Factors affecting psychological well-being: Evidence from two nationally representative surveys

Financial status is thought to be an important determinant of psychological well-being. We investigate this relationship, and the effect of other factors, using a parametric mixed modelling approach for panel data, controlling the problem of unobservable heterogeneity. Two nationally representative surveys, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the Understanding Society Survey (USS), were used to construct a unified data set which measured psychological well-being and associated factors using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The GHQ-12 score for the head of the household was used as the dependant variable and its relationship with multiple independent demographic and financial status variables was investigated. Following assessment of growth curve characteristics with linear, curvilinear and higher-order polynomial modelling; several variance-covariance structures were tested to assess the error covariance structure of the longitudinal data. The random intercept and random slope were allowed to vary across participants, and methods such as natural splines and B-splines were used to improve the fit of some variables. Our final model demonstrated the most important variables affecting self-reported psychological well-being, as determined by GHQ-12, were perception and expectation of future financial situation and problems meeting household expenditure. Gender, age, marital status, number of children at home, highest qualification and job status were also significantly implicated. Unlike previous studies however we did not find that size of income was significant. These results provide further strong evidence of the impact that financial concerns have on self-reported measures of psychological well-being

Radiative and Collisional Jet Energy Loss in a Quark-Gluon Plasma

We calculate radiative and collisional energy loss of hard partons traversing the quark-gluon plasma created at RHIC and compare the respective size of these contributions. We employ the AMY formalism for radiative energy loss and include additionally energy loss by elastic collisions. Our treatment of both processes is complete at leading order in the coupling, and accounts for the probabilistic nature of jet energy loss. We find that a solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for the probability density distributions of partons is necessary for a complete calculation of the nuclear modification factor $R_{AA}$ for pion production in heavy ion collisions. It is found that the magnitude of $R_{AA}$ is sensitive to the inclusion of both collisional and radiative energy loss, while the average energy is less affected by the addition of collisional contributions. We present a calculation of $R_{AA}$ for $\pi^0$ at RHIC, combining our energy loss formalism with a relativistic (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic description of the thermalized medium.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, contributed to Quark Matter 2008, Jaipur, Indi

Surface Tension at Finite Tempearture in the MIT Bag Model

At $T = 0$ the surface tension $\sigma ^{1/3}$ in the MIT bag model for a single hadron is known to be negligible as compared to the bag pressure $B^{1/4}$. We show that at finite temperature it has a substantial value of 50 - 70 MeV which also differ from hadron to hadron. We also find that the dynamics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma is such that the creation of hybrids $(s\bar{s}g)$ with massive quarks will predominate over the creation of $(s\bar{s})$ mesons.Comment: Substantial changes in the revised version and a new author included, 13 pages in Latex and one figur

Assessment of pulmonary hypertension in patients with liver disease pre and post liver transplantation

AbstractBackgroundBoth hepatopulmonary syndrome and portopulmonary hypertension are associated with chronic liver disease. Liver transplantation is considered a controversial solution.AimThe aim of this work is to assess pulmonary hypertension in liver disease patients pre and post liver transplantation. Studying the impact of pulmonary hypertension on hemodynamic of the patients in hospital after liver transplantation.Patients and methodsEcho cardiographic examination pre and post liver transplantation after at least 3months was conducted on 20 patients with chronic liver diseases and pulmonary hypertension who underwent liver transplantation to estimate mean PAP and degree of tricuspid regurgitation.ResultsThe present study was conducted on 20 patients consisting of 18 males (90%) and two females (10%) with mean age 47.8±8.9. It showed that mean pulmonary arterial pressure improved after liver transplantation 24.65%±17.50.The tricuspid regurgitation before operation was mild in 17 patients (85%) and moderate in three patients (15%) and after operation it become normal in 40% and mild in 60% with improvement in 55% and no improvement in 45% of the patients. There was improvement in dyspnea scale after the operation with one grade change in 35%, two grade change in 55% and three grade change in 10% of patients.ConclusionLiver transplantation was effective in the reduction of pulmonary artery pressure. The degree of pulmonary hypertension affected the functional state according to WHO Classification of pulmonary hypertension patients

d-Dimensional generalization of the point canonical transformation for a quantum particle with position-dependent mass

The d-dimensional generalization of the point canonical transformation for a quantum particle endowed with a position-dependent mass in Schrodinger equation is described. Illustrative examples including; the harmonic oscillator, Coulomb, spiked harmonic, Kratzer, Morse oscillator, Poschl-Teller and Hulthen potentials are used as reference potentials to obtain exact energy eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for target potentials at different position-dependent mass settings.Comment: 14 pages, no figures, to appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Ge

The Cytotoxic Effect of 2-Deoxy-D-Glucose Combination with 5-Fluorourasil and NO-Aspirin on Mammary Adenocacinoma Cell Line

2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) and NO-Aspirin (NO-ASA) are new anticancer agents that are under intense clinical investigation for their remarkable cytotoxic activity. Combining 2DG, which targets glucose metabolism, with other agents mainly the DNA- and the mitochondrial-damaging agents represent a promising chemotherapeutic strategy.  In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic effects of 2DG, 5-fluorourasil (5FU), and NO-ASA on AMN3 breast cancer model, in addition to the cytotoxic effects of 2DG combination with 5FU and NO-ASA on the same cells. The cytotoxic activity of 2DG, 5FU, and NO-ASA was measured by using the MTT assay at 24, 48, and 72 hr. Then 2DG was combined with 5FU and NO-ASA in a constant concentration ratio based on their corresponding IC50s and the inhibition of cell growth was measured by MTT assay at 72hr. Median effect analysis was conducted to determine the cytotoxic activity of the combinations. 2DG, 5FU, and NO-ASA were found to exert a significant dose- and time-dependant growth inhibition on AMN3 cells. The mean combination index values reveal an additive effect for both combinations. This study demonstrated that 2DG and NO-ASA are capable of inhibiting the breast tumor growth effectively. It also shows that 2DG/5FU and 2DG/NO-ASA combinations result in mean additive effects with good dose reduction index values that have the advantages of reducing the toxicity, adverse effects, and the drug resistance in cancer patients. Key words: 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG), NO-Aspirin (NO-ASA), 5-fluorourasil (5FU), Glucose metabolism, Median effect analysis, Breast cance

Collisional energy loss of a fast heavy quark in a quark-gluon plasma

We discuss the average collisional energy loss dE/dx of a heavy quark crossing a quark-gluon plasma, in the limit of high quark energy E >> M^2/T, where M is the quark mass and T >> M is the plasma temperature. In the fixed coupling approximation, at leading order dE/dx \propto \alpha_s^2, with a coefficient which is logarithmically enhanced. The soft logarithm arising from t-channel scattering off thermal partons is well-known, but a collinear logarithm from u-channel exchange had previously been overlooked. We also determine the constant beyond those leading logarithms. We then generalize our calculation of dE/dx to the case of running coupling. We estimate the remaining theoretical uncertainty of dE/dx, which turns out to be quite large under RHIC conditions. Finally, we point out an approximate relation between dE/dx and the QCD Debye mass, from which we derive an upper bound to dE/dx for all quark energies.Comment: 6 page

Evidence for spin-triplet superconducting correlations in metal-oxide heterostructures with non-collinear magnetization

Heterostructures composed of ferromagnetic La0.7Sr0.3MnO3, ferromagnetic SrRuO3, and superconducting YBa2Cu3Ox were studied experimentally. Structures of composition Au/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/SrRuO3/YBa2Cu3Ox were prepared by pulsed laser deposition, and their high quality was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and reflectometry. A non-collinear magnetic state of the heterostructures was revealed by means of SQUID magnetometry and polarized neutron reflectometry. We have further observed superconducting currents in mesa-structures fabricated by deposition of a second superconducting Nb layer on top of the heterostructure, followed by patterning with photolithography and ion-beam etching. Josephson effects observed in these mesa-structures can be explained by the penetration of a triplet component of the superconducting order parameter into the magnetic layers.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Memory effects in radiative jet energy loss

In heavy-ion collisions the created quark-gluon plasma forms a quickly evolving background, leading to a time dependent radiative behavior of high momentum partons traversing the medium. We use the Schwinger Keldysh formalism to describe the jet evolution as a non-equilibrium process including the Landau-Pomeranschuk-Migdal effect. Concentrating on photon emission, a comparison of our results to a quasistatic calculation shows good agreement, leading to the conclusion that the radiative behavior follows the changes in the medium almost instantaneously

Identification of observables in quantum toboggans

Quantum systems with real energies generated by an apparently non-Hermitian Hamiltonian may re-acquire the consistent probabilistic interpretation via an ad hoc metric which specifies the set of observables in the updated Hilbert space of states. The recipe is extended here to quantum toboggans. In the first step the tobogganic integration path is rectified and the Schroedinger equation is given the generalized eigenvalue-problem form. In the second step the general double-series representation of the eligible metric operators is derived.Comment: 25 p