers were 37.3, 22.6 and 80.0%, respectively. Those showing polymorphisms were used to genotype the Tomato-EXPEN 2000 mapping population, and a high-density genetic linkage map composed of 1,433 new and 683 existing marker loci was constructed on 12 chromosomes, covering 1,503.1 cM. In the present map, 48% of the mapped TGS loci were located within heterochromatic regions, while 18 and 21% of TES and TEI loci, respectively, were located in heterochromatin. The large number of SSR and SNP markers developed in this study provide easily handling genomic tools for molecular breeding in tomato. Information on the DNA markers developed in this study is available at http://www.kazusa.or.jp/tomato/
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