Non-Perturbative QCD Treatment of High-Energy Hadron-Hadron Scattering

Total cross-sections and logarithmic slopes of the elastic scattering cross-sections for different hadronic processes are calculated in the framework of the model of the stochastic vacuum. The relevant parameters of this model, a correlation length and the gluon condensate, are determined from scattering data, and found to be in very good agreement with values coming from completely different sources of information. A parameter-free relation is given between total cross-sections and slope parameters, which is shown to be remarkably valid up to the highest energies for which data exist.Comment: 60 pages, Heidelberg preprin

Lettre de J. B. Carrol à ______

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Identifying critically ill children at risk of dying during hospital admission in Malawi: prognostic accuracy of a modified qSOFA score for low-resource settings

BACKGROUND AND AIM: In low-resource settings, a reliable bedside score to identify children at risk of dying could help focus resources and improve survival. The rapid bedside Liverpool quick sequential organ failure assessment (LqSOFA) uses clinical parameters only and performed well in the UK, but has not been validated in a low-resource setting. METHOD: In a cohort of critically ill children in Malawi, we calculated LqSOFA-scores using age-adjusted heart rate and respiratory rate, capillary refill time and Blantyre Coma Scale and evaluated its prognostic performance for mortality. An improved score, the Blantyre qSOFA (BqSOFA), was developed (omitting heart rate, adjusting respiratory rate cut-off values and adding pallor), subsequently validated in a second cohort of Malawian children, and compared with an existing more complex score (FEAST-PET). Prognostic performance for mortality was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). RESULTS: Mortality was 15.4% in the derivation (n=493) and 22.0% in the validation cohort (n=377). In the derivation cohort, discriminative ability (AUC) of the LqSOFA to predict mortality was 0.68 (95%-CI: 0.60-0.76). The BqSOFA and FEAST-PET yielded AUCs of 0.84 (95%-CI: 0.79-0.89) and 0.83 (95%-CI: 0.77-0.89) in the derivation cohort, and 0.74 (95%-CI: 0.68-0.79) and 0.76 (95%-CI: 0.70-0.82) in the validation cohort, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a simple prognostic score for Malawian children based on four clinical parameters which performed as well as more complex scores. The BqSOFA might be used to promptly identify critically ill children at risk of dying and prioritize hospital care in low-resource settings

Socially Sustainable Manufacturing: Exploring the European Landscape

Sustainable manufacturing has been extensively researched in the last decades, however there is a lack of coherence in literature specifically addressing its social dimension. Within the framework of the Social Sustainability-themed project SO SMART (Socially Sustainable Manufacturing for the Factories of the Future), a preliminary explorative survey and interview study were deployed among manufacturing companies and their stakeholders in Europe to investigate the extent to which they understand and practice social sustainability in relation to their business activities and context. Using an inquiry approach based on the main concepts related to social sustainability found in literature, this paper reports findings on preliminary exploration of the European landscape of social sustainability-related practices from a corporate and societal perspective. Findings contribute to the creation of a basis of shared knowledge as a prerequisite for extending and further developing concepts and models for socially sustainable manufacturing ecosystems