14,599 research outputs found
Institutionalizing health impact assessment in London as a public health tool for increasing synergy between policies in other areas
Objectives: To describe the background to the inclusion of health impact assessment (HIA) in the development process for the London mayoral strategies, the HIA processes developed, how these evolved, and the role of HIA in identifying synergies between and conflicting priorities of different strategies.Study design: Case series.Methods: Early HIAs had just a few weeks for the whole HIA process. A rapid appraisal approach was developed. Stages included: scoping, reviewing published evidence, a stakeholder workshop, drafting a report, review of the report by the London Health Commission, and submission of the final report to the Mayor. The process evolved as more assessments were conducted. More recently, an integrated impact assessment (IIA) method has been developed that fuses the key aspects of this HIA method with sustainability assessment, strategic environmental assessment and equalities assessment.Results: Whilst some of the early strategy drafts encompassed some elements of health, health was not a priority. Conducting HIAs was important both to ensure that the strategies reflected health concerns and to raise awareness about health and its determinants within the Greater London Authority (GLA). HIA recommendations were useful for identifying synergies and conflicts between strategies. HIA can be successfully integrated into other impact assessment processes.Conclusions: The HIAs ensured that health became more integral to the strategies and increased understanding of determinants of health and how the GLA impacts on health and health inequalities. Inclusion of HIA within IIA ensures that health and health inequalities impacts are considered robustly within statutory impact assessments. (C) 2010 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Assessment and management of infection in alcoholic hepatitis
Severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH) is a condition characterized by jaundice and liver failure that develops after heavy and prolonged alcohol consumption. Infection frequently complicates the natural history of the disease and is independently associated with mortality. Objective recognition and recording of infection are therefore essential in the evaluation of therapeutic interventions and for antibiotic stewardship. This review will evaluate infections that complicate SAH at admission and beyond. Factors that associate with the development of infection will be identified and clinical and laboratory techniques available to identify infection will be discussed. Common pathogens and frequently used antibiotics will be reviewed and recommendations will be made for the management of infection for SAH patients. New techniques to assess infection earlier and more precisely may improve diagnosis and treatment of this important driver of mortality in SAH
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High rate of extrapair paternity in a human population demonstrates diversity in human reproductive strategies.
Among nonhuman species, social monogamy is rarely accompanied by complete fidelity. Evolutionary theory predicts that the rate of extrapair paternity (EPP) should vary according to socioecological conditions. In humans, however, geneticists contend that EPP is negligible and relatively invariable. This conclusion is based on a limited set of studies, almost all of which describe European-descent groups. Using a novel, double-blind method designed in collaboration with a community of Himba pastoralists, we find that the rate of EPP in this population is 48%, with 70% of couples having at least one EPP child. Both men and women were very accurate at detecting cases of EPP. These data suggest that the range of variation in EPP across human populations is substantially greater than previously thought. We further show that a high rate of EPP can be accompanied by high paternity confidence, which highlights the importance of disaggregating EPP from the notion of "cuckoldry.
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Monitoring scan asymmetry of microwave humidity sounding channels using simultaneous all angle collocations (SAACs)
Simultaneous all angle collocations (SAACs) of microwave humidity sounders (AMSU-B and MHS) on-board polar orbiting satellites are used to estimate scan-dependent
biases. This method has distinct advantages over previous methods, such as that the estimated scan-dependent biases are not influenced by diurnal differences between the edges of the scan and the biases can be estimated for both sides of the scan. We find the results are robust in the sense that biases estimated for one satellite pair can be reproduced by double differencing biases of these satellites with a third satellite. Channel 1 of these instruments shows the least bias for all satellites. Channel 2 has biases greater than 5 K, thus needs to be corrected. Channel 3 has biases of about 2 K and more and they are time varying for some of the satellites. Channel 4 has the largest bias which is about 15 K when the data are averaged for 5 years, but biases of individual months can be as large as 30 K. Channel 5 also has large and time varying biases for two of the AMSU-Bs. NOAA-15 (N15) channels are found to be affected the most, mainly due to radio frequency interference (RFI) from onboard data transmitters. Channel 4 of N15 shows the largest and time varying biases, so data of this channel should only be used with caution for climate applications. The two MHS instruments show the best agreement for all channels. Our estimates may be used to correct for scan-dependent biases of these instruments, or at least used as a guideline for excluding channels with large scan asymmetries from scientific analyses
A Novel Taxonomy of Opportunities and Risks in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
The explosion and rapid embrace of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) has provided players with unique, fully immersive three dimensional environments in which they can express themselves in a myriad of ways. Players can develop unique skill sets, share knowledge, explore and experiment with various identities and network with like-minded individuals. Evidence suggests however, that these opportunities are accompanied with a number of risks including addiction, desensitisation and threats to the privacy of personal information. This paper presents a novel Taxonomy of opportunities and risks in the specific context of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
Multiplicative renormalizability and quark propagator
The renormalized Dyson-Schwinger equation for the quark propagator is
studied, in Landau gauge, in a novel truncation which preserves multiplicative
renormalizability. The renormalization constants are formally eliminated from
the integral equations, and the running coupling explicitly enters the kernels
of the new equations. To construct a truncation which preserves multiplicative
renormalizability, and reproduces the correct leading order perturbative
behavior, non-trivial cancellations involving the full quark-gluon vertex are
assumed in the quark self-energy loop. A model for the running coupling is
introduced, with infrared fixed point in agreement with previous
Dyson-Schwinger studies of the gauge sector, and with correct logarithmic tail.
Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is investigated, and the generated quark
mass is of the order of the extension of the infrared plateau of the coupling,
and about three times larger than in the Abelian approximation, which violates
multiplicative renormalizability. The generated scale is of the right size for
hadronic phenomenology, without requiring an infrared enhancement of the
running coupling.Comment: 17 pages; minor corrections, comparison to lattice results added;
accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
On the precision of chiral-dispersive calculations of scattering
We calculate the combination (the Olsson sum rule)
and the scattering lengths and effective ranges , and ,
dispersively (with the Froissart--Gribov representation) using, at
low energy, the phase shifts for scattering obtained by Colangelo,
Gasser and Leutwyler (CGL) from the Roy equations and chiral perturbation
theory, plus experiment and Regge behaviour at high energy, or directly, using
the CGL parameters for s and s. We find mismatch, both among the CGL
phases themselves and with the results obtained from the pion form factor. This
reaches the level of several (2 to 5) standard deviations, and is essentially
independent of the details of the intermediate energy region ( GeV) and, in some cases, of the high energy behaviour assumed. We discuss
possible reasons for this mismatch, in particular in connection with an
alternate set of phase shifts.Comment: Version to appear in Phys. Rev. D. Graphs and sum rule added. Plain
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Inhomogeneous Magnetic-Field Response of YBa2Cu3Oy and La2-xSrxCuO4 Persisting above the Bulk Superconducting Transition Temperature
We report that in YBa2Cu3Oy and La2-xSrxCuO4 there is a spatially
inhomogeneous response to magnetic field for temperatures T extending well
above the bulk superconducting transition temperature Tc. An inhomogeneous
magnetic response is observed above Tc even in ortho-II YBa2Cu3O6.50, which has
highly ordered doping. The degree of the field inhomogeneity above Tc tracks
the hole doping dependences of both Tc and the density of the superconducting
carriers below Tc, and therefore is apparently coupled to superconductivity.Comment: Modified discussio
Multiplicative renormalizability of gluon and ghost propagators in QCD
We reformulate the coupled set of continuum equations for the renormalized
gluon and ghost propagators in QCD, such that the multiplicative
renormalizability of the solutions is manifest, independently of the specific
form of full vertices and renormalization constants. In the Landau gauge, the
equations are free of renormalization constants, and the renormalization point
dependence enters only through the renormalized coupling and the renormalized
propagator functions. The structure of the equations enables us to devise novel
truncations with solutions that are multiplicatively renormalizable and agree
with the leading order perturbative results. We show that, for infrared power
law behaved propagators, the leading infrared behavior of the gluon equation is
not solely determined by the ghost loop, as concluded in previous studies, but
that the gluon loop, the three-gluon loop, the four-gluon loop, and even
massless quarks also contribute to the infrared analysis. In our new Landau
gauge truncation, the combination of gluon and ghost loop contributions seems
to reject infrared power law solutions, but massless quark loops illustrate how
additional contributions to the gluon vacuum polarization could reinstate these
solutions. Moreover, a schematic study of the three-gluon and four-gluon loops
shows that they too need to be considered in more detail before a definite
conclusion about the existence of infrared power behaved gluon and ghost
propagators can be reached.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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