8,700 research outputs found
Initial pseudo-steady state & asymptotic KPZ universality in semiconductor on polymer deposition
The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class is a paradigmatic example of universality
in nonequilibrium phenomena, but clear experimental evidences of asymptotic
2D-KPZ statistics are still very rare, and far less understanding stems from
its short-time behavior. We tackle such issues by analyzing surface
fluctuations of CdTe films deposited on polymeric substrates, based on a huge
spatio-temporal surface sampling acquired through atomic force microscopy. A
\textit{pseudo}-steady state (where average surface roughness and spatial
correlations stay constant in time) is observed at initial times, persisting up
to deposition of monolayers. This state results from a fine
balance between roughening and smoothening, as supported by a phenomenological
growth model. KPZ statistics arises at long times, thoroughly verified by
universal exponents, spatial covariance and several distributions. Recent
theoretical generalizations of the Family-Vicsek scaling and the emergence of
log-normal distributions during interface growth are experimentally confirmed.
These results confirm that high vacuum vapor deposition of CdTe constitutes a
genuine 2D-KPZ system, and expand our knowledge about possible
substrate-induced short-time behaviors.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 table
Scaling properties of the Penna model
We investigate the scaling properties of the Penna model, which has become a
popular tool for the study of population dynamics and evolutionary problems in
recent years. We find that the model generates a normalised age distribution
for which a simple scaling rule is proposed, that is able to reproduce
qualitative features for all genome sizes.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Nursing Home-Acquired Pneumonia Presenting at the Emergency Department
Nursing home-acquired pneumonia (NHAP) is one of the most common infections arising amongst nursing home residents, and its incidence is expected to increase as population ages. The NHAP recommendation for empiric broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, arising from the concept of healthcare-associated pneumonia, has been challenged by recent studies reporting low rates of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria. This single center study analyzes the results of NHAP patients admitted through the Emergency Department (ED) at a tertiary center during the year 2010. There were 116 cases, male gender corresponded to 34.5 % of patients and median age was 84 years old (IQR 77-90). Comorbidities were present in 69.8 % of cases and 48.3 % of patients had used healthcare services during the previous 90 days. In-hospital mortality rate was 46.6 % and median length-of-stay was 9 days. Severity assessment at the Emergency Department provided CURB65 index score and respective mortality (%) results: zero: n = 0; one: n = 7 (0 %); two: n = 18 (38.9 %); three: n = 26 (38.5 %); four: n = 30 (53.3 %); and five; n = 22 (68.2 %); and sepsis n = 50 (34.0 %), severe sepsis n = 43 (48.8 %) and septic shock n = 22 (72.7 %). Significant risk factors for in-hospital mortality in multivariate analysis were polypnea (p = 0.001), age ≥ 75 years (p = 0.02), and severe sepsis or shock (p = 0.03) at the ED. Microbiological testing in 78.4 % of cases was positive in 15.4 % (n = 15): methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (26.7 %), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (20.0 %), S. pneumoniae (13.3 %), Escherichia coli (13.3 %), others (26.7 %); the rate of MDR bacteria was 53.3 %. This study reveals high rates of mortality and MDR bacteria among NHAP hospital admissions supporting the use of empirical broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy in these patients
Temperature effect on (2+1) experimental Kardar-Parisi-Zhang growth
We report on the effect of substrate temperature (T) on both local structure
and long-wavelength fluctuations of polycrystalline CdTe thin films deposited
on Si(001). A strong T-dependent mound evolution is observed and explained in
terms of the energy barrier to inter-grain diffusion at grain boundaries, as
corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations. This leads to transitions from
uncorrelated growth to a crossover from random-to-correlated growth and
transient anomalous scaling as T increases. Due to these finite-time effects,
we were not able to determine the universality class of the system through the
critical exponents. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that this can be circumvented
by analyzing height, roughness and maximal height distributions, which allow us
to prove that CdTe grows asymptotically according to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang
(KPZ) equation in a broad range of T. More important, one finds positive
(negative) velocity excess in the growth at low (high) T, indicating that it is
possible to control the KPZ non-linearity by adjusting the temperature.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
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