65 research outputs found
The prevalence and clinical pattern of infertility in Bauchi, northern Nigeria
Context: Infertility is a common condition and is now viewed as a global reproductive health issue. The causes of infertility vary widely, both among and within countries.Objectives: To describe the magnitude, pattern, aetiology, outcome of infertility and its associated factors in Bauchi, northern Nigeria.Methods: This was a prospective study of a cohort of infertile women who were recruited at the gynaecological clinics of ATBUTH and FMC, Azare, all in Bauchi State between July 2013 and June 2014. They were followed up till December 2014. A structured form was used to collect relevant clinical information on each participant's clinical presentation and outcome of management. Data were analysed by descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 20.Results: There were a total of 1850 new gynaecological cases out of which 443 were infertility cases. This gives a prevalence of infertility of 23.9% in the clinics. Of the 406 enrolled infertile women, 155 (38.2%) had primary infertility while 251 (61.8%) had secondary infertility. Tubal factor was the predominant cause accounting for 167 (46.1%) of infertility cases among the women. Women with a history of vaginal discharge, puerperal sepsis, induced abortion and pelvic surgery were more likely to have tubal factor infertility.Conclusion: Infertility is a common presentation in the clinics and the secondary type is predominant in this setting. The cause of infertility most commonly identified in the studied population was tubal factor and its best option of treatment is not available in the study area.Keywords: Infertility, Prevalence, Women, Nigeri
CP violation at a linear collider with transverse polarization
We show how transverse beam polarization at colliders can provide a
novel means to search for CP violation by observing the distribution of a
single final-state particle without measuring its spin. We suggest an azimuthal
asymmetry which singles out interference terms between standard model
contribution and new-physics scalar or tensor effective interactions in the
limit in which the electron mass is neglected. Such terms are inaccessible with
unpolarized or longitudinally polarized beams. The asymmetry is sensitive to CP
violation when the transverse polarizations of the electron and positron are in
opposite senses. The sensitivity of planned future linear colliders to
new-physics CP violation in is estimated in a
model-independent parametrization. It would be possible to put a bound of TeV on the new-physics scale at the 90% C.L. for
GeV and , with transverse polarizations of
80% and 60% for the electron and positron beams, respectively.Comment: 15 pages, latex, includes 5 figures. This version (v3) corresponds to
publication in Physical Review; extended version of v2 which corresponded to
LC note LC-TH-2003-099 with corrected figure caption
Mesoscopic interplay of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in ultra-small metallic grains
We review the effects of electron-electron interactions on the ground-state
spin and the transport properties of ultra-small chaotic metallic grains. Our
studies are based on an effective Hamiltonian that combines a superconducting
BCS-like term and a ferromagnetic Stoner-like term. Such terms originate in
pairing and spin exchange correlations, respectively. This description is valid
in the limit of a large dimensionless Thouless conductance. We present the
ground-state phase diagram in the fluctuation-dominated regime where the
single-particle mean level spacing is comparable to the bulk BCS pairing gap.
This phase diagram contains a regime in which pairing and spin exchange
correlations coexist in the ground-state wave function. We discuss the
calculation of the tunneling conductance for an almost-isolated grain in the
Coulomb-blockade regime, and present measurable signatures of the competition
between superconductivity and ferromagnetism in the mesoscopic fluctuations of
the conductance.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, To be published in the proceedings of the NATO
Advance Research Workshop "Recent Advances in Nonlinear Dynamics and Complex
System Physics.
Governing the anthropocene: agency, governance, knowledge
The growing body of literature on the idea of the Anthropocene has opened up serious questions that go to the heart of the social and human sciences. There has been as yet no satisfactory theoretical framework for the analysis of the Anthropocene debate in the social and human sciences. The notion of the Anthropocene is not only a condition in which humans have become geologic agents, thus signalling a temporal shift in Earth history: it can be seen as a new object of knowledge and an order of governance. A promising direction for theorizing in the social and human science is to approach the notion of the Anthropocene as exemplified in new knowledge practices that have implications for governance. It invokes new conceptions of time, agency, knowledge and governance. The Anthropocene has become a way in which the human world is re-imagined culturally and politically in terms of its relation with the Earth. It entails a cultural model, that is an interpretative category by which contemporary societies make sense of the world as embedded in the Earth, and articulate a new kind of historical self-understanding, by which an alternative order of governance is projected. This points in the direction of cosmopolitics – and thus of a ‘Cosmopolocene’ – rather than a geologization of the social or in the post-humanist philosophy, the end of the human condition as one marked by agency
Advances in ab-initio theory of Multiferroics. Materials and mechanisms: modelling and understanding
Within the broad class of multiferroics (compounds showing a coexistence of
magnetism and ferroelectricity), we focus on the subclass of "improper
electronic ferroelectrics", i.e. correlated materials where electronic degrees
of freedom (such as spin, charge or orbital) drive ferroelectricity. In
particular, in spin-induced ferroelectrics, there is not only a {\em
coexistence} of the two intriguing magnetic and dipolar orders; rather, there
is such an intimate link that one drives the other, suggesting a giant
magnetoelectric coupling. Via first-principles approaches based on density
functional theory, we review the microscopic mechanisms at the basis of
multiferroicity in several compounds, ranging from transition metal oxides to
organic multiferroics (MFs) to organic-inorganic hybrids (i.e. metal-organic
frameworks, MOFs)Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure
Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995-2009: analysis of individual data for 25,676,887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2)
BACKGROUND:
Worldwide data for cancer survival are scarce. We aimed to initiate worldwide surveillance of cancer survival by central analysis of population-based registry data, as a metric of the effectiveness of health systems, and to inform global policy on cancer control.
METHODS:
Individual tumour records were submitted by 279 population-based cancer registries in 67 countries for 25·7 million adults (age 15-99 years) and 75,000 children (age 0-14 years) diagnosed with cancer during 1995-2009 and followed up to Dec 31, 2009, or later. We looked at cancers of the stomach, colon, rectum, liver, lung, breast (women), cervix, ovary, and prostate in adults, and adult and childhood leukaemia. Standardised quality control procedures were applied; errors were corrected by the registry concerned. We estimated 5-year net survival, adjusted for background mortality in every country or region by age (single year), sex, and calendar year, and by race or ethnic origin in some countries. Estimates were age-standardised with the International Cancer Survival Standard weights.
FINDINGS:
5-year survival from colon, rectal, and breast cancers has increased steadily in most developed countries. For patients diagnosed during 2005-09, survival for colon and rectal cancer reached 60% or more in 22 countries around the world; for breast cancer, 5-year survival rose to 85% or higher in 17 countries worldwide. Liver and lung cancer remain lethal in all nations: for both cancers, 5-year survival is below 20% everywhere in Europe, in the range 15-19% in North America, and as low as 7-9% in Mongolia and Thailand. Striking rises in 5-year survival from prostate cancer have occurred in many countries: survival rose by 10-20% between 1995-99 and 2005-09 in 22 countries in South America, Asia, and Europe, but survival still varies widely around the world, from less than 60% in Bulgaria and Thailand to 95% or more in Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the USA. For cervical cancer, national estimates of 5-year survival range from less than 50% to more than 70%; regional variations are much wider, and improvements between 1995-99 and 2005-09 have generally been slight. For women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005-09, 5-year survival was 40% or higher only in Ecuador, the USA, and 17 countries in Asia and Europe. 5-year survival for stomach cancer in 2005-09 was high (54-58%) in Japan and South Korea, compared with less than 40% in other countries. By contrast, 5-year survival from adult leukaemia in Japan and South Korea (18-23%) is lower than in most other countries. 5-year survival from childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is less than 60% in several countries, but as high as 90% in Canada and four European countries, which suggests major deficiencies in the management of a largely curable disease.
INTERPRETATION:
International comparison of survival trends reveals very wide differences that are likely to be attributable to differences in access to early diagnosis and optimum treatment. Continuous worldwide surveillance of cancer survival should become an indispensable source of information for cancer patients and researchers and a stimulus for politicians to improve health policy and health-care systems
Polymerase chain reaction haplotyping using 3′ mismatches in the forward and reverse primers: application to the biallelic polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor and lymphotoxin
A polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) system that operates under identical conditions to HLA phototyping was devised for characterizing polymorphisms in tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and lymphotoxin α (LT-α). Mismatches at the 3′ end were incorporated into the forward and reverse primers of each PCR so as to unequivocally establish the cis / trans status between the biallelic sites. Three previously described biallelic polymorphisms in TNF and three in LT-α were characterized in a 24-reaction PCR-SSP system. The method was used to genotype 20 cell lines and 201 HLA class I and II typed controls from the United Kingdom at the TNF and LT-α loci. Population frequencies of TNF haplotypes were determined as was linkage disequilibrium with HLA-A, B, Cw, DRB1 and DQB1 loci. In each gene there were 8 theoretical polymorphic combinations; 4 were observed in TNF and 4 in LT-α. A total of 11 TNF-LT-α haplotypes were determined from apparent homozygous controls and statistical analysis
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