Screening and diagnostic assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders in a male prison

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify neurodevelopmental disorders and difficulties (NDD) in a male prison. The study used standardised tools to carry out screening and diagnostic assessment of the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID). Design/methodology/approach The ADHD self-report scale, 20-item autism quotient and the Learning Disability Screening Questionnaire were used to screen 240 male prisoners. Prisoners who screened positive on one or more of these scales or self-reported a diagnosis of ADHD, ASD or ID were further assessed using the diagnostic interview for ADHD in adults, adapted Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule and the Quick Test. Findings Of the 87 prisoners who screened positive for NDD and were further assessed, 70 met the study’s diagnostic criteria for ADHD, ASD or ID. Most of those with NDD (51 per cent) had previously gone unrecognised and a high proportion (51 per cent) were identified through staff- or self-referral to the study. Originality/value The study demonstrated that improving awareness and providing access to skilled, standardised assessment within a male prison can result in increased recognition and identification of NDD

Magnon Mediated Electric Current Drag Across a Ferromagnetic Insulator Layer

In a semiconductor hererostructure, the Coulomb interaction is responsible for the electric current drag between two 2D electron gases across an electron impenetrable insulator. For two metallic layers separated by a ferromagnetic insulator (FI) layer, the electric current drag can be mediated by a nonequilibrium magnon current of the FI. We determine the drag current by using the semiclassical Boltzmann approach with proper boundary conditions of electrons and magnons at the metal-FI interface.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures: to appear in PR

Heat Bath Particle Number Spectrum

We calculate the number spectrum of particles radiated during a scattering into a heat bath using the thermal largest-time equation and the Dyson-Schwinger equation. We show how one can systematically calculate {d}/{d\omega} to any order using modified real time finite-temperature diagrams. Our approach is demonstrated on a simple model where two scalar particles scatter, within a photon-electron heat bath, into a pair of charged particles and it is shown how to calculate the resulting changes in the number spectra of the photons and electrons.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX; 14 figure

Nonlinear optical spectroscopy of single, few, and many molecules; nonequilibrium Green's function QED approach

Nonlinear optical signals from an assembly of N noninteracting particles consist of an incoherent and a coherent component, whose magnitudes scale \sim N and \sim N(N-1), respectively. A unified microscopic description of both types of signals is developed using a quantum electrodynamical (QED) treatment of the optical fields. Closed nonequilibrium Green's function expressions are derived that incorporate both stimulated and spontaneous processes. General (n+1)-wave mixing experiments are discussed as an example of spontaneously generated signals. When performed on a single particle, such signals cannot be expressed in terms of the nth order polarization, as predicted by the semiclassical theory. Stimulated processes are shown to be purely incoherent in nature. Within the QED framework, heterodyne-detected wave mixing signals are simply viewed as incoherent stimulated emission, whereas homodyne signals are generated by coherent spontaneous emission.Comment: article: 33 pages (preprint format!) ''paper.tex'' figures: 17 figures (.eps) in folder ``figures'

The metallic resistance of a dilute two-dimensional hole gas in a GaAs quantum well: two-phase separation at finite temperature?

We have studied the magnetotransport properties of a high mobility two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) system in a 10nm GaAs quantum well (QW) with densities in range of 0.7-1.6*10^10 cm^-2 on the metallic side of the zero-field 'metal-insulator transition' (MIT). In a parallel field well above B_c that suppresses the metallic conductivity, the 2DHG exhibits a conductivity g(T)~0.3(e^2/h)lnT reminiscent of weak localization. The experiments are consistent with the coexistence of two phases in our system: a metallic phase and a weakly insulating Fermi liquid phase having a percolation threshold close to B_c

Magnetization damping in a local-density approximation

The linear response of itinerant transition metal ferromagnets to transverse magnetic fields is studied in a self-consistent adiabatic local-density approximation. The susceptibility is calculated from a microscopic Hamiltonian, including spin-conserving impurities, impurity induced spin-orbit interaction and magnetic impurities using the Keldysh formalism. The Gilbert damping constant in the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation is identified, parametrized by an effective transverse spin dephasing rate, and is found to be inversely proportional to the exchange splitting. Our result justify the phenomenological treatment of transverse spin dephasing in the study of current-induced magnetization dynamics in weak, itinerant ferromagnets by Tserkovnyak \textit{et al.}. We show that neglect of gradient corrections in the quasiclassical transport equations leads to incorrect results when the exchange potential becomes of the order of the Fermi energy.Comment: 11 pages, 41 references, no figure

Positronium reflection and positronium beams

Specular reflection of positronium, Ps was observed and that there is adequate intensity at higher energies to make further study worthwhile was established. The scattering appears to be restricted to the outermost surface with a mean free path of (0.75 + or - 0.15)A for Ps in LiF(100). With a greater intensity Ps beam one should see higher order diffraction beams as the result of the periodicity of the surface. Ps diffraction thus offers the possibility of being a novel and valuable probe to study the outermost surface and to study adsorbants on it. Two methods for producing Ps beams are described

High-sensitivity troponin I concentrations are a marker of an advanced hypertrophic response and adverse outcomes in patients with aortic stenosis

Aims: High-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (cTnI) assays hold promise in detecting the transition from hypertrophy to heart failure in aortic stenosis. We sought to investigate the mechanism for troponin release in patients with aortic stenosis and whether plasma cTnI concentrations are associated with long-term outcome. Methods and results: Plasma cTnI concentrations were measured in two patient cohorts using a high-sensitivity assay. First, in the Mechanism Cohort, 122 patients with aortic stenosis (median age 71, 67% male, aortic valve area 1.0 ± 0.4 cm2) underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance and echocardiography to assess left ventricular (LV) myocardial mass, function, and fibrosis. The indexed LV mass and measures of replacement fibrosis (late gadolinium enhancement) were associated with cTnI concentrations independent of age, sex, coronary artery disease, aortic stenosis severity, and diastolic function. In the separate Outcome Cohort, 131 patients originally recruited into the Scottish Aortic Stenosis and Lipid Lowering Trial, Impact of REgression (SALTIRE) study, had long-term follow-up for the occurrence of aortic valve replacement (AVR) and cardiovascular deaths. Over a median follow-up of 10.6 years (1178 patient-years), 24 patients died from a cardiovascular cause and 60 patients had an AVR. Plasma cTnI concentrations were associated with AVR or cardiovascular death HR 1.77 (95% CI, 1.22 to 2.55) independent of age, sex, systolic ejection fraction, and aortic stenosis severity. Conclusions: In patients with aortic stenosis, plasma cTnI concentration is associated with advanced hypertrophy and replacement myocardial fibrosis as well as AVR or cardiovascular death

Foundations for Relativistic Quantum Theory I: Feynman's Operator Calculus and the Dyson Conjectures

In this paper, we provide a representation theory for the Feynman operator calculus. This allows us to solve the general initial-value problem and construct the Dyson series. We show that the series is asymptotic, thus proving Dyson's second conjecture for QED. In addition, we show that the expansion may be considered exact to any finite order by producing the remainder term. This implies that every nonperturbative solution has a perturbative expansion. Using a physical analysis of information from experiment versus that implied by our models, we reformulate our theory as a sum over paths. This allows us to relate our theory to Feynman's path integral, and to prove Dyson's first conjecture that the divergences are in part due to a violation of Heisenberg's uncertainly relations