3,015 research outputs found
Hospital Liability in View of Insinga v. LaBella: No Relief in Sight
During the past five decades, the health care industry in the United States has undergone a great transformation as liability and the respective responsibilities of health care providers have been shifted and reapportioned
An Asymptotic Expansion and Recursive Inequalities for the Monomer-Dimer Problem
Let (lambda_d)(p) be the p monomer-dimer entropy on the d-dimensional integer
lattice Z^d, where p in [0,1] is the dimer density. We give upper and lower
bounds for (lambda_d)(p) in terms of expressions involving (lambda_(d-1))(q).
The upper bound is based on a conjecture claiming that the p monomer-dimer
entropy of an infinite subset of Z^d is bounded above by (lambda_d)(p). We
compute the first three terms in the formal asymptotic expansion of
(lambda_d)(p) in powers of 1/d. We prove that the lower asymptotic matching
conjecture is satisfied for (lambda_d)(p).Comment: 15 pages, much more about d=1,2,
Asymptotic Expansions for lambda_d of the Dimer and Monomer-Dimer Problems
In the past few years we have derived asymptotic expansions for lambda_d of
the dimer problem and lambda_d(p) of the monomer-dimer problem. The many
expansions so far computed are collected herein. We shine a light on results in
two dimensions inspired by the work of M. E. Fisher. Much of the work reported
here was joint with Shmuel Friedland.Comment: 4 page
Construction and analysis of a simplified many-body neutrino model
In dense neutrino systems, such as found in the early Universe, or near a
supernova core, neutrino flavor evolution is affected by coherent
neutrino-neutrino scattering. It has been recently suggested that many-particle
quantum entanglement effects may play an essential role in these systems,
potentially invalidating the traditional description in terms of a set of
single-particle evolution equations. We model the neutrino system by a system
of interacting spins, following an earlier work which showed that such a spin
system can in some cases be solved exactly. We extend this work by constructing
an exact analytical solution to a more general spin system, including initial
states with asymmetric spin distribution and, moreover, not necessarily aligned
along the same axis. Our solution exhibits a rich set of behaviors, including
coherent oscillations and dephasing and a transition from the classical to
quantum regimes. We argue that the classical evolution of the spin system
captures the entire coherent behavior of the neutrino system, while the quantum
effects in the spin system capture some, but not all, of the neutrino
incoherent evolution. By comparing the spin and neutrino systems, we find no
evidence for the violation of the accepted one-body description, though the
argument involves some subtleties not appreciated before. The analysis in this
paper may apply to other two-state systems beyond the neutrino field.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure
Integrating Community-Based Interventions to Reverse the Convergent TB/HIV Epidemics in Rural South Africa.
The WHO recommends integrating interventions to address the devastating TB/HIV co-epidemics in South Africa, yet integration has been poorly implemented and TB/HIV control efforts need strengthening. Identifying infected individuals is particularly difficult in rural settings. We used mathematical modeling to predict the impact of community-based, integrated TB/HIV case finding and additional control strategies on South Africa's TB/HIV epidemics. We developed a model incorporating TB and HIV transmission to evaluate the effectiveness of integrating TB and HIV interventions in rural South Africa over 10 years. We modeled the impact of a novel screening program that integrates case finding for TB and HIV in the community, comparing it to status quo and recommended TB/HIV control strategies, including GeneXpert, MDR-TB treatment decentralization, improved first-line TB treatment cure rate, isoniazid preventive therapy, and expanded ART. Combining recommended interventions averted 27% of expected TB cases (95% CI 18-40%) 18% HIV (95% CI 13-24%), 60% MDR-TB (95% CI 34-83%), 69% XDR-TB (95% CI 34-90%), and 16% TB/HIV deaths (95% CI 12-29). Supplementing these interventions with annual community-based TB/HIV case finding averted a further 17% of TB cases (44% total; 95% CI 31-56%), 5% HIV (23% total; 95% CI 17-29%), 8% MDR-TB (68% total; 95% CI 40-88%), 4% XDR-TB (73% total; 95% CI 38-91%), and 8% TB/HIV deaths (24% total; 95% CI 16-39%). In addition to increasing screening frequency, we found that improving TB symptom questionnaire sensitivity, second-line TB treatment delays, default before initiating TB treatment or ART, and second-line TB drug efficacy were significantly associated with even greater reductions in TB and HIV cases. TB/HIV epidemics in South Africa were most effectively curtailed by simultaneously implementing interventions that integrated community-based TB/HIV control strategies and targeted drug-resistant TB. Strengthening existing TB and HIV treatment programs is needed to further reduce disease incidence
Approximating the monomer-dimer constants through matrix permanent
The monomer-dimer model is fundamental in statistical mechanics. However, it
is #P-complete in computation, even for two dimensional problems. A
formulation in matrix permanent for the partition function of the monomer-dimer
model is proposed in this paper, by transforming the number of all matchings of
a bipartite graph into the number of perfect matchings of an extended bipartite
graph, which can be given by a matrix permanent. Sequential importance sampling
algorithm is applied to compute the permanents. For two-dimensional lattice
with periodic condition, we obtain , where the exact value is
. For three-dimensional lattice with periodic condition,
our numerical result is , {which agrees with the best known
bound .}Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure
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