2,459 research outputs found
Community Engagement and Outreach Programs For Lead Prevention In Mississippi
The objective of the project was to encourage health promotion through education, outreach, and community-based training. The people attending health fairs (n = 467), community events (n = 469), and Kindergarten classes (n = 241) were the study participants. Hands-on training was offered at homebuilding retail stores (n = 25). U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s online visual training was given to realtors (n = 220), and inspectors, contractors, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) workers (n = 75). Training workshops were attended by home-buyers and rental home owners at the Neighborhood Association Meetings (n = 91). The impact of training was evaluated by pre- and posttests. Nearly, 90% of the participants (n = 25) reported the hands-on training was useful. At posttest after the HUD online training, 59.4%, 67.9%, 65.1% of the participants (n = 220) identified soil, car batteries, and paint as sources of lead in the environment, respectively. Nearly 70% identified lead as a poison in the environment while 77.5% and 47.2% demonstrated two behaviors which help prevent lead poisoning. A total of 62.3%, 48.1%, and 58.5%, at posttest identified three complications or illnesses—behavioral, physical, and psychological, respectively. The home owners are required to get permission from the City for housing repair. In coordination with the federally funded housing repair or lead abatement programs, the trained inspectors are authorized to certify the renovation or repair works. These outreach activities were successful in improving the knowledge of the community people on lead poisoning prevention
Strong-field effects in the Rabi oscillations of the superconducting phase qubit
Rabi oscillations have been observed in many superconducting devices, and
represent prototypical logic operations for quantum bits (qubits) in a quantum
computer. We use a three-level multiphoton analysis to understand the behavior
of the superconducting phase qubit (current-biased Josephson junction) at high
microwave drive power. Analytical and numerical results for the ac Stark shift,
single-photon Rabi frequency, and two-photon Rabi frequency are compared to
measurements made on a dc SQUID phase qubit with Nb/AlOx/Nb tunnel junctions.
Good agreement is found between theory and experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE Trans. Appl.
Supercon
Multilevel effects in the Rabi oscillations of a Josephson phase qubit
We present Rabi oscillation measurements of a Nb/AlOx/Nb dc superconducting
quantum interference device (SQUID) phase qubit with a 100 um^2 area junction
acquired over a range of microwave drive power and frequency detuning. Given
the slightly anharmonic level structure of the device, several excited states
play an important role in the qubit dynamics, particularly at high power. To
investigate the effects of these levels, multiphoton Rabi oscillations were
monitored by measuring the tunneling escape rate of the device to the voltage
state, which is particularly sensitive to excited state population. We compare
the observed oscillation frequencies with a simplified model constructed from
the full phase qubit Hamiltonian and also compare time-dependent escape rate
measurements with a more complete density-matrix simulation. Good quantitative
agreement is found between the data and simulations, allowing us to identify a
shift in resonance (analogous to the ac Stark effect), a suppression of the
Rabi frequency, and leakage to the higher excited states.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures; minor corrections, updated reference
Development process of a clinical guideline to manage type 2 diabetes in adults by Ayurvedic practitioners
Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a common chronic health condition, has major health and socioeconomic consequences. In the Indian subcontinent, it is a health condition for which individuals commonly consult Ayurvedic (traditional medical system) practitioners and use their medicines. However, to date, a good quality T2DM clinical guideline for Ayurvedic practitioners, grounded on the best available scientific evidence, is not available. Therefore, the study aimed to systematically develop a clinical guideline for Ayurvedic practitioners to manage T2DM in adults. Methods: The development work was guided by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) manual for developing guidelines, the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach, and the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument. First, a comprehensive systematic review was conducted which evaluated Ayurvedic medicines’ effectiveness and safety in managing T2DM. In addition, the GRADE approach was used for assessing the certainty of the findings. Next, using the GRADE approach, the Evidence-to-Decision framework was developed, and we focused on glycemic control and adverse events. Subsequently, based on the Evidence-to-Decision framework, a Guideline Development Group of 17 international members made recommendations on Ayurvedic medicines’ effectiveness and safety in T2DM. These recommendations formed the basis of the clinical guideline, and additional generic content and recommendations were adapted from the T2DM Clinical Knowledge Summaries of the Clarity Informatics (UK). The feedback given by the Guideline Development Group on the draft version was used to amend and finalize the clinical guideline. Results: A clinical guideline for managing T2DM in adults by Ayurvedic practitioners was developed, which focuses on how practitioners can provide appropriate care, education, and support for people with T2DM (and their carers and family). The clinical guideline provides information on T2DM, such as its definition, risk factors, prevalence, prognosis, and complications; how it should be diagnosed and managed through lifestyle changes like diet and physical activity and Ayurvedic medicines; how the acute and chronic complications of T2DM should be detected and managed (including referral to specialists); and advice on topics like driving, work, and fasting including during religious/socio-cultural festivals. Conclusion: We systematically developed a clinical guideline for Ayurvedic practitioners to manage T2DM in adults
Operational experience, improvements, and performance of the CDF Run II silicon vertex detector
The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) pursues a broad physics program at
Fermilab's Tevatron collider. Between Run II commissioning in early 2001 and
the end of operations in September 2011, the Tevatron delivered 12 fb-1 of
integrated luminosity of p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. Many physics
analyses undertaken by CDF require heavy flavor tagging with large charged
particle tracking acceptance. To realize these goals, in 2001 CDF installed
eight layers of silicon microstrip detectors around its interaction region.
These detectors were designed for 2--5 years of operation, radiation doses up
to 2 Mrad (0.02 Gy), and were expected to be replaced in 2004. The sensors were
not replaced, and the Tevatron run was extended for several years beyond its
design, exposing the sensors and electronics to much higher radiation doses
than anticipated. In this paper we describe the operational challenges
encountered over the past 10 years of running the CDF silicon detectors, the
preventive measures undertaken, and the improvements made along the way to
ensure their optimal performance for collecting high quality physics data. In
addition, we describe the quantities and methods used to monitor radiation
damage in the sensors for optimal performance and summarize the detector
performance quantities important to CDF's physics program, including vertex
resolution, heavy flavor tagging, and silicon vertex trigger performance.Comment: Preprint accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods
A (07/31/2013
Novel insights into host-fungal pathogen interactions derived from live-cell imaging
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust (080088, 086827, 075470 and 099215) including a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology 097377 and FP7-2007–2013 grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-260338–ALLFUN to NARG.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Scalar and vector Slepian functions, spherical signal estimation and spectral analysis
It is a well-known fact that mathematical functions that are timelimited (or
spacelimited) cannot be simultaneously bandlimited (in frequency). Yet the
finite precision of measurement and computation unavoidably bandlimits our
observation and modeling scientific data, and we often only have access to, or
are only interested in, a study area that is temporally or spatially bounded.
In the geosciences we may be interested in spectrally modeling a time series
defined only on a certain interval, or we may want to characterize a specific
geographical area observed using an effectively bandlimited measurement device.
It is clear that analyzing and representing scientific data of this kind will
be facilitated if a basis of functions can be found that are "spatiospectrally"
concentrated, i.e. "localized" in both domains at the same time. Here, we give
a theoretical overview of one particular approach to this "concentration"
problem, as originally proposed for time series by Slepian and coworkers, in
the 1960s. We show how this framework leads to practical algorithms and
statistically performant methods for the analysis of signals and their power
spectra in one and two dimensions, and, particularly for applications in the
geosciences, for scalar and vectorial signals defined on the surface of a unit
sphere.Comment: Submitted to the 2nd Edition of the Handbook of Geomathematics,
edited by Willi Freeden, Zuhair M. Nashed and Thomas Sonar, and to be
published by Springer Verlag. This is a slightly modified but expanded
version of the paper arxiv:0909.5368 that appeared in the 1st Edition of the
Handbook, when it was called: Slepian functions and their use in signal
estimation and spectral analysi
Strain-dependent host transcriptional responses to toxoplasma infection are largely conserved in mammalian and avian hosts
Toxoplasma gondii has a remarkable ability to infect an enormous variety of mammalian and avian species. Given this, it is surprising that three strains (Types I/II/III) account for the majority of isolates from Europe/North America. The selective pressures that have driven the emergence of these particular strains, however, remain enigmatic. We hypothesized that strain selection might be partially driven by adaptation of strains for mammalian versus avian hosts. To test this, we examine in vitro, strain-dependent host responses in fibroblasts of a representative avian host, the chicken (Gallus gallus). Using gene expression profiling of infected chicken embryonic fibroblasts and pathway analysis to assess host response, we show here that chicken cells respond with distinct transcriptional profiles upon infection with Type II versus III strains that are reminiscent of profiles observed in mammalian cells. To identify the parasite drivers of these differences, chicken fibroblasts were infected with individual F1 progeny of a Type II x III cross and host gene expression was assessed for each by microarray. QTL mapping of transcriptional differences suggested, and deletion strains confirmed, that, as in mammalian cells, the polymorphic rhoptry kinase ROP16 is the major driver of strain-specific responses. We originally hypothesized that comparing avian versus mammalian host response might reveal an inversion in parasite strain-dependent phenotypes; specifically, for polymorphic effectors like ROP16, we hypothesized that the allele with most activity in mammalian cells might be less active in avian cells. Instead, we found that activity of ROP16 alleles appears to be conserved across host species; moreover, additional parasite loci that were previously mapped for strain-specific effects on mammalian response showed similar strain-specific effects in chicken cells. These results indicate that if different hosts select for different parasite genotypes, the selection operates downstream of the signaling occurring during the beginning of the host's immune response. © 2011 Ong et al
Rare earth element abundances in hydrothermal fluids from the Manus Basin, Papua New Guinea : indicators of sub-seafloor hydrothermal processes in back-arc basins
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 74 (2010): 5494-5513, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2010.07.003.Rare earth element (REE) concentrations are reported for a large suite of seafloor vent fluids
from four hydrothermal systems in the Manus back–arc basin (Vienna Woods, PACMANUS,
DESMOS and SuSu Knolls vent areas). Sampled vent fluids show a wide range of absolute REE
concentrations and chondrite–normalized (REEN) distribution patterns (LaN/SmN ~ 0.6 – 11;
LaN/YbN ~ 0.6 – 71; EuN/Eu*N ~ 1 – 55). REEN distribution patterns in different vent fluids range
from light–REE enriched, to mid– and heavy–REE enriched, to flat, and have a range of positive
Eu–anomalies. This heterogeneity contrasts markedly with relatively uniform REEN distribution
patterns of mid–ocean ridge hydrothermal fluids. In Manus Basin fluids, aqueous REE
compositions do not inherit directly or show a clear relationship with the REE compositions of
primary crustal rocks with which hydrothermal fluids interact. These results suggest that the
REEs are less sensitive indicators of primary crustal rock composition despite crustal rocks being
the dominant source of REEs in submarine hydrothermal fluids. In contrast, differences in
aqueous REE compositions are consistently correlated with differences in fluid pH and ligand
(chloride, fluoride and sulfate) concentrations. Our results suggest that the REEs can be used as
an indicator of the type of magmatic acid volatile (i.e., presence of HF, SO2) degassing in
submarine hydrothermal systems. Additional fluid data suggest that near seafloor mixing
between high–temperature hydrothermal fluid and locally entrained seawater at many vent areas
in the Manus Basin causes anhydrite precipitation. Anhydrite effectively incorporates REE and
likely affects measured fluid REE concentrations, but does not affect their relative distributions.This study received financial support from the Ocean
Drilling Program Schlanger Fellowship (to P.R. Craddock), the WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration
Institute Graduate Fellowship (to E. Reeves) and NSF grant OCE–0327448
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