Contribution of the antibiotic chloramphenicol and its analogues as precursors of dichloroacetamide and other disinfection byproducts in drinking water

Dichloroacetamide (DCAcAm), a disinfection byproduct, has been detected in drinking water. Previous research showed that amino acids may be DCAcAm precursors. However, other precursors may be present. This study explored the contribution of the antibiotic chloramphenicol (CAP) and two of its analogues (thiamphenicol, TAP; florfenicol, FF) (referred to collectively as CAPs), which occur in wastewater-impacted source waters, to the formation of DCAcAm. Their formation yields were compared to free and combined amino acids, and they were investigated in filtered waters from drinking-water-treatment plants, heavily wastewater-impacted natural waters, and secondary effluents from wastewater treatment plants. CAPs had greater DCAcAm formation potential than two representative amino acid precursors. However, in drinking waters with ng/L levels of CAPs, they will not contribute as much to DCAcAm formation as the μg/L levels of amino acids. Also, the effect of advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) on DCAcAm formation from CAPs in real water samples during subsequent chlorination was evaluated. Preoxidation of CAPs with AOPs reduced the formation of DCAcAm during postchlorination. The results of this study suggest that CAPs should be considered as possible precursors of DCAcAm, especially in heavily wastewater-impacted waters

Local Commutativity and Causality in Interacting PP-wave String Field Theory

In this paper, we extend our previous study of causality and local commutativity of string fields in the pp-wave lightcone string field theory to include interaction. Contrary to the flat space case result of Lowe, Polchinski, Susskind, Thorlacius and Uglum, we found that the pp-wave interaction does not affect the local commutativity condition. Our results show that the pp-wave lightcone string field theory is not continuously connected with the flat space one. We also discuss the relation between the condition of local commutativity and causality. While the two notions are closely related in a point particle theory, their relation is less clear in string theory. We suggest that string local commutativity may be relevant for an operational defintion of causality using strings as probes.Comment: Latex, JHEP3.cls, 18 pages, no figures. v2: add comments about the UV-IR mixing effect displayed in our result. version to appear in JHE

BMN operators with vector impurities, Z_2 symmetry and pp-waves

We calculate the coefficients of three-point functions of BMN operators with two vector impurities. We find that these coefficients can be obtained from those of the three-point functions of scalar BMN operators by interchanging the coefficient for the symmetric-traceless representation with the coefficient for the singlet. We conclude that the Z_2 symmetry of the pp-wave string theory is not manifest at the level of field theory three-point correlators.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. v1: A reference and a footnote added; v2: New contributions found, Z_2 symmetry lost in 3-point function

An evaluation of subjective experiences, effects and overall satisfaction with clozapine treatment in a UK forensic service

Objectives: Patients prescribed clozapine were surveyed to assess (a) the effects, both positive and adverse, and overall satisfaction with clozapine in comparison to previously prescribed antipsychotics and (b) the relative significance of effects experienced, both positive and adverse, in terms of impact on subjective well-being. Methods: A total of 56 male patients prescribed clozapine at a forensic psychiatric hospital were surveyed using a 27-item questionnaire. All patients had been prescribed clozapine for a minimum of 3 months. Respondents were asked to rate effects and satisfaction with clozapine treatment in comparison with previously prescribed antipsychotic medication on a five-point scale. Respondents were also asked to rate effects experienced with clozapine treatment in terms of impact on subjective well-being on a five-point scale. Results: A total of 89% of respondents reported greater satisfaction with clozapine than with previously prescribed antipsychotic medication. A majority of patients reported positive effects in terms of an improvement in their quality of life (68%) and social abilities (52%) with clozapine in comparison with previously prescribed antipsychotics. Nocturnal hypersalivation (84%) and weight gain (57%) were the most common adverse effects. Hedonic responses were assessed for each effect in order to determine the associated subjective experiences. The most positive hedonic responses were for quality of life, mood and alertness. In terms of adverse impact on subjective well-being, nocturnal hypersalivation ranked highest. Conclusions: Patients in a UK forensic sample are largely satisfied with clozapine treatment. The subjective effects of clozapine treatment should be taken into account by clinicians when assessing response. This may provide an opportunity to highlight the positive changes and prioritize management of the most undesirable adverse effects, which is likely to promote compliance and improve longer term treatment outcomes

Topological Phase Separation In Trapped Ultracold Fermionic Gases

We investigate the harmonically trapped 2D fermionic systems with a effective spin-orbit coupling and intrinsic s-wave superfluidity under the local density approximation, and find that there is a critical value for Zeeman field. When the Zeeman field larger than the critical value, the topological superfluid phases emerge and coexist with the normal superfluid phase, topological phase separation, in the trapped region. Otherwise, the superfluid phase is topologically trivial.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Nevirapine-Induced Heratotoxicity: Incidence, Risk Factors and Associated Mortality in a Primary Care ART Programme in South Africa

CROI 200

Chiral primary cubic interactions from pp-wave supergravity

We explicitly construct cubic interaction light-cone Hamiltonian for the chiral primary system involving the metric fields and the self-dual four-form fields in the IIB pp-wave supergravity. The background fields representing pp-waves exhibit SO(4)*SO(4)*Z_2 invariance. It turns out that the interaction Hamiltonian is precisely the same as that for the dilaton-axion system, except for the fact that the chiral primary system fields have the opposite parity to that of the dilaton-axion fields under the Z_2 transformation that exchanges two SO(4)'s.Comment: 14 pages, A few comments are adde

Conformal Dimensions of Two-Derivative BMN Operators

We compute the anomalous dimensions of BMN operators with two covariant derivative impurities at the planar level up to first order in the effective coupling lambda'. The result equals those for two scalar impurities as well as for mixed scalar and vector impurities given in the literature. Though the results are the same, the computation is very different from the scalar case. This is basically due to the existence of a non-vanishing overlap between the derivative impurity and the ``background'' field Z. We present details of these differences and their consequences.Comment: 27 pages, v2: references added, minor change

Plasma-Like Negative Capacitance in Nano-Colloids

A negative capacitance has been observed in a nano-colloid between 0.1 and 10^-5 Hz. The response is linear over a broad range of conditions. The low-omega dispersions of both the resistance and capacitance are consistent with the free-carrier plasma model, while the transient behavior demonstrates an unusual energy storage mechanism. A collective excitation, therefore, is suggested.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure