11,916 research outputs found
Spins in the Vortices of a High Temperature Superconductor
Neutron scattering is used to characterise the magnetism of the vortices for
the optimally doped high-temperature superconductor La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4)
(x=0.163) in an applied magnetic field. As temperature is reduced, low
frequency spin fluctuations first disappear with the loss of vortex mobility,
but then reappear. We find that the vortex state can be regarded as an
inhomogeneous mixture of a superconducting spin fluid and a material containing
a nearly ordered antiferromagnet. These experiments show that as for many other
properties of cuprate superconductors, the important underlying microscopic
forces are magnetic
A DNA delivery system targeting dendritic cells for use in immunization against malaria: a rodent model
DNA-based vaccination has emerged as a promising method of immunisation since the first demonstration of this technology. Improving the antibody responses is desirable for the protective efficacy and hence broad application of these vaccines. We examined the immunogenicity of a Plasmodium-based DNA vaccine that was targeted to antigen presenting cells by fusion to CTLA4. Fusion proteins comprising the extra-cellular domain of CTLA4, the hinge, CH2 and CH3 domains of human IgG1 and MSP-1 gene fragments were expressed in COS-7 cells. Three of the secreted proteins containing the mouse homologue of CTLA4 were shown to bind differently to the human B7-1 molecule expressed on THP-1 cells. Competition binding assays for two fusion proteins showed that binding was specific. When C57BL/6 mice were immunized with plasmids encoding the fusion proteins, antibodies against two denatured and one non-denatured MSP-1 gene fragments were successfully induced. The usefulness of this strategy in future studies of immunisaton against human malaria is discussed. Keywords: malaria, PbMSP-1, DNA vaccine, dendritic cells, rodent model Tanzania Health Research Bulletin Vol. 7(3) 2005: 142-14
A systematic review of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about malaria among the South Asian population
Background
Malaria is one of the deadliest mosquito-borne diseases in the world. More than 80% of the total populations are at risk of malaria in the 22 countries in Asia and the Pacific. South Asia alone is home to an estimated 1.4 billion people at risk of contracting malaria. Despite the remarkable progress in reducing the burden of malaria, evidence of the disease based on knowledge of the social and cultural contexts from a South Asian perspective is limited. Our objective was to understand the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about malaria in South Asian communities.
Methodology
We conducted a systematic literature review, searching six databases, between 1990 and 2015, focusing on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about malaria in South Asia. Databases were searched using both âfree termsâ and âindex termsâ funnelled using Boolean operators and truncations. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were set, and included papers were scrutinised, employing a critical appraisal tool to find the best available evidences to support the study purpose.
Results and discussion
Evidence from 32 articles (26 quantitative, four qualitative and two mixed methods). General knowledge and awareness of the disease, its transmission, and control and preventative measures were generally found to be lacking amongst both the general public and healthcare professionals. In addition, the study shows that poor socio-economic factors â including limited access to services due to poor/limited availability â and issues of affordability are considered as major risk factors.
Conclusion
This review suggests the importance of increasing health awareness, mobilising the local or community healthcare professionals, for prevention as well as early detection and effective treatment of malaria among people who are at risk. Malaria is also a disease associated with poverty and socio-cultural factors; therefore, strong political will, wider partnerships between health and non-health sectors, and strengthening health systemsâ technical and managerial capabilities at all level of primary healthcare systems, is inevitable
Elective Modernism and the Politics of (Bio) Ethical Expertise
In this essay I consider whether the political perspective of third wave science studies â âelective modernismâ â offers a suitable framework for understanding the policy-making contributions that (bio)ethical experts might make. The question arises as a consequence of the fact that I have taken inspiration from the third wave in order to develop an account of (bio)ethical expertise. I offer a prĂ©cis of this work and a brief summary of elective modernism before considering their relation. The view I set out suggests that elective modernism is a political philosophy and that although its use in relation to the use of scientific expertise in political and policy-making process has implications for the role of (bio)ethical expertise it does not, in the final analysis, provide an account that is appropriate for this latter form of specialist expertise. Nevertheless, it is an informative perspective, and one that can help us make sense of the political uses of (bio)ethical expertise
The influence of 'significant others' on persistent back pain and work participation: a qualitative exploration of illness perceptions
Background
Individual illness perceptions have been highlighted as important influences on clinical outcomes for back pain. However, the illness perceptions of 'significant others' (spouse/partner/close family member) are rarely explored, particularly in relation to persistent back pain and work participation. The aim of this study was to initiate qualitative research in this area in order to further understand these wider influences on outcome.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews based on the chronic pain version of the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire-Revised were conducted with a convenience sample of UK disability benefit claimants, along with their significant others (n=5 dyads). Data were analysed using template analysis.
Results
Significant others shared, and perhaps further reinforced, claimants' unhelpful illness beliefs including fear of pain/re-injury associated with certain types of work and activity, and pessimism about the likelihood of return to work. In some cases, significant others appeared more resigned to the permanence and negative inevitable consequences of the claimant's back pain condition on work participation, and were more sceptical about the availability of suitable work and sympathy from employers. In their pursuit of authenticity, claimants were keen to stress their desire to work whilst emphasising how the severity and physical limitations of their condition prevented them from doing so. In this vein, and seemingly based on their perceptions of what makes a 'good' significant other, significant others acted as a 'witness to pain', supporting claimants' self-limiting behaviour and statements of incapacity, often responding with empathy and assistance. The beliefs and responses of significant others may also have been influenced by their own experience of chronic illness, thus participants lives were often intertwined and defined by illness.
Conclusions
The findings from this exploratory study reveal how others and wider social circumstances might contribute both to the propensity of persistent back pain and to its consequences. This is an area that has received little attention to date, and wider support of these findings may usefully inform the design of future intervention programmes aimed at restoring work participation
Gauge Theory Wilson Loops and Conformal Toda Field Theory
The partition function of a family of four dimensional N=2 gauge theories has
been recently related to correlation functions of two dimensional conformal
Toda field theories. For SU(2) gauge theories, the associated two dimensional
theory is A_1 conformal Toda field theory, i.e. Liouville theory. For this case
the relation has been extended showing that the expectation value of gauge
theory loop operators can be reproduced in Liouville theory inserting in the
correlators the monodromy of chiral degenerate fields. In this paper we study
Wilson loops in SU(N) gauge theories in the fundamental and anti-fundamental
representation of the gauge group and show that they are associated to
monodromies of a certain chiral degenerate operator of A_{N-1} Toda field
theory. The orientation of the curve along which the monodromy is evaluated
selects between fundamental and anti-fundamental representation. The analysis
is performed using properties of the monodromy group of the generalized
hypergeometric equation, the differential equation satisfied by a class of four
point functions relevant for our computation.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures; references added
Cooper pairing near charged black holes
We show that a quartic contact interaction between charged fermions can lead
to Cooper pairing and a superconducting instability in the background of a
charged asymptotically Anti-de Sitter black hole. For a massless fermion we
obtain the zero mode analytically and compute the dependence of the critical
temperature T_c on the charge of the fermion. The instability we find occurs at
charges above a critical value, where the fermion dispersion relation near the
Fermi surface is linear. The critical temperature goes to zero as the marginal
Fermi liquid is approached, together with the density of states at the Fermi
surface. Besides the charge, the critical temperature is controlled by a four
point function of a fermionic operator in the dual strongly coupled field
theory.Comment: 1+33 pages, 4 figure
Separation between coherent and turbulent fluctuations. What can we learn from the Empirical Mode Decomposition?
The performances of a new data processing technique, namely the Empirical
Mode Decomposition, are evaluated on a fully developed turbulent velocity
signal perturbed by a numerical forcing which mimics a long-period flapping.
First, we introduce a "resemblance" criterion to discriminate between the
polluted and the unpolluted modes extracted from the perturbed velocity signal
by means of the Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm. A rejection procedure,
playing, somehow, the role of a high-pass filter, is then designed in order to
infer the original velocity signal from the perturbed one. The quality of this
recovering procedure is extensively evaluated in the case of a "mono-component"
perturbation (sine wave) by varying both the amplitude and the frequency of the
perturbation. An excellent agreement between the recovered and the reference
velocity signals is found, even though some discrepancies are observed when the
perturbation frequency overlaps the frequency range corresponding to the
energy-containing eddies as emphasized by both the energy spectrum and the
structure functions. Finally, our recovering procedure is successfully
performed on a time-dependent perturbation (linear chirp) covering a broad
range of frequencies.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Experiments in Fluid
On the Monadic Second-Order Transduction Hierarchy
We compare classes of finite relational structures via monadic second-order
transductions. More precisely, we study the preorder where we set C \subseteq K
if, and only if, there exists a transduction {\tau} such that
C\subseteq{\tau}(K). If we only consider classes of incidence structures we can
completely describe the resulting hierarchy. It is linear of order type
{\omega}+3. Each level can be characterised in terms of a suitable variant of
tree-width. Canonical representatives of the various levels are: the class of
all trees of height n, for each n \in N, of all paths, of all trees, and of all
grids
Hospital admissions for vitamin D related conditions and subsequent immune-mediated disease: record-linkage studies
PMCID: PMC3729414The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/171.
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