Drug and poison information - the Tygerberg experience

This report is based on an analysis of 6 411 consultations processed by the Tygerberg Phannacology and Toxicology Consultation Centre. Seventy-five per cent of the consultations were of a toxicological nature: 47% related to non-drug chemicals, 37% to drugs and 16% to plants and animals. Pesticides utilised in the home environment featured most pronrinently in the non-drug chemical group, while queries about paracetamol overdose topped the list in the drug group. The most frequent queries in the biological category concerned potentially poisonous plants. Twenty-five per cent of the consultations related to phannacotherapeutics.Most potentially toxic exposures to non-drug chemicals occurred in the household setting. Contrary to popular belief, few acute pesticide poisonings were encountered as a result of exposures during farnring activities. Another important finding was that there is a frustrating lack of reliable and readily available information in respect of potentially toxic ingredients contained in household and industrial preparations.The large nnmber of household exposures highlights the need for education in the safe storage and usage of non-drug chemicals. Legislation on the inclusion of basic toxicological information and warnings on labels of household and industrial non-drug chemical products should be considered. In addition, the Government should take responsibility for centralising information on all potentially toxic non-drug chemicals and make this information available to poison centres at all times. It is also imperative that more attention be given to the training of health care professionals in applied phannacokinetics and toxicology

Chiral three-nucleon forces and bound excited states in neutron-rich oxygen isotopes

We study the spectra of neutron-rich oxygen isotopes based on chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions. First, we benchmark our many-body approach by comparing ground-state energies to coupled-cluster results for the same two-nucleon interaction, with overall good agreement. We then calculate bound excited states in 21,22,23O, focusing on the role of three-nucleon forces, in the standard sd shell and an extended sdf7/2p3/2 valence space. Chiral three-nucleon forces provide important one- and two-body contributions between valence neutrons. We find that both these contributions and an extended valence space are necessary to reproduce key signatures of novel shell evolution, such as the N = 14 magic number and the low-lying states in 21O and 23O, which are too compressed with two-nucleon interactions only. For the extended space calculations, this presents first work based on nuclear forces without adjustments. Future work is needed and open questions are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, published versio

The Intentional Use of Service Recovery Strategies to Influence Consumer Emotion, Cognition and Behaviour

Service recovery strategies have been identified as a critical factor in the success of. service organizations. This study develops a conceptual frame work to investigate how specific service recovery strategies influence the emotional, cognitive and negative behavioural responses of . consumers., as well as how emotion and cognition influence negative behavior. Understanding the impact of specific service recovery strategies will allow service providers' to more deliberately and intentionally engage in strategies that result in positive organizational outcomes. This study was conducted using a 2 x 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design. The results suggest that service recovery has a significant impact on emotion, cognition and negative behavior. Similarly, satisfaction, negative emotion and positive emotion all influence negative behavior but distributive justice has no effect

Two-neutron and core-excited states in Pb 210: Tracing E3 collectivity and evidence for a new β -decaying isomer in Tl 210

Yrast and near-yrast levels up to an I=17 spin value and a 6-MeV excitation energy have been delineated in the "two-neutron" Pb210 nucleus following deep-inelastic reactions involving Pb208 targets and a number of heavy-ion beams at energies ∼25% above the Coulomb barrier. The level scheme was established on the basis of multifold prompt and delayed coincidence relationships measured with the Gammasphere array. In addition to the previously known states, many new levels were identified. For most of the strongly populated states, spin-parity assignments are proposed on the basis of angular distributions. The reinvestigation of the ν(g9/2)2, 8+ isomeric decay results in the firm identification of the low-energy E2 transitions involved in the 8+→6+→4+ cascade, and in a revised 6+ level half-life of 92(10) ns, nearly a factor of 2 longer than previously measured. Among the newly identified states figure spin I=4-10 levels associated with the νg9/2i11/2 multiplet, as well as yrast states involving νg9/2j15/2, νi11/2j15/2, and ν(j15/2)2 neutron couplings. The highest-spin excitations are understood as 1p-1h core excitations and the yrast population is found to be fragmented to the extent that levels of spin higher than I=17 could not be reached. Four E3 transitions are present in the Pb210 yrast decay; three of these involve the g9/2→j15/2 octupole component, as reflected in the 21(2) and >10 Weisskopf unit enhancements of the B(E3) rates of the first two. The fourth, 16+→13-E3 transition corresponds to the 3- core octupole excitation built on the νi11/2j15/2 state, in analogy to a similar E3 coupling to the νj15/2 level in Pb209. Shell-model calculations performed for two-neutron states and 1p-1h Pb208 core excitations are in good agreement with the data. Evidence was found for the existence of a hitherto unknown high-spin β-decaying isomer in Tl210. Shell-model calculations of the Tl210 levels suggest the possibility of a 11+ long-lived, β-decaying state, and the delayed yields observed in various reactions fit rather well with a Tl210 assignment

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters