An investigation of the learning opportunities for nursing students at the New England Center Hospital and the Boston Dispensary

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Children with severe malnutrition: can those at highest risk of death be identified with the WHO protocol?

Background With strict adherence to international recommended treatment guidelines, the case fatality for severe malnutrition ought to be less than 5%. In African hospitals, fatality rates of 20% are common and are often attributed to poor training and faulty case management. Improving outcome will depend upon the identification of those at greatest risk and targeting limited health resources. We retrospectively examined the major risk factors associated with early (<48 h) and late in-hospital death in children with severe malnutrition with the aim of identifying admission features that could distinguish a high-risk group in relation to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Methods and Findings Of 920 children in the study, 176 (19%) died, with 59 (33%) deaths occurring within 48 h of admission. Bacteraemia complicated 27% of all deaths: 52% died before 48 h despite 85% in vitro antibiotic susceptibility of cultured organisms. The sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratio of the WHO-recommended “danger signs” (lethargy, hypothermia, or hypoglycaemia) to predict early mortality was 52%, 84%, and 3.4% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.2 to 5.1), respectively. In addition, four bedside features were associated with early case fatality: bradycardia, capillary refill time greater than 2 s, weak pulse volume, and impaired consciousness level; the presence of two or more features was associated with an odds ratio of 9.6 (95% CI = 4.8 to 19) for early fatality (p < 0.0001). Conversely, the group of children without any of these seven features, or signs of dehydration, severe acidosis, or electrolyte derangements, had a low fatality (7%). Conclusions Formal assessment of these features as emergency signs to improve triage and to rationalize manpower resources toward the high-risk groups is required. In addition, basic clinical research is necessary to identify and test appropriate supportive treatments

Scaling of entanglement at quantum phase transition for two-dimensional array of quantum dots

With Hubbard model, the entanglement scaling behavior in a two-dimensional itinerant system is investigated. It has been found that, on the two sides of the critical point denoting an inherent quantum phase transition (QPT), the entanglement follows different scalings with the size just as an order parameter does. This fact reveals the subtle role played by the entanglement in QPT as a fungible physical resource

Mediated tunable coupling of flux qubits

It is sketched how a monostable rf- or dc-SQUID can mediate an inductive coupling between two adjacent flux qubits. The nontrivial dependence of the SQUID's susceptibility on external flux makes it possible to continuously tune the induced coupling from antiferromagnetic (AF) to ferromagnetic (FM). In particular, for suitable parameters, the induced FM coupling can be sufficiently large to overcome any possible direct AF inductive coupling between the qubits. The main features follow from a classical analysis of the multi-qubit potential. A fully quantum treatment yields similar results, but with a modified expression for the SQUID susceptibility. Since the latter is exact, it can also be used to evaluate the susceptibility--or, equivalently, energy-level curvature--of an isolated rf-SQUID for larger shielding and at degenerate flux bias, i.e., a (bistable) qubit. The result is compared to the standard two-level (pseudospin) treatment of the anticrossing, and the ensuing conclusions are verified numerically.Comment: REVTeX 4, 16 pp., 4 EPS figures. N.B.: "Alec" is my first, and "Maassen van den Brink" my family name. v2: major expansion and rewriting, new title and co-author; to appear in New Journal of Physics special issue (R. Fazio, ed.

Decoherence in a Josephson junction qubit

The zero-voltage state of a Josephson junction biased with constant current consists of a set of metastable quantum energy levels. We probe the spacings of these levels by using microwave spectroscopy to enhance the escape rate to the voltage state. The widths of the resonances give a measurement of the coherence time of the two states involved in the transitions. We observe a decoherence time shorter than that expected from dissipation alone in resonantly isolated 20 um x 5 um Al/AlOx/Al junctions at 60 mK. The data is well fit by a model including dephasing effects of both low-frequency current noise and the escape rate to the continuum voltage states. We discuss implications for quantum computation using current-biased Josephson junction qubits, including the minimum number of levels needed in the well to obtain an acceptable error limit per gate.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

The Programmers\u27 Playground Application Management System User Guide

Application Management permits the advertising, launching, and configuring of distributed applications created using the Programmers\u27 Playground. Applications can be documented and made available to end-users through the use of application pages on the World Wide Web. The launching and configuring of applications is performed by a brokerage system consisting of an applicatoin broker and one or more hierarchies of module launchers. This document describes how to setup and use the components of the Application Management system