Rethinking reactive halogen budgets in the midlatitude lower stratosphere

Current stratospheric models have difficulties in fully explaining the observed midlatitude ozone depletion in the lowermost stratosphere, particularly near the tropopause. Such models assume that only long-lived source gases provide significant contributions to the stratospheric halogen budget, while all the short-lived compounds are removed in the troposphere, the products being rained out. Here we show this assumption to be flawed. Using bromine species as an example, we show that in the lowermost stratosphere, where the observed midlatitude ozone trend maximizes, bromoform (CHBr3) alone likely contributes more inorganic bromine than all the conventional long-lived sources (halons and methyl bromide) combined. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union

Outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome at Tertiary Care Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2014

During March–May 2014, a Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak occurred in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that included many persons who worked or received medical treatment at King Fahd General Hospital. We investigated 78 persons who had laboratory-confirmed MERS during March 2–May 10 and documented contact at this hospital. The 78 persons with MERS comprised 53 patients, 16 healthcare workers, and 9 visitors. Among the 53 patients, the most probable sites of acquisition were the emergency department (22 patients), inpatient areas (17), dialysis unit (11), and outpatient areas (3). Infection control deficiencies included limited separation of suspected MERS patients, patient crowding, and inconsistent use of infection control precautions; aggressive improvements in these deficiencies preceded a decline in cases. MERS coronavirus transmission probably was multifocal, occurring in multiple hospital settings. Continued vigilance and strict application of infection control precautions are necessary to prevent future MERS outbreaks

Toward High-Precision Measures of Large-Scale Structure

I review some results of estimation of the power spectrum of density fluctuations from galaxy redshift surveys and discuss advances that may be possible with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I then examine the realities of power spectrum estimation in the presence of Galactic extinction, photometric errors, galaxy evolution, clustering evolution, and uncertainty about the background cosmology.Comment: 24 pages, including 11 postscript figures. Uses crckapb.sty (included in submission). To appear in ``Ringberg Workshop on Large-Scale Structure,'' ed D. Hamilton (Kluwer, Amsterdam), p. 39

The impact of point mutations in the human androgen receptor : classification of mutations on the basis of transcriptional activity

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Osteoporosis-related life habits and knowledge about osteoporosis among women in El Salvador: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis is a systemic skeletal disorder, characterized by reduced bone mass, deterioration of bone structure, increased bone fragility, and increased fracture risk. It is more frequent to find among women than men at a 4:1 ratio. Evidence suggests that to adopt changes on some life habits can prevent or delay development of osteoporosis. Several osteoporosis-risk factors have been confirmed in the US and western Europe, but in El Salvador there are neither reliable epidemiological statistics about this skeletal disorder nor studies addressing osteoporosis-risk factors in women. The aim of this study was to determinate the extent of osteoporosis knowledge, the levels of both daily calcium intake and weight-bearing physical activity, and the influence of several osteoporosis-risk factors on these variables in three age groups of Salvadorean women. METHODS: In this exploratory cross-sectional study, an osteoporosis knowledge assessment questionnaire incluiding a food frequency and a physical activity record section were used to collect data and it was delivered through a face-to-face interview. A convenience sample (n = 197) comprised of three groups of women aged 25–35 years, 36–49 years, and over 49 years was taken. Among-group comparisons of means were analyzed by two-way ANOVA. To determinate the overall influence of osteoporosis-risk factors, the multivariate analysis was used. RESULTS: Study results indicated that better educated women had more knowledge about osteoporosis than women with a low education level, regardless of age, even though this knowledge was rather fair. Older women got more weight-bearing physical activity at home and less at place of employment than reported by the younger women; however, neither group performed sufficient high-intensity WBPA to improve bone mass. Regardless of age, the most women consumed 60% or less than the Dietary Reference Intake of calcium and depend on household income, lactose intolerance and coffee rather than milk consumption. CONCLUSION: In summary, the majority of women in this study have modest knowledge on osteoporosis. The knowledge base is not linked to preventive health habits, including sufficient calcium intake and performance of weight-bearing physical activities. They are thus at increased risk for low bone mass

Non-standard interactions versus non-unitary lepton flavor mixing at a neutrino factory

The impact of heavy mediators on neutrino oscillations is typically described by non-standard four-fermion interactions (NSIs) or non-unitarity (NU). We focus on leptonic dimension-six effective operators which do not produce charged lepton flavor violation. These operators lead to particular correlations among neutrino production, propagation, and detection non-standard effects. We point out that these NSIs and NU phenomenologically lead, in fact, to very similar effects for a neutrino factory, for completely different fundamental reasons. We discuss how the parameters and probabilities are related in this case, and compare the sensitivities. We demonstrate that the NSIs and NU can, in principle, be distinguished for large enough effects at the example of non-standard effects in the $\mu$-$\tau$-sector, which basically corresponds to differentiating between scalars and fermions as heavy mediators as leading order effect. However, we find that a near detector at superbeams could provide very synergistic information, since the correlation between source and matter NSIs is broken for hadronic neutrino production, while NU is a fundamental effect present at any experiment.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures. Final version published in JHEP. v3: Typo in Eq. (27) correcte