1,038 research outputs found

    Magnetocardiography with a modular spin-exchange relaxation free atomic magnetometer array

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    We present a portable four-channel atomic magnetometer array operating in the spin exchange relaxation-free regime. The magnetometer array has several design features intended to maximize its suitability for biomagnetic measurement, specifically foetal magnetocardiography, such as a compact modular design, and fibre coupled lasers. The modular design allows the independent positioning and orientation of each magnetometer, in principle allowing for non-planar array geometries. Using this array in a magnetically shielded room, we acquire adult magnetocadiograms. These measurements were taken with a 6-11 fT Hz^(-1/2) single-channel baseline sensitivity that is consistent with the independently measured noise level of the magnetically shielded room.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

    Anomalous rotational-alignment in N=Z nuclei and residual neutron-proton interaction

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    Recent experiments have demonstrated that the rotational-alignment for the N=ZN=Z nuclei in the mass-80 region is considerably delayed as compared to the neighboring NZN \ne Z nuclei. We investigate whether this observation can be understood by a known component of nuclear residual interactions. It is shown that the quadrupole-pairing interaction, which explains many of the delays known in rare-earth nuclei, does not produce the substantial delay observed for these N=ZN=Z nuclei. However, the residual neutron-proton interaction which is conjectured to be relevant for N=ZN=Z nuclei is shown to be quite important in explaining the new experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final version accepted by Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid Communicatio

    Intranasal fentanyl versus intravenous morphine in the emergency department treatment of severe painful sickle cell crises in children: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

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    BACKGROUND: Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) frequently and unpredictably present to the emergency department (ED) with pain. The painful event is the hallmark acute clinical manifestation of SCD, characterised by sudden onset and is usually bony in origin. This study aims to establish if 1.5mcg/kg of intranasal fentanyl (INF; administered via a Mucosal Atomiser Device, MAD™) is non-inferior to intravenous morphine 0.1 mg/kg in severe SCD-associated pain. METHODS/DESIGN: This study is a randomised,double-blind, double-dummy active control trial of children (weighing more than 10 kg) between 1 year and 21 years of age with severe painful sickle cell crisis. Severe pain is defined as rated seven or greater on a 0 to 10 age-appropriate numeric pain scale or equivalent. The trial will be conducted in a single tertiary urban paediatric ED in Dublin, Ireland. Each patient will receive a single active agent and a single placebo via the intravenous and intranasal routes. All clinical and research staff, patients and parents will be blinded to the treatment allocation. The primary endpoint is severity of pain scored at 10 min from administration of the study medications. Secondary endpoints include pain severity measured at 0, 5, 15, 20, 30, 60 and 120 min after the administration of analgesia, proportion of patients requiring rescue analgesia and incidence of adverse events. The trial ends at 120 min after the administration of the study drugs. A clinically meaningful difference in validated pain scores has been defined as 13 mm. Setting the permitted threshold to 50% of this limit (6 mm) and assuming both treatments are on average equal, a sample size of 30 patients (15 per group) will provide at least 80% power to demonstrate that INF is non-inferior to IV morphine with a level of significance of 0.05. DISCUSSION: This clinical trial will inform of the role of INF 1.5mcg/kg via MAD in the acute treatment of severe painful sickle cell crisis in children in the ED setting. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN67469672 and EudraCT no. 2011-005161-20

    Nuclear Clusters as a Probe for Expansion Flow in Heavy Ion Reactions at 10-15AGeV

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    A phase space coalescence description based on the Wigner-function method for cluster formation in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions is presented. The momentum distributions of nuclear clusters d,t and He are predicted for central Au(11.6AGeV)Au and Si(14.6AGeV)Si reactions in the framework of the RQMD transport approach. Transverse expansion leads to a strong shoulder-arm shape and different inverse slope parameters in the transverse spectra of nuclear clusters deviating markedly from thermal distributions. A clear ``bounce-off'' event shape is seen: the averaged transverse flow velocities in the reaction plane are for clusters larger than for protons. The cluster yields --particularly at low ptp_t at midrapidities-- and the in-plane (anti)flow of clusters and pions change if suitably strong baryon potential interactions are included. This allows to study the transient pressure at high density via the event shape analysis of nucleons, nucleon clusters and other hadrons.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures, LaTeX type, eps used, subm. to Phys. Rev.

    The helicity amplitudes A1/2_{1/2} and A3/2_{3/2} for the D13(1520)_{13}(1520) resonance obtained from the γppπ0\vec{\gamma} \vec{p} \to p \pi^0 reaction}

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    The helicity dependence of the γppπ0\vec{\gamma} \vec{p} \to p \pi^0 reaction has been measured for the first time in the photon energy range from 550 to 790 MeV. The experiment, performed at the Mainz microtron MAMI, used a 4π\pi-detector system, a circularly polarized, tagged photon beam, and a longitudinally polarized frozen-spin target. These data are predominantly sensitive to the D13(1520)D_{13}(1520) resonance and are used to determine its parameters.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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