Epidemiološki studij učinaka herbicida

A preliminary study of 324 Swedish railway workers exposed to herbicides between the years 1957-1971 showed 2 excess lung cancer cases, 1 adenocarcinoma and 1 oatcellcancer. Although the number of subjects was small, especially the number of cancers, the possibility that amitrole and combinations together with smoking might have caused the excess lung cancers cannot be ruled out.U ovom preliminarnom epidemiološkom istraživanju, autori su analizirali uzroke smrti među 324 radnika koji su u razdoblju od 1957. do 1971. godine bili izvrgnuti različitim herbicidima tijekom ukupno više od 46 dana. Autori su u račun uzimali incidenciju u općem i specifičnom mortalitetu švedske populacije pa su uspoređivali broj očekivanih i broj utvrđenih smrtnih slučajeva među eksponiranim radnicima. Premda su sveukupni brojevi maleni, ne može se isključiti mogućnost da je amitrol sam ili s pušenjem uvjetovao veći broj karcinoma pluća u eksponiranih radnika

What a MESS! Implementing Licensed and Free Mobile Applications for Electronic Library Resources

More patrons are using their smart phones and tablets to access library resources as providers add specific applications or Web functionality for their products. This session will cover library services on mobile devices such as e-books, e-journals, electronic indexes, and other mobile applications. We will discuss those subscription services that are mobile ready like EBSCOhost and LibGuides and mobile add-ons such as the iPad app for The Chronicle and the impact this has on licensing and support

An action principle for Vasiliev's four-dimensional higher-spin gravity

We provide Vasiliev's fully nonlinear equations of motion for bosonic gauge fields in four spacetime dimensions with an action principle. We first extend Vasiliev's original system with differential forms in degrees higher than one. We then derive the resulting duality-extended equations of motion from a variational principle based on a generalized Hamiltonian sigma-model action. The generalized Hamiltonian contains two types of interaction freedoms: One set of functions that appears in the Q-structure of the generalized curvatures of the odd forms in the duality-extended system; and another set depending on the Lagrange multipliers, encoding a generalized Poisson structure, i.e. a set of polyvector fields of ranks two or higher in target space. We find that at least one of the two sets of interaction-freedom functions must be linear in order to ensure gauge invariance. We discuss consistent truncations to the minimal Type A and B models (with only even spins), spectral flows on-shell and provide boundary conditions on fields and gauge parameters that are compatible with the variational principle and that make the duality-extended system equivalent, on shell, to Vasiliev's original system.Comment: 37 pages. References added, corrected typo

CT beam dosimetric characterization procedure for personalized dosimetry

Personalized dosimetry in computed tomography (CT) can be realized by a full Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the scan procedure. Essential input data needed for the simulation are appropriate CT x-ray source models and a model of the patient's body which is based on the CT image. The purpose of this work is to develop comprehensive procedures for the determination of CT x-ray source models and their verification by comparison of calculated and measured dose distributions in physical phantoms. Mobile equipment together with customized software was developed and used for non-invasive determination of equivalent source models of CT scanners under clinical conditions. Standard and physical anthropomorphic CT dose phantoms equipped with real-time CT dose probes at five representative positions were scanned. The accumulated dose was measured during the scan at the five positions. ImpactMC, an MC-based CT dose software program, was used to simulate the scan. The necessary inputs were obtained from the scan parameters, from the equivalent source models and from the material-segmented CT images of the phantoms. 3D dose distributions in the phantoms were simulated and the dose values calculated at the five positions inside the phantom were compared to measured dose values. Initial results were obtained by means of a General Electric Optima CT 660 and a Toshiba (Canon) Aquilion ONE. In general, the measured and calculated dose values were within relative uncertainties that had been estimated to be less than 10%. The procedures developed were found to be viable and rapid. The procedures are applicable to any scanner type under clinical conditions without making use of the service mode with stationary x-ray tube position. Results show that the procedures are well suited for determining and verifying the equivalent source models needed for personalized CT dosimetry based on post-scan MC calculations.Peer reviewe

Molecular cloning and characterization of human endothelial nitric oxide synthase

AbstractThe constitutive calcium/calmodulin-dependent nitric oxide (NO) synthase expressed in vascular endothelium shares common biochemical and pharmacologic properties with neuronal NO synthase. However, recent cloning and molecular characterization of NO synthase from bovine endothelial cells indicated the existence of a family of constitutive NO synthases. Accordingly, we undertook molecular cloning and sequence analysis of human endothelial NO synthase. Complementary DNA clones predict a protein of 1,203 amino acids sharing 94% identity with the bovine endothelial protein, but only 60% identity with the rat brain NO synthase isoform. Northern blot analysis with an endothelial-derived cDNA identified a 4.6–4.8 kb mRNA transcript in HUVEC and in situ hybridization localized transcripts to vascular endothelium but not neuronal tissue

On gravitational interactions for massive higher spins in AdS3AdS_3

In this paper we investigate gravitational interactions of massive higher spin fields in three dimensional $AdS$ space with arbitrary value of cosmological constant including flat Minkowski space. We use frame-like gauge description for such massive fields adopted to three-dimensional case. At first, we carefully analyze the procedure of switching on gravitational interactions in the linear approximation on the example of massive spin-3 field and then proceed with the generalization to the case of arbitrary integer spin field. As a result we construct a cubic interaction vertex linear in spin-2 field and quadratic in higher spin field on $AdS_3$ background. As in the massless case the vertex does not contain any higher derivative corrections to the Lagrangian and/or gauge transformations. Thus, even after switching on gravitational interactions, one can freely consider any massless or partially massless limits as well as the flat one.Comment: 21 pages. Some clarifications and 1 new reference added. Version to appear in the J.Phys.A special volume on "Higher Spin Theories and AdS/CFT" edited by Matthias Gaberdiel and Mikhail Vasilie

Propagating modes of non-Abelian tensor gauge field of second rank

In the recently proposed extension of the YM theory, non-Abelian tensor gauge field of the second rank is represented by a general tensor whose symmetric part describes the propagation of charged gauge boson of helicity two and its antisymmetric part - the helicity zero charged gauge boson. On the non-interacting level these polarizations are similar to the polarizations of the graviton and of the Abelian antisymmetric B field, but the interaction of these gauge bosons carrying non-commutative internal charges cannot be directly identified with the interaction of gravitons or B field. Our intention here is to illustrate this result from different perspectives which would include Bianchi identity for the corresponding field strength tensor and the analysis of the second-order partial differential equation which describes in this theory the propagation of non-Abelian tensor gauge field of the second rank.Comment: 22 pages, Latex fil

Invariant Differential Operators and Characters of the AdS_4 Algebra

The aim of this paper is to apply systematically to AdS_4 some modern tools in the representation theory of Lie algebras which are easily generalised to the supersymmetric and quantum group settings and necessary for applications to string theory and integrable models. Here we introduce the necessary representations of the AdS_4 algebra and group. We give explicitly all singular (null) vectors of the reducible AdS_4 Verma modules. These are used to obtain the AdS_4 invariant differential operators. Using this we display a new structure - a diagram involving four partially equivalent reducible representations one of which contains all finite-dimensional irreps of the AdS_4 algebra. We study in more detail the cases involving UIRs, in particular, the Di and the Rac singletons, and the massless UIRs. In the massless case we discover the structure of sets of 2s_0-1 conserved currents for each spin s_0 UIR, s_0=1,3/2,... All massless cases are contained in a one-parameter subfamily of the quartet diagrams mentioned above, the parameter being the spin s_0. Further we give the classification of the so(5,C) irreps presented in a diagramatic way which makes easy the derivation of all character formulae. The paper concludes with a speculation on the possible applications of the character formulae to integrable models.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures, TEX-harvmac with input files: amssym.def, amssym.tex, epsf.tex; version 2 1 reference added; v3: minor corrections; v.4: minor corrections, v.5: minor corrections to conform with version in J. Phys. A: Math. Gen; v.6.: small correction and addition in subsections 4.1 & 4.