Reflection matrices for the Uq[sl(r∣2m)(2)]U_{q}[sl(r|2m)^{(2)}] vertex model

The graded reflection equation is investigated for the $U_{q}[sl(r|2m)^{(2)}]$ vertex model. We have found four classes of diagonal solutions and twelve classes of non-diagonal ones. The number of free parameters for some solutions depends on the number of bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom considered.Comment: 30 page

Finance and performance of Portuguese hospitals

This study analyses the impact of changing systems of finance on the performance of hospitals in Portugal, specifically in terms of costs per admission and per patient day, average length of stay and the number of admissions. The study is based on panel data (36 hospitals over a ten-year period), used to estimate cost functions. It is concluded that costs per admission decreased over the period in question, principally due to declining length of stay.DRG, financing systems, hospital, Portugal, prospective payment

Cell Therapy for Type 1 Diabetes

Acknowledgements The work described in this review was supported by a grant from the MRC. K.R.M. is supported by a fellowship from the Scottish Translational Medicines and Therapeutics Initiative through the Wellcome Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Competition between local potentials and attractive particle-particle interactions in superlattices

Naturally occuring or man-made systems displaying periodic spatial modulations of their properties on a nanoscale constitute superlattices. Such modulated structures are important both as prototypes of simple nanotechnological devices and as particular examples of emerging spatial inhomogeneity in interacting many-electron systems. Here we investigate the effect different types of modulation of the system parameters have on the ground-state energy and the charge-density distribution of the system. The superlattices are described by the inhomogeneous attractive Hubbard model, and the calculations are performed by density-functional and density-matrix renormalization group techniques. We find that modulations in local electric potentials are much more effective in shaping the system's properties than modulations in the attractive on-site interaction. This is the same conclusions we previously (Phys. Rev. B 71, 125130) obtained for repulsive interactions, suggesting that it is not an artifact of a specific state, but a general property of modulated structures.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Area Quantization in Quasi-Extreme Black Holes

We consider quasi-extreme Kerr and quasi-extreme Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes. From the known analytical expressions obtained for their quasi-normal modes frequencies, we suggest an area quantization prescription for those objects.Comment: Final version to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Probing embedded star clusters in the HII complex NGC 6357 with VVV

NGC 6357 is an active star-forming region located in the Sagittarius arm displaying several star clusters, which makes it a very interesting target to investigate star formation and early cluster evolution. We explore NGC 6357 with the "VISTA Variables in the V\'ia a L\'actea" (VVV) photometry of seven embedded clusters (ECs), and one open cluster (OC) projected in the outskirts of the complex.Photometric and structural properties (age, reddening, distance, core and total radii) of the star clusters are derived. VVV saturated stars are replaced by their 2MASS counterparts. Field-decontaminated VVV photometry is used to analyse Colour-Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs), stellar radial density profiles (RDPs) and determine astrophysical parameters. We report the discovery of four ECs and one intermediate-age cluster in the complex area. We derive a revised distance estimate for NGC 6357 of 1.78$\pm$0.1 kpc based on the cluster CMD morphologies. Among the ECs, one contains the binary star the WR 93, while the remaining ones are dominated by pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, young-stellar objects (YSO) and/or and have a developed main sequence. These features reflect a significant age spread among the clusters. Evidence is found that the relatively populous cluster Pismis 24 hosts two subclusters.Comment: This article will be published in the A&A. 11 pages, 15 figures and 3 table

Friedel oscillations in one-dimensional metals: from Luttinger's theorem to the Luttinger liquid

Charge density and magnetization density profiles of one-dimensional metals are investigated by two complementary many-body methods: numerically exact (Lanczos) diagonalization, and the Bethe-Ansatz local-density approximation with and without a simple self-interaction correction. Depending on the magnetization of the system, local approximations reproduce different Fourier components of the exact Friedel oscillations.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Manuscript accepted by Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, special issue for LAWMMM 2007 conferenc