358 research outputs found
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Qigong for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2MD) is a complex, chronic, metabolic disease with hyperglycemia arising from insulin resistance, progressive pancreatic beta cell failure, insufficient insulin secretion and increased hepatic glucose output. In the Chinese medicine theory, T2DM is often referred to as a form of Xiao Ke (消渴) or “wasting‐thirst disorder.” Genetic, dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors play a role in T2DM. People with a family history of diabetes or who are obese are at the highest risk of developing the disease. T2DM is often associated with hypertension, dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis and if not managed can lead to complications including cerebrovascular accident, peripheral vascular disease and nephropathy. T2DM can be well managed with biomedical and Chinese medicine treatment approaches. Lifestyle changes including appropriate diet and exercise are paramount in managing T2DM. Regular Qigong practice can be a beneficial part of one\u27s exercise routine for T2DM self‐care. Qigong exercise has shown promising results in clinical experience and in randomized, controlled pilot studies for affecting aspects of T2DM including positive associations between participation in Qigong and blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, weight, BMI and insulin resistance. This chapter looks at how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) views diabetes as well as new understandings of how Qigong can support the management of T2DM
Conceptual Framework for Speech Language Pathologists to Work with Migrants: A Focus on Malta
Abstract The goal of this paper is to describe the current state, needs and values of migrants with a focus on relevant global issues and Malta as a case study. It also aims to review services offered to these migrants, identify aspects that require attention and draw up a framework that could be applied to enhance services to the culturally diverse populations, particularly speech therapy. The health care services offered to migrants are reviewed in the light of attitudes and expectations. Professional perceptions and competences to work with these populations are also discussed and perceptions of migrants about services offered to them are taken into consideration. Issues related to equitable professional practice and the training of health care professionals to address needs of the cultural diverse community are discussed. Strategies to implement the conceptual framework are suggested
A novel simplified mathematical model for antennas used in medical imaging applications
In this paper a new technique is proposed to model the current across a monopole antenna and thereby the radiation fields of the antenna can be calculated. Generally, the Method of Moments (MOM) technique is used for this purpose whereby the integral equations are discretised to find the fields of an antenna. The proposed model requires only the knowledge of three parameters (Initial Current I0, Damping coefficient a and the radial parameter ?) and hence considerably reduces the computational time and space as its results do not depend on the number of functions involved. The new technique is also developed to take account of the conductivity property of the surrounding medium. Hence this technique can be used in field prediction for antennas employed in medical imaging applications. Initial results obtained from the new technique show good correlation in comparison with the MOM technique
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Recovery of Renal Function among ESRD Patients in the US Medicare Program
Background
Patients started on long term hemodialysis have typically had low rates of reported renal recovery with recent estimates ranging from 0.9–2.4% while higher rates of recovery have been reported in cohorts with higher percentages of patients with acute renal failure requiring dialysis.
Study Design
Our analysis followed approximately 194,000 patients who were initiated on hemodialysis during a 2-year period (2008 & 2009) with CMS-2728 forms submitted to CMS by dialysis facilities, cross-referenced with patient record updates through the end of 2010, and tracked through December 2010 in the CMS SIMS registry.
Results
We report a sustained renal recovery (i.e no return to ESRD during the available follow up period) rate among Medicare ESRD patients of > 5% - much higher than previously reported. Recovery occurred primarily in the first 2 months post incident dialysis, and was more likely in cases with renal failure secondary to etiologies associated with acute kidney injury. Patients experiencing sustained recovery were markedly less likely than true long-term ESRD patients to have permanent vascular accesses in place at incident hemodialysis, while non-White patients, and patients with any prior nephrology care appeared to have significantly lower rates of renal recovery. We also found widespread geographic variation in the rates of renal recovery across the United States.
Conclusions
Renal recovery rates in the US Medicare ESRD program are higher than previously reported and appear to have significant geographic variation. Patients with diagnoses associated with acute kidney injury who are initiated on long-term hemodialysis have significantly higher rates of renal recovery than the general ESRD population and lower rates of permanent access placement
Turbulence energetics in stably stratified geophysical flows: strong and weak mixing regimes
Traditionally, turbulence energetics is characterized by turbulent kinetic
energy (TKE) and modelled using solely the TKE budget equation. In stable
stratification, TKE is generated by the velocity shear and expended through
viscous dissipation and work against buoyancy forces. The effect of
stratification is characterized by the ratio of the buoyancy gradient to
squared shear, called Richardson number, Ri. It is widely believed that at Ri
exceeding a critical value, Ric, local shear cannot maintain turbulence, and
the flow becomes laminar. We revise this concept by extending the energy
analysis to turbulent potential and total energies (TPE and TTE = TKE + TPE),
consider their budget equations, and conclude that TTE is a conservative
parameter maintained by shear in any stratification. Hence there is no
"energetics Ric", in contrast to the hydrodynamic-instability threshold,
Ric-instability, whose typical values vary from 0.25 to 1. We demonstrate that
this interval, 0.25<Ri<1, separates two different turbulent regimes: strong
mixing and weak mixing rather than the turbulent and the laminar regimes, as
the classical concept states. This explains persistent occurrence of turbulence
in the free atmosphere and deep ocean at Ri>>1, clarify principal difference
between turbulent boundary layers and free flows, and provide basis for
improving operational turbulence closure models.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorological
Society, in pres
Galaxy clustering and projected density profiles as traced by satellites in photometric surveys: Methodology and luminosity dependence
We develop a new method which measures the projected density distribution
w_p(r_p)n of photometric galaxies surrounding a set of
spectroscopically-identified galaxies, and simultaneously the projected
correlation function w_p(r_p) between the two populations. In this method we
are able to divide the photometric galaxies into subsamples in luminosity
intervals when redshift information is unavailable, enabling us to measure
w_p(r_p)n and w_p(r_p) as a function of not only the luminosity of the
spectroscopic galaxy, but also that of the photometric galaxy. Extensive tests
show that our method can measure w_p(r_p) in a statistically unbiased way. The
accuracy of the measurement depends on the validity of the assumption in the
method that the foreground/background galaxies are randomly distributed and
thus uncorrelated with those galaxies of interest. Therefore, our method can be
applied to the cases where foreground/background galaxies are distributed in
large volumes, which is usually valid in real observations. We applied our
method to data from SDSS including a sample of 10^5 LRGs at z~0.4 and a sample
of about half a million galaxies at z~0.1, both of which are cross-correlated
with a deep photometric sample drawn from the SDSS. On large scales, the
relative bias factor of galaxies measured from w_p(r_p) at z~0.4 depends on
luminosity in a manner similar to what is found at z~0.1, which are usually
probed by autocorrelations of spectroscopic samples. On scales smaller than a
few Mpc and at both z~0.4 and z~0.1, the photometric galaxies of different
luminosities exhibit similar density profiles around spectroscopic galaxies at
fixed luminosity and redshift. This provides clear support for the assumption
commonly-adopted in HOD models that satellite galaxies of different
luminosities are distributed in a similar way, following the dark matter
distribution within their host halos.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figures, published in Ap
Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Flow Through a Straight Square Duct
Turbulent duct flows are investigated using large eddy simulation at bulk Reynolds numbers, from 4410 to 250,000. Mean secondary flow is found to reveal the existence of two streamwise counter-rotating vortices in each corner of the duct. Turbulence-driven secondary motions that arise in duct flows act to transfer fluid momentum from the centre of the duct to its corners, thereby causing a bulging of the streamwise velocity contours towards the corners. As Reynolds number increases, the ratio of centreline streamwise velocity to the bulk velocity decreases and all turbulent components increase. In addition, the core of the secondary vortex in the lower corner-bisector tends to approach the wall and the corner with increasing Reynolds number. The turbulence intensity profiles for the low Reynolds number flows are quite different from those for the high Reynolds number flows. Typical turbulence structures in duct flows are found to be responsible for the interactions between ejections from wall and this interaction results in the bending of the ejection stems, which indicates that the existence of streaky wall structures is much like in a channel flow
Autocorrelations of stellar light and mass at z~0 and ~1: From SDSS to DEEP2
We present measurements of projected autocorrelation functions w_p(r_p) for
the stellar mass of galaxies and for their light in the U, B and V bands, using
data from the third data release of the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey and the
final data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We investigate the
clustering bias of stellar mass and light by comparing these to projected
autocorrelations of dark matter estimated from the Millennium Simulations (MS)
at z=1 and 0.07, the median redshifts of our galaxy samples. All of the
autocorrelation and bias functions show systematic trends with spatial scale
and waveband which are impressively similar at the two redshifts. This shows
that the well-established environmental dependence of stellar populations in
the local Universe is already in place at z=1. The recent MS-based galaxy
formation simulation of Guo et al. (2011) reproduces the scale-dependent
clustering of luminosity to an accuracy better than 30% in all bands and at
both redshifts, but substantially overpredicts mass autocorrelations at
separations below about 2 Mpc. Further comparison of the shapes of our stellar
mass bias functions with those predicted by the model suggests that both the
SDSS and DEEP2 data prefer a fluctuation amplitude of sigma_8 0.8 rather than
the sigma_8=0.9 assumed by the MS.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices,
minor revisions in tex
Curvature effects on the surface thickness and tension at the free interface of He systems
The thickness and the surface energy at the free interface of
superfluid He are studied. Results of calculations carried out by using
density functionals for cylindrical and spherical systems are presented in a
unified way, including a comparison with the behavior of planar slabs. It is
found that for large species is independent of the geometry. The obtained
values of are compared with prior theoretical results and experimental
data. Experimental data favor results evaluated by adopting finite range
approaches. The behavior of and exhibit overshoots
similar to that found previously for the central density, the trend of these
observables towards their asymptotic values is examined.Comment: 35 pages, TeX, 5 figures, definitive versio
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