331 research outputs found
Language support for linguistic minority chronic hepatitis B/C patients: an exploratory study of availability and clinicians’ perceptions of language barriers in six European countries
Background: Language support for linguistic minorities can improve patient safety, clinical outcomes and the quality of health care. Most chronic hepatitis B/C infections in Europe are detected among people born in endemic countries mostly in Africa, Asia and Central/Eastern Europe, groups that may experience language barriers when accessing health care services in their host countries. We investigated availability of interpreters and translated materials for linguistic minority hepatitis B/C patients. We also investigated clinicians’ agreement that language barriers are explanations of three scenarios: the low screening uptake of hepatitis B/C screening, the lack of screening in primary care, and why cases do not reach specialist care. Methods: An online survey was developed, translated and sent to experts in five health care services involved in screening or treating viral hepatitis in six European countries: Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom (UK). The five areas of health care were: general practice/family medicine, antenatal care, health care for asylum seekers, sexual health and specialist secondary care. We measured availability using a three-point ordinal scale (‘very common’, ‘variable or not routine’ and ‘rarely or never’). We measured agreement using a five-point Likert scale. Results: We received 238 responses (23% response rate, N = 1026) from representatives in each health care field in each country. Interpreters are common in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain but variable or rare in Germany, Hungary and Italy. Translated materials are rarely/never available in Hungary, Italy and Spain but commonly or variably available in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. Differing levels of agreement that language barriers explain the three scenarios are seen across the countries. Professionals in countries with most infrequent availability (Hungary and Italy) disagree strongest that language barriers are explanations. Conclusions: Our findings show pronounced differences between countries in availability of interpreters, differences that mirror socio-cultural value systems of ‘difference-sensitive’ and ‘difference-blindness’. Improved language support is needed given the complex natural history of hepatitis B/C, the recognised barriers to screening and care, and the large undiagnosed burden among (potentially) linguistic minority migrant groups
CMAS challenges to CMC-T/EBC systems
Gas turbine technology is undergoing a major transition with the recent implementation of SiC based ceramic composites (CMCs) in aircraft engines. While the potential improvement in temperature capability (≥1500°C) is unprecedented, there are a number of issues that limit the full exploitation of such potential. In addition to the longstanding concern for low temperature oxidative embrittlement and the limited temperature capability of current bond coats and matrices, the susceptibility of the protective SiO2 to volatilization in the combustion environment requires the use of environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) to achieve durability targets. Most EBC concepts, however, are based on silicates and are thus susceptible to degradation by molten silicate deposits generically known as CMAS originating from mineral debris ingested into engines with the intake air. This presentation will discuss the thermodynamic and mechanistic foundation of the degradation of EBCs by CMAS, recent progress in establishing the relevant phase equilibria for these systems, and the role of the CMAS composition on the extent of degradation, as well as perspective on mitigation. (Research supported by ONR, AFOSR and the P&W Center of Excellence in Composites at UCSB.
Magnetic Branes in Gauss-Bonnet Gravity
We present two new classes of magnetic brane solutions in
Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with a negative cosmological constant.
The first class of solutions yields an -dimensional spacetime with a
longitudinal magnetic field generated by a static magnetic brane. We also
generalize this solution to the case of spinning magnetic branes with one or
more rotation parameters. We find that these solutions have no curvature
singularity and no horizons, but have a conic geometry. In these spacetimes,
when all the rotation parameters are zero, the electric field vanishes, and
therefore the brane has no net electric charge. For the spinning brane, when
one or more rotation parameters are non zero, the brane has a net electric
charge which is proportional to the magnitude of the rotation parameter. The
second class of solutions yields a spacetime with an angular magnetic field.
These solutions have no curvature singularity, no horizon, and no conical
singularity. Again we find that the net electric charge of the branes in these
spacetimes is proportional to the magnitude of the velocity of the brane.
Finally, we use the counterterm method in the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and compute
the conserved quantities of these spacetimes.Comment: 17 pages, No figure, The version to be published in Phys. Rev.
Horizonless Rotating Solutions in -dimensional Einstein-Maxwell Gravity
We introduce two classes of rotating solutions of Einstein-Maxwell gravity in
dimensions which are asymptotically anti-de Sitter type. They have no
curvature singularity and no horizons. The first class of solutions, which has
a conic singularity yields a spacetime with a longitudinal magnetic field and
rotation parameters. We show that when one or more of the rotation
parameters are non zero, the spinning brane has a net electric charge that is
proportional to the magnitude of the rotation parameters. The second class of
solutions yields a spacetime with an angular magnetic field and
boost parameters. We find that the net electric charge of these traveling
branes with one or more nonzero boost parameters is proportional to the
magnitude of the velocity of the brane. We also use the counterterm method
inspired by AdS/CFT correspondence and calculate the conserved quantities of
the solutions. We show that the logarithmic divergencies associated to the Weyl
anomalies and matter field are zero, and the divergence of the action can
be removed by the counterterm method.Comment: 14 pages, references added, Sec. II amended, an appendix added. The
version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Berry phases and pairing symmetry in Holstein-Hubbard polaron systems
We study the tunneling dynamics of dopant-induced hole polarons which are
self-localized by electron-phonon coupling in a two-dimensional antiferro-
magnet. Our treatment is based on a path integral formulation of the adia-
batic approximation, combined with many-body tight-binding, instanton, con-
strained lattice dynamics, and many-body exact diagonalization techniques. Our
results are mainly based on the Holstein- and, for comparison, on the
Holstein-Hubbard model. We also study effects of 2nd neighbor hopping and
long-range electron-electron Coulomb repulsion. The polaron tunneling dynamics
is mapped onto an effective low-energy Hamiltonian which takes the form of a
fermion tight-binding model with occupancy dependent, predominant- ly 2nd and
3rd neighbor tunneling matrix elements, excluded double occupan- cy, and an
effective intersite charge interactions. Antiferromagnetic spin correlations in
the original many-electron Hamiltonian are reflected by an attractive
contribution to the 1st neighbor charge interaction and by Berry phase factors
which determine the signs of effective polaron tunneling ma- trix elements. In
the two-polaron case, these phase factors lead to polaron pair wave functions
of either -wave symmetry or p-wave symme- try with zero and
nonzero total pair momentum, respectively. Implications for the doping
dependent isotope effect, pseudo-gap and Tc of a superconduc- ting polaron pair
condensate are discussed/compared to observed in cuprates.Comment: 23 pages, revtex, 13 ps figure
Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events
The - oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of
23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B
mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the
flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference
distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives ps.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter
D* Production in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
This paper presents measurements of D^{*\pm} production in deep inelastic
scattering from collisions between 27.5 GeV positrons and 820 GeV protons. The
data have been taken with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The decay channel
(+ c.c.) has been used in the study. The
cross section for inclusive D^{*\pm} production with
and is 5.3 \pms 1.0 \pms 0.8 nb in the kinematic region
{ GeV and }. Differential cross
sections as functions of p_T(D^{*\pm}), and are
compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations based on the photon-gluon
fusion production mechanism. After an extrapolation of the cross section to the
full kinematic region in p_T(D^{*\pm}) and (D^{*\pm}), the charm
contribution to the proton structure function is
determined for Bjorken between 2 10 and 5 10.Comment: 17 pages including 4 figure
Observation of Scaling Violations in Scaled Momentum Distributions at HERA
Charged particle production has been measured in deep inelastic scattering
(DIS) events over a large range of and using the ZEUS detector. The
evolution of the scaled momentum, , with in the range 10 to 1280
, has been investigated in the current fragmentation region of the Breit
frame. The results show clear evidence, in a single experiment, for scaling
violations in scaled momenta as a function of .Comment: 21 pages including 4 figures, to be published in Physics Letters B.
Two references adde
Tmetoceratidae (Ammonitina) fauna from the Gerecse Mts (Hungary)
Abstract
Taxonomic and stratigraphic problems of the family Tmetoceratidae and the genera Dumortieria, Catulloceras, Cotteswoldia, Pleydellia and Tmetoceras included in it are briefly discussed. Fifteen species of Tmetoceratidae are described and illustrated from the Upper Toarcian-Aalenian ammonite assemblages of the Gerecse Mts (NE Transdanubian Range, Hungary). The fauna described here is closely allied to the Mediterranean Province of the Mediterranean-Caucasian Realm
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