243 research outputs found
Beyond the project cycle: an evaluation of agroforestry adoption and diffusion over the medium term in a south Indian village
Few studies explicitly assess the temporal and spatial dynamics of agroforestry adoption occurring beyond the project cycle. Where ex-post evaluations are published, abandonment of introduced agroforestry after project cessation is often reported. This paper presents an analysis of agroforestry adoption in a poor, peri-urban village in semi-arid south India, where 97 % of initial adopters had retained their plots six to eight years after implementation. The intervention was facilitated by BAIF, an Indian non-governmental organisation specialising in natural resource management. The complex technological package promoted was known as �wadi� and comprised fruit trees planted in crop fields, with a boundary of multi-purpose trees and integrated soil and water conservation measures. Sixty four agroforestry plots belonging to 43 households were surveyed in 2010/11 and interviews were held with both adopting and non-adopting farmers. Beyond retention, a quarter of adopters had expanded the practice on to additional areas of land and some diffusion to initially non-adopting farmers had also occurred. Adopters were found to have modified the practice to suit their own objectives, capabilities and constraints, highlighting that adoption is more than a simple binary choice. The study demonstrates the importance of external support for adoption of agroforestry. The intervention was not, however, especially pro-poor with adoption occurring disproportionately among relatively wealthier households with larger landholdings. Where poorer households adopted, this tended to occur later. Participation was entirely voluntary and, by 2011, conversion of suitable farmland to agroforestry had reached 18 %; while beneficial to individual adopters, this patchy coverage arguably limits the potential for enhanced ecosystem service provision at landscape-scale
Trends in sexually transmitted infections in general practice 1990-2000: population based study using data from the UK general practice research database
Objective: To describe the contribution of primary care to the
diagnosis and management of sexually transmitted infections in
the United Kingdom, 1990-2000, in the context of increasing
incidence of infections in genitourinary medicine clinics.
Design: Population based study.
Setting: UK primary care.
Participants: Patients registered in the UK general practice
research database.
Main outcome measures: Incidence of diagnosed sexually
transmitted infections in primary care and estimation of the
proportion of major such infections diagnosed in primary care.
Results: An estimated 23.0% of chlamydia cases in women but
only 5.3% in men were diagnosed and treated in primary care
during 1998-2000, along with 49.2% cases of non-specific
urethritis and urethral discharge in men and 5.7% cases of
gonorrhoea in women and 2.9% in men. Rates of diagnosis in
primary care rose substantially in the late 1990s.
Conclusions: A substantial and increasing number of sexually
transmitted infections are diagnosed and treated in primary
care in the United Kingdom, with sex ratios differing from
those in genitourinary medicine clinics. Large numbers of men
are treated in primary care for presumptive sexually
transmitted infections
The Fall of Stringy de Sitter
Kachru, Kallosh, Linde, & Trivedi recently constructed a four-dimensional de
Sitter compactification of IIB string theory, which they showed to be
metastable in agreement with general arguments about de Sitter spacetimes in
quantum gravity. In this paper, we describe how discrete flux choices lead to a
closely-spaced set of vacua and explore various decay channels. We find that in
many situations NS5-brane meditated decays which exchange NSNS 3-form flux for
D3-branes are comparatively very fast.Comment: 35 pp (11 pp appendices), 5 figures, v3. fixed minor typo
Prevention of tracheal cartilage injury with modified Griggs technique during percutaneous tracheostomy - Randomized controlled cadaver study
Introduction: Tracheal stenosis is the most common severe late complication of percutaneous tracheostomy causing significant decrease in quality of life. Applying modified Griggs technique reduced the number of late tracheal stenoses observed in our clinical study. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of this relationship. Materials and methods: Forty-six cadavers were randomized into two groups according to the mode of intervention during 2006-2008. Traditional versus modified Griggs technique was applied in the two groups consequently. Wider incision, surgical preparation, and bidirectional forceps dilation of tracheal wall were applied in modified technique. Injured cartilages were inspected by sight and touch consequently. Age, gender, level of intervention, and number of injured tracheal cartilages were registered. Results: Significantly less frequent tracheal cartilage injury was observed after modified (9%) than original (91%) Griggs technique (p<0.001). A moderate association between cartilage injury and increasing age was observed, whereas the level of intervention (p=0.445) and to gender (p=0.35) was not related to injury. Risk of cartilage injury decreased significantly (OR: 0.0264, 95%, CI: 0.005-0.153) with modified Griggs technique as determined in adjusted logistic regression model. Discussion: Modified Griggs technique decreased the risk of tracheal cartilage injury significantly in our cadaver study. This observation may explain the decreased number of late tracheal stenosis after application of the modified Griggs method. © 2012 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapes
Superhard Phases of Simple Substances and Binary Compounds of the B-C-N-O System: from Diamond to the Latest Results (a Review)
The basic known and hypothetic one- and two-element phases of the B-C-N-O
system (both superhard phases having diamond and boron structures and
precursors to synthesize them) are described. The attention has been given to
the structure, basic mechanical properties, and methods to identify and
characterize the materials. For some phases that have been recently described
in the literature the synthesis conditions at high pressures and temperatures
are indicated.Comment: Review on superhard B-C-N-O phase
Measurement of (anti)deuteron and (anti)proton production in DIS at HERA
The first observation of (anti)deuterons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
has been made with the ZEUS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 300--318 GeV
using an integrated luminosity of 120 pb-1. The measurement was performed in
the central rapidity region for transverse momentum per unit of mass in the
range 0.3<p_T/M<0.7. The particle rates have been extracted and interpreted in
terms of the coalescence model. The (anti)deuteron production yield is smaller
than the (anti)proton yield by approximately three orders of magnitude,
consistent with the world measurements.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.
D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic
scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The
data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel
(+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The
cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with
and is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region
{ GeV and }. Differential cross
sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), and are
compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon
fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the
full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and (D^{*\pm}), the charm
contribution to the proton structure function is
determined for Bjorken between 2 10 and 5 10.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure
Observation of Scaling Violations in Scaled Momentum Distributions at HERA
Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering
(DIS) events over a large range of and using the ZEUS detector. The
evolution of the scaled momentum, , with in the range 10 to 1280
, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit
frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling
violations in scaled momenta as a function of .Comment: 21 pages including 4 figures, to be published in Physics Letters B.
Two references adde
Measurement of the diffractive structure function in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
This paper presents an analysis of the inclusive properties of diffractive
deep inelastic scattering events produced in interactions at HERA. The
events are characterised by a rapidity gap between the outgoing proton system
and the remaining hadronic system. Inclusive distributions are presented and
compared with Monte Carlo models for diffractive processes. The data are
consistent with models where the pomeron structure function has a hard and a
soft contribution. The diffractive structure function is measured as a function
of \xpom, the momentum fraction lost by the proton, of , the momentum
fraction of the struck quark with respect to \xpom, and of . The \xpom
dependence is consistent with the form \xpoma where
in all bins of and
. In the measured range, the diffractive structure function
approximately scales with at fixed . In an Ingelman-Schlein type
model, where commonly used pomeron flux factor normalisations are assumed, it
is found that the quarks within the pomeron do not saturate the momentum sum
rule.Comment: 36 pages, latex, 11 figures appended as uuencoded fil
Measurements of long-range near-side angular correlations in TeV proton-lead collisions in the forward region
Two-particle angular correlations are studied in proton-lead collisions at a
nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of TeV, collected
with the LHCb detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on data recorded in
two beam configurations, in which either the direction of the proton or that of
the lead ion is analysed. The correlations are measured in the laboratory
system as a function of relative pseudorapidity, , and relative
azimuthal angle, , for events in different classes of event
activity and for different bins of particle transverse momentum. In
high-activity events a long-range correlation on the near side, , is observed in the pseudorapidity range . This
measurement of long-range correlations on the near side in proton-lead
collisions extends previous observations into the forward region up to
. The correlation increases with growing event activity and is found
to be more pronounced in the direction of the lead beam. However, the
correlation in the direction of the lead and proton beams are found to be
compatible when comparing events with similar absolute activity in the
direction analysed.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-040.htm
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