Adverse Effects Associated With The Use Of South African Traditional Folk Remedies

A CAJM article on alternatives to western medical science.At least 80% of people in the South African black community use folk remedies obtained from traditional healers.1'2 The reasons for use of these remedies include community pressure, spiritual needs and lack of access to physicians. Because of the large numbers of people using them, most remedies are not likely to be harmful, but as with western medicine, folk remedies are associated with “iatrogenic” complications. Information about the potential toxicity of folk remedies is limited however, because of secrecy surrounding their use, so making the systematic study of the spectrum of clinical presentations and the nature of any toxic substances difficult. Studies from all over Africa are hampered by similar problems, but it is clear that the use of folk remedies is associated with significant morbidity and mortality across the continent

Lifetime measurement in excited and yrast superdeformed bands in Hg194

Nuclear level lifetimes have been measured in two superdeformed bands in Hg194 using the Doppler-shift attenuation method. Average transition quadrupole moments derived from the lifetimes of an excited and yrast superdeformed bands are Qt=17.6(30) and 17.2(20)eb, respectively. The Doppler shifts of the excited band relative to the yrast band indicate a slight difference in quadrupole moments [+4(5)%], assuming similar side feeding..ul2 These results imply that the second well is stable and rigid with respect to the particle excitation responsible for this excited band

New features of superdeformed bands in Hg194

Two new features of superdeformed (SD) bands in the A190 region emerge from a study of Hg194 with the Gammasphere detector array. A decrease of the dynamic moment of inertia is observed for rotational frequencies Latin small letter h with strokeω0.4 MeV, confirming long standing expectations based on mean field calculations with pairing. Evidence for a small staggering in the SD transition energies is also observed, suggesting the presence of terms with fourfold symmetry in the SD Hamiltonian

Onset of collectivity in neutron deficient Po196,198

We have studied via in-beam -ray spectroscopy Po196 and Po198, which are the first neutron-deficient Po isotopes to exhibit a collective low-lying structure. The ratios of yrast state energies and the E2 branching ratios of transitions from non-yrast to yrast states are indicative of a low-lying vibrational structure. The onset of collective motion in these isotopes can be attributed to the opening of the neutron i13/2 orbital at N112 and the resulting large overlap between the two valence protons in the h9/2 orbital and the valence neutrons in the i13/2 orbital

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET

A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)