Antibiotic prescribing by general dental practitioners in the Greater Glasgow Health Board, Scotland

OBJECTIVE: To investigate antibiotic prescribing patterns by general dental practitioners (GDPs) in the Greater Glasgow Health Board Area, Scotland. STUDY DESIGN: A 10% sample of prescriptions were selected at random from 35,545 prescriptions written by GDPs over a 6-month period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Absolute and relative frequencies were used to describe the different classes of antibiotics used and the variations in prescribing practice. RESULTS: GDPs prescribed a wide range of antibiotics. Seventeen different antibiotics were prescribed with amoxycillin, metronidazole and penicillin V accounting for almost 90% of the prescriptions. In general the antibiotics were prescribed at the British National Formulary (BNF) recommended doses. There were, however, wide variations in the frequencies and durations of the prescriptions for all antibiotics. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides evidence of sub-optimal prescribing of antibiotics by dentists in Scotland, with considerable variation from the recommended frequencies and doses

Permeability of a one-dimensional potential barrier

Permeability of one dimensional potential barrie

Theory of integer quantum Hall effect in insulating bilayer graphene

A variational ground state for insulating bilayer graphene (BLG), subject to quantizing magnetic fields, is proposed. Due to the Zeeman coupling, the layer anti-ferromagnet (LAF) order parameter in fully gapped BLG gets projected onto the spin easy plane, and simultaneously a ferromagnet order, which can further be enhanced by exchange interaction, develops in the direction of the magnetic field. The activation gap for the $\nu=0$ Hall state then displays a crossover from quadratic to linear scaling with the magnetic field, as it gets stronger, and I obtain excellent agreement with a number of recent experiments with realistic strengths for the ferromagnetic interaction. A component of the LAF order, parallel to the external magnetic field, gives birth to additional incompressible Hall states at filling $\nu=\pm 2$, whereas the remote hopping in BLG yields $\nu=\pm 1$ Hall states. Evolution of the LAF order in tilted magnetic fields, scaling of the gap at $\nu=2$, the effect of external electric fields on various Hall plateaus, and different possible hierarchies of fractional quantum Hall states are highlighted.Comment: Published version: 5 pages, 2 figures (Supplementary: 6 pages, 2 figures); New references, typos correcte

Contrasting the magnetic response between magnetic-glass and reentrant spin-glass

Magnetic-glass is a recently identified phenomenon in various classes of magnetic systems undergoing a first order magnetic phase transition. We shall highlight here a few experimentally determined characteristics of magnetic-glass and the relevant set of experiments, which will enable to distinguish a magnetic-glass unequivocally from the well known phenomena of spin-glass and reentrant spin-glass.Comment: 10 pages and 4 figures. The preprint has been amended after taking care of various typographical errors, some errors in Figs.2 and 4 and with the addition of some new references. This version has been accepted for publication in Physical Review

The influence of physical and chemical linkage on the properties of nanocomposites

It has been shown by several groups that the mechanical and electrical behavior of composites changes quite substantially, and often beneficially, when the filler particle size is less than 100 nm in diameter. There is also good reason to believe that the interface between the embedded particulates and the polymer matrix holds the key to understanding the bulk phenomena observed. Materials based on an SiO2-polyolefin system have been formulated with functionalized particulates so as to affect the physical and chemical linkages. The agents used to achieve this include amino-silane, hexamethyl-disilazane and triethoxyvinylsilane. The emerging picture of the interface is supported by detailed dielectric spectroscopy and internal space charge assessment. The nature of the internal structure has been related to the bulk properties observed such as the breakdown strength, voltage endurance, and the measurement of internal charges resulting from interfacial polarization

QUARTERLY PREDICTION MODELS FOR LIVE HOG PRICES

Demand and Price Analysis,

A Comparative Study of Singlet→ Triplet Absorption in Some Halogenated Toluenes in the Vapour and Liquid States

The absorption spectra in the near ultraviolet region due to singlet- triplet transition in the vapours of p-chlorotoluene, p-chldrotoluene, m-bromotoluene andp-bromotoluene at 24°C have been investigated using a path length of 18,9 metres at the respective saturation vapour pressures and these spectra have been compared with those for the equivalent path lengths of the liquids. It has been observed that the absorption due to singlet-triplet transition is of continuous nature and the long wavelength limit of maximum absorption in the liquid state is found to be at about 29000 cm-1 for all the compounds, but in the case of the vapours the limit is shifted towards higher frequencies, the shift being smaller for the para compounds than for the ortho or meta compounds. It has been concluded that singlet triplet transition is enhanced by the influence of heavy atoms of the surrounding molecules in the liquid state