1,062 research outputs found
The Prevalence of Latent Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection Based on an Interferon-γ Release Assay: A Cross-Sectional Survey Among Urban Adults in Mwanza, Tanzania.
One third of the world's population is estimated to be latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (LTBI). Surveys of LTBI are rarely performed in resource poor TB high endemic countries like Tanzania although low-income countries harbor the largest burden of the worlds LTBI. The primary objective was to estimate the prevalence of LTBI in household contacts of pulmonary TB cases and a group of apparently healthy neighborhood controls in an urban setting of such a country. Secondly we assessed potential impact of LTBI on inflammation by quantitating circulating levels of an acute phase reactant: alpha-1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) in neighborhood controls. The study was nested within the framework of two nutrition studies among TB patients in Mwanza, Tanzania. Household contacts- and neighborhood controls were invited to participate. The study involved a questionnaire, BMI determination and blood samples to measure AGP, HIV testing and a Quantiferon Gold In tube (QFN-IT) test to detect signs of LTBI. 245 household contacts and 192 neighborhood controls had available QFN-IT data. Among household contacts, the proportion of QFT-IT positive was 59% compared to 41% in the neighborhood controls (p = 0.001). In a linear regression model adjusted for sex, age, CD4 and HIV, a QFT-IT positive test was associated with a 10% higher level of alpha-1-acid glycoprotein(AGP) (10(B) 1.10, 95% CI 1.01; 1.20, p = 0.03), compared to individuals with a QFT-IT negative test. LTBI is highly prevalent among apparently healthy urban Tanzanians even without known exposure to TB in the household. LTBI was found to be associated with elevated levels of AGP. The implications of this observation merit further studies
A simple one-dimensional model of heat conduction which obeys Fourier's law
We present the computer simulation results of a chain of hard point particles
with alternating masses interacting on its extremes with two thermal baths at
different temperatures. We found that the system obeys Fourier's law at the
thermodynamic limit. This result is against the actual belief that one
dimensional systems with momentum conservative dynamics and nonzero pressure
have infinite thermal conductivity. It seems that thermal resistivity occurs in
our system due to a cooperative behavior in which light particles tend to
absorb much more energy than the heavier ones.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PR
Two-gap superconductivity in MgB: clean or dirty?
A large number of experimental facts and theoretical arguments favor a
two-gap model for superconductivity in MgB. However, this model predicts
strong suppression of the critical temperature by interband impurity scattering
and, presumably, a strong correlation between the critical temperature and the
residual resistivity. No such correlation has been observed. We argue that this
fact can be understood if the band disparity of the electronic structure is
taken into account, not only in the superconducting state, but also in normal
transport
Low temperature spin diffusion in the one-dimensional quantum nonlinear -model
An effective, low temperature, classical model for spin transport in the
one-dimensional, gapped, quantum non-linear -model is developed.
Its correlators are obtained by a mapping to a model solved earlier by Jepsen.
We obtain universal functions for the ballistic-to-diffusive crossover and the
value of the spin diffusion constant, and these are claimed to be exact at low
temperatures. Implications for experiments on one-dimensional insulators with a
spin gap are noted.Comment: 4 pages including 3 eps-figures, Revte
Pressure-dependence of electron-phonon coupling and the superconducting phase in hcp Fe - a linear response study
A recent experiment by Shimizu et al. has provided evidence of a
superconducting phase in hcp Fe under pressure. To study the
pressure-dependence of this superconducting phase we have calculated the phonon
frequencies and the electron-phonon coupling in hcp Fe as a function of the
lattice parameter, using the linear response (LR) scheme and the full potential
linear muffin-tin orbital (FP-LMTO) method. Calculated phonon spectra and the
Eliashberg functions indicate that conventional s-wave
electron-phonon coupling can definitely account for the appearance of the
superconducting phase in hcp Fe. However, the observed change in the transition
temperature with increasing pressure is far too rapid compared with the
calculated results. For comparison with the linear response results, we have
computed the electron-phonon coupling also by using the rigid muffin-tin (RMT)
approximation. From both the LR and the RMT results it appears that
electron-phonon interaction alone cannot explain the small range of volume over
which superconductivity is observed. It is shown that
ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations as well as scattering from
magnetic impurities (spin-ordered clusters) can account for the observed values
of the transition temperatures but cannot substantially improve the agreeemnt
between the calculated and observed presure/volume range of the superconducting
phase. A simplified treatment of p-wave pairing leads to extremely small ( K) transition temperatures. Thus our calculations seem to rule out
both - and - wave superconductivity in hcp Fe.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to PR
"Chain scenario" for Josephson tunneling with pi-shift in YBa2Cu3O7
We point out that all current Josephson-junction experiments probing directly
the symmetry of the superconducting state in YBa2Cu3O7, can be interpreted in
terms of the bilayer antiferromagnetic spin fluctuation model, which renders
the superconducting state with the order parameters of extended symmetry,
but with the opposite signs in the bonding and antibonding Cu-O plane bands.
The essential part of our interpretation includes the Cu-O chain band which
would have the order parameter of the same sign as antibonding plane band. We
show that in this case net Josephson currents along and perpendicular to the
chains have the phase shift equal to pi.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 1 figure uuencoded (POSTSCRIPT figure replaced - the
previous file did not print Greek letters correctly
Single-File Diffusion of Atomic and Colloidal Systems: Asymptotic Laws
In this work we present a general derivation of the non-Fickian behavior for
the self-diffusion of identically interacting particle systems with excluded
mutual passage. We show that the conditional probability distribution of
finding a particle at position after time , when the particle was
located at at , follows a Gaussian distribution in the long-time
limit, with variance for overdamped systems and with
variance for classical systems. The asymptotic behavior of the
mean-squared displacement, , is shown to be independent of the nature of
interactions for homogeneous systems in the fluid state. Moreover, the
long-time behavior of self-diffusion is determined by short-time and large
scale collective density fluctuations.Comment: 4 page
Intermediate temperature dynamics of one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnets
We present a general theory for the intermediate temperature (T) properties
of Heisenberg antiferromagnets of spin-S ions on p-leg ladders, valid for 2Sp
even or odd. Following an earlier proposal for 2Sp even (Damle and Sachdev,
cond-mat/9711014), we argue that an integrable, classical, continuum model of a
fixed-length, 3-vector applies over an intermediate temperature range; this
range becomes very wide for moderate and large values of 2Sp. The coupling
constants of the effective model are known exactly in terms of the energy gap
above the ground state (for 2Sp even) or a crossover scale (for 2Sp odd).
Analytic and numeric results for dynamic and transport properties are obtained,
including some exact results for the spin-wave damping. Numerous quantitative
predictions for neutron scattering and NMR experiments are made. A general
discussion on the nature of T>0 transport in integrable systems is also
presented: an exact solution of a toy model proves that diffusion can exist in
integrable systems, provided proper care is taken in approaching the
thermodynamic limit.Comment: 38 pages, including 12 figure
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