836 research outputs found
A qualitative study of the contribution of pharmacists to heart failure management in Scotland
Study objectives: (1) To identify the medication management needs of chronic heart failure (CHF) patients and their caregivers; (2) To examine the perceived support for medication management available to these people from health professionals; (3) To identify the actual and potential perceived contribution of pharmacists to medication management.
Setting: A mixed urban/ rural region in the west of Scotland.
Design: Semi-structured qualitative research interviews.
Participants: A total of 50 people with CHF (NYHA Class II and III) due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction (33 males; mean age 67 years, 17 females; mean age 68 years) and 30 nominated caregivers recruited from the outpatient departments of two hospitals in the West of Scotland. Sampling was purposive to include patients from a range of CHF severity, ages and sexes.
Main results: Managing medications was a responsibility shared by both the patients with CHF and caregivers. Treatment regimens were reported to be difficult to comply with. Health professionals were seen to provide little support for medication management. Pharmacists were viewed as being a good and accessible source of practical assistance who were also knowledgeable about the individualâs heart health history. Participants reported valuing advice from pharmacists about the side effects of medications and for their assistance in reducing the complex logistics of medication management and in having medications delivered.
Conclusions: Patients with CHF and caregivers voiced a willingness to try to manage their medication regimen accurately but had a limited capacity to do so. Pharmacists were viewed as providing valuable support to patients with CHF and their caregivers, in terms of medication management. The extended role of pharmacists in medication management of CHF should be encouraged
Geometrical dissipation for dynamical systems
On a Riemannian manifold we consider the functions
and construct the vector fields that conserve and
dissipate with a prescribed rate. We study the geometry of these vector
fields and prove that they are of gradient type on regular leaves corresponding
to . By using these constructions we show that the cubic Morrison
dissipation and the Landau-Lifschitz equation can be formulated in a unitary
form
Action-gradient-minimizing pseudo-orbits and almost-invariant tori
Transport in near-integrable, but partially chaotic,
degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian systems is blocked by invariant tori and is
reduced at \emph{almost}-invariant tori, both associated with the invariant
tori of a neighboring integrable system. "Almost invariant" tori with rational
rotation number can be defined using continuous families of periodic
\emph{pseudo-orbits} to foliate the surfaces, while irrational-rotation-number
tori can be defined by nesting with sequences of such rational tori. Three
definitions of "pseudo-orbit," \emph{action-gradient--minimizing} (AGMin),
\emph{quadratic-flux-minimizing} (QFMin) and \emph{ghost} orbits, based on
variants of Hamilton's Principle, use different strategies to extremize the
action as closely as possible. Equivalent Lagrangian (configuration-space
action) and Hamiltonian (phase-space action) formulations, and a new approach
to visualizing action-minimizing and minimax orbits based on AGMin
pseudo-orbits, are presented.Comment: Accepted for publication in a special issue of Communications in
Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation (CNSNS) entitled "The mathematical
structure of fluids and plasmas : a volume dedicated to the 60th birthday of
Phil Morrison
Baryon Spectra and AdS/CFT Correspondence
We provide a detailed map between wrapped D3-branes in Anti-de Sitter (AdS)
backgrounds and dibaryon operators in the corresponding conformal field theory
(CFT). The effective five dimensional action governing the dynamics of AdS
space contains a gauge field that mediates interactions between
objects possessing R-charge. We show that the charge of these wrapped
D3-branes as measured by the gauge field matches the R-charge of the dibaryons
expected from field theory considerations. We are able, through a careful probe
brane calculation in an background, to understand the
exact relation between the mass of the wrapped D3-brane and the dimension of
the corresponding dibaryon. We also make some steps toward matching the
counting of dibaryon operators in the CFT with the ground states of a
supersymmetric quantum mechanical system whose target space is the moduli space
of D-branes. Finally, we discuss BPS excitations of the D3-brane and compare
them with higher dimension operators in the CFT.Comment: 24 pages, typos correcte
Closed string tachyons, flips and conifolds
Following the analysis of tachyons and orbifold flips described in
hep-th/0412337, we study nonsupersymmetric analogs of the supersymmetric
conifold singularity and show using their toric geometry description that they
are nonsupersymmetric orbifolds of the latter. Using linear sigma models, we
see that these are unstable to localized closed string tachyon condensation and
exhibit flip transitions between their two small resolutions (involving
2-cycles), in the process mediating mild dynamical topology change. Our
analysis shows that the structure of these nonsupersymmetric conifolds as
quotients of the supersymmetric conifold obstructs the 3-cycle deformation of
such singularities, suggesting that these nonsupersymmetric conifolds decay by
evolving towards their stable small resolutions.Comment: Latex, 22 pgs, 2 figs. v4: matches JHEP version, 29 pgs, 3 figures,
more elaborate Introduction, various clarifications adde
Holographic dual of the Standard Model on the throat
We apply recent techniques to construct geometries, based on local Calabi-Yau
manifolds, leading to warped throats with 3-form fluxes in string theory, with
interesting structure at their bottom. We provide their holographic dual
description in terms of RG flows for gauge theories with almost conformal
duality cascades and infrared confinement. We describe a model of a throat with
D-branes at its bottom, realizing a 3-family Standard Model like chiral sector.
We provide the explicit holographic dual gauge theory RG flow, and describe the
appearance of the SM degrees of freedom after confinement. As a second
application, we describe throats within throats, namely warped throats with
discontinuous warp factor in different regions of the radial coordinate, and
discuss possible model building applications.Comment: 46 pages, 21 figures, reference adde
On Type II Strings in Two Dimensions
We consider type IIA/B strings in two-dimensions and their projection with
respect to the nilpotent space-time supercharge. Based on the ground ring
structure, we propose a duality between perturbed type II strings and the
topological B-model on deformed Calabi-Yau singularities. Depending on the type
II spectra, one has either the conifold or the suspended pinch point geometry.
Using the corresponding quiver gauge theory, obtained by D-branes wrapping in
the resolved suspended pinch point geometry, we propose the all orders
perturbative partition function.Comment: 1+23 page
Ricci-flat deformation of orbifolds and localized tachyonic modes
We study Ricci-flat deformations of orbifolds in type II theory. We obtain a
simple formula for mass corrections to the twisted modes due to the
deformations, and apply it to originally tachyonic and massless states in
several examples. In the case of supersymmetric orbifolds, we find that
tachyonic states appear when the deformation breaks all the supersymmetries. We
also study nonsupersymmetric orbifolds C^2/Z_{2N(2N+1)}, which is T-dual to N
type 0 NS5-branes. For N>=2, we compute mass corrections for states, which have
string scale tachyonic masses. We find that the corrected masses coincide to
ones obtained by solving the wave equation for the tachyon field in the smeared
type 0 NS5-brane background geometry. For N=1, we show that the unstable mode
representing the bubble creation is the unique tachyonic mode.Comment: 20 pages, minor collection
Spontaneous magnetization above TC in polycrystalline La0.7 Ca0.3 MnO3 and La0.7 Ba0.3 MnO3
In the present work, spontaneous magnetization is observed in the inverse magnetic susceptibility of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 and La0.7Ba0.3MnO3 compounds above TC up to a temperature T*. From information gathered from neutron diffraction, dilatometry, and high-field magnetization data, we suggest that T* is related to the transition temperature of the low-temperature (high magnetic field) magnetic phase. In the temperature region between T* and TC, the application of a magnetic field drives the system from the high-temperature to low-temperature magnetic phases, the latter possessing a higher magnetization. © 2014 American Physical Society
Structure and dynamics of Rh surfaces
Lattice relaxations, surface phonon spectra, surface energies, and work
functions are calculated for Rh(100) and Rh(110) surfaces using
density-functional theory and the full-potential linearized augmented plane
wave method. Both, the local-density approximation and the generalized gradient
approximation to the exchange-correlation functional are considered. The force
constants are obtained from the directly calculated atomic forces, and the
temperature dependence of the surface relaxation is evaluated by minimizing the
free energy of the system. The anharmonicity of the atomic vibrations is taken
into account within the quasiharmonic approximation. The importance of
contributions from different phonons to the surface relaxation is analyzed.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, scheduled to appear in Phys. Rev. B, Feb. 15
(1998). Other related publications can be found at
http://www.rz-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm
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