442 research outputs found
Chickpea pod infertility: a potential of improving seed yield
Non-Peer ReviewedChickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is being rapidly adapted to the semiarid Canadian prairies, but little is known about morphological responses of this annual legume to growing conditions. This study, conducted in southwestern Saskatchewan, examined the morphological plasticity of three market classes of chickpea by growing the crop at four plant population densities. Chickpea grown at the high (50 plants m-2) population density produced approximately half as many fertile pods per plant as those grown at the low (20 plants m-2) density, but total number of pods per unit area increased with increasing plant population density. Large-seeded kabuli chickpea produced fewer pods per unit area, or 110 seeds for every 100 pods. The yield potential of desi and small-seeded kabuli chickpea can be increased
by increasing plant population density, whereas the seed yield of large-seeded kabuli can be improved by reducing the proportion of infertile pods
Outpatient management of biliary colic: A prospective observational study of prescribing habits and analgesia effectiveness
AbstractBackgroundUncomplicated biliary colic presents a significant health and financial burden to hospitals and primary care services alike. There is little guidance on the correct analgesia to use on an outpatient basis. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of oral analgesics on biliary colic pain and to explore the prescribing habits of community doctors.MethodsConsecutive patients with ultrasound proven symptomatic gallstones completed a questionnaire recording demographics and symptomatology. Pain was assessed using a visual analogue scale (VAS) based on the Biliary Symptom Score (BSS) to evaluate the effectiveness of various analgesic agents. Local General Practitioners were also surveyed to establish prescribing practices.ResultsCo-Codamol had the highest mean effectiveness VAS score (6.5/10). Patients with increased BMI, short symptom duration and a BSS >70 were most likely to suffer from severe pain. Patients in a subgroup with severe pain were most likely to have their pain reduced by NSAID analgesia compared to no NSAID (OR 2.20, p = 0.027). This effect remained significant upon multivariable regression (OR 2.52, p = 0.018) in a model containing age and NSAIDs. There was wide variation in the prescribing practice of GPs and hospital doctors.ConclusionsThe range of drugs prescribed for biliary colic is extensive with little evidence base. In this study NSAIDs were the most effective analgesia for patients with severe pain. In the absence of contraindications to their use, physician education or guidance emphasizing the benefits of NSAIDs may potentially reduce symptomatic hospital presentation and admissions for biliary colic
Structural and Magnetic Properties of Trigonal Iron
First principles calculations of the electronic structure of trigonal iron
were performed using density function theory. The results are used to predict
lattice spacings, magnetic moments and elastic properties; these are in good
agreement with experiment for both the bcc and fcc structures. We find however,
that in extracting these quantities great care must be taken in interpreting
numerical fits to the calculated total energies. In addition, the results for
bulk iron give insight into the properties of thin iron films. Thin films grown
on substrates with mismatched lattice constants often have non-cubic symmetry.
If they are thicker than a few monolayers their electronic structure is similar
to a bulk material with an appropriately distorted geometry, as in our trigonal
calculations. We recast our bulk results in terms of an iron film grown on the
(111) surface of an fcc substrate, and find the predicted strain energies and
moments accurately reflect the trends for iron growth on a variety of
substrates.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX,4 tar'd,compressed, uuencoded Postscript figure
Primary angioplasty for acute myocardial infarction at hospitals with no surgery on-site: the prospective multicenter PAMI-No SOS registry
Limits on Fast Radio Bursts and other transient sources at 182 MHz using the Murchison Widefield Array
Magnetic Fields in the Milky Way
This chapter presents a review of observational studies to determine the
magnetic field in the Milky Way, both in the disk and in the halo, focused on
recent developments and on magnetic fields in the diffuse interstellar medium.
I discuss some terminology which is confusingly or inconsistently used and try
to summarize current status of our knowledge on magnetic field configurations
and strengths in the Milky Way. Although many open questions still exist, more
and more conclusions can be drawn on the large-scale and small-scale components
of the Galactic magnetic field. The chapter is concluded with a brief outlook
to observational projects in the near future.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "Magnetic Fields in Diffuse Media",
eds. E.M. de Gouveia Dal Pino and A. Lazaria
The Murchison Widefield Array Transients Survey (MWATS):A search for low-frequency variability in a bright Southern hemisphere sample
Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
We measure cosmological parameters using the three-dimensional power spectrum
P(k) from over 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in
combination with WMAP and other data. Our results are consistent with a
``vanilla'' flat adiabatic Lambda-CDM model without tilt (n=1), running tilt,
tensor modes or massive neutrinos. Adding SDSS information more than halves the
WMAP-only error bars on some parameters, tightening 1 sigma constraints on the
Hubble parameter from h~0.74+0.18-0.07 to h~0.70+0.04-0.03, on the matter
density from Omega_m~0.25+/-0.10 to Omega_m~0.30+/-0.04 (1 sigma) and on
neutrino masses from <11 eV to <0.6 eV (95%). SDSS helps even more when
dropping prior assumptions about curvature, neutrinos, tensor modes and the
equation of state. Our results are in substantial agreement with the joint
analysis of WMAP and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, which is an impressive
consistency check with independent redshift survey data and analysis
techniques. In this paper, we place particular emphasis on clarifying the
physical origin of the constraints, i.e., what we do and do not know when using
different data sets and prior assumptions. For instance, dropping the
assumption that space is perfectly flat, the WMAP-only constraint on the
measured age of the Universe tightens from t0~16.3+2.3-1.8 Gyr to
t0~14.1+1.0-0.9 Gyr by adding SDSS and SN Ia data. Including tensors, running
tilt, neutrino mass and equation of state in the list of free parameters, many
constraints are still quite weak, but future cosmological measurements from
SDSS and other sources should allow these to be substantially tightened.Comment: Minor revisions to match accepted PRD version. SDSS data and ppt
figures available at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/sdsspars.htm
A High Statistics Search for Ultra-High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1
We have carried out a high statistics (2 Billion events) search for
ultra-high energy gamma-ray emission from the X-ray binary sources Cygnus X-3
and Hercules X-1. Using data taken with the CASA-MIA detector over a five year
period (1990-1995), we find no evidence for steady emission from either source
at energies above 115 TeV. The derived upper limits on such emission are more
than two orders of magnitude lower than earlier claimed detections. We also
find no evidence for neutral particle or gamma-ray emission from either source
on time scales of one day and 0.5 hr. For Cygnus X-3, there is no evidence for
emission correlated with the 4.8 hr X-ray periodicity or with the occurrence of
large radio flares. Unless one postulates that these sources were very active
earlier and are now dormant, the limits presented here put into question the
earlier results, and highlight the difficulties that possible future
experiments will have in detecting gamma-ray signals at ultra-high energies.Comment: 26 LaTeX pages, 16 PostScript figures, uses psfig.sty to be published
in Physical Review
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