628 research outputs found
What impact did a Paediatric Early Warning system have on emergency admissions to the paediatric intensive care unit? An observational cohort study
Summary
The ideology underpinning Paediatric Early Warning systems (PEWs) is that earlier recognition of deteriorating in-patients would improve clinical outcomes.
Objective
To explore how the introduction of PEWs at a tertiary children's hospital affects emergency admissions to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and the impact on service delivery. To compare ‘in-house’ emergency admissions to PICU with ‘external’ admissions transferred from District General Hospitals (without PEWs).
Method
A before-and-after observational study August 2005–July 2006 (pre), August 2006–July 2007 (post) implementation of PEWs at the tertiary children's hospital.
Results
The median Paediatric Index of Mortality (PIM2) reduced; 0.44 vs 0.60 (p < 0.001). Fewer admissions required invasive ventilation 62.7% vs 75.2% (p = 0.015) for a shorter median duration; four to two days. The median length of PICU stay reduced; five to three days (p = 0.002). There was a non-significant reduction in mortality (p = 0.47). There was no comparable improvement in outcome seen in external emergency admissions to PICU. A 39% reduction in emergency admission total beds days reduced cancellation of major elective surgical cases and refusal of external PICU referrals.
Conclusions
Following introduction of PEWs at a tertiary children's hospital PIM2 was reduced, patients required less PICU interventions and had a shorter length of stay. PICU service delivery improved
Could the Pioneer anomaly have a gravitational origin?
If the Pioneer anomaly has a gravitational origin, it would, according to the
equivalence principle, distort the motions of the planets in the Solar System.
Since no anomalous motion of the planets has been detected, it is generally
believed that the Pioneer anomaly can not originate from a gravitational source
in the Solar System. However, this conclusion becomes less obvious when
considering models that either imply modifications to gravity at long range or
gravitational sources localized to the outer Solar System, given the
uncertainty in the orbital parameters of the outer planets. Following the
general assumption that the Pioneer spacecraft move geodesically in a
spherically symmetric spacetime metric, we derive the metric disturbance that
is needed in order to account for the Pioneer anomaly. We then analyze the
residual effects on the astronomical observables of the three outer planets
that would arise from this metric disturbance, given an arbitrary metric theory
of gravity. Providing a method for comparing the computed residuals with actual
residuals, our results imply that the presence of a perturbation to the
gravitational field necessary to induce the Pioneer anomaly is in conflict with
available data for the planets Uranus and Pluto, but not for Neptune. We
therefore conclude that the motion of the Pioneer spacecraft must be
non-geodesic. Since our results are model independent within the class of
metric theories of gravity, they can be applied to rule out any model of the
Pioneer anomaly that implies that the Pioneer spacecraft move geodesically in a
perturbed spacetime metric, regardless of the origin of this metric
disturbance.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures. Rev. 3: Major revision. Accepted for publication
in Phys. Rev. D. Rev. 4: Added two reference
Wide-angle elastic scattering and color randomization
Baryon-baryon elastic scattering is considered in the independent scattering
(Landshoff) mechanism. It is suggested that for scattering at moderate
energies, direct and interchange quark channels contribute with equal color
coefficients because the quark color is randomized by soft gluon exchange
during the hadronization stage. With this assumption, it is shown that the
ratio of cross sections at CM angle
decreases from a high energy value of R_{\pbar p / pp} \approx 1/2.7, down to
R_{\pbar p / pp} \approx 1/28, compatible with experimental data at moderate
energies. This sizable fall in the ratio seems to be characteristic of the
Landshoff mechanism, in which changes at the quark level have a strong effect
precisely because the hadronic process occurs via multiple quark scatterings.
The effect of color randomization on the angular distribution of proton-proton
elastic scattering and the cross section ratio is also discussed.Comment: 18 pages, latex2e, 4 uuencoded figures, include
Gravitational collapse in asymptotically Anti-de Sitter/de Sitter backgrounds
We study here the gravitational collapse of a matter cloud with a
non-vanishing tangential pressure in the presence of a non-zero cosmological
term. Conditions for bounce and singularity formation are derived for the
model. It is also shown that when the tangential pressures vanish, the bounce
and singularity conditions reduce to that of the dust case studied earlier. The
collapsing interior is matched with an exterior which is asymptotically de
Sitter or anti de Sitter, depending on the sign of cosmological constant. The
junction conditions for matching the cloud to exterior are specified. The
effect of the cosmological term on apparent horizons is studied in some detail,
and the nature of central singularity is analyzed. We also discuss here the
visibility of the singularity and implications for the cosmic censorship
conjecture.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, Revtex
Exactly Solvable Hydrogen-like Potentials and Factorization Method
A set of factorization energies is introduced, giving rise to a
generalization of the Schr\"{o}dinger (or Infeld and Hull) factorization for
the radial hydrogen-like Hamiltonian. An algebraic intertwining technique
involving such factorization energies leads to derive -parametric families
of potentials in general almost-isospectral to the hydrogen-like radial
Hamiltonians. The construction of SUSY partner Hamiltonians with ground state
energies greater than the corresponding ground state energy of the initial
Hamiltonian is also explicitly performed.Comment: LaTex file, 21 pages, 2 PostScript figures and some references added.
To be published in J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. (1998
Orbital dependent nucleonic pairing in the lightest known isotopes of tin
By studying the 109Xe-->105Te-->101Sn superallowed alpha-decay chain, we
observe low-lying states in 101Sn, the one-neutron system outside doubly magic
100Sn. We find that the spins of the ground state (J = 7=2) and first excited
state (J = 5=2) in 101Sn are reversed with respect to the traditional level
ordering postulated for 103Sn and the heavier tin isotopes. Through simple
arguments and state-of-the-art shell model calculations we explain this
unexpected switch in terms of a transition from the single-particle regime to
the collective mode in which orbital-dependent pairing correlations, dominate.Comment: 5 pages 3 figure
Exploring the vicinity of the Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield bound
We investigate systems of real scalar fields in bidimensional spacetime,
dealing with potentials that are small modifications of potentials that admit
supersymmetric extensions. The modifications are controlled by a real
parameter, which allows implementing a perturbation procedure when such
parameter is small. The approach allows obtaining the energy and topological
charge in closed forms, up to first order in the parameter. We illustrate the
procedure with some examples. In particular, we show how to remove the
degeneracy in energy for the one-field and the two-field solutions that appear
in a model of two real scalar fields.Comment: Revtex, 9 pages, To be published in J. Phys.
On the equivalence principle and gravitational and inertial mass relation of classical charged particles
We show that the locally constant force necessary to get a stable hyperbolic
motion regime for classical charged point particles, actually, is a combination
of an applied external force and of the electromagnetic radiation reaction
force. It implies, as the strong Equivalence Principle is valid, that the
passive gravitational mass of a charged point particle should be slight greater
than its inertial mass. An interesting new feature that emerges from the
unexpected behavior of the gravitational and inertial mass relation, for
classical charged particles, at very strong gravitational field, is the
existence of a critical, particle dependent, gravitational field value that
signs the validity domain of the strong Equivalence Principle. For electron and
proton, these critical field values are
and , respectively
The supersymmetric modified Poschl-Teller and delta-well potentials
New supersymmetric partners of the modified Poschl-Teller and the Dirac's
delta well potentials are constructed in closed form. The resulting
one-parametric potentials are shown to be interrelated by a limiting process.
The range of values of the parameters for which these potentials are free of
singularities is exactly determined. The construction of higher order
supersymmetric partner potentials is also investigated.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX file, 4 eps figure
On the K^+D Interaction at Low Energies
The Kd reactions are considered in the impulse approximation with NN
final-state interactions (NN FSI) taken into account. The realistic parameters
for the KN phase shifts are used. The "quasi-elastic" energy region, in which
the elementary KN interaction is predominantly elastic, is considered. The
theoretical predictions are compared with the data on the K^+d->K^+pn,
K^+d->K^0pp, K^+d->K^+d and K^+d total cross sections. The NN FSI effect in the
reaction K^+d->K^+pn has been found to be large. The predictions for the Kd
cross sections are also given for slow kaons, produced from phi(1020) decays,
as the functions of the isoscalar KN scattering length a_0. These predictions
can be used to extract the value of a_0 from the data.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
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