1,172 research outputs found
Chronic kidney disease: The distribution of health care dollars
Chronic kidney disease: The distribution of health care dollars.BackgroundThe cost of care for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is known to be high. The factors responsible for higher ESRD cost develop during chronic kidney disease (CKD), where the data on distribution of cost are limited.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study of 1995 through 1998 incident dialysis patients was performed to study the distribution of costs during the 24 months prior to initiation of dialysis. Patient data were obtained from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Patients who were Medicare eligible for at least 2 years prior to initiation of dialysis were included in the study. Financial data were obtained from Medicare Part A and Part B claims and inflationary adjustments were made. The study period was divided into four segments based on overall distribution of cost.ResultsThe mean age was 75 years, 51% were males, 73% were white, and 22% were black. Overall, patient comorbidity increased significantly during the study years. Cost showed a sharp increase in the last 6 months prior to initiation of dialysis. Hospitalization was the major component of cost throughout study period. Patients who initiated hemodialysis incurred a higher cost compared to patients who initiated other modes of kidney replacement therapy. Patients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease incurred higher cost compared to those who had no diabetes or cardiovascular disease, respectively.ConclusionThese data showed that hospitalization was the major component of the sharp increase in cost around the initiation of dialysis. Increased comorbidity was associated with higher cost. A focus on timely management of CKD may prevent future morbidity and costs
Adult attachment style across individuals and role-relationships: Avoidance is relationship-specific, but anxiety shows greater generalizability
A generalisability study examined the hypotheses that avoidant attachment, reflecting the representation of others, should be more relationship-specific (vary across relationships more than across individuals), while attachment anxiety, reflecting self-representation, should be more generalisable across a person’s relationships. College students responded to 6-item questionnaire measures of these variables for 5 relationships (mother, father, best same-gender friend, romantic partner or best opposite-gender friend, other close person), on 3 (N = 120) or 2 (N = 77) occasions separated by a few weeks. Results supported the hypotheses, with the person variance component being larger than the relationship-specific component for anxiety, and the opposite happening for avoidance. Anxiety therefore seems not to be as relationship-specific as previous research suggested. Possible reasons for discrepancies between the current and previous studies are discussed
Initial-State Interactions in the Unpolarized Drell-Yan Process
We show that initial-state interactions contribute to the
distribution in unpolarized Drell-Yan lepton pair production and , without suppression. The asymmetry is expressed as a
product of chiral-odd distributions , where the quark-transversity function
is the transverse momentum dependent, light-cone
momentum distribution of transversely polarized quarks in an {\it unpolarized}
proton. We compute this (naive) -odd and chiral-odd distribution function
and the resulting asymmetry explicitly in a quark-scalar diquark
model for the proton with initial-state gluon interaction. In this model the
function equals the -odd (chiral-even) Sivers
effect function . This suggests that the
single-spin asymmetries in the SIDIS and the Drell-Yan process are closely
related to the asymmetry of the unpolarized Drell-Yan process,
since all can arise from the same underlying mechanism. This provides new
insight regarding the role of quark and gluon orbital angular momentum as well
as that of initial- and final-state gluon exchange interactions in hard QCD
processes.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Higher-Order QCD Corrections to Inclusive Particle Production in p anti-p Collisions
Inclusive single-particle production cross sections have been calculated
including higher-order QCD corrections. Transverse-momentum and rapidity
distributions are presented and the scale dependence is studied. The results
are compared with experimental data from the CERN S(p anti-p)S Collider and the
Fermilab Tevatron.Comment: 28 pages, [12 uuencoded PS figures, 3 available under request].
Preprint DESY 92-13
Precision Electroweak Observables in the Minimal Moose Little Higgs Model
Little Higgs theories, in which the Higgs particle is realized as the
pseudo-Goldstone boson of an approximate global chiral symmetry have generated
much interest as possible alternatives to weak scale supersymmetry. In this
paper we analyze precision electroweak observables in the Minimal Moose model
and find that in order to be consistent with current experimental bounds, the
gauge structure of this theory needs to be modified. We then look for viable
regions of parameter space in the modified theory by calculating the various
contributions to the S and T parameters.Comment: v2: 17 pages, 9 figures. Typeset in JHEP style. Added a references
and two figures showing parameter space for each of two reference points.
Corrected typo
Thermodynamic behavior of IIA string theory on a pp-wave
We obtain the thermal one loop free energy and the Hagedorn temperature of
IIA superstring theory on the pp-wave geometry which comes from the circle
compactification of the maximally supersymmetric eleven dimensional one. We use
both operator and path integral methods and find the complete agreement between
them in the free energy expression. In particular, the free energy in the limit is shown to be identical with that of IIB string theory on
maximally supersymmetric pp-wave, which indicates the universal thermal
behavior of strings in the large class of pp-wave backgrounds. We show that the
zero point energy and the modular properties of the free energy are naturally
incorporated into the path integral formalism.Comment: 25 pages, Latex, JHEP style, v4: revised for clarity without change
in main contents, version to appear in JHE
A perturbative approach to decays into two mesons
The modified perturbative approach in which transverse degrees of freedom as
well as Sudakov suppressions are taken into account, is applied to decays
into two mesons. The influence of various model parameters (CKM matrix
elements, decay constant, mesonic wave functions) on the results as well as
short distance corrections to the weak Hamiltonian are discussed in some
detail. The perturbative contributions to the decays yield branching ratios
of the order of which values are well below the upper
limit for the branching ratio as measured by CLEO.Comment: 26 pages, RevTex, 6 figures appended (compressed and uuencode using
'uufiles'
Azimuthal asymmetries in lepton-pair production at a fixed-target experiment using the LHC beams (AFTER)
A multi-purpose fixed-target experiment using the proton and lead-ion beams
of the LHC was recently proposed by Brodsky, Fleuret, Hadjidakis and Lansberg,
and here we concentrate our study on some issues related to the spin physics
part of this project (referred to as AFTER). We study the nucleon spin
structure through and processes with a fixed-target experiment using
the LHC proton beams, for the kinematical region with 7 TeV proton beams at the
energy in center-of-mass frame of two nucleons GeV. We calculate
and estimate the azimuthal asymmetries of unpolarized and
dilepton production processes in the Drell--Yan continuum region and at the
-pole. We also calculate the , and
azimuthal asymmetries of and dilepton production
processes with the target proton and deuteron longitudinally or transversally
polarized in the Drell--Yan continuum region and around resonances region.
We conclude that it is feasible to measure these azimuthal asymmetries,
consequently the three-dimensional or transverse momentum dependent parton
distribution functions (3dPDFs or TMDs), at this new AFTER facility.Comment: 15 pages, 40 figures. Version accepted for publication in EPJ
Angular Distributions of Drell-Yan Lepton Pairs at the Tevatron: Order Corrections and Monte Carlo Studies
We investigate the angular distribution of the lepton pair in the process , where the
virtual photon is produced at high transverse momentum. The angular
distribution of the leptons is very sensitive to possible nonperturbative
effects, such as a nontrivial vacuum structure of QCD, and offers a good chance
to test such effects. We present complete calculations
of the decay lepton distributions in the lepton pair rest frame. An order
Monte Carlo study of the lepton angular distributions,
with acceptance cuts and energy resolution smearing applied to the leptons, is
also presented.Comment: 26 pages (Revtex) plus 9 (uuencoded) postscript figures available as
a compressed tar file at
ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/madph-94-857-figs.tar.
Birkhoff type decompositions and the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff recursion
We describe a unification of several apparently unrelated factorizations
arisen from quantum field theory, vertex operator algebras, combinatorics and
numerical methods in differential equations. The unification is given by a
Birkhoff type decomposition that was obtained from the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff
formula in our study of the Hopf algebra approach of Connes and Kreimer to
renormalization in perturbative quantum field theory. There we showed that the
Birkhoff decomposition of Connes and Kreimer can be obtained from a certain
Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff recursion formula in the presence of a Rota-Baxter
operator. We will explain how the same decomposition generalizes the
factorization of formal exponentials and uniformization for Lie algebras that
arose in vertex operator algebra and conformal field theory, and the even-odd
decomposition of combinatorial Hopf algebra characters as well as to the Lie
algebra polar decomposition as used in the context of the approximation of
matrix exponentials in ordinary differential equations.Comment: accepted for publication in Comm. in Math. Phy
- …