Sense of coherence as a predictor of onset of depression among Japanese workers: a cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ability to predict future onset of depression is required for primary prevention of depression. Many cross-sectional studies have reported a correlation between sense of coherence (SOC) and the presence of depressive symptoms. However, it is unclear whether SOC can predict future onset of depression. Therefore, whether measures to prevent onset of depression are needed in for persons with low SOC is uncertain. Thus, the aim of this cohort study was to determine whether SOC could predict onset of depression and to assess the need for measures to prevent onset of depression for persons with low SOC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 1854 Japanese workers aged 20-70 years in 2005 who completed a sense of coherence (SOC) questionnaire were followed-up until August 2007 using their sick-pay records with medical certificates. Depression was defined as a description of "depression" or "depressive" as a reason for sick leave on the medical certificates. The day of incidence of depression was defined as the first day of the sick leave. Risk ratios of SOC for onset of depression were calculated using a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 1854 participants, 14 developed depression during a mean of 1.8 years of follow-up. After adjustment for gender and age, the risk ratio of high SOC compared with low SOC for sick leave from depression was 0.18 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.04 to 0.79). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of SOC was 0.70 (95% CI, 0.58 to 0.82).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The SOC may be able to predict onset of depression in Japanese workers. Measures to prevent onset of depression for persons with low SOC might be required in Japanese workplaces. Thus, SOC could be useful for identifying persons at high risk for future depression.</p

Spectroscopy of kaonic atoms at DAFNE and J-PARC

The interaction of antikaons (K^{-}) with nucleons and nuclei in the low-energy regime represents a very active research field in hadron physics. A unique and rather direct experimental access to the antikaon-nucleon scattering lengths is provided by precision X-ray spectroscopy of transitions in low-lying states in the lightest kaonic atoms (i.e. kaonic hydrogen and deuterium). In the SIDDHARTA experiment at the electron-positron collider DAFNE of LNFINFN we measured the most precise values of the strong interaction observables in conic hydrogen. The strong interaction on the 1s ground state of the electromagnetically bound K-p atom causes an energy shift and broadening of the 1s state. SIDDHARTA will extend the spectroscopy to kaonic deuterium to get access to the antikaon-neutron interaction and thus the isospin dependent scattering lengths. At J-PARC a kaon beam is used in a complementary experiment with a different setup for spectroscopy of kaonic deuterium atoms. The talk will give an overview of the of the upcoming experiments SIDDHARTA and the complementary experiment at J-PARC.Furthermore, the implications of the experiments for the theory of low-energy strong interaction with strangeness will be discussed

Fabrication and development of flat fibers

This paper reports the parameters that affect the fabrication of Flat Fibers, including preform size and doping, furnace temperature, preform feed speed, fiber drawing speed, fiber dimension, fiber quality and shape, vacuum pressure and core dimension. The feed and draw speed generally follows the simplified mass conservation law to draw the fiber to a specific dimension. The preform wall thickness affects the vacuum pressure and furnace temperature that is needed to 'flatten' the fiber. The preform wall thickness is directly proportional to the volume of glass inside the neck-down region. The wall thickness of the preform and its dopant will also affect the size of the cladding and core dimension. Finally, some issues associated with the fabrication of Flat Fibers are also observed and discussed, including fabrication of Flat Fibers with non-uniform dimensions, deformed shapes, unwanted airholes and poor quality of the Flat Fibers

Investigation of internal combustion engines gasoline-etanol blends of ingredients as emissions

Günümüzde kullanılan petrol kökenli yakıtların sınırlı enerji kaynağı olması alternatif yakıt olarak alkol ve benzin-alkol karışımlarını cazip hale getirmektedir. Benzin-etanol-su üçlü faz sistemlerinin maliyetinin düşürülmesi için kararlı bir faz haline getirilmesi önem arz etmektedir. Yapılan bu çalışmada, öncelikle farklı oranlarda benzin-etanol-su karışımlarında faz dengesi incelenmiş ve benzin içerisinde en yüksek etanol yüzdesini veren karışımlar %85 yüksek oktanlı benzin, %10 etanol ve %5 su (V2) ve %85 düşük oktanlı benzin, %10 etanol ve %5 su (S2) olarak belirlenmiştir. Deneyler sonucunda söz konusu karışımlarda %50 etanolün benzin fazına geçtiği, karışımda su yüzdesi arttıkça benzin fazına geçen etanol yüzdesinin azaldığı belirlenmiştir. Daha sonra benzin ve etanol yönünden zengin fazdaki su oranının artırılması amacıyla katkı maddesi olarak %2,5 ve %5 oranında piridin ile %2,5 ve %5 isobütanol eklenmiştir. Piridin katkılı karışımlarda isobütanol içeren karışımlara göre benzin alkol fazına geçen su yüzdesinin daha yüksek olduğu görülmüştür. Ayrıca katkı maddesi yüzdesi arttıkça benzin alkol fazındaki su yüzdesinin arttığı tespit edilmiştir. Piridin ve isobütanol içeren yakıt karışımlarının motor performansları ve egzoz emisyonları incelenmiş ve sonuçlar yüksek/düşük oktanlı benzin ile yapılan taşıt test verileri referans alınarak karşılaştırılmıştır. Deneyler hava fazlalık katsayısının 1 olduğu durumda ve tam motor yükünde, farklı motor devirlerinde ve farklı ateşleme zamanlarında yapılmıştır. Farklı motor devirlerinde yapılan deneylerde en iyi performanslar %80 yüksek oktanlı benzin, %10 etanol, %5 su ve %5 piridin içeren karışım ile %80 düşük oktanlı benzin, %10 etanol, %5 su ve %5 piridin yakıtlarından elde edilmiştir. Söz konusu karışımların kullanılması durumunda motor momentinin sırasıyla %3 ve %2 oranında, motor efektif gücünün de %4,4 ve %2 oranında artış gösterdiği görülmüştür. Bunun yanında, özgül yakıt tüketimi sırasıyla %13,7 ve %5,2 oranında azalmıştır. Yine sözkonusu yakıtlarda motorun ortalama efektif basıncının sırasıyla %3 ve %2 oranında arttığı görülmüştür. NOx, CO ve HC emisyonlarının yüksek oktanlı benzin içeren karışımda sırasıyla %32, %17,9 ve %45,9 oranında, düşük oktanlı karışımda ise %5, %13 ve %35,4 oranında azaldığı görülmüştür. Yapılan çalışmalar neticesinde, %10 etanol, %5 su ve %5 piridin içeren düşük ve yüksek oktanlı benzin karışımlarının alternatif yakıt olarak kullanılabileceği sonucuna varılmıştır.Nowadays, using of petroleum-derived fuels as a limited energy source makes the mixture of alcohol and petrol-alcohol as an alternative fuel attractive. It is important to stabilize the mixture of gasoline-alcohol-water in order to reduce the cost. In this study, the phase equilibrium in gasoline-ethanol-water mixtures was investigated firstly and the mixtures giving the highest percentage of ethanol in gasoline were analyzed by using %85 of high octane gasoline, %10 ethanol and %5 of water (V2) and %85 of low octane gasoline, %10 of ethanol and %5 water (S2). As a result of the experiments, it was determined that the percentages of ethanol passing to the gasoline phase decreased as the percentage of water in the mixture increased to 50% ethanol in the mixtures. Then %2.5 and %5 of pyridine and %2.5 and %5 of isobutanol was added as additives to increase the ratio of water in rich phase in terms of gasoline and ethanol. It has been found that the percentage of water passing into the gasoline alcohol phase is higher than the mixtures containing isobutanol in the pyridine added mixture. It was also found that as the percentage of additive material increases, the percentage of water in the gasoline alcohol phase increases. The engine performances and exhaust emissions of fuel mixtures containing pyridine and isobutanol were examined and the results were compared with reference to vehicle test data with high/low octane gasoline. Experiments were performed with the air excess coefficient 1 and at full engine load, at different engine speeds and at different ignition times. The best performances in experiments with different engine revolutions were %80 of low octane gasoline, %10 of ethanol, %5 of water and %5 of pyridine fuels with a mixture of %80 of high octane gasoline, %10 of ethanol, % 5 water and %5 of pyridine. In the case of using such mixtures, the motor torque increased by %3 and %2, respectively, and the motor effective power increased by %4.4 and %2, respectively. In addition, specific fuel consumption decreased by %13.7 and %5.2, respectively. It was also seen that the average effective pressure of the engine increased by %3 and %2, respectively, in the fuels. NOx, CO and HC emissions were found to decrease by %32, %17.9 and %45.9 in the high octane gasoline mixture and %5, %13 and %35.4 in the low octane mixture, respectively. As a result of the studies, low and high octane gasoline mixtures containing %10 ethanol, %5 water and %5 pyridine were used as alternative fuels

APPLICATION OF FRACTAL ANALYSIS TO TRADITIONAL TOP-CUT IN RESOURCE ESTIMATION OF GOLD DEPOSITS

The accuracy of correct resource estimation is crucial in integrity of a feasibility study as well as the daily running of mining activities. The success of a mine operation depends on the correctness of resource estimation. In order to certify an acceptable level of confidence in resource modeling, it is necessary to construct a high-quality 3D block model, where in each block; the grade of interest is reported. However, each deposit has an exclusive structure and subsurface geology, thus, it is extremely complex to predict and produce such an exact model. In addition, the presence of extremely high values in the dataset negatively affects resource estimation and produces biased estimates. This problem is especially noticeable in gold deposits with a long-tailed distribution. There is a method in the industry to solve this problem so-called capping, where sample grades that exceed the provided specific threshold (cutting value) will be downgraded to a specific threshold. To reduce the impact of outliers to final resource estimation, a new Top-Cut technique was proposed. In this method, the grade variable is spitted into three parts: the truncated grade, an indicator and residual. The pros and cons of this method are that we can choose the value of the threshold manually. In practice, this value is selected by using various statistical techniques and sometimes it is quite objective. On one hand, this increases the variability of the method, but from the other hand, we do not have a specific rule for choosing the best and optimum threshold. Therefore, the use of fractal analysis can be useful, since the fractal model allows determining several populations in a dataset that can be used as individual thresholds. Moreover, to determine the best threshold, the ratio of indicator variogram analysis is used. This work utilizes a borehole dataset from a Kazakhstani gold deposit, where Traditional Top-Cut and Fractal Top-Cut modeling approaches are applied to model the Gold in this deposit. In order of comparison, conventional capping method is also applied. The results showed that Fractal Top-Cut outperforms the Traditional Top-Cut and capping technique in better resource modeling and produces more accurate results with better average grade above different cut-off grades and less mean error. However, the drawback is that the method does not produce a variance map

Retroperitoneal hematomae in case of closed abdominal trauma (pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment). Experimental and clinical study

Available from VNTIC / VNTIC - Scientific & Technical Information Centre of RussiaSIGLERURussian Federatio

An improved low-input resistance folded-cascode transimpedance amplifier for giga-bit per second optical communication front-ends

The present study is devoted to articulating a modified folded‐cascode circuit, to make folded‐cascode structures an attractive configuration as a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) for being employed in Giga‐bit per second optical communication receiver systems. Giga‐bps communication receivers are highly necessitating circuits to isolate the input parasitic capacitance of the photodiode. The present modification makes folded cascodes comparable to the famous regulated cascode (RGC) structures by isolating this parasitic capacitor almost by the same quantity. The system is shown to be capable of operating at 2.5 Gbps up to 8 Gbps data rate with a fixed bandwidth. The paper analyzes and evaluates the designed circuit mathematically, and the obtained simulated results from Cadence using TSMC 65 nm CMOS validate the suitability of the modified circuit as a TIA