3,651 research outputs found
Associations of pubertal stage and body mass index with cardiometabolic risk in Hong Kong Chinese children: A cross-sectional study
Background: Puberty is associated with a clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRFs) during adolescence that are manifested in later life. Although anthropometric variables such as body mass index (BMI) can predict cardiometabolic risk in children and adolescents, it is not clear whether there is an interaction between pubertal stage and BMI associated with cardiometabolic risk in this age group. This paper examines the association of pubertal stage and BMI with CMRFs in Hong Kong Chinese children. Methods: A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted among 1985 (95.1%) students aged 6 to 18 years. Fasting lipid profile and plasma glucose, blood pressure, body weight, body height and waist circumference were measured. A self-reported pubertal stage questionnaire was used to assess pubertal stage of participants. Two cardiometabolic risk scores, alpha and beta, were constructed to quantify cardiometabolic risk. Cardiometabolic risk score alpha refers to the sum of z-scores of sex-specific, age-adjusted waist circumference, height-adjusted systolic and diastolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, triglyceride and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and minus z-score of sex-specific age-adjusted high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Cardiometabolic risk score beta includes all components of risk score alpha except waist circumference. Results: The interaction of BMI z-score (ZBMI) and pubertal stage demonstrated a significant increase in variance explained in cardiometabolic risk score alpha in boys (0.5%, p = 0.024) and girls (0.7%, p = 0.006) and in cardiometabolic risk score beta in boys (0.8%, p = 0.030) but not in girls (0.5%, p = 0.051). Conclusions: Pubertal stage has an interaction effect on the association of cardiometabolic risk by BMI in boys and may have a similar but lesser effect in girls.published_or_final_versio
Weierstrass meets Enriques
We study in detail the degeneration of K3 to T^4/Z_2. We obtain an explicit
embedding of the lattice of collapsed cycles of T^4/Z_2 into the lattice of
integral cycles of K3 in two different ways. Our first method exploits the
duality to the heterotic string on T^3. This allows us to describe the
degeneration in terms of Wilson lines. Our second method is based on the
blow-up of T^4/Z_2. From this blow-up, we directly construct the full lattice
of integral cycles of K3. Finally, we use our results to describe the action of
the Enriques involution on elliptic K3 surfaces, finding that a Weierstrass
model description is consistent with the Enriques involution only in the
F-theory limit.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure
An Experimental Method for Stereolithic Mandible Fabrication and Image Preparation
Reproduction of anatomical structures by rapid prototyping has proven to be a valid adjunct for craniofacial surgery, providing alternative methods to produce prostheses and development of surgical guides. The aim of this study was to introduce a methodology to fabricate asymmetric human mandibles by rapid prototyping to be used in future studies for evaluating mandibular symmetries. Stereolithic models of human mandibles were produced with varying amounts of asymmetry in the condylar neck, ramus and body of the mandible by means of rapid prototyping. A method for production of the synthetic mandibles was defined. Model preparation, landmark description and development of the experimental model were described. A series of synthetic mandibles ranging in asymmetry were accurately produced from a scanned human mandible. A method for creating the asymmetries, fabricating, coating and landmarking the synthetic mandibles was formulated. A description for designing a reproducible experimental model for image acquisition was also outlined. Production of synthetic mandibles by stereolithic modeling is a viable method for creating skeletal experimental models with known amounts of asymmetry
Zigzag-shaped nickel nanowires via organometallic template-free route
In this manuscript, the formation of nickel nanowires (average size: several tens to hundreds of μm long
and 1.0-1.5 μm wide) at low temperature is found to be driven by dewetting of liquid organometallic
precursors during spin coating process and by self-assembly of Ni clusters. Elaboration of metallic thin
films by low temperature deposition technique makes the preparation process compatible with most of the
substrates. The use of iron and cobalt precursor shows that the process could be extended to other metallic
systems. In this work, AFM and SEM are used to follow the assembly of Ni clusters into straight or
zigzag lines. The formation of zigzag structure is specific to the Ni precursor at appropriate preparation
parameters. This template free process allows a control of anisotropic structures with homogeneous sizes
and angles on standard Si/SiO2 surface
Does the `Higgs' have Spin Zero?
The Higgs boson is predicted to have spin zero. The ATLAS and CMS experiments
have recently reported of an excess of events with mass ~ 125 GeV that has some
of the characteristics expected for a Higgs boson. We address the questions
whether there is already any evidence that this excess has spin zero, and how
this possibility could be confirmed in the near future. The excess observed in
the gamma gamma final state could not have spin one, leaving zero and two as
open possibilities. We calculate the angular distribution of gamma gamma pairs
from the decays of a spin-two boson produced in gluon-gluon collisions, showing
that is unique and distinct from the spin-zero case. We also calculate the
distributions for lepton pairs that would be produced in the W W* decays of a
spin-two boson, which are very different from those in Higgs decays, and note
that the kinematics of the event selection used to produce the excess observed
in the W W* final state have reduced efficiency for spin two.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, Version accepted for publication in JHEP,
includes additional plots of dilepton mass distribution
Non-Perturbative Superpotentials in F-theory and String Duality
We use open-closed string duality between F-theory on K3xK3 and type II
strings on CY manifolds without branes to study non-perturbative
superpotentials in generalized flux compactifications. On the F-theory side we
obtain the full flux potential including D3-instanton contributions and show
that it leads to an explicit and simple realization of the three ingredients of
the KKLT model for stringy dS vacua. The D3-instanton contribution is highly
non-trivial, can be systematically computed including the determinant factors
and demonstrates that a particular flux lifts very effectively zero modes on
the instanton. On the closed string side, we propose a generalization of the
Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential for type II strings on generalized CY
manifolds, depending on all moduli multiplets.Comment: 49 pages, harvmac, 1 figure; references & figures adde
Linkage and association of myocilin (MYOC) polymorphisms with high myopia in a Chinese population
Author name used in this publication: Maurice K.H. Yap2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Hong Kong Chinese school children with elevated urine melamine levels: A prospective follow up study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2008, the outbreak of kidney stones in children fed by melamine-tainted milk products in Mainland China has caused major public concern of food safety. We identified Hong Kong school children with elevated urine melamine level from a community-based school survey in 2007-08 and reviewed their clinical status in 2009.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In 2007-08, 2119 school children participated in a primary and secondary school survey in Hong Kong using a cluster sampling method. Urine aliquots from 502 subjects were assayed for melamine level. High urine melamine level was defined as urine melamine/creatinine ratio >7.1 μg/mmol. Subjects with high urine melamine level were invited for clinical evaluation in 2009 including urinalysis and ultrasound imaging of the urinary system.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The age range of this subcohort was 6 - 20 years with 67% girls (335 female and 167 male subjects). The spot urine melamine/creatinine ratio of the 502 urine aliquots ranged from undetectable to 1467 μg/mmol (median 0.8 μg/mmol). Of these, 213 subjects had undetectable level (42%). We invited 47 (9%) subjects with high urine melamine level for re-evaluation and one subject declined. The median duration of follow-up was 23.5 months (interquartile range: 19.8 - 30.6 months). None of the 46 subjects (28% boys, mean age 13.9 ± 2.9 years) had any abnormality detected on ultrasound study of the urinary system. All subjects had stable renal function with a median urine albumin-creatinine ratio of 0.70 mg/mmol (interquartile range: 0.00 - 2.55 mg/mmol).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Hong Kong Chinese school children with high urine melamine levels appeared to have benign clinical course in the short term although a long term follow-up study is advisable in those with persistently high urine melamine level.</p
On Global Flipped SU(5) GUTs in F-theory
We construct an SU(4) spectral divisor and its factorization of types (3,1)
and (2,2) based on the construction proposed in [1]. We calculate the chiral
spectra of flipped SU(5) GUTs by using the spectral divisor construction. The
results agree with those from the analysis of semi-local spectral covers. Our
computations provide an example for the validity of the spectral divisor
construction and suggest that the standard heterotic formulae are applicable to
the case of F-theory on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfold with no
heterotic dual.Comment: 45 pages, 12 tables, 1 figure; typos corrected, footnotes added, and
a reference adde
Femtosecond control of electric currents at the interfaces of metallic ferromagnetic heterostructures
The idea to utilize not only the charge but also the spin of electrons in the
operation of electronic devices has led to the development of spintronics,
causing a revolution in how information is stored and processed. A novel
advancement would be to develop ultrafast spintronics using femtosecond laser
pulses. Employing terahertz (10 Hz) emission spectroscopy, we
demonstrate optical generation of spin-polarized electric currents at the
interfaces of metallic ferromagnetic heterostructures at the femtosecond
timescale. The direction of the photocurrent is controlled by the helicity of
the circularly polarized light. These results open up new opportunities for
realizing spintronics in the unprecedented terahertz regime and provide new
insights in all-optical control of magnetism.Comment: 3 figures and 2 tables in the main tex
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