Sources of negative tunneling magneto-resistance in multilevel quantum dots with ferromagnetic contacts

We analyze distinct sources of spin-dependent energy level shifts and their impact on the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of interacting quantum dots coupled to collinearly polarized ferromagnetic leads. Level shifts due to virtual charge fluctuations can be quantitatively evaluated within a diagrammatic representation of our transport theory. The theory is valid for multilevel quantum dot systems and we exemplarily apply it to carbon nanotube quantum dots, where we show that the presence of many levels can qualitatively influence the TMR effect.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, supplemental materia

Human Service Nonprofits and Government Collaboration: Findings from the 2010 National Survey of Nonprofit Government Contracting and Grants

Presents nonprofit survey results on government contracts; their share of revenue; problems, including late or partial payments, complex application and reporting processes, and changes to contract terms; how nonprofits cope with them; and the results

Slave-boson Keldysh field theory for the Kondo effect in quantum dots

We present a {\it nonequilibrium nonperturbative} field theory for the Kondo effect in strongly interacting quantum dots at finite temperatures. Unifying the slave-boson representation with the Keldysh field integral an effective Keldysh action is derived and explored in the vicinity of the zero slave-bosonic field configuration. The theory properly reflects the essential features of the Kondo physics and at the same time significantly simplifies a field-theoretic treatment of the phenomenon, avoiding complicated saddle point analysis or 1/N expansions, used so far. Importantly, our theory admits a {\it closed analytical} solution which explains the mechanism of the Kondo effect in terms of an interplay between the real and imaginary parts of the slave-bosonic self-energy. It thus provides a convenient nonperturbative building block, playing the role of a "free propagator", for more advanced theories. We finally demonstrate that already this simplest possible field theory is able to correctly reproduce experimental data on the Kondo peak observed in the differential conductance, correctly predicts the Kondo temperature and, within its applicability range, has the same universal temperature dependence of the conductance as the one obtained in numerical renormalization group calculations.Comment: published versio

TUMORES RAROS EN NIÑOS Y ADOLESCENTES

ResumenLos tumores infrecuentes están definidos como cánceres pediátricos con una incidencia anual <2 casos por millón. Aunque son percibidos como raros, constituyen el 15% de todos los cánceres en menores de 20 años y 30% de todos los tumores de pacientes entre 15 y 19 años.Se han desarrollado proyectos cooperativos nacionales e internacionales pediátricos con el fin de mejorar el manejo clínico y la investigación básica en estos tumores. Revisamos los procesos desarrollados y las dificultades que se han enfrentado, como bajas tasas de registro y participación en bancos de tumores y estudios clínicos. Esta experiencia inicial ha permitido desarrollar estrategias alternativas que permitirían implementar una iniciativa similar para América Latina.La experiencia demuestra la factibilidad de cooperación multidisciplinaria a nivel nacional y sugiere que se pueden realizar estudios internacionales, que aumenten nuestro entendimiento de la biología de estos tumores, mejorando los resultados de tratamiento de niños y adolescentes con cánceres infrecuentes.SummaryAlthough perceived as rare, infrequent tumors, defined as childhood solid malignancies with an annual incidence < 2/million and not considered in other clinical trials, account for 15% of all cancers in patients younger than age 20 and for 30% of all tumors in patients ages 15 to 19.National and international cooperative projects on rare paediatric tumours have been developed to improve the clinical management and basic research on these tumors. We reviewed the process developed and the problems it had to face, as low rates of registration, low levels of participation in tumor banking, and clinical trials. This initial experience has allowed to develop alternative strategies that could help to launch a latinamerican initiative.Experience demonstrates the feasibility of a national multidisciplinary cooperation and suggests that international studies can be performed, increasing our knowledge to understand the biology and improving the treatment results of young patients with rare cancers

Food supplements’ non-conformity in Europe – Poland: a case study

Background: Mislabelling and substitution of ingredients in food supplements is a growing concern for regulators, businesses and consumers. Whilst there is a body of literature that has considered food and drink substitution and mislabelling, there is limited published research on the compliance of food supplements with regulatory requirements. Scope and Approach: Using secondary data, the aim of this research was to identify the main factors influencing food supplements non-compliance in the European Union (EU) but with specific emphasis on Poland. The sources of data in this review were: (1) the register of pro-health foods maintained by the Chief Sanitary Inspector (GIS) in Poland; (2) unpublished data from the European Commission DG Health and Food Safety (EC DG SANTE); (3) the EU Food Fraud Network and the Administrative Assistance and Cooperation System (EU FFN & AAC) Reports; (4) the Polish Trade Inspection (IH) Report; and (5) the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) Portal. Key findings and conclusions: The level of food supplements non-compliance with stated legal requirements especially mislabelling is identified in this research. Policy needs to be strengthened both at the EU level, where overarching regulatory governance can be introduced, and also in individual member states, such as Poland, where situational socio-economic factors such as health-care provision, the associated absorptive capacity of the food supplements’ market and the level of ability of national institutions to institute effective regulatory and market governance influence the incidence of food supplements

N400 amplitudes reflect change in a probabilistic representation of meaning:Evidence from a connectionist model

The N400 component of the event-related brain potential iswidely used in research on language and semantic memory,but the cognitive functions underlying N400 amplitudes arestill unclear and actively debated. Recent simulations with aneural network model of word meaning suggest that N400amplitudes might reflect implicit semantic prediction error.Here, we extend these simulations to sentencecomprehension, using a neural network model of sentenceprocessing to simulate a number of N400 effects obtained inempirical research. In the model, sequentially incoming wordsupdate a representation capturing probabilities of elements ofsentence meaning, not only reflecting the constituentspresented so far, but also the model’s best guess at all featuresof the sentence meaning based on the statistical regularities inthe model’s environment internalized in its connectionweights. Simulating influences of semantic congruity, clozeprobability, a word’s position in the sentence, reversalanomalies, semantic and associative priming, categoricallyrelated incongruities, lexical frequency, repetition, andinteractions between repetition and semantic congruity, wefound that the update of the predictive representation ofsentence meaning consistently patterned with N400amplitudes. These results are in line with the idea that N400amplitudes reflect semantic surprise, defined as the change inthe probability distribution over semantic features in anintegrated representation of meaning occasioned by the arrivalof each successive constituent of a sentence

Spectrum and Franck-Condon factors of interacting suspended single-wall carbon nanotubes

A low energy theory of suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots in weak tunnelling coupling with metallic leads is presented. The focus is put on the dependence of the spectrum and the Franck-Condon factors on the geometry of the junction including several vibronic modes. The relative size and the relative position of the dot and its associated vibrons strongly influence the electromechanical properties of the system. A detailed analysis of the complete parameters space reveals different regimes: in the short vibron regime the tunnelling of an electron into the nanotube generates a plasmon-vibron excitation while in the long vibron regime polaron excitations dominate the scenario. The small, position dependent Franck-Condon couplings of the small vibron regime convert into uniform, large couplings in the long vibron regime. Selection rules for the excitations of the different plasmon-vibron modes via electronic tunnelling events are also derived.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, new version according to the published on

Transport properties of double-walled carbon nanotube quantum dots

The transport properties of quantum dot (QD) systems based on double-walled carbon nanotube (DWCNT) are investigated. The interplay between microscopic structure and strong Coulomb interaction is treated within a bosonization framework. The linear and nonlinear G-V-V_g characteristics of the QD system is calculated by starting from the Liouville equation for the reduced density matrix. Depending on the intershell couplings, an 8-electron periodicity of the Coulomb blockade peak spacing in the case of commensurate DWCNT QDs and a 4-electron periodicity in the incommensurate case are predicted. The contribution of excited states of DWCNTs to the nonlinear transport is investigated as well.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

AROC outcome benchmarks report inpatient - pathway 3 Anywhere Hospital January 2015 - December 2015

The Outcome Benchmarks Report is a biannual report that provides facilities with the opportunity to evaluate their performance against all other Australian and New Zealand rehabilitation facilities. This report provides impairment level 25th percentile targets which were set by the AROC Scientific and Clinical Advisory Committee as a stretch goal for continuous improvement. The performance measures presented in this report include Casemix Adjusted FIM Efficiency and Casemix Adjusted Length of Stay. The selection of these outcome measures is based on the advice provided by the AROC Scientific and Clinical Advisory Committee. Each facility is provided with a graphical representation of their casemix adjusted performance against all other facilities at the impairment level. A five year trend graph of the outcome measure (not casemix adjusted) is included in this report to demonstrate quality improvement over time

Incorporating development of a patient-reported outcome instrument in a clinical drug development program: examples from a heart failure program.

BackgroundPatient-reported outcome (PRO) measures can be used to support label claims if they adhere to US Food &amp; Drug Administration guidance. The process of developing a new PRO measure is expensive and time-consuming. We report the results of qualitative studies to develop new PRO measures for use in clinical trials of omecamtiv mecarbil (a selective, small molecule activator of cardiac myosin) for patients with heart failure (HF), as well as the lessons learned from the development process.MethodsConcept elicitation focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with patients with HF to identify concepts for the instrument. Cognitive interviews with HF patients were used to confirm that no essential concepts were missing and to assess patient comprehension of the instrument and items.ResultsDuring concept elicitation, the most frequently reported HF symptoms were shortness of breath, tiredness, fluid retention, fatigue, dizziness/light-headedness, swelling, weight fluctuation, and trouble sleeping. Two measures were developed based on the concepts: the Heart Failure Symptom Diary (HF-SD) and the Heart Failure Impact Scale (HFIS). Findings from cognitive interviews suggested that the items in the HF-SD and HFIS were relevant and well understood by patients. Multiple iterations of concept elicitation and cognitive interviews were needed based on FDA request for a broader patient population in the qualitative study. Lessons learned from the omecamtiv mecarbil PRO/clinical development program are discussed, including challenges of qualitative studies, patient recruitment, expected and actual timelines, cost, and engagement with various stakeholders.ConclusionDevelopment of a new PRO measure to support a label claim requires significant investment and early planning, as demonstrated by the omecamtiv mecarbil program