16,263 research outputs found
Inequalities in maternity care and newborn outcomes: one-year surveillance of births in vulnerable slum communities in Mumbai
Background: Aggregate urban health statistics mask inequalities. We described maternity care in
vulnerable slum communities in Mumbai, and examined differences in care and outcomes between
more and less deprived groups.
Methods: We collected information through a birth surveillance system covering a population of
over 280 000 in 48 vulnerable slum localities. Resident women identified births in their own
localities and mothers and families were interviewed at 6 weeks after delivery. We analysed data
on 5687 births over one year to September 2006. Socioeconomic status was classified using
quartiles of standardized asset scores.
Results: Women in higher socioeconomic quartile groups were less likely to have married and
conceived in their teens (Odds ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.69–0.79, and 0.82, 0.78–0.87,
respectively). There was a socioeconomic gradient away from public sector maternity care with
increasing socioeconomic status (0.75, 0.70–0.79 for antenatal care and 0.66, 0.61–0.71 for
institutional delivery). Women in the least poor group were five times less likely to deliver at home
(0.17, 0.10–0.27) as women in the poorest group and about four times less likely to deliver in the
public sector (0.27, 0.21–0.35). Rising socioeconomic status was associated with a lower
prevalence of low birth weight (0.91, 0.85–0.97). Stillbirth rates did not vary, but neonatal mortality
rates fell non-significantly as socioeconomic status increased (0.88, 0.71–1.08).
Conclusion: Analyses of this type have usually been applied across the population spectrum from
richest to poorest, and we were struck by the regularly stepped picture of inequalities within the
urban poor, a group that might inadvertently be considered relatively homogeneous. The poorest
slum residents are more dependent upon public sector health care, but the regular progression
towards the private sector raises questions about its quality and regulation. It also underlines the
need for healthcare provision strategies to take account of both sectors
A Non-supersymmetric Interpretation of the CDF e+e-\gamma\gamma + missing E_T Event
The \eegg event reported recently by the CDF Collaboration has been
interpreted as a signal of supersymmetry in several recent papers. In this
article, we report on an alternative non-supersymmetric interpretation of the
event using an extension of the standard model which contains new physics at
the electroweak scale that does not effect the existing precision electroweak
data. We extend the standard model by including an extra sequential generation
of fermions, heavy right-handed neutrinos for all generations and an extra
singly charged SU(2)-singlet Higgs boson. We discuss possible ways to
discriminate this from the standard supersymemtric interpretations.Comment: 7 pages, Latex, no figure
Molecular dynamics in shape space and femtosecond vibrational spectroscopy of metal clusters
We introduce a method of molecular dynamics in shape space aimed at metal
clusters. The ionic degrees of freedom are described via a dynamically
deformable jellium with inertia parameters derived from an incompressible,
irrotational flow. The shell correction method is used to calculate the
electronic potential energy surface underlying the dynamics. Our finite
temperature simulations of Ag_14 and its ions, following the negative to
neutral to positive scheme, demonstrate the potential of pump and probe
ultrashort laser pulses as a spectroscopy of cluster shape vibrations.Comment: Latex/Revtex, 4 pages with 3 Postscript figure
Total Widths And Slopes From Complex Regge Trajectories
Maximally complex Regge trajectories are introduced for which both Re
and Im grow as ( small and
positive). Our expression reduces to the standard real linear form as the
imaginary part (proportional to ) goes to zero. A scaling formula for
the total widths emerges: constant for large M, in very
good agreement with data for mesons and baryons. The unitarity corrections also
enhance the space-like slopes from their time-like values, thereby resolving an
old problem with the trajectory in charge exchange. Finally, the
unitarily enhanced intercept, , \nolinebreak is in
good accord with the Donnachie-Landshoff total cross section analysis.Comment: 9 pages, 3 Figure
Quantum temporal correlations and entanglement via adiabatic control of vector solitons
It is shown that optical pulses with a mean position accuracy beyond the
standard quantum limit can be produced by adiabatically expanding an optical
vector soliton followed by classical dispersion management. The proposed scheme
is also capable of entangling positions of optical pulses and can potentially
be used for general continuous-variable quantum information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, v2: accepted by Physical Review Letters, v3: minor
editing and shortening, v4: included the submitted erratu
A pilot survey of junior doctors’ attitudes and awareness around medication review: time to change our educational approach?
© 2015, BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.Objectives Our aim was to explore junior doctors attitudes and awareness around concepts related to medication review, in order to find ways to change the culture for reviewing, altering and stopping inappropriate or unnecessary medicines. Having already demonstrated the value of team working with senior doctors and pharmacists and the use of a medication review tool, we are now looking to engage first year clinicians and undergraduates in the process. Method An online survey about medication review was distributed among all 42 foundation year one (FY1) doctors at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in November 2014. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. Results Twenty doctors completed the survey (48%). Of those, 17 believed that it was the pharmacists duty to review medicines; and 15 of 20 stated the general practitioner (GP). Sixteen of 20 stated that they would consult a senior doctor first before stopping medication. Eighteen of 20 considered the GP and consultant to be responsible for alterations, rather than themselves. Sixteen of 20 respondents were not aware of the availability of a medication review tool. Seventeen of 20 felt that more support from senior staff would help them become involved with medication review. Conclusions Junior doctors report feeling uncomfortable altering mediations without consulting a senior first. They appear to be building confidence with prescribing in their first year but not about the medication review process or questioning the drugs already prescribed. Consideration should be given to what we have termed a bottom-up educational approach to provide early experience of and change the culture around medication review, to include the education of undergraduate and foundation doctors and pharmacists
Capacities of Grassmann channels
A new class of quantum channels called Grassmann channels is introduced and
their classical and quantum capacity is calculated. The channel class appears
in a study of the two-mode squeezing operator constructed from operators
satisfying the fermionic algebra. We compare Grassmann channels with the
channels induced by the bosonic two-mode squeezing operator. Among other
results, we challenge the relevance of calculating entanglement measures to
assess or compare the ability of bosonic and fermionic states to send quantum
information to uniformly accelerated frames.Comment: 33 pages, Accepted in Journal of Mathematical Physics; The role of
the (fermionic) braided tensor product for quantum Shannon theory, namely
capacity formulas, elucidated; The conclusion on the equivalence of Unruh
effect for bosons and fermions for quantum communication purposes made clear
and even more precis
Photon production from the vacuum close to the super-radiant transition: When Casimir meets Kibble-Zurek
The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) predicts the generation of photons from
the vacuum due to the parametric amplification of the quantum fluctuation of an
electromagnetic field\cite{casimir1,casimir2}. The verification of such effect
is still elusive in optical systems due to the very demanding requirements of
its experimental implementation. This typically requires very fast changes of
the boundary conditions of the problem, such as the high-frequency driving of
the positions of the mirrors of a cavity accommodating the field. Here, we show
that an ensemble of two-level atoms collectively coupled to the electromagnetic
field of a cavity (thus embodying the quantum Dicke model\cite{dicke}), driven
at low frequencies and close to a quantum phase transition, stimulates the
production of photons from the vacuum. This paves the way to an effective
simulation of the DCE through a mechanism that has recently found an
outstanding experimental demonstration\cite{esslinger}. The spectral properties
of the emitted radiation reflect the critical nature of the system and allow us
to link the detection of DCE to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for the production
of defects when crossing a continuous phase transition\cite{KZ1,KZ2}. We
illustrate the features of our proposal by addressing a simple cavity
quantum-electrodynamics (cQED) setting of immediate experimental realisation.Comment: 4+1 pages, major changes in the second part of the paper. To appear
in Physical Review Letter
Improvements to separation and detection for forensic analysis of illicit substances
This article gives an overview of our recent research into separation and detection of analytes of forensic interest. This work has been carried out in collaboration with local forensic service providers and is based on our previous studies of chemiluminescence detection, flow analysis and capillary electrophoresis as applied to process analytical chemistry for the pharmaceutical industry. Chemiluminescence has the potential to provide low limits of detection in combination with high selectivity, while capillary electrophoresis allows for rapid, highly efficient separations. Examples of recent forensic applications are presented and future directions are discussed.</div
Reducing iron loss in interior PM machines under field-weakening conditions
Field-weakening in interior PM machines is performed by using negative rf-axis current to oppose the magnet flux and hence reduce the total fundamental rf-axis flux at high speeds. Due to the rotor saliency, the rf-axis current produces large amplitude harmonic airgap flux density components which can cause large harmonic stator iron losses. Reducing the magnet flux density reduces the required rf-axis stator mmf to oppose it and hence reduces the field-weakening iron losses. However reducing the magnet flux density also reduces the magnet torque and hence increases the stator current requirement, particularly at lower speeds. This paper examines this trade-off for an automotive integrated starter/alternator using a graphical interior PM machine parameter plane approach.W.L. Soong, S.H. Han, T.M. Jahns and N. Ertugru
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