25,382 research outputs found
The cost effectiveness of integrated care for people living with HIV including antiretroviral treatment in a primary health care centre in Bujumbura, Burundi
The incremental cost effectiveness of an integrated care package (i.e., medical care including antiretroviral therapy (ART) and other services such as psychological and social support) for people living with HIV/AIDS was calculated in a not-for-profit primary health care centre in Bujumbura run by Society of Women against AIDS-Burundi (SWAA-Burundi), an African non-governmental organisation (NGO). Results are expressed as cost-effectiveness ratio 2007, constant US per DALY averted. The package of care provided by SWAA-Burundi is therefore a very cost-effective intervention in comparison with other interventions against HIV/AIDS that include ART. It is however, less cost effective than other types of interventions against HIV/AIDS, such as preventive activities
Wavelets: mathematics and applications
The notion of wavelets is defined. It is briefly described {\it what} are
wavelets, {\it how} to use them, {\it when} we do need them, {\it why} they are
preferred and {\it where} they have been applied. Then one proceeds to the
multiresolution analysis and fast wavelet transform as a standard procedure for
dealing with discrete wavelets. It is shown which specific features of signals
(functions) can be revealed by this analysis, but can not be found by other
methods (e.g., by the Fourier expansion). Finally, some examples of practical
application are given (in particular, to analysis of multiparticle production}.
Rigorous proofs of mathematical statements are omitted, and the reader is
referred to the corresponding literature.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, Latex, Phys. Atom. Nuc
s-Process Nucleosynthesis in Advanced Burning Phases of Massive Stars
We present a detailed study of s-process nucleosynthesis in massive stars of
solar-like initial composition and masses 15, 20,25, and 30 Msun. We update our
previous results of s-process nucleosynthesis during the core He-burning of
these stars and then focus on an analysis of the s-process under the physical
conditions encountered during the shell-carbon burning. We show that the recent
compilation of the Ne22(alpha,n)Mg25 rate leads to a remarkable reduction of
the efficiency of the s-process during core He-burning. In particular, this
rate leads to the lowest overproduction factor of Kr80 found to date during
core He-burning in massive stars. The s-process yields resulting from shell
carbon burning turn out to be very sensitive to the structural evolution of the
carbon shell. This structure is influenced by the mass fraction of C12 attained
at the end of core helium burning, which in turn is mainly determined by the
C12(alpha,gamma)O16 reaction. The still present uncertainty in the rate for
this reaction implies that the s-process in massive stars is also subject to
this uncertainty. We identify some isotopes like Zn70 and Rb87 as the
signatures of the s-process during shell carbon burning in massive stars. In
determining the relative contribution of our s-only stellar yields to the solar
abundances, we find it is important to take into account the neutron exposure
of shell carbon burning. When we analyze our yields with a Salpeter Initial
Mass Function, we find that massive stars contribute at least 40% to s-only
nuclei with mass A 90, massive stars
contribute on average ~7%, except for Gd152, Os187, and Hg198 which are ~14%,
\~13%, and ~11%, respectively.Comment: 52 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Calorimetric tunneling study of heat generation in metal-vacuum-metal tunnel junction
We have proposed novel calorimetric tunneling (CT) experiment allowing exact
determination of heat generation (or heat sinking) in individual tunnel
junction (TJ) electrodes which opens new possibilities in the field of design
and development of experimental techniques for science and technology. Using
such experiment we have studied the process of heat generation in normal-metal
electrodes of the vacuum-barrier tunnel junction (VBTJ). The results show there
exists dependence of the mutual redistribution of the heat on applied bias
voltage and the direction of tunnel current, although the total heat generated
in tunnel process is equal to Joule heat, as expected. Moreover, presented
study indicates generated heat represents the energy of non-equilibrium
quasiparticles coming from inelastic electron processes accompanying the
process of elastic tunneling.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, LaTe
Enhanced Safety Surveillance of Influenza Vaccines in General Practice, Winter 2015-16: Feasibility Study
BACKGROUND: The European Medicines Agency (EMA) requires vaccine manufacturers to conduct enhanced real-time surveillance of seasonal influenza vaccination. The EMA has specified a list of adverse events of interest to be monitored. The EMA sets out 3 different ways to conduct such surveillance: (1) active surveillance, (2) enhanced passive surveillance, or (3) electronic health record data mining (EHR-DM). English general practice (GP) is a suitable setting to implement enhanced passive surveillance and EHR-DM.
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to test the feasibility of conducting enhanced passive surveillance in GP using the yellow card scheme (adverse events of interest reporting cards) to determine if it has any advantages over EHR-DM alone.
METHODS: A total of 9 GPs in England participated, of which 3 tested the feasibility of enhanced passive surveillance and the other 6 EHR-DM alone. The 3 that tested EPS provided patients with yellow (adverse events) cards for patients to report any adverse events. Data were extracted from all 9 GPs' EHRs between weeks 35 and 49 (08/24/2015 to 12/06/2015), the main period of influenza vaccination. We conducted weekly analysis and end-of-study analyses.
RESULTS: Our GPs were largely distributed across England with a registered population of 81,040. In the week 49 report, 15,863/81,040 people (19.57% of the registered practice population) were vaccinated. In the EPS practices, staff managed to hand out the cards to 61.25% (4150/6776) of the vaccinees, and of these cards, 1.98% (82/4150) were returned to the GP offices. Adverse events of interests were reported by 113 /7223 people (1.56%) in the enhanced passive surveillance practices, compared with 322/8640 people (3.73%) in the EHR-DM practices.
CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we demonstrated that GPs EHR-DM was an appropriate method of enhanced surveillance. However, the use of yellow cards, in enhanced passive surveillance practices, did not enhance the collection of adverse events of interests as demonstrated in this study. Their return rate was poor, data entry from them was not straightforward, and there were issues with data reconciliation. We concluded that customized cards prespecifying the EMA's adverse events of interests, combined with EHR-DM, were needed to maximize data collection.
INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.1136/bmjopen-2016-015469
Untwisting of a Strained Cholesteric Elastomer by Disclination Loop Nucleation
The application of a sufficiently strong strain perpendicular to the pitch
axis of a monodomain cholesteric elastomer unwinds the cholesteric helix.
Previous theoretical analyses of this transition ignored the effects of Frank
elasticity which we include here. We find that the strain needed to unwind the
helix is reduced because of the Frank penalty and the cholesteric state becomes
metastable above the transition. We consider in detail a previously proposed
mechanism by which the topologically stable helical texture is removed in the
metastable state, namely by the nucleation of twist disclination loops in the
plane perpendicular to the pitch axis. We present an approximate calculation of
the barrier energy for this nucleation process which neglects possible spatial
variation of the strain fields in the elastomer, as well as a more accurate
calculation based on a finite element modeling of the elastomer.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
Switching dynamics of surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cells: effects of anchoring energy asymmetry
We study both theoretically and experimentally switching dynamics in surface
stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cells with asymmetric boundary
conditions. In these cells the bounding surfaces are treated differently to
produce asymmetry in their anchoring properties. Our electro-optic measurements
of the switching voltage thresholds that are determined by the peaks of the
reversal polarization current reveal the frequency dependent shift of the
hysteresis loop. We examine the predictions of the uniform dynamical model with
the anchoring energy taken into account. It is found that the asymmetry effects
are dominated by the polar contribution to the anchoring energy. Frequency
dependence of the voltage thresholds is studied by analyzing the properties of
time-periodic solutions to the dynamical equation (cycles). For this purpose,
we apply the method that uses the parameterized half-period mappings for the
approximate model and relate the cycles to the fixed points of the composition
of two half-period mappings. The cycles are found to be unstable and can only
be formed when the driving frequency is lower than its critical value. The
polar anchoring parameter is estimated by making a comparison between the
results of modelling and the experimental data for the shift vs frequency
curve. For a double-well potential considered as a deformation of the
Rapini-Papoular potential, the branch of stable cycles emerges in the low
frequency region separated by the gap from the high frequency interval for
unstable cycles.Comment: 35 pages, 15 figure
Hydrodynamics of polar liquid crystals
Starting from a microscopic definition of an alignment vector proportional to
the polarization, we discuss the hydrodynamics of polar liquid crystals with
local -symmetry. The free energy for polar liquid crystals
differs from that of nematic liquid crystals () in that it
contains terms violating the symmetry. First we show
that these -odd terms induce a general splay instability of a
uniform polarized state in a range of parameters. Next we use the general
Poisson-bracket formalism to derive the hydrodynamic equations of the system in
the polarized state. The structure of the linear hydrodynamic modes confirms
the existence of the splay instability.Comment: 9 pages, corrected typos, added references, revised content, to
appear in PR
A machine learning pipeline for discriminant pathways identification
Motivation: Identifying the molecular pathways more prone to disruption
during a pathological process is a key task in network medicine and, more in
general, in systems biology.
Results: In this work we propose a pipeline that couples a machine learning
solution for molecular profiling with a recent network comparison method. The
pipeline can identify changes occurring between specific sub-modules of
networks built in a case-control biomarker study, discriminating key groups of
genes whose interactions are modified by an underlying condition. The proposal
is independent from the classification algorithm used. Three applications on
genomewide data are presented regarding children susceptibility to air
pollution and two neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Availability: Details about the software used for the experiments discussed
in this paper are provided in the Appendix
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