29,989 research outputs found
Scleractinian corals from the Gulf of Kutch
The Scleratinian corals of the Gulf of Kutch from the north-west coast of India is taxonomically
analysed. The coral fauna include 37 species among 24 genera. Out of these, 20 genera with 33
species are hermatypec and the rest 4 genera and 4 species is ahermatypes. Early mention in literature
on the occurrence of genera such as Pavona, Podabacia, Leptoria and Lobophyllia from the Gulf of
Kutcb is not taken into account, since these records are based on unconfirmed determinations. All
genera and species considered are widespread in the Indo-Pacific coral provinces and no new species
is described herein
Three dimensional rotational angiography imaging of double aortic arch vascular ring
Three dimensional (3D) rotational angiography is a technique used increasingly for
imaging in congenital heart disease. Here the use of this technique for imaging of
double aortic arch vascular ring is described and the advantages of this modality. are discussed. 3D rotational angiography is an excellent tool for imaging of various vascular anomalies. It provides high quality accurate images through a quick and safe procedure.peer-reviewe
Adding Corrections to Global Spherical Potentials for Use in a Coupled-Channel Formulation
The coupled-channel technique augments a non-relativistic distorted wave born
approximation scattering calculation to include a coupling to virtual states
from the negative energy region. It has been found to be important in low
energy nucleon-nucleus scattering. We modify the nucleon-nucleus standard
optical potentials, not designed for a coupled-channel space, so they can be
used in that setting. The changes are small and systematic. We use a standard
scattering code to adjust a variety of optical potentials and targets such that
the original fit to scattering observables are maintained as we incorporate the
coupled-channel environment. Overall over forty target nuclei were tested from
to and nucleon projectile energies from 1 MeV to 200 MeV. There
is excellent improvement in fitting the scattering observables, especially for
low energy neutron scattering.The corrections were found to be unimportant for
projectile energies greater than 200 MeV. The largest changes are to the
surface amplitudes while the real radii and the real central amplitude are
modified by only a few percent, every other parameter is unchanged. This
technique is general enough to be applied to a variety of inelastic theoretical
calculations.Comment: Second draft, not yet submitted to a journal in this for
Mesoscopic Coulomb Blockade in One-channel Quantum Dots
Signatures of "mesoscopic Coulomb blockade" are reported for quantum dots
with one fully transmitting point-contact lead, T1 = 1, T2 << 1. Unlike Coulomb
blockade (CB) in weak-tunneling devices (T1, T2 << 1), one-channel CB is a
mesoscopic effect requiring quantum coherence. Several distinctive features of
mesoscopic CB are observed, including a reduction in CB upon breaking
time-reversal symmetry with a magnetic field, relatively large fluctuations of
peak position as a function of magnetic field, and strong temperature
dependence on the scale of the quantum level spacing.Comment: 12 pages, including 4 figure
Patient advice regarding participation in sport in children with disorders of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulation: a national survey of British paediatric neurosurgeons
Background
Management of children with disorders of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulation is a common aspect of paediatric neurosurgical practice. Sport and physical activity play an integral role in the lives of patients in this age group. However, there is little evidence to support the dissemination of appropriate advice to children regarding such activities. The aim of this study was to evaluate the perspectives of clinicians across the UK regarding the participation of children with disorders of CSF circulation in sports.
Methods
Questionnaires were distributed to Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeons practising across the UK via the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS). Five different patient scenarios were supplied, and participants were asked to choose whether they would advise participation in the following sports: Taekwondo, rugby, skiing, and football.
Results
An overall response rate of 66.7% (36 out of 54 paediatric neurosurgeons) was achieved. The following percentages of clinicians advocated football, rugby, Taekwondo, and skiing across all scenarios: 96%, 75%, 77%, and 97%, respectively. The majority of responders (91.2%) relied on personal experience when providing advice, whilst 50% used available literature and 19.4% used available guidelines.
Conclusions
There is a paucity of evidence in the literature to support the dissemination of appropriate advice to children with disorders of CSF circulation regarding participation in sports. Our findings demonstrate that the majority of clinicians rely on personal experience to make such decisions, emphasizing the necessity of larger scale studies to inform evidence-based guidelines
Online prostate cancer screening decision aid for at-risk men: A randomized trial
Objective: This study examines the efficacy of an online decision aid (DA) for men with a family history of prostate cancer.
Methods: Unaffected Australian men (40 - 79 years) with at least one affected relative completed the first online questionnaire, were randomized to read either the tailored DA (intervention) or nontailored information about prostate cancer screening (control), then completed a questionnaire postreading and 12 months later. The primary outcome was decisional conflict regarding prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing. The impact of the DA on longitudinal outcomes was analyzed by using random intercept mixed effects models. Logistic and linear regressions were used to analyze the impact of the DA on screening behavior and decision regret. Stage of decision-making was tested as a moderator for decisional conflict and decision regret. The frequency of online material access was recorded.
Results: the DA had no effect on decisional conflict, knowledge, inclination toward PSA testing, accuracy of perceived risk, or screening behavior. However, among men considering PSA testing, those who read the DA had lower decision regret compared with men who read the control materials, β=.34 , p \u3c.001, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [.22, .53]. Conclusions: This is the first study to our knowledge to evaluate the uptake and efficacy of an online screening DA among men with a family history of prostate cancer. Men who were undecided about screening at baseline benefitted from the DA, experiencing less regret 12 months later. In relation to decisional conflict, the control materials may have operated as a less complex and equally informative DA
An analysis on decentralized adaptive MAC protocols for Cognitive Radio networks
The scarcity of bandwidth in the radio spectrum has become more vital since the demand for more and more wireless applications has increased. Most of the spectrum bands have been allocated although many studies have shown that these bands are significantly underutilized most of the time. The problem of unavailability of spectrum and inefficiency in its utilization has been smartly addressed by the Cognitive Radio (CR) Technology which is an opportunistic network that senses the environment, observes the network changes, and then using knowledge gained from the prior interaction with the network, makes intelligent decisions by dynamically adapting their transmission characteristics. In this paper some of the decentralized adaptive MAC protocols for CR networks have been critically analyzed and a novel adaptive MAC protocol for CR networks, DNG-MAC which is decentralized and non-global in nature, has been proposed. The results show the DNG-MAC out performs other CR MAC protocols in terms of time and energy efficiency
Potts Flux Tube Model at Nonzero Chemical Potential
We model the deconfinement phase transition in quantum chromodynamics at
nonzero baryon number density and large quark mass by extending the flux tube
model (three-state, three-dimensional Potts model) to nonzero chemical
potential. In a direct numerical simulation we confirm mean-field-theory
predictions that the deconfinement transition does not occur in a baryon-rich
environment.Comment: 14 pp RevTeX, 10 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev D.
(Corrected some typographical errors.
Voice attractiveness: Influence of stimulus duration and type
Voice attractiveness is a relatively new area of research. Some aspects of the methodology used in this domain deserve particular attention. Especially, the duration of voice samples is often neglected as a factor and happens to be manipulated without the perceptual consequences of these manipulations being known. Moreover, the type of voice stimulus varies from a single vowel to complex sentences. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the extent to which stimulus duration (nonmanipulated vs. normalized) and type (vowel vs. word) influence perceived voice attractiveness. Twenty-seven male and female raters made attractiveness judgments of 30 male and female voice samples. Voice samples included a single vowel /a/, a three-vowel series /i a o/, and the French word "bonjour” (i.e., "hello”). These samples were presented in three conditions: nonmanipulated, shortened, and lengthened duration. Duration manipulation was performed using the pitch synchronous overlap and add (PSOLA) algorithm implemented in Praat. Results for the effect of stimulus type showed that word length samples were more attractive to the opposite sex than vowels. Results for the effect of duration showed that the nonmanipulated sound sample duration was not predictive of perceived attractiveness. Duration manipulation, on the other hand, altered perceived attractiveness for the lengthening condition. In particular, there was a linear decrease in attractiveness as a function of modification percentage (especially for the word, as compared with the vowels). Recommendations for voice sample normalization with the PSOLA algorithm are thus to prefer shortening over lengthening and, if not possible, to limit the extent of duration manipulation—for example, by normalizing to the mean sample duratio
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