The pion mass in finite volume to two loops

We evaluate the pion mass in finite volume to two loops within Chiral Perturbation Theory. The results are compared with a recently proposed extension of the asymptotic formula of Luscher. We find that contributions, which were neglected in the latter, are numerically very small at the two-loop level.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Talk presented at Lattice 2005 (Hadron spectrum and quark masses

The pion and proton mass in finite volume

We calculate the finite volume effects for the pion and nucleon mass. For the pion mass we present the results of a full two-loop calculation in chiral perturbation theory. The outcome shows that the resummed version of the Luscher formula we presented in an earlier work does indeed give an excellent approximation to the two-loop result. In view of this result we apply the same resummed formula to the nucleon mass. In the nucleon sector the extension of the chiral expansion to higher quark masses appears to be more problematic and it is therefore more difficult to make reliable predictions for the size of the finite volume effects. We present some preliminary numerical estimates.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Talk given at the Workshop on Computational Hadron Physics, Cyprus, September 14-17, 200

Der finanzielle Handlungsspielraum städtischer Verkehrspolitik: Eine akteurorientierte Analyse am Beispiel Bielefelds 1950 - 1994

Die finanziellen Handlungsspielräume städtischer Verkehrspolitik sind bisher nicht über län-gere Zeiträume untersucht worden. Die vorliegende Untersuchung will anhand einer Haus-haltsanalyse der Stadt Bielefeld über den Zeitraum 1950-1994 zur Schliessung dieser Forschungslücke beitragen. Einbezogen wurden alle relevanten Einnahmen und Ausgaben der Stadtsowie der Zuschussbedarf der Stadtwerke (Betreiberin des öffentlichen Personennahverkehrs).Insgesamt blieben die kommunalen Handlungsspielräume abgesehen von einem Zeitfenster inder ersten Hälfte der 60er Jahre klein. Dieses Zeitfenster fiel mit dem absoluten Höhepunktvon Automobilkonsens und Wachstumseuphorie in der Stadt zusammen, weshalb die politi-schen Entscheide in dieser Zeit demokratisch gut abgestützt praktisch ausschliesslich zugun-sten einer oft überdimensionierten Autoinfrastruktur getroffen wurden. Als sich nach 1970 eine kritischere Haltung gegenüber dem Auto verbreitete, fehlten der Stadt die finanziellenMittel zur Einleitung einer Verkehrswende. Auf den ersten Blick scheint die Stadt ihre nach 1970 bescheidenen Handlungsspielräume durchaus im Einklang mit den nach aussen verkün-deten Zielsetzungen der Verkehrspolitik genutzt zu haben. Eine genauere Betrachtung zeigt aber, dass de facto weiterhin eine MIV-freundliche Politik betrieben wurde. Dies gilt in besonderem Masse, wenn Schattensubventionen bzw. externe Kosten in die Betrachtung einbezogen werden. Das Kostenbewusstsein in Politik und Öffentlichkeit blieb insgesamt v.a. inbezug auf den motorisierten Individualverkehr erstaunlich gering.Zur nachhaltigen Gestaltung städtischer Verkehrspolitik bedarf es dringend neuer Finanzierungsinstrumente. Als eine wichtige Voraussetzung zur optimalen Ausgestaltung solcher Instrumente sollte eine transparente Verkehrsrechnung erarbeitet werden, welche die in den heutevorliegenden Haushalten oft versteckten verkehrsrelevanten Konten erfasst und auchSchattensubventionen bzw. externe Kosten einbezieht. --

Refined sensory measures of neural repair in human spinal cord injury: bridging preclinical findings to clinical value

Sensory input from the periphery to the brain can be severely compromised or completely abolished after an injury to the spinal cord. Evidence from animal models suggests that endogenous repair processes in the spinal cord mediate extensive sprouting and that this might be further attenuated by targeted therapeutic interventions. However, the extent to which sprouting can contribute to spontaneous recovery after human spinal cord injury (SCI) remains largely unknown, in part because few measurement tools are available in order to non-invasively detect subtle changes in neurophysiology. The proposed application of segmental sensory evoked potentials (e.g., dermatomal contact heat evoked potentials and somatosensory evoked potentials) to assess conduction in ascending pathways (i.e., spinothalamic and dorsal column, respectively) differs from conventional approaches in that individual spinal segments adjacent to the level of lesion are examined. The adoption of these approaches into clinical research might provide improved resolution for measuring changes in sensory impairments and might determine the extent by which spontaneous recovery after SCI is mediated by similar endogenous repair mechanisms in humans as in animal model

The NA62 RICH detector

The RICH detector of the NA62 experiment is proposed for pion - muon separation and to contribute to the first level of the trigger. The design parameters of the detector and the results of test beams performed at CERN in 2007 and 2009 with a prototype are presented.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, To appear in the proceedings of 12th Topical Seminar on Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors (IPRD10), Siena, Italy, 7-10 June 201

Finite volume effects for the pion mass at two loops

We evaluate the pion mass in finite volume to two loops within Chiral Perturbation Theory. The results are compared with a recently proposed extension of the asymptotic formula of Luscher. We find that contributions, which were neglected in the latter, are numerically very small at the two-loop level and conclude that for Mpi*L>2, L>2fm the finite volume effects in the meson sector are analytically well under control.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

How to improve drug dosing for patients with renal impairment in primary care - a cluster-randomized controlled trial

Background: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk for inappropriate or potentially harmful prescribing. The aim of this study was to examine whether a multifaceted intervention including the use of a software programme for the estimation of creatinine clearance and recommendation of individual dosage requirements may improve correct dosage adjustment of relevant medications for patients with CKD in primary care. Methods: A cluster-randomized controlled trial was conducted between January and December 2007 in small primary care practices in Germany. Practices were randomly allocated to intervention or control groups. In each practice, we included patients with known CKD and elderly patients (>=70 years) suffering from hypertension. The practices in the intervention group received interactive training and were provided a software programme to assist with individual dose adjustment. The control group performed usual care. Data were collected at baseline and at 6 months. The outcome measures, analyzed across individual patients, included prescriptions exceeding recommended maximum daily doses, with the primary outcome being prescriptions exceeding recommended standard daily doses by 30% or more. Results: Data from 44 general practitioners and 404 patients are included. The intervention was effective in reducing prescriptions exceeding the maximum daily dose per patients, with a trend in reducing prescriptions exceeding the standard daily dose by more than 30%. Conclusions: A multifaceted intervention including the use of a software program effectively reduced inappropriately high doses of renally excreted medications in patients with CKD in the setting of small primary care practices

Chiral Perturbation Theory with tensor sources

We construct the most general chirally-invariant Lagrangian for mesons in the presence of external sources coupled to the tensor current \bar{\psi}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\psi. In order to have only even terms in the chiral expansion, we consider the new source of O(p^2). With this choice, we build the even-parity effective Lagrangian up to the p^6-order (NLO). While there are only 4 new terms at the p^4-order, at p^6-order we find 78 terms for n_f=2 and 113 terms for n_f=3. We provide a detailed discussion on the different mechanisms that ensure that our final set of operators is complete and non-redundant. We also examine the odd-parity sector, to conclude that the first operators appear at the p^8-order (NNLO).Comment: 23 pages, one figure; typos corrected, one paragraph added, new section added, references added, published versio