Cavity optomechanics with stoichiometric SiN films

We study high-stress SiN films for reaching the quantum regime with mesoscopic oscillators connected to a room-temperature thermal bath, for which there are stringent requirements on the oscillators' quality factors and frequencies. Our SiN films support mechanical modes with unprecedented products of mechanical quality factor $Q_m$ and frequency $\nu_m$ reaching $Q_{m} \nu_m \simeq2 \times 10^{13}$ Hz. The SiN membranes exhibit a low optical absorption characterized by Im$(n) \lesssim 10^{-5}$ at 935 nm, representing a 15 times reduction for SiN membranes. We have developed an apparatus to simultaneously cool the motion of multiple mechanical modes based on a short, high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and present initial cooling results along with future possibilities.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Influenza vaccination of hospital healthcare staff from the perspective of the employer:a positive balance

OBJECTIVE: To assess the annual productivity loss among hospital healthcare workers attributable to influenza and to estimate the costs and economic benefits of a vaccination programme from the perspective of the the employer.DESIGN: Cost-benefit analysis.METHODS: The percentage of work loss due to influenza was determined using monthly age and gender specific figures for productivity loss among healthcare workers of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), the Netherlands over the period January 2006-June 2008. Influenza periods were determined on the basis of national surveillance data. The average increase in productivity loss in these periods was estimated by comparison with the periods outside influenza seasons. The direct costs of productivity loss from the perspective of the employer were estimated using the friction cost method. In the sensitivity analyses various modelling parameters were varied, such as the vaccination coverage.RESULTS: In the UMCG, with approximately 9,400 employees, the estimated annual costs associated with productivity loss due to influenza before the introduction of the yearly influenza vaccination program were € 675,242 or on average, € 72 per employee. The economic benefits of the current vaccination program with a vaccination coverage of 24% with a vaccine effectiveness of 71% were estimated at € 89,858 or € 10 per employee. The nett economic benefits of a vaccination program with a target vaccination coverage of 70% with a vaccine effectiveness of 71% were estimated at € 244,325 or € 26 per employee.CONCLUSION: This modelling study performed from the perspective of the employer showed that an annual influenza vaccination programme for hospital personnel can save costs.</p

Long-term comparative effectiveness of antihypertensive monotherapies in primary prevention of cardiovascular events:A population-based retrospective inception cohort study in the Netherlands

OBJECTIVE: To determine the long-term effectiveness of antihypertensive monotherapies in primary prevention of cardiovascular events.DESIGN: Retrospective inception cohort study covering a 25-year study period.SETTING: University Groningen IADB.nl pharmacy prescription database with data from 1996 to 2020.PARTICIPANTS: Patients aged 18 years or older, free of any cardiovascular disease (CVD) drug therapies prior to initiation of a preventive antihypertensive monotherapy (ACE inhibitors (ACEIs), angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), beta-blockers (BBs), calcium channel blockers (CCBs) and thiazides).OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcome was the time to first prescription of acute cardiac drug therapy (CDT) measured by valid drug proxies to identify a first major CVD event in patients without a history of CVD.RESULTS: Among 33 427 initiators, 5205 (15.6%) patients experienced an acute CDT. The average follow-up time was 7.9±5.5 years. The 25-year incidence rate per 1000 person-years were 25.3, 22.4, 18.2, 24.4 and 22.0 for ACEI, ARB, BB, CCB and thiazide starters, respectively. Inverse probability of treatment-weighted Cox regression showed that thiazide starters had lower hazards than the reference BB starters (HR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.81 to 0.95). Among patients on diabetes drugs, risks were lower (HR: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.28 to 0.85). CCB starters had higher hazards than reference BB (HR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.07 to 1.36). The overall estimated number needed to treat for thiazides compared with BBs to prevent one acute CDT in 25 years was 26, and four among patients on diabetes drugs.CONCLUSIONS: After adjustments for confounders, patients starting on monotherapy with thiazides had a lower incidence of CDT compared with those starting on BBs, notably among patients on diabetes drugs. Conversely, patients who began CCB monotherapy had a higher incidence of CDT compared with those starting on BBs. Other monotherapies had comparable incidence of cardiovascular disease compared with BBs.</p

Comparison of arterial plasma amino acid concentrations in rats fed ad lib oral chow or parenteral nutrition via intravenous or gastric infusion

Abstract from the 22nd Clinical Congress of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, Orlando, FL, January 18-21, 1998

Identification of Dutch children diagnosed with atopic diseases using prescription data:a validation study

The aim of this study is to validate medication proxies for the identification of children diagnosed with atopic disorders that can be applied in various types of epidemiological research. Records of 7439 children, aged between 0 and 10 years, in the period 2001 until 2010, were retrieved from the Registration Network Groningen database, a general practitioners database in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. The sensitivity and positive predictive value (PPV) of 22 medication proxies for the identification of children diagnosed with atopic disorders (asthma, atopic dermatitis, and allergic rhinitis) were computed using the registered diagnoses as gold standards. In addition, different capture periods (1 year, half year, and length of study period) for the detection of prescriptions were tested for all the medication proxies. The highest PPV (0.84, 95 % CI 0.81-0.87) in combination with a sufficient sensitivity value (0.54, 95 % CI 0.50-0.57) for the identification of children diagnosed with asthma was yielded for the medication proxy, a parts per thousand yen2 prescriptions for anti-asthma medication within 1 year, including 1 inhaled steroid. PPV and sensitivity were even higher in the age group 6-10 years. The proxies designed for the identification of children diagnosed with atopic dermatitis and allergic rhinitis yielded only high PPVs (a parts per thousand yen0.75) in combination with low sensitivity values (a parts per thousand currency sign0.22). Altering the capture period for the detection of prescriptions to half a year or the length of the study period only affected sensitivity values. Children diagnosed with asthma can be identified reliably with a range of medication proxies. The use of prescription data for the identification of children diagnosed with atopic dermatitis and allergic rhinitis is questionable

Testing intermediate-age stellar evolution models with VLT photometry of LMC clusters. I. The data

This is the first of a series of three papers devoted to the calibration of a few parameters of crucial importance in the modeling of the evolution of intermediate-mass stars, with special attention to the amount of convective core overshoot. To this end we acquired deep V and R photometry for three globular clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), namely NGC 2173, SL 556 and NGC 2155, in the age interval 1-3 Gyr. In this first paper, we describe the aim of the project, the VLT observations and data reduction, and we make preliminary comparisons of the color-magnitude diagrams with both Padova and Yonsei-Yale isochrones. Two following papers in this series present the results of a detailed analysis of these data, independently carried out by members of the Yale and Padova stellar evolution groups. This allows us to compare both sets of models and discuss their main differences, as well as the systematic effects that they would have to the determination of the ages and metallicities of intermediate-age single stellar populations.Comment: 27 pages with 10 figures. Accepted by the Astronomical Journa