Effect of lysolecithin on the oxygen uptake of tumour cells, polymorphonuclear leucocytes, lymphocytes and macrophages in vitro.

LYSOLECITHN has been widely studied as a surface-active haemolytic agent (Robinson, 1961) and has been implicated in immune haemolysis (Fischer, 1964), in hypersensitivity reactions (Middleton and Phillips, 1963, 1964), and in the delayed stage of the increase of vascular permeability in inflammation (Cotran and Majno, 1964). Fischer (1964) found that the oxygen uptake (Q02) of tumour cells was reduced by small concentrations of "lysolecithin ", while micro and macrophages responded by an increase Of Q02 and phagocytic activity. We felt that this observation should be confirmed, because it could form the basis of a therapeutic method of increasing the radiosensitivity of tumours by raising the oxygen tension (PO2), and from the theoretical aspect might clarify differences between the cell membranes of tumour and of normal cells. Moreover, Fischer's experiments are open to criticism. His cell suspension was stirred by a moving mercury seal and this could have produced cell damage from mercury poisoning. Also he treated his cell suspensions not with lysolecithin, but with complement plus a specific antibod

HepForge: A lightweight development environment for HEP software

Setting up the infrastructure to manage a software project can become a task as significant writing the software itself. A variety of useful open source tools are available, such as Web-based viewers for version control systems, "wikis" for collaborative discussions and bug-tracking systems, but their use in high-energy physics, outside large collaborations, is insubstantial. Understandably, physicists would rather do physics than configure project management tools. We introduce the CEDAR HepForge system, which provides a lightweight development environment for HEP software. Services available as part of HepForge include the above-mentioned tools as well as mailing lists, shell accounts, archiving of releases and low-maintenance Web space. HepForge also exists to promote best-practice software development methods and to provide a central repository for re-usable HEP software and phenomenology codes.Comment: 3 pages, 0 figures. To be published in proceedings of CHEP06. Refers to the HepForge facility at http://hepforge.cedar.ac.u

HepData and JetWeb: HEP data archiving and model validation

The CEDAR collaboration is extending and combining the JetWeb and HepData systems to provide a single service for tuning and validating models of high-energy physics processes. The centrepiece of this activity is the fitting by JetWeb of observables computed from Monte Carlo event generator events against their experimentally determined distributions, as stored in HepData. Caching the results of the JetWeb simulation and comparison stages provides a single cumulative database of event generator tunings, fitted against a wide range of experimental quantities. An important feature of this integration is a family of XML data formats, called HepML.Comment: 4 pages, 0 figures. To be published in proceedings of CHEP0

KtJet: A C++ implementation of the Kt clustering algorithm

A C++ implementation of the Kt jet algorithm for high energy particle collisions is presented. The time performance of this implementation is comparable to the widely used Fortran implementation. Identical algorithmic functionality is provided, with a clean and intuitive user interface and additional recombination schemes. A short description of the algorithm and examples of its use are given

Priorities for the professional development of registered nurses in nursing homes: a Delphi study

Objective: to establish a consensus on the care and professional development needs of registered nurses (RNs) employed by UK care homes. Design: two-stage, online modified Delphi study. Setting and participants: a panel (n = 352) of individuals with experience, expertise or interest in care home nursing: (i) care home nurses and managers; (ii) community healthcare professionals (including general practitioners, geriatricians, specialist and district nurses); and (iii) nurse educators in higher education. Results: RNs employed by nursing homes require particular skills, knowledge, competence and experience to provide high-quality care for older residents. The most important responsibilities for the nursing home nurse were: promoting dignity, personhood and wellbeing, ensuring resident safety and enhancing quality of life. Continuing professional development priorities included personal care, dementia care and managing long-term conditions. The main barrier to professional development was staff shortages. Nursing degree programmes were perceived as inadequately preparing nurses for a nursing home role. Nursing homes could improve by providing supportive learning opportunities for students and fostering challenging and rewarding careers for newly RNs. Conclusion: if nurses employed by nursing homes are not fit for purpose, the consequences for the wider health and social-care system are significant. Nursing homes, the NHS, educational and local authorities need to work together to provide challenging and rewarding career paths for RNs and evaluate them. Without well-trained, motivated staff, a high-quality care sector will remain merely an aspiration

Quadrupole moments of rotating neutron stars

Numerical models of rotating neutron stars are constructed for four equations of state using the computer code RNS written by Stergioulas. For five selected values of the star's gravitational mass (in the interval between 1.0 and 1.8 solar masses) and for each equation of state, the star's angular momentum is varied from J=0 to the Keplerian limit J=J_{max}. For each neutron-star configuration we compute Q, the quadrupole moment of the mass distribution. We show that for given values of M and J, |Q| increases with the stiffness of the equation of state. For fixed mass and equation of state, the dependence on J is well reproduced with a simple quadratic fit, Q \simeq - aJ^2/M c^2, where c is the speed of light, and a is a parameter of order unity depending on the mass and the equation of state.Comment: ReVTeX, 7 pages, 5 figures, additional material, and references adde

Innermost stable circular orbits around relativistic rotating stars

We investigate the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of a test particle moving on the equatorial plane around rotating relativistic stars such as neutron stars. First, we derive approximate analytic formulas for the angular velocity and circumferential radius at the ISCO making use of an approximate relativistic solution which is characterized by arbitrary mass, spin, mass quadrupole, current octapole and mass $2^4$-pole moments. Then, we show that the analytic formulas are accurate enough by comparing them with numerical results, which are obtained by analyzing the vacuum exterior around numerically computed geometries for rotating stars of polytropic equation of state. We demonstrate that contribution of mass quadrupole moment for determining the angular velocity and, in particular, the circumferential radius at the ISCO around a rapidly rotating star is as important as that of spin.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Snowmass 2001: Jet Energy Flow Project

Conventional cone jet algorithms arose from heuristic considerations of LO hard scattering coupled to independent showering. These algorithms implicitly assume that the final states of individual events can be mapped onto a unique set of jets that are in turn associated with a unique set of underlying hard scattering partons. Thus each final state hadron is assigned to a unique underlying parton. The Jet Energy Flow (JEF) analysis described here does not make such assumptions. The final states of individual events are instead described in terms of flow distributions of hadronic energy. Quantities of physical interest are constructed from the energy flow distribution summed over all events. The resulting analysis is less sensitive to higher order perturbative corrections and the impact of showering and hadronization than the standard cone algorithms.Comment: REVTeX4, 13 pages, 6 figures; Contribution to the P5 Working Group on QCD and Strong Interactions at Snowmass 200

Notes on the integration of numerical relativity waveforms

A primary goal of numerical relativity is to provide estimates of the wave strain, $h$, from strong gravitational wave sources, to be used in detector templates. The simulations, however, typically measure waves in terms of the Weyl curvature component, $\psi_4$. Assuming Bondi gauge, transforming to the strain $h$ reduces to integration of $\psi_4$ twice in time. Integrations performed in either the time or frequency domain, however, lead to secular non-linear drifts in the resulting strain $h$. These non-linear drifts are not explained by the two unknown integration constants which can at most result in linear drifts. We identify a number of fundamental difficulties which can arise from integrating finite length, discretely sampled and noisy data streams. These issues are an artifact of post-processing data. They are independent of the characteristics of the original simulation, such as gauge or numerical method used. We suggest, however, a simple procedure for integrating numerical waveforms in the frequency domain, which is effective at strongly reducing spurious secular non-linear drifts in the resulting strain.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, matches final published versio