679 research outputs found
Cost-effectiveness Study of Antihypertensive Drugs in Mumbai, India
Hypertension is a serious global public health problem. It accounts for 10% of all deaths in India and is the leading noncommunicable disease.1 Recent studies have shown that the prevalence of hypertension is 25% in urban and 10% in rural people in India.2 It exerts a substantial public health burden on cardiovascular health status and health care systems in India.3 Antihypertensive treatment effectively reduces hypertension-related morbidity and mortality.1 The cost of medications has always been a barrier to effective treatment
Balancing Bounded Treewidth Circuits
Algorithmic tools for graphs of small treewidth are used to address questions
in complexity theory. For both arithmetic and Boolean circuits, it is shown
that any circuit of size and treewidth can be
simulated by a circuit of width and size , where , if , and otherwise. For our main construction,
we prove that multiplicatively disjoint arithmetic circuits of size
and treewidth can be simulated by bounded fan-in arithmetic formulas of
depth . From this we derive the analogous statement for
syntactically multilinear arithmetic circuits, which strengthens a theorem of
Mahajan and Rao. As another application, we derive that constant width
arithmetic circuits of size can be balanced to depth ,
provided certain restrictions are made on the use of iterated multiplication.
Also from our main construction, we derive that Boolean bounded fan-in circuits
of size and treewidth can be simulated by bounded fan-in
formulas of depth . This strengthens in the non-uniform setting
the known inclusion that . Finally, we apply our
construction to show that {\sc reachability} for directed graphs of bounded
treewidth is in
Wind mapping in Venus' upper mesosphere with the IRAM-Plateau de Bure interferometer
The dynamics of the upper mesosphere of Venus (~85-115 km) have been
characterized as a combination of a retrograde superrotating zonal wind (RSZ)
with a subsolar-to-antisolar flow (SSAS). Numerous mm-wave single-dish
observations have been obtained and could directly measure mesospheric
line-of-sight winds by mapping Doppler-shifts on CO rotational lines, but their
limited spatial resolution makes their interpretation difficult. By using
interferometric facilities, one can obtain better resolution on Doppler-shifts
maps, allowing in particular to put firmer constraints on the respective
contributions of the SSAS and RSZ circulations to the global mesospheric wind
field. We report on interferometric observations of the CO(1-0) line obtained
with the IRAM-Plateau de Bure interferometer in November 2007 and June 2009,
that could map the upper mesosphere dynamics on the morning hemisphere with a
very good spatial resolution (3.5-5.5"). All the obtained measurements show,
with a remarkably good temporal stability, that the wind globally flows in the
(sky) East-West direction, corresponding in the observed geometry either to an
unexpected prograde zonal wind or a SSAS flow. A very localized inversion of
the wind direction, that could correspond to a RSZ wind, is also repeatedly
detected in the night hemisphere. The presence of significant meridional winds
is not evidenced. Using models with different combinations of zonal and SSAS
winds, we find that the data is best reproduced by a dominant SSAS flow with a
maximal velocity at the terminator of ~200 m/s, displaying large diurnal and
latitudinal asymmetries, combined with an equatorial RSZ wind of 70-100 m/s,
overall indicating a wind-field structure consistent with but much more complex
than the usual representation of the mesospheric dynamics.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Visualizing tephra deposits and sedimentary processes in the marine environment: The potential of X‐ray microtomography
Localized tephra deposition in marine sequences is the product of many complex primary and secondary depositional processes. These can significantly influence the potential applicability of tephra deposits as isochronous marker horizons and current techniques, used in isolation, may be insufficient to fully unravel these processes. Here we demonstrate the innovative application of X-ray microtomography (µCT) to successfully identify tephra deposits preserved within marine sediments and use these parameters to reconstruct their internal three-dimensional structure. Three-dimensional visualizations and animations of tephra dispersal in the sediment permit a more thorough assessment of postdepositional processes revealing a number of complex microsedimentological features that are not revealed by conventional methods. These features include bioturbation burrows and horizontally discontinuous tephra packages, which have important ramifications for the stratigraphic placement of the isochron in a sedimentary sequence. Our results demonstrate the potential for utilizing rigorous two and three-dimensional microsedimentological analysis of the ichnofabric to enhance and support the use of tephra deposits as isochronous marker horizons and to identify the stratigraphic position that best reflects the primary fallout of ash. The application also provides an exceptional insight into the style and rate of sedimentation processes and permits an assessment of the stratigraphic integrity of a tephra deposit. We discuss the possibility of applying these µCT methods to the identification of cryptotephras within various paleoclimatic sequences and to enhance our understanding of marine sedimentation processes
Zonal winds at high latitudes on Venus: An improved application of cyclostrophic balance to Venus Express observations
Recent retrievals of zonal thermal winds obtained in a cyclostrophic regime on Venus are generally consistent with cloud tracking measurements at mid-latitudes, but become unphysical in polar regions where the values obtained above the clouds are often less than or close to zero. Using a global atmospheric model, we show that the main source of errors that appear in the polar regions when retrieving the zonal thermal winds is most likely due to uncertainties in the zonal wind intensity in the choice of the lower boundary condition.
Here we suggest a new and robust method to better estimate the lower boundary condition for high latitudes, thereby improving the retrieved zonal thermal winds throughout the high latitudes middle atmosphere. This new method is applied to temperature fields derived from Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) data on board the Venus Express spacecraft. We obtain a zonal thermal wind field that is in better agreement with other, more direct methods based on either retrieving the zonal winds from cloud tracking or from direct measurements of the meridional slope of pressure surfaces
Posterior leukoencephalopathy following repair of an ileocecal anastomosis breakdown: a case report and review of the literature
Autoantibodies against a 43 KDa Muscle Protein in Inclusion Body Myositis
BACKGROUND: Inclusion body myositis (IBM) is a poorly understood and refractory autoimmune muscle disease. Though widely believed to have no significant humoral autoimmunity, we sought to identify novel autoantibodies with high specificity for this disease. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Plasma autoantibodies from 65 people, including 25 with IBM, were analyzed by immunoblots against normal human muscle. Thirteen of 25 (52%) IBM patient samples recognized an approximately 43 kDa muscle protein. No other disease (N = 25) or healthy volunteer (N = 15) samples recognized this protein. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating antibodies against a 43-kDa muscle autoantigen may lead to the discovery of a novel biomarker for IBM. Its high specificity for IBM among patients with autoimmune myopathies furthermore suggests a relationship to disease pathogenesis
Data Integration for Open Data on the Web
In this lecture we will discuss and introduce challenges of
integrating openly available Web data and how to solve them. Firstly,
while we will address this topic from the viewpoint of Semantic Web
research, not all data is readily available as RDF or Linked Data, so
we will give an introduction to different data formats prevalent on the
Web, namely, standard formats for publishing and exchanging tabular,
tree-shaped, and graph data. Secondly, not all Open Data is really completely
open, so we will discuss and address issues around licences, terms
of usage associated with Open Data, as well as documentation of data
provenance. Thirdly, we will discuss issues connected with (meta-)data
quality issues associated with Open Data on the Web and how Semantic
Web techniques and vocabularies can be used to describe and remedy
them. Fourth, we will address issues about searchability and integration
of Open Data and discuss in how far semantic search can help to overcome
these. We close with briefly summarizing further issues not covered
explicitly herein, such as multi-linguality, temporal aspects (archiving,
evolution, temporal querying), as well as how/whether OWL and RDFS
reasoning on top of integrated open data could be help
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