Correlated bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice: Effects of the trapping potential and of quasiperiodic disorder

We investigate the effect of the trapping potential on the quantum phases of strongly correlated ultracold bosons in one-dimensional periodic and quasiperiodic optical lattices. By means of a decoupling meanfield approach, we characterize the ground state of the system and its behavior under variation of the harmonic trapping, as a function of the total number of atoms. For a small atom number the system shows an incompressible Mott-insulating phase, as the size of the cloud remains unaffected when the trapping potential is varied. When the quasiperiodic potential is added the system develops a metastable-disordered phase which is neither compressible nor Mott insulating. This state is characteristic of quasidisorder in the presence of a strong trapping potential.Comment: Accepted for publication in PR

Effects of climatic factors on diarrheal diseases among children below 5 years of age at national and subnational levels in Nepal: an ecological study

INTRODUCTION: The incidence of diarrhea, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in low-income countries such as Nepal, is temperature-sensitive, suggesting it could be associated with climate change. With climate change fueled increases in the mean and variability of temperature and precipitation, the incidence of water and food-borne diseases are increasing, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This national-level ecological study was undertaken to provide evidence linking weather and climate with diarrhea incidence in Nepal. METHOD: We analyzed monthly diarrheal disease count and meteorological data from all districts, spanning 15 eco-development regions of Nepal. Meteorological data and monthly data on diarrheal disease were sourced, respectively, from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and Health Management Information System (HMIS) of the Government of Nepal for the period from 2002 to 2014. Time-series log-linear regression models assessed the relationship between maximum temperature, minimum temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, and diarrhea burden. Predictors with p-values < 0.25 were retained in the fitted models. RESULTS: Overall, diarrheal disease incidence in Nepal significantly increased with 1 degrees C increase in mean temperature (4.4%; 95% CI: 3.95, 4.85) and 1 cm increase in rainfall (0.28%; 95% CI: 0.15, 0.41). Seasonal variation of diarrheal incidence was prominent at the national level (11.63% rise in diarrheal cases in summer (95% CI: 4.17, 19.61) and 14.5% decrease in spring (95% CI: -18.81, -10.02) compared to winter season). Moreover, the effects of temperature and rainfall were highest in the mountain region compared to other ecological regions of Nepal. CONCLUSION: Our study provides empirical evidence linking weather factors and diarrheal disease burden in Nepal. This evidence suggests that additional climate change could increase diarrheal disease incidence across the nation. Mountainous regions are more sensitive to climate variability and consequently the burden of diarrheal diseases. These findings can be utilized to allocate necessary resources and envision a weather-based early warning system for the prevention and control of diarrheal diseases in Nepal

Indication Alerts Intercept Drug Name Confusion Errors during Computerized Entry of Medication Orders

Background: Confusion between similar drug names is a common cause of potentially harmful medication errors. Interventions to prevent these errors at the point of prescribing have had limited success. The purpose of this study is to measure whether indication alerts at the time of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) can intercept drug name confusion errors. Methods and Findings: A retrospective observational study of alerts provided to prescribers in a public, tertiary hospital and ambulatory practice with medication orders placed using CPOE. Consecutive patients seen from April 2006 through February 2012 were eligible if a clinician received an indication alert during ordering. A total of 54,499 unique patients were included. The computerized decision support system prompted prescribers to enter indications when certain medications were ordered without a coded indication in the electronic problem list. Alerts required prescribers either to ignore them by clicking OK, to place a problem in the problem list, or to cancel the order. Main outcome was the proportion of indication alerts resulting in the interception of drug name confusion errors. Error interception was determined using an algorithm to identify instances in which an alert triggered, the initial medication order was not completed, and the same prescriber ordered a similar-sounding medication on the same patient within 5 minutes. Similarity was defined using standard text similarity measures. Two clinicians performed chart review of all cases to determine whether the first, non-completed medication order had a documented or non-documented, plausible indication for use. If either reviewer found a plausible indication, the case was not considered an error. We analyzed 127,458 alerts and identified 176 intercepted drug name confusion errors, an interception rate of 0.14±.01%. Conclusions: Indication alerts intercepted 1.4 drug name confusion errors per 1000 alerts. Institutions with CPOE should consider using indication prompts to intercept drug name confusion errors

MuPix7 - A fast monolithic HV-CMOS pixel chip for Mu3e

The MuPix7 chip is a monolithic HV-CMOS pixel chip, thinned down to 50 \mu m. It provides continuous self-triggered, non-shuttered readout at rates up to 30 Mhits/chip of 3x3 mm^2 active area and a pixel size of 103x80 \mu m^2. The hit efficiency depends on the chosen working point. Settings with a power consumption of 300 mW/cm^2 allow for a hit efficiency >99.5%. A time resolution of 14.2 ns (Gaussian sigma) is achieved. Latest results from 2016 test beam campaigns are shown.Comment: Proceedingsfor the PIXEL2016 conference, submitted to JINST A dangling reference has been removed from this version, no other change

Post-processing rainfall forecasts from numerical weather prediction models for short-term streamflow forecasting

Sub-daily ensemble rainfall forecasts that are bias free and reliably quantify forecast uncertainty are critical for flood and short-term ensemble streamflow forecasting. Post-processing of rainfall predictions from numerical weather prediction models is typically required to provide rainfall forecasts with these properties. In this paper, a new approach to generate ensemble rainfall forecasts by post-processing raw numerical weather prediction (NWP) rainfall predictions is introduced. The approach uses a simplified version of the Bayesian joint probability modelling approach to produce forecast probability distributions for individual locations and forecast lead times. Ensemble forecasts with appropriate spatial and temporal correlations are then generated by linking samples from the forecast probability distributions using the Schaake shuffle. The new approach is evaluated by applying it to post-process predictions from the ACCESS-R numerical weather prediction model at rain gauge locations in the Ovens catchment in southern Australia. The joint distribution of NWP predicted and observed rainfall is shown to be well described by the assumed log-sinh transformed bivariate normal distribution. Ensemble forecasts produced using the approach are shown to be more skilful than the raw NWP predictions both for individual forecast lead times and for cumulative totals throughout all forecast lead times. Skill increases result from the correction of not only the mean bias, but also biases conditional on the magnitude of the NWP rainfall prediction. The post-processed forecast ensembles are demonstrated to successfully discriminate between events and non-events for both small and large rainfall occurrences, and reliably quantify the forecast uncertainty. Future work will assess the efficacy of the post-processing method for a wider range of climatic conditions and also investigate the benefits of using post-processed rainfall forecasts for flood and short-term streamflow forecasting

SUSTAINABLE DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE AND LAND MANAGEMENT IN THE HIMALAYA: IMPLICATIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND MITIGATION

The soil and land resources play a vital role in sustaining the local livelihoods of rural communities in the Himalaya. Most of the arable land has already been brought under cultivation, hence the ever-increasing demand for food and fiber has left farmers with no choice but to intensify agriculture. However, producing more crops and greater quantities of food, fiber and other materials on the same parcel of land can to soil fertility and productivity decline with overall degradation of land quality. Therefore, ways and means to intensify agriculture to enhance productivity without degrading the soil and land resource base have become imperative. Agro-forestry, agro-slivi-pastoral systems, and the adoption of a variety of crop, soil and water management and conservation practices offer potential to deliver multiple benefits without sacrificing the very resource upon which the human population depends. Presented herein are findings on approaches to sustainable intensification of agriculture and land management related to soil OM management and C sequestration for multiple benefits, and, agro-forestry as a crop diversification strategy with both livelihood, and climate change adaptation/mitigation benefits. The results indicate that sustainable soil management practices could lead to significant SOC accumulations (4-8 t/ha over 6 yrs). SOC and soil C stocks tend to increase with elevation due to cooler climate and slow decomposition rates. Carbon stocks for the 3 LU types was in the order CF&gt;AF/LH&gt;AG, suggesting that diversified cropping practices including agro-forestry have good potential sequester C while providing livelihood opportunities and climate adaptive capacity for local farming communities. Biochar amendment increased growth of both coffee plants and radish with mixed grass/weed biochar being most effective. Biochar application also significantly decreased emission of GHGs, especially N2O

Social innovation in diagnostics: three case studies.

BACKGROUND: Diagnostics are essential for identifying and controlling diseases. However, limited access to diagnostics hinders public health efforts in many settings. Social innovation may provide a framework for expanding access to diagnostics in the global south. Here social innovation is defined as implementing a known public health tool via a novel, community-driven technique. MAIN BODY: In this article, we discuss three diverse cases that show the potential for using social innovation in diagnostics. The cases chosen for inclusion here demonstrate the importance of social innovation in diagnostics across different geographic, cultural, and health system contexts. They include malaria testing via schools in Malawi, cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) sample self-collection in Peru, and crowdsourcing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing in China. For each case, we present the public health problem and the impact of using social innovation to increase accessibility of diagnostics. We discuss implications of each diagnostic approach and the importance of social innovation in creating these potential solutions. We argue that social innovation is useful in improving the delivery of essential diagnostic tools in low- and middle-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions in Malawi, Peru, and China suggest social innovation increases uptake of diagnostics. The same tools and principles utilized in these cases can be adapted for use in other contexts. Such diagnostic innovations may help improve identification of and linkage to care for many diseases. The approach presents a unique opportunity to better address public health issues and increase accessibility in LMIC health systems

Validating an Agency-based Tool for Measuring Women’s Empowerment in a Complex Public Health Trial in Rural Nepal

Despite the rising popularity of indicators of women’s empowerment in global development programmes, little work has been done on the validity of existing measures of such a complex concept. We present a mixed methods validation of the use of the Relative Autonomy Index for measuring Amartya Sen’s notion of agency freedom in rural Nepal. Analysis of think-aloud interviews (n = 7) indicated adequate respondent understanding of questionnaire items, but multiple problems of interpretation including difficulties with the four-point Likert scale, questionnaire item ambiguity and difficulties with translation. Exploratory Factor Analysis of a calibration sample (n = 519) suggested two positively correlated factors (r = 0.64) loading on internally and externally motivated behaviour. Both factors increased with decreasing education and decision-making power on large expenditures and food preparation. Confirmatory Factor Analysis on a validation sample (n = 509) revealed good fit (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation 0.05–0.08, Comparative Fit Index 0.91–0.99). In conclusion, we caution against uncritical use of agency-based quantification of women’s empowerment. While qualitative and quantitative analysis revealed overall satisfactory construct and content validity, the positive correlation between external and internal motivations suggests the existence of adaptive preferences. High scores on internally motivated behaviour may reflect internalized oppression rather than agency freedom

Do Participatory Learning and Action Women’s Groups Alone or Combined with Cash or Food Transfers Expand Women’s Agency in Rural Nepal?

Participatory learning and action women’s groups (PLA) have proven effective in reducing neonatal mortality in rural, high-mortality settings, but their impacts on women’s agency in the household remain unknown. Cash transfer programmes have also long targeted female beneficiaries in the belief that this empowers women. Drawing on data from 1309 pregnant women in a four-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial in Nepal, we found little evidence for an impact of PLA alone or combined with unconditional food or cash transfers on women’s agency in the household. Caution is advised before assuming PLA women’s groups alone or with resource transfers necessarily empower women