Gentamicin Exposure and Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Preterm Infants.

To evaluate the impact of gentamicin exposure on sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants. Exposure to gentamicin was determined in infants born between 1993 and 2010 at a gestational age < 32 weeks and/or with a birthweight < 1500 g, who presented with SNHL during the first 5 years of life. For each case, we selected two controls matched for gender, gestational age, birthweight, and year of birth. We identified 25 infants affected by SNHL, leading to an incidence of SNHL of 1.58% in our population of VLBW infants. The proportion of infants treated with gentamicin was 76% in the study group and 70% in controls (p = 0.78). The total cumulated dose of gentamicin administered did not differ between the study group (median 10.2 mg/kg, Q1-Q3 1.6-13.2) and the control group (median 7.9 mg/kg, Q1-Q3 0-12.8, p = 0.47). The median duration of gentamicin treatment was 3 days both in the study group and the control group (p = 0.58). Maximum predicted trough serum levels of gentamicin, cumulative area under the curve and gentamicin clearance were not different between cases and controls. The impact of gentamicin on SNHL can be minimized with treatments of short duration, monitoring of blood levels and dose adjustment

Non-local Realistic Theories and the Scope of the Bell Theorem

According to a widespread view, the Bell theorem establishes the untenability of so-called 'local realism'. On the basis of this view, recent proposals by Leggett, Zeilinger and others have been developed according to which it can be proved that even some non-local realistic theories have to be ruled out. As a consequence, within this view the Bell theorem allows one to establish that no reasonable form of realism, be it local or non-local, can be made compatible with the (experimentally tested) predictions of quantum mechanics. In the present paper it is argued that the Bell theorem has demonstrably nothing to do with the 'realism' as defined by these authors and that, as a consequence, their conclusions about the foundational significance of the Bell theorem are unjustified.Comment: Forthcoming in Foundations of Physic

Macromolecular theory of solvation and structure in mixtures of colloids and polymers

The structural and thermodynamic properties of mixtures of colloidal spheres and non-adsorbing polymer chains are studied within a novel general two-component macromolecular liquid state approach applicable for all size asymmetry ratios. The dilute limits, when one of the components is at infinite dilution but the other concentrated, are presented and compared to field theory and models which replace polymer coils with spheres. Whereas the derived analytical results compare well, qualitatively and quantitatively, with mean-field scaling laws where available, important differences from ``effective sphere'' approaches are found for large polymer sizes or semi-dilute concentrations.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure

Quantum Key Distribution between N partners: optimal eavesdropping and Bell's inequalities

Quantum secret-sharing protocols involving N partners (NQSS) are key distribution protocols in which Alice encodes her key into $N-1$ qubits, in such a way that all the other partners must cooperate in order to retrieve the key. On these protocols, several eavesdropping scenarios are possible: some partners may want to reconstruct the key without the help of the other ones, and consequently collaborate with an Eve that eavesdrops on the other partners' channels. For each of these scenarios, we give the optimal individual attack that the Eve can perform. In case of such an optimal attack, the authorized partners have a higher information on the key than the unauthorized ones if and only if they can violate a Bell's inequality.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Consistency tests of AMPCALCULATOR and chiral amplitudes in SU(3) Chiral Perturbation Theory: A tutorial based approach

Ampcalculator is a Mathematica based program that was made publicly available some time ago by Unterdorfer and Ecker. It enables the user to compute several processes at one-loop (upto $O(p^4)$) in SU(3) chiral perturbation theory. They include computing matrix elements and form factors for strong and non-leptonic weak processes with at most six external states. It was used to compute some novel processes and was tested against well-known results by the original authors. Here we present the results of several thorough checks of the package. Exhaustive checks performed by the original authors are not publicly available, and hence the present effort. Some new results are obtained from the software especially in the kaon odd-intrinsic parity non-leptonic decay sector involving the coupling $G_{27}$. Another illustrative set of amplitudes at tree level we provide is in the context of $\tau$-decays with several mesons including quark mass effects, of use to the BELLE experiment. All eight meson-meson scattering amplitudes have been checked. Kaon-Compton amplitude has been checked and a minor error in published results has been pointed out. This exercise is a tutorial based one, wherein several input and output notebooks are also being made available as ancillary files on the arXiv. Some of the additional notebooks we provide contain explicit expressions that we have used for comparison with established results. The purpose is to encourage users to apply the software to suit their specific needs. An automatic amplitude generator of this type can provide error-free outputs that could be used as inputs for further simplification, and used in varied scenarios such as applications of chiral perturbation theory at finite temperature, density and volume. This can also be used by students as a learning aid in low-energy hadron dynamics.Comment: 25 pages, plain latex, corresponds to version to appear in EPJA, additional ancillary files adde

A novel determination of the local dark matter density

We present a novel study on the problem of constructing mass models for the Milky Way, concentrating on features regarding the dark matter halo component. We have considered a variegated sample of dynamical observables for the Galaxy, including several results which have appeared recently, and studied a 7- or 8-dimensional parameter space - defining the Galaxy model - by implementing a Bayesian approach to the parameter estimation based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. The main result of this analysis is a novel determination of the local dark matter halo density which, assuming spherical symmetry and either an Einasto or an NFW density profile is found to be around 0.39 GeV cm$^{-3}$ with a 1-$\sigma$ error bar of about 7%; more precisely we find a $\rho_{DM}(R_0) = 0.385 \pm 0.027 \rm GeV cm^{-3}$ for the Einasto profile and $\rho_{DM}(R_0) = 0.389 \pm 0.025 \rm GeV cm^{-3}$ for the NFW. This is in contrast to the standard assumption that $\rho_{DM}(R_0)$ is about 0.3 GeV cm$^{-3}$ with an uncertainty of a factor of 2 to 3. A very precise determination of the local halo density is very important for interpreting direct dark matter detection experiments. Indeed the results we produced, together with the recent accurate determination of the local circular velocity, should be very useful to considerably narrow astrophysical uncertainties on direct dark matter detection.Comment: 31 pages,11 figures; minor changes in the text; two figures adde

Chiral effective field theories of the strong interactions

Effective field theories of the strong interactions based on the approximate chiral symmetry of QCD provide a model-independent approach to low-energy hadron physics. We give a brief introduction to mesonic and baryonic chiral perturbation theory and discuss a number of applications. We also consider the effective field theory including vector and axial-vector mesons.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, proceedings of "Many-Body Structure of Strongly Interacting Systems", Mainz, Germany, Feb. 23-25 201

A microscopic estimate of the nuclear matter compressibility and symmetry energy in relativistic mean-field models

The relativistic mean-field plus RPA calculations, based on effective Lagrangians with density-dependent meson-nucleon vertex functions, are employed in a microscopic analysis of the nuclear matter compressibility and symmetry energy. We compute the isoscalar monopole and the isovector dipole response of $^{208}$Pb, as well as the differences between the neutron and proton radii for $^{208}$Pb and several Sn isotopes. The comparison of the calculated excitation energies with the experimental data on the giant monopole resonance in $^{208}$Pb, restricts the nuclear matter compression modulus of structure models based on the relativistic mean-field approximation to $K_{\rm nm}\approx 250 - 270$ MeV. The isovector giant dipole resonance in $^{208}$Pb, and the available data on differences between neutron and proton radii, limit the range of the nuclear matter symmetry energy at saturation (volume asymmetry) to 32 MeV $\leq a_4 \leq$ 36 MeV.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Thomae type formulae for singular Z_N curves

We give an elementary and rigorous proof of the Thomae type formula for singular $Z_N$ curves. To derive the Thomae formula we use the traditional variational method which goes back to Riemann, Thomae and Fuchs.Comment: 22 page

Metal Surface Energy: Persistent Cancellation of Short-Range Correlation Effects beyond the Random-Phase Approximation

The role that non-local short-range correlation plays at metal surfaces is investigated by analyzing the correlation surface energy into contributions from dynamical density fluctuations of various two-dimensional wave vectors. Although short-range correlation is known to yield considerable correction to the ground-state energy of both uniform and non-uniform systems, short-range correlation effects on intermediate and short-wavelength contributions to the surface formation energy are found to compensate one another. As a result, our calculated surface energies, which are based on a non-local exchange-correlation kernel that provides accurate total energies of a uniform electron gas, are found to be very close to those obtained in the random-phase approximation and support the conclusion that the error introduced by the local-density approximation is small.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.