51,301 research outputs found
National level promotion of physical activity: results from England's ACTIVE for LIFE campaign.
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of a national campaign on awareness of the campaign, change in knowledge of physical activity recommendations and self reported physical activity. DESIGN: three year prospective longitudinal survey using a multi-stage, cluster random probability design to select participants. SETTING: England. PARTICIPANTS: A nationally representative sample of 3189 adults aged 16-74 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Awareness of the advertising element of the campaign, changes in knowledge of physical activity recommendations for health and self reported physical activity. RESULTS: 38% of participants were aware of the main advertising images, assessed six to eight months after the main television advertisement. The proportion of participants knowledgeable about moderate physical activity recommendations increased by 3.0% (95% CI: 1.4%, 4.5%) between waves 1 and 2 and 3.7% (95% CI: 2.1%, 5.3%) between waves 1 and 3. The change in proportion of active people between baseline and waves 1 and 2 was -0.02 (95% CI: -2.0 to +1.7) and between waves 1 and 3 was -9.8 (-7.9 to -11.7). CONCLUSION: The proportion of participants who were knowledgeable about the new recommendations, increased significantly after the campaign. There was however, no significant difference in knowledge by awareness of the main campaign advertisement. There is no evidence that ACTIVE for LIFE improved physical activity, either overall or in any subgroup
Spin Gaps in a Frustrated Heisenberg model for CaVO
I report results of a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) study of a
model for the two dimensional spin-gapped system CaVO. This study
represents the first time that DMRG has been used to study a two dimensional
system on large lattices, in this case as large as , allowing
extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit. I present a substantial improvement
to the DMRG algorithms which makes these calculations feasible.Comment: 10 pages, with 4 Postscript figure
Efficacy and effectiveness of dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine versus artesunate-mefloquine in falciparum malaria: an open-label randomised comparison.
BACKGROUND: Artemisinin-based combinations are judged the best treatments for multidrug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Artesunate-mefloquine is widely recommended in southeast Asia, but its high cost and tolerability profile remain obstacles to widespread deployment. To assess whether dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine is a suitable alternative to artesunate-mefloquine, we compared the safety, tolerability, efficacy, and effectiveness of the two regimens for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum in western Myanmar (Burma). METHODS: We did an open randomised comparison of 3-day regimens of artesunate-mefloquine (12/25 mg/kg) versus dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (6.3/50 mg/kg) for the treatment of children aged 1 year or older and in adults with uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Rakhine State, western Myanmar. Within each group, patients were randomly assigned supervised or non-supervised treatment. The primary endpoint was the PCR-confirmed parasitological failure rate by day 42. Failure rates at day 42 were estimated by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. This study is registered as an International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial, number ISRCTN27914471. FINDINGS: Of 652 patients enrolled, 327 were assigned dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (156 supervised and 171 not supervised), and 325 artesunate-mefloquine (162 and 163, respectively). 16 patients were lost to follow-up, and one patient died 22 days after receiving dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine. Recrudescent parasitaemias were confirmed in only two patients; the day 42 failure rate was 0.6% (95% CI 0.2-2.5) for dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine and 0 (0-1.2) for artesunate-mefloquine. Whole-blood piperaquine concentrations at day 7 were similar for patients with observed and non-observed dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine treatment. Gametocytaemia developed more frequently in patients who had received dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine than in those on artesunate-mefloquine: day 7, 18 (10%) of 188 versus five (2%) of 218; relative risk 4.2 (1.6-11.0) p=0.011. INTERPRETATION: Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine is a highly efficacious and inexpensive treatment of multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria and is well tolerated by all age groups. The effectiveness of the unsupervised treatment, as in the usual context of use, equalled its supervised efficacy, indicating good adherence without supervision. Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine is a good alternative to artesunate-mefloquine
Unusually Large Fluctuations in the Statistics of Galaxy Formation at High Redshift
We show that various milestones of high-redshift galaxy formation, such as
the formation of the first stars or the complete reionization of the
intergalactic medium, occurred at different times in different regions of the
universe. The predicted spread in redshift, caused by large-scale fluctuations
in the number density of galaxies, is at least an order of magnitude larger
than previous expectations that argued for a sharp end to reionization. This
cosmic scatter in the abundance of galaxies introduces new features that affect
the nature of reionization and the expectations for future probes of
reionization, and may help explain the present properties of dwarf galaxies in
different environments. The predictions can be tested by future numerical
simulations and may be verified by upcoming observations. Current simulations,
limited to relatively small volumes and periodic boundary conditions, largely
omit cosmic scatter and its consequences. In particular, they artificially
produce a sudden end to reionization, and they underestimate the number of
galaxies by up to an order of magnitude at redshift 20.Comment: 8 ApJ pages, 4 figures, ApJ. Minor changes in revised version.
Originally first submitted for publication on Aug. 29, 200
Phase diagram of the half-filled Hubbard chain with next-nearest-neighbor hopping
We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the half-filled
one-dimensional Hubbard model with next-nearest-neighbor hopping using the
Density-Matrix Renormalization Group technique as well as an unrestricted
Hartree-Fock approximation. We find commensurate and incommensurate disordered
magnetic insulating phases and a spin-gapped metallic phase in addition to the
one-dimensional Heisenberg phase. At large on-site Coulomb repulsion , we
make contact with the phase diagram of the frustrated Heisenberg chain, which
has spin-gapped phases for sufficiently large frustration. For weak ,
sufficiently large next-nearest-neighbor hopping leads to a band
structure with four Fermi points rather than two, producing a spin-gapped
metallic phase. As is increased in this regime, the system undergoes a
Mott-Hubbard transition to a frustrated antiferromagnetic insulator
Application of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group Method to a Non-Equilibrium Problem
We apply the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method to a
non-equilibrium problem: the asymmetric exclusion process in one dimension. We
study the stationary state of the process to calculate the particle density
profile (one-point function). We show that, even with a small number of
retained bases, the DMRG calculation is in excellent agreement with the exact
solution obtained by the matrix-product-ansatz approach.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX (using jpsj.sty), 4 non-embedded figures, submitted to
J. Phys. Soc. Jp
Effects of nanoscale spatial inhomogeneity in strongly correlated systems
We calculate ground-state energies and density distributions of Hubbard
superlattices characterized by periodic modulations of the on-site interaction
and the on-site potential. Both density-matrix renormalization group and
density-functional methods are employed and compared. We find that small
variations in the on-site potential can simulate, cancel, or even
overcompensate effects due to much larger variations in the on-site interaction
. Our findings highlight the importance of nanoscale spatial inhomogeneity
in strongly correlated systems, and call for reexamination of model
calculations assuming spatial homogeneity.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 4 figures, to appear in PR
Manipulating biphotonic qutrits
Quantum information carriers with higher dimension than the canonical qubit
offer significant advantages. However, manipulating such systems is extremely
difficult. We show how measurement induced non-linearities can be employed to
dramatically extend the range of possible transforms on biphotonic qutrits; the
three level quantum systems formed by the polarisation of two photons in the
same spatio-temporal mode. We fully characterise the biphoton-photon
entanglement that underpins our technique, thereby realising the first instance
of qubit-qutrit entanglement. We discuss an extension of our technique to
generate qutrit-qutrit entanglement and to manipulate any bosonic encoding of
quantum information.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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