1,259 research outputs found
Are the school prevention programmes - aimed at de-normalizing smoking among youths - beneficial in the long term? An example from the Smoke Free Class Competition in Italy
Tobacco smoking by young people is of great concern because it usually leads to regular smoking, nicotine addiction and quitting difficulties. Young people "hooked" by tobacco maintain the profits of the tobacco industry by replacing smokers who quit or die. If new generations could be tobacco-free, as supported by tobacco endgame strategies, the tobacco epidemic could end within decades. Smoking prevention programmes for teens are offered by schools with the aim to prevent or delay smoking onset. Among these, the Smoke Free Class Competition (SFC) was widely implemented in Europe. Its effectiveness yielded conflicting results, but it was only evaluated at short/medium term (6 - 18 months). The aim of this study is to evaluate its effectiveness after a longer follow-up (3 to 5 years) in order to allow enough time for the maturing of the students and the internalization of the experience and its contents. Fifteen classes were randomly sampled from two Italian high schools of Bologna province that regularly offered the SFC to first year students; 382 students (174 participating in the SFC and 208 controls) were retrospectively followed-up and provided their "smoking histories". At the end of their last year of school (after 5 years from the SFC), the percentage of students who stated that they were regular smokers was lower among the SFC students than in controls: 13.5% vs 32.9% (p=0.03). From the students' "smoking histories", statistically significant protective ORs were observed for SFC students at the end of 1st and 5th year: 0.42 (95% CI 0.19-0.93) and 0.32 (95% CI 0.11-0.91) respectively. Absence of smokers in the family was also a strongly statistically significant factor associated with being a non-smoker student. These results suggest that SFC may have a positive impact on lowering the prevalence of smoking in the long term (5 years)
Theta burst stimulation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulates pathological language switching: A case report
Cognitive function and cholinergic transmission in patients with subcortical vascular dementia and microbleeds: a TMS study
Cholinergic dysfunction and amnesia in patients with Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study
The origin of ultra high energy cosmic rays
We briefly discuss some open problems and recent developments in the
investigation of the origin and propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays
(UHECRs).Comment: Invited Review Talk at TAUP 2005 (Zaragoza - September 10-14, 2005).
7 page
Relaxation Methods for Mixed-Integer Optimal Control of Partial Differential Equations
We consider integer-restricted optimal control of systems governed by
abstract semilinear evolution equations. This includes the problem of optimal
control design for certain distributed parameter systems endowed with multiple
actuators, where the task is to minimize costs associated with the dynamics of
the system by choosing, for each instant in time, one of the actuators together
with ordinary controls. We consider relaxation techniques that are already used
successfully for mixed-integer optimal control of ordinary differential
equations. Our analysis yields sufficient conditions such that the optimal
value and the optimal state of the relaxed problem can be approximated with
arbitrary precision by a control satisfying the integer restrictions. The
results are obtained by semigroup theory methods. The approach is constructive
and gives rise to a numerical method. We supplement the analysis with numerical
experiments
Infra-Red Stable Supersymmetry in Chern-Simons Theories with Matter and Quenched Disorder
We study Abelian Chern-Simons field theories with matter fields and global
SU(N) symmetry in the presence of random weak quenched disorder. In the absence
of disorder these theories possess N=2 supersymmetric fixed points and N=1
supersymmetric fixed lines in the infra-red limit. We show that although the
presence of disorder forbids any supersymmetry of the bare action, infra-red
stable supersymmetric fixed points and fixed lines are realized in the
disorder-averaged effective theories.Comment: 8 pp., LaTeX. Explanatory remarks and references added. Version to
appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Topological Vector Symmetry of BRSTQFT and Construction of Maximal Supersymmetry
The scalar and vector topological Yang-Mills symmetries determine a closed
and consistent sector of Yang-Mills supersymmetry. We provide a geometrical
construction of these symmetries, based on a horizontality condition on
reducible manifolds. This yields globally well-defined scalar and vector
topological BRST operators. These operators generate a subalgebra of maximally
supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, which is small enough to be closed off-shell
with a finite set of auxiliary fields and large enough to determine the
Yang-Mills supersymmetric theory. Poincar\'e supersymmetry is reached in the
limit of flat manifolds. The arbitrariness of the gauge functions in BRSTQFTs
is thus removed by the requirement of scalar and vector topological symmetry,
which also determines the complete supersymmetry transformations in a twisted
way. Provided additional Killing vectors exist on the manifold, an equivariant
extension of our geometrical framework is provided, and the resulting
"equivariant topological field theory" corresponds to the twist of super
Yang-Mills theory on Omega backgrounds.Comment: 50 page
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