Microbial Air Contamination in an Intensive Care Unit

Unit layout affects every aspect of intensive care services, including patient safety. A previous study has shown that patients admitted to beds adjacent to the sink and to the door of a large bayroom had the highest number of positive blood cultures and the highest blood culture incidence density, respectively. The present study measures microbial air contamination in a medical intensive care unit of a medical center in central Taiwan. Of the 17 rooms, 8 rooms with distinct physical environmental characteristics were selected. Sampling tests were conducted between December 2013 and February 2014 with a microbial air sampler (MAS-100NT). TSA was used for bacteria collection and DG18 for fungi collection. The overall average bacterial and fungal concentrations were 83CFU/m3 and 69CFU/m3, respectively. The ranges were between 8-354 CFU/m3 and 0-1468 CFU/m3, respectively. A significant difference was found in the bacterial concentration (p=.005) between different room locations. The highest concentration was found in the rooms located at the front end of the circulation (99 CFU/m3), while the lowest was found in the rooms located at the rear end of the circulation (55CFU/m3). Differences in fungal concentrations for different room locations did not reach statistical significance. In addition, differences in bacterial and fungal concentrations for rooms with different sink locations did not reach statistical significance. Even though the microbial concentrations generally complied with standards, the results may help designers and hospital administrators develop a healthier environment for patients

Macroscopic Quantum Coherence in Small Antiferromagnetic Particle and the Quantum Interference Effects

Starting from the Hamiltonian operator of the noncompensated two-sublattice model of a small antiferromagnetic particle, we derive the effective Lagrangian of a biaxial antiferromagnetic particle in an external magnetic field with the help of spin-coherent-state path integrals. Two unequal level-shifts induced by tunneling through two types of barriers are obtained using the instanton method. The energy spectrum is found from Bloch theory regarding the periodic potential as a superlattice. The external magnetic field indeed removes Kramers' degeneracy, however a new quenching of the energy splitting depending on the applied magnetic field is observed for both integer and half-integer spins due to the quantum interference between transitions through two types of barriers.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, 4 Postscript figure

The two-atom energy spectrum in a harmonic trap near a Feshbach resonance at higher partial waves

Two atoms in an optical lattice may be made to interact strongly at higher partial waves near a Feshbach resonance. These atoms, under appropriate constraints, could be bosonic or fermionic. The universal $l=2$ energy spectrum for such a system, with a caveat, is presented in this paper, and checked with the spectrum obtained by direct numerical integration of the Schr\"odinger equation. The results reported here extend those of Yip for p-wave resonance (Phys. Rev. A {\bf 78}, 013612 (2008)), while exploring the limitations of a universal expression for the spectrum for the higher partial waves.Comment: To be published in Physical Review

Control of photon propagation via electromagnetically induced transparency in lossless media

We study the influence of a lossless material medium on the coherent storage and quantum state transfer of a quantized probe light in an ensemble of $\Lambda$-type atoms. The medium is modeled as uniformly distributed two-level atoms with same energy level spacing, coupling to a probe light. This coupled system can be simplified to a collection of two-mode polaritons which couple to one transition of the $\Lambda$-type atoms. We show that, when the other transition of $\Lambda$-type atoms is controlled by a classical light, the electromagnetically induced transparency can also occur for the polaritons. In this case the coherent storage and quantum transfer for photon states are achievable through the novel dark states with respect to the polaritons. By calculating the corresponding dispersion relation, we find the ensemble of the three-level atoms with $\Lambda$-type transitions may serve as quantum memory for it slows or even stops the light propagation through the mechanism of electromagnetically induced transparency. the corresponding dispersion relation, we find the ensemble of the three-level atoms with $\Lambda$-type transitions may serve as quantum memory for it slows or even stops the light propagation through the mechanism of electromagnetically induced transparency.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

CP Violation in γγ→t tˉ\gamma \gamma \to t~\bar{t} within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

The complete analysis of the CP violation in the process $\gamma \gamma \to t \bar{t}$ in frame of the Minimal Supersymmetric Model(MSSM) is presented. The CP-odd observables for describing the CP violating effects in polarized and unpolarized photon collisions, are calculated. We investigate the possible CP violation sources induced by the complex soft breaking parameters and study the CP violating effects contributed by gluino, neutralino and chargino sectors appearing in the loop diagrams. We find that it is possible to observe the CP violation effects in top quark pair production via polarized and unpolarized photon fusions by using optimal observables and favorable parameters.Comment: 15 pages, LaTex, including 14 figures in eps file

Degradation of methylene blue with magnetic Co-doped Fe\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e@FeOOH nanocomposites as heterogeneous catalysts of peroxymonosulfate

Magnetic Co-doped Fe3O4@FeOOH nanocomposites were prepared in one step using the hydrothermal synthesis process for catalyzing peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to degrade refractory methylene blue (MB) at a wide pH range (3.0–10.0). The catalysts\u27 physiochemical properties were characterized by different equipment; Fe3+/Fe2+ and Co3+/Co2+ were confirmed to coexist in the nanocomposite by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The nanocomposite effectively catalyzed PMS\u27s decoloration (99.2%) and mineralization (64.7%) of MB. The formation of Co/Fe–OH complexes at the surface of nanoparticles was proposed to facilitate heterogeneous PMS activation. Compared with the observation for Fe3O4@FeOOH, the pseudo-first-order reaction constant was enhanced by 36 times due to Co substitution (0.1620 min–1 vs. 0.0045 min–1), which was assigned to the redox recycle of Fe3+/Fe2+ and Co3+/Co2+ in Co-doped Fe3O4@FeOOH. Besides, the catalyst could be easily reused by magnetic separation and exhibited relatively long-term stability