1,763 research outputs found
The Big Pet Diabetes Survey: Perceived Frequency and Triggers for Euthanasia
Current pet diabetes mellitus (DM) treatment necessitates the active daily involvement of owners and can be costly. The current study aimed to investigate the owner population which opts for euthanasia instead of DM treatment. A survey was designed using multiple feedback steps and made available online to veterinarians world-wide. A total of 1192 veterinarians completed the survey and suggested a median one in 10 diabetic pets are euthanased at diagnosis; a further median one in 10 within one year because of lack of success or compliance. Perceived most important motivating factors included “presence concurrent disease” (45% respondents); “costs” (44%); “animal age” (37%); “problems obtaining adequate control” (35%); “pet welfare” (35%); and “impact owner’s lifestyle” (32%). Cats in Canadian (odds ratio (OR) 2.7), Australian (OR 2.3), rural (OR 1.6) and mixed (OR 1.7) practices were more likely to be euthanased because of DM diagnosis, while cats presented to referral/university were less likely to be euthanased (OR 0.6). Dogs were more likely to be euthanased because of DM in Canadian (OR 1.8), rural (OR 1.8) and mixed (OR 1.6) practices. The survey results suggest that benefit exists in improved DM education with emphasis on offering a choice of treatment styles ranging from intense and expensive to hands-off and cheap
Supersymmetric AdS vacua and separation of scales
The moduli space of the supersymmetric massive IIA AdS4xS2(B4) vacua, where
S2(B4) is a two-sphere bundle over a four-dimensional Kaehler-Einstein base B4,
includes three independent parameters which can be thought of as corresponding
to the sizes of AdS4, B4 and the S2 fiber. It might therefore be expected that
these vacua do not suffer from the absence of scale separation. We show that
the independence of the geometric moduli survives flux quantization. However,
we uncover an attractor behavior whereby all sizes flow to equality in some
neighborhood of spacetime independently of the initial conditions set by the
parameters of the solution. This is further confirmed by the study of the ratio
of internal to external scalar curvatures. We also show that the asymptotic
Kaluza-Klein spectrum of a ten-dimensional massive scalar is governed by a
scale of the order of the AdS4 radius. Furthermore we point out that the
curvature ratio in supersymmetric IIA AdS4 vacua with rigid SU(3) structure is
of order one, indicating the absence of scale separation in this large class of
vacua.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures; v2 typos correcte
Оценка нестационарной теплоотдачи при пленочной конденсации пара на вертикальной стенке
Получены расчетные зависимости коэффициента теплоотдачи, скорости движения и трансцендентное уравнение для толщины ламинарной пленки конденсата, справедливые для регулярного теплового режима
Initiation of health-behaviour change among employees participating in a web-based health risk assessment with tailored feedback
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Primary prevention programs at the worksite can improve employee health and reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease. Programs that include a web-based health risk assessment (HRA) with tailored feedback hold the advantage of simultaneously increasing awareness of risk and enhancing initiation of health-behaviour change. In this study we evaluated initial health-behaviour change among employees who voluntarily participated in such a HRA program.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a questionnaire survey among 2289 employees who voluntarily participated in a HRA program at seven Dutch worksites between 2007 and 2009. The HRA included a web-based questionnaire, biometric measurements, laboratory evaluation, and tailored feedback. The survey questionnaire assessed initial self-reported health-behaviour change and satisfaction with the web-based HRA, and was e-mailed four weeks after employees completed the HRA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Response was received from 638 (28%) employees. Of all, 86% rated the program as positive, 74% recommended it to others, and 58% reported to have initiated overall health-behaviour change. Compared with employees at low CVD risk, those at high risk more often reported to have increased physical activity (OR 3.36, 95% CI 1.52-7.45). Obese employees more frequently reported to have increased physical activity (OR 3.35, 95% CI 1.72-6.54) and improved diet (OR 3.38, 95% CI 1.50-7.60). Being satisfied with the HRA program in general was associated with more frequent self-reported initiation of overall health-behaviour change (OR 2.77, 95% CI 1.73-4.44), increased physical activity (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.06-3.39), and improved diet (OR 2.89, 95% CI 1.61-5.17).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>More than half of the employees who voluntarily participated in a web-based HRA with tailored feedback, reported to have initiated health-behaviour change. Self-reported initiation of health-behaviour change was more frequent among those at high CVD risk and BMI levels. In general employees reported to be satisfied with the HRA, which was also positively associated with initiation of health-behaviour change. These findings indicate that among voluntary participating employees a web-based HRA with tailored feedback may motivate those in greatest need of health-behaviour change and may be a valuable component of workplace health promotion programs.</p
Spontaneous superconducting islands and Hall voltage in clean superconductors
We study a clean superconductor in the Hall configuration, in the framework
of a purely dissipative time-dependent Ginzburg--Landau theory. We find
situations in which the order parameter differs significantly from zero in a
set of islands that appear to form a periodic structure. When the pattern of
islands becomes irregular, it moves in or against the direction of the current
and a Hall voltage is found. Tiny differences in the initial state may reverse
the sign of the Hall voltage. When the average Hall voltage vanishes, the local
Hall voltage does not necessarily vanish. We examine the influence that several
boundary conditions at the electrodes have on these effects.Comment: 6 pages, Includes additional cases and more detailed result
A Halomethane thermochemical network from iPEPICO experiments and quantum chemical calculations
Internal energy selected halomethane cations CH3Cl+, CH2Cl2+, CHCl3+, CH3F+, CH2F2+, CHClF2+ and CBrClF2+ were prepared by vacuum ultraviolet photoionization, and their lowest energy dissociation channel studied using imaging photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy (iPEPICO). This channel involves hydrogen atom loss for CH3F+, CH2F2+ and CH3Cl+, chlorine atom loss for CH2Cl2+, CHCl3+ and CHClF2+, and bromine atom loss for CBrClF2+. Accurate 0 K appearance energies, in conjunction with ab initio isodesmic and halogen exchange reaction energies, establish a thermochemical network, which is optimized to update and confirm the enthalpies of formation of the sample molecules and their dissociative photoionization products. The ground electronic states of CHCl3+, CHClF2+ and CBrClF2+ do not confirm to the deep well assumption, and the experimental breakdown curve deviates from the deep well model at low energies. Breakdown curve analysis of such shallow well systems supplies a satisfactorily succinct route to the adiabatic ionization energy of the parent molecule, particularly if the threshold photoelectron spectrum is not resolved and a purely computational route is unfeasible. The ionization energies have been found to be 11.47 ± 0.01 eV, 12.30 ± 0.02 eV and 11.23 ± 0.03 eV for CHCl3, CHClF2 and CBrClF2, respectively. The updated 0 K enthalpies of formation, ∆fHo0K(g) for the ions CH2F+, CHF2+, CHCl2+, CCl3+, CCl2F+ and CClF2+ have been derived to be 844.4 ± 2.1, 601.6 ± 2.7, 890.3 ± 2.2, 849.8 ± 3.2, 701.2 ± 3.3 and 552.2 ± 3.4 kJ mol–1, respectively. The ∆fHo0K(g) values for the neutrals CCl4, CBrClF2, CClF3, CCl2F2 and CCl3F and have been determined to be –94.0 ± 3.2, –446.6 ± 2.7, –702.1 ± 3.5, –487.8 ± 3.4 and –285.2 ± 3.2 kJ mol–1, respectively
Patterned Irradiation of YBa_2Cu_3O_(7-x) Thin Films
We present a new experiment on YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-x} (YBCO) thin films using
spatially resolved heavy ion irradiation. Structures consisting of a periodic
array of strong and weak pinning channels were created with the help of metal
masks. The channels formed an angle of +/-45 Deg with respect to the symmetry
axis of the photolithographically patterned structures. Investigations of the
anisotropic transport properties of these structures were performed. We found
striking resemblance to guided vortex motion as it was observed in YBCO single
crystals containing an array of unidirected twin boundaries. The use of two
additional test bridges allowed to determine in parallel the resistivities of
the irradiated and unirradiated parts as well as the respective current-voltage
characteristics. These measurements provided the input parameters for a
numerical simulation of the potential distribution of the Hall patterning. In
contrast to the unidirected twin boundaries in our experiment both strong and
weak pinning regions are spatially extended. The interfaces between
unirradiated and irradiated regions therefore form a Bose-glass contact. The
experimentally observed magnetic field dependence of the transverse voltage
vanishes faster than expected from the numerical simulation and we interpret
this as a hydrodynamical interaction between a Bose-glass phase and a vortex
liquid.Comment: 7 pages, 8 Eps figures included. Submitted to PR
Higgs and non-universal gaugino masses: no SUSY signal expected yet?
So far, no supersymmetric particles have been detected at the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC). However, the recent Higgs results have interesting implications
for the SUSY parameter space. In this paper, we study the consequences of an
LHC Higgs signal for a model with non-universal gaugino masses in the context
of SU(5) unification. The gaugino mass ratios associated with the higher
representations produce viable spectra that are largely inaccessible to the
current LHC and direct dark matter detection experiments. Thus, in light of the
Higgs results, the non-observation of SUSY is no surprise.Comment: supplementary file containing plots with log priors in ancillary
files. v2: added some comments on more general settings and references,
accepted for publication in JHE
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