Conflict in the Indian Kashmir Valley I: exposure to violence.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: India and Pakistan have disputed ownership of the Kashmir Valley region for many years, resulting in several conflicts since the end of partition in 1947. Very little is known about the prevalence of violence and insecurity in this population. METHODS: We undertook a two-stage cluster household survey in two districts (30 villages) of the Indian part of Kashmir to assess experiences with violence and mental health status among the conflict-affected Kashmiri population. The article presents our findings for confrontations with violence. Data were collected for recent events (last 3 months) and those occurring since the start of the conflict. Informed consent was obtained for all interviews. RESULTS: 510 interviews were completed. Respondents reported frequent direct confrontations with violence since the start of conflict, including exposure to crossfire (85.7%), round up raids (82.7%), the witnessing of torture (66.9%), rape (13.3%), and self-experience of forced labour (33.7%), arrests/kidnapping (16.9%), torture (12.9%), and sexual violence (11.6%). Males reported more confrontations with violence than females, and had an increased likelihood of having directly experienced physical/mental maltreatment (OR 3.9, CI: 2.7-5.7), violation of their modesty (OR 3.6, CI: 1.9-6.8) and injury (OR 3.5, CI: 1.4-8.7). Males also had high odds of self-being arrested/kidnapped (OR 8.0, CI: 4.1-15.5). CONCLUSION: The civilian population in Kashmir is exposed to high levels of violence, as demonstrated by the high frequency of deliberate events as detention, hostage, and torture. The reported violence may result in substantial health, including mental health problems. Males reported significantly more confrontations with almost all violent events; this can be explained by higher participation in outdoor activities

Bilinear identities on Schur symmetric functions

A series of bilinear identities on the Schur symmetric functions is obtained with the use of Pluecker relations.Comment: Accepted to Journal of Nonlinear Mathematical Physics. A reference to a connected result is adde

Quasiblack holes with pressure: relativistic charged spheres as the frozen stars

In general relativity coupled to Maxwell's electromagnetism and charged matter, when the gravitational potential $W^2$ and the electric potential field $\phi$ obey a relation of the form $W^{2}= a\left(-\epsilon\, \phi+ b\right)^2 +c$, where $a$, $b$ and $c$ are arbitrary constants, and $\epsilon=\pm1$ (the speed of light $c$ and Newton's constant $G$ are put to one), a class of very interesting electrically charged systems with pressure arises. We call the relation above between $W$ and $\phi$, the Weyl-Guilfoyle relation, and it generalizes the usual Weyl relation, for which $a=1$. For both, Weyl and Weyl-Guilfoyle relations, the electrically charged fluid, if present, may have nonzero pressure. Fluids obeying the Weyl-Guilfoyle relation are called Weyl-Guilfoyle fluids. These fluids, under the assumption of spherical symmetry, exhibit solutions which can be matched to the electrovacuum Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetime to yield global asymptotically flat cold charged stars. We show that a particular spherically symmetric class of stars found by Guilfoyle has a well-behaved limit which corresponds to an extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om quasiblack hole with pressure, i.e., in which the fluid inside the quasihorizon has electric charge and pressure, and the geometry outside the quasihorizon is given by the extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om metric. The main physical properties of such charged stars and quasiblack holes with pressure are analyzed. An important development provided by these stars and quasiblack holes is that without pressure the solutions, Majumdar-Papapetrou solutions, are unstable to kinetic perturbations. Solutions with pressure may avoid this instability. If stable, these cold quasiblack holes with pressure, i.e., these compact relativistic charged spheres, are really frozen stars.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; minor change

CARBON BALANCE AND VEGETATION DYNAMICS IN AN OLD‐GROWTH AMAZONIAN FOREST

Amazon forests could be globally significant sinks or sources for atmospheric carbon dioxide, but carbon balance of these forests remains poorly quantified. We surveyed 19.75 ha along four 1‐km transects of well‐drained old‐growth upland forest in the Tapajós National Forest near Santarém, Pará, Brazil (2°51′ S, 54°58′ W) in order to assess carbon pool sizes, fluxes, and climatic controls on carbon balance. In 1999 there were, on average, 470 live trees per hectare with diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥10 cm. The mean (and 95% ci) aboveground live biomass was 143.7 ± 5.4 Mg C/ha, with an additional 48.0 ± 5.2 Mg C/ha of coarse woody debris (CWD). The increase of live wood biomass after two years was 1.40 ± 0.62 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1, the net result of growth (3.18 ± 0.20 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1 from mean bole increment of 0.36 cm/yr), recruitment of new trees (0.63 ± 0.09 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1, reflecting a notably high stem recruitment rate of 4.8 ± 0.9%), and mortality (−2.41 ± 0.53 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1 from stem death of 1.7% yr−1). The gain in live wood biomass was exceeded by respiration losses from CWD, resulting in an overall estimated net loss from total aboveground biomass of 1.9 ± 1.0 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1. The presence of large CWD pools, high recruitment rate, and net accumulation of small‐tree biomass, suggest that a period of high mortality preceded the initiation of this study, possibly triggered by the strong El Niño Southern Oscillation events of the 1990s. Transfer of carbon between live and dead biomass pools appears to have led to substantial increases in the pool of CWD, causing the observed net carbon release. The data show that biometric studies of tropical forests neglecting CWD are unlikely to accurately determine carbon balance. Furthermore, the hypothesized sequestration flux from CO2 fertilization (\u3c0.5 Mg C·ha−1·yr−1) would be comparatively small and masked for considerable periods by climate‐driven shifts in forest structure and associated carbon balance in tropical forests

Quasi-black holes: definition and general properties

Objects that are on the verge of being extremal black holes but actually are distinct in many ways are called quasi-black holes. Quasi-black holes are defined here and treated in a unified way through the displaying of their properties. The main ones are (i) there are infinite redshift whole regions, (ii) the spacetimes exhibit degenerate, almost singular, features but their curvature invariants remain perfectly regular everywhere, (iii) in the limit under discussion, outer and inner regions become mutually impenetrable and disjoint, although, in contrast to the usual black holes, this separation is of a dynamical nature, rather than purely causal, (iv) for external far away observers the spacetime is virtually indistinguishable from that of extremal black holes. It is shown, in addition, that quasi-black holes must be extremal. Connections with black hole and wormhole physics are also drawn.Comment: 29 pages, minor change

Regular and quasi black hole solutions for spherically symmetric charged dust distributions in the Einstein-Maxwell theory

Static spherically symmetric distributions of electrically counterpoised dust (ECD) are used to construct solutions to Einstein-Maxwell equations in Majumdar--Papapetrou formalism. Unexpected bifurcating behaviour of solutions with regard to source strength is found for localized, as well as for the delta-function ECD distributions. Unified treatment of general ECD distributions is accomplished and it is shown that for certain source strengths one class of regular solutions approaches Minkowski spacetime, while the other comes arbitrarily close to black hole solutions.Comment: LaTeX (IOP style) 17 pages, 10 figure

Is legal status impacting outcomes of group therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder with male asylum seekers and refugees from Iran and Afghanistan?

Background: Legal status and other resettlement stressors are known to impact mental health of asylum seekers and refugees. However, the ways in which they interact with treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with these populations is still poorly understood. The aim of this study was to examine whether legal status and other resettlement stressors influence outcomes of a trauma-focused group PTSD treatment within a day-treatment setting with asylum seekers and refugees.

Polymers with attractive interactions on the Husimi tree

We obtain the solution of models of self-avoiding walks with attractive interactions on Husimi lattices built with squares. Two attractive interactions are considered: between monomers on first-neighbor sites and not consecutive along a walk and between bonds located on opposite edges of elementary squares. For coordination numbers q>4, two phases, one polymerized the other non-polymerized, are present in the phase diagram. For small values of the attractive interaction the transition between those phases is continuous, but for higher values a first-order transition is found. Both regimes are separated by a tricritical point. For q=4 a richer phase diagram is found, with an additional (dense) polymerized phase, which is stable for for sufficiently strong interactions between bonds. The phase diagram of the model in the three-dimensional parameter space displays surfaces of continuous and discontinuous phase transitions and lines of tricritical points, critical endpoints and triple points.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

The photoelectric effect in external fields

Atoms and negative ions interacting with laser photons yield a coherent source of photoelectrons. Applying external fields to photoelectrons gives rise to interesting and valuable interference phenomena. We analyze the spatial distribution of the photocurrent using elementary quantum methods. The photoelectric effect is shown to be an interesting example for the use of coherent particle sources in quantum mechanics.Comment: Contribution to the Einstein special issue, slightly updated reference

Low-density lipoprotein particle diameter and mortality: the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study

Aims The aim of the study was to examine whether differences in average diameter of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles were associated with total and cardiovascular mortality. Methods and results We studied 1643 subjects referred to coronary angiography, who did not receive lipid-lowering drugs. During a median follow-up of 9.9 years, 398 patients died, of these 246 from cardiovascular causes. We calculated average particle diameters of LDL from the composition of LDL obtained by β-quantification. When LDL with intermediate average diameters (16.5-16.8 nm) were used as reference category, the hazard ratios (HRs) adjusted for cardiovascular risk factors for death from any cause were 1.71 (95% CI: 1.31-2.25) and 1.24 (95% CI: 0.95-1.63) in patients with large (>16.8 nm) or small LDL (<16.5 nm), respectively. Adjusted HRs for death from cardiovascular causes were 1.89 (95% CI: 1.32-2.70) and 1.54 (95% CI: 1.06-2.12) in patients with large or small LDL, respectively. Patients with large LDL had higher concentrations of the inflammatory markers interleukin (IL)-6 and C-reactive protein than patients with small or intermediate LDL. Equilibrium density gradient ultracentrifugation revealed characteristic and distinct profiles of LDL particles in persons with large (approximately even distribution of intermediate-density lipoproteins and LDL-1 through LDL-6) intermediate (peak concentration at LDL-4) or small (peak concentration at LDL-6) average LDL particle diameters. Conclusions Calculated LDL particle diameters identify patients with different profiles of LDL subfractions. Both large and small LDL diameters are independently associated with increased risk mortality of all causes and, more so, due to cardiovascular causes compared with LDL of intermediate siz