Association between illegal drugs and weapon carrying in young people in Scotland: schools' survey

OBJECTIVES: To identify the type and extent of weapons being carried among young people in Scotland, and to determine the relation between use of illegal drugs and weapon carrying. DESIGN: Questionnaire school survey. SETTING: Independent schools in central Scotland and schools in Lanarkshire and Perth and Kinross. PARTICIPANTS: 3121 students aged 11 to 16 in 20 schools. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self completion questionnaire reporting history of drug use and weapon carrying. RESULTS: Overall, 34.1% of males and 8. 6% of females reported having carried a weapon (P<0.0001), ranging from 29.2% of boys aged 11-13 (classes S1 to S2) to 39.3% of boys aged 13-15 (S3 to S4). These values are higher than those in a recent survey of young people in England. Weapon carrying in Lanarkshire was 70% higher for males than in the rural area of Perth and Kinross. Both males and females who had taken drugs were more likely to carry weapons (63.5% of male drug users versus 20.5% of non-users and 22.8% of female drug users versus 3.7% of non-users; both P<0.0001). The proportions of males carrying weapons who used none, one, two, three or four, or five or more illegal drugs were 21%, 52%, 68%, 74%, and 92% respectively. A similar trend was found among females. CONCLUSIONS: Better information is needed on the nature and extent of weapon carrying by young people in the United Kingdom, and better educational campaigns are needed warning of the dangers of carrying weapon

Effect of socioeconomic deprivation on waiting time for cardiac surgery: retrospective cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the priority given to patients referred for cardiac surgery is associated with socioeconomic status. DESIGN: Retrospective study with multivariate logistic regression analysis of the association between deprivation and classification of urgency with allowance for age, sex, and type of operation. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to determine association between deprivation and waiting time within each category of urgency, with allowance for age, sex, and type of operation. SETTING: NHS waiting lists in Scotland. PARTICIPANTS: 26 642 patients waiting for cardiac surgery, 1 January 1986 to 31 December 1997. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Deprivation as measured by Carstairs deprivation category. Time spent on NHS waiting list. RESULTS: Patients who were most deprived tended to be younger and were more likely to be female. Patients in deprivation categories 6 and 7 (most deprived) waited about three weeks longer for surgery than those in category 1 (mean difference 24 days, 95% confidence interval 15 to 32). Deprived patients had an odds ratio of 0.5 (0.46 to 0.61) for having their operations classified as urgent compared with the least deprived, after allowance for age, sex, and type of operation. When urgent and routine cases were considered separately, there was no significant difference in waiting times between the most and least deprived categories. CONCLUSIONS: Socioeconomically deprived patients are thought to be more likely to develop coronary heart disease but are less likely to be investigated and offered surgery once it has developed. Such patients may be further disadvantaged by having to wait longer for surgery because of being given lower priority

Chronic beta-adrenoceptor blockade and human atrial cell electrophysiology: evidence of pharmacological remodelling

<b>Objective:</b> Chronic beta-adrenoceptor antagonist (β-blocker) treatment reduces the incidence of reversion to AF in patients, possibly via an adaptive myocardial response. However, the underlying electrophysiological mechanisms are presently unclear. We aimed to investigate electrophysiological changes in human atrial cells associated with chronic treatment with β-blockers and other cardiovascular-acting drugs. <b>Methods:</b> Myocytes were isolated enzymatically from the right atrial appendage of 40 consenting patients who were in sinus rhythm. The cellular action potential duration (APD), effective refractory period (ERP), L-type Ca<sup>2+</sup> current (<i>I</i><sub>CaL</sub>), transient (<i>I</i><sub>TO</sub>) and sustained (<i>I</i><sub>KSUS</sub>) outward K<sup>+</sup> currents, and input resistance (<i>R</i><sub>i</sub>) were recorded using the whole cell patch clamp. Drug treatments and clinical characteristics were compared with electrophysiological measurements using simple and multiple regression analyses. P<0.05 was taken as statistically significant. <b>Results:</b> In atrial cells from patients treated chronically with β-blockers, the APD<sub>90</sub> and ERP (75 beats/min stimulation) were significantly longer, at 213±11 and 233±11 ms, respectively (<i>n</i> = 15 patients), than in cells from non-β-blocked patients, at 176±12 and 184±12 ms (n = 11). These cells also displayed a significantly reduced action potential phase 1 velocity (22±3 vs. 34±3 V/s). Chronic β-blockade was also associated with a significant reduction in the heart rate (58±3 vs. 69±5 beats/min) and in the density of ITO (8.7±1.3 vs. 13.7±2.1 pA/pF), an increase in the Ri (214±24 vs. 132±14 MΩ), but no significant change in <i>I</i><sub>CaL</sub> or <i>I</i><sub>KSUS</sub>. The <i>I</i><sub>TO</sub> blocker 4-aminopyridine largely mimicked the changes in phase 1 and ERP associated with chronic β-blockade, in cells from non-β-blocked patients. Chronic treatment of patients with calcium channel blockers or angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (<i>n</i> = 11–13 patients) was not associated with any significant changes in atrial cell electrophysiology. <b>Conclusion:</b> The observed atrial cellular electrophysiological changes associated with chronic β-blockade are consistent with a long-term adaptive response, a type of ‘pharmacological remodelling’, and provide mechanistic evidence supportive of the anti-arrhythmic actions of β-blockade

Impairment of reputation, dignity and privacy

Placed uniquely at the intersection of common law and civil law, mixed legal systems are today attracting the attention both of scholars of comparative law, and of those concerned with the development of a European private law. Pre-eminent among the mixed legal systems are those of Scotland and South Africa. In South Africa the Roman-Dutch law, brought to the Cape by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 was, from the early nineteenth century onwards, infused with and re-moulded by the common law of the British imperial master. In Scotland a more gradual and elusive process saw the Roman-Scots law of the early modern period fall under the influence of English law after the Act of Union in 1707. The result, in each case, was a system of law which drew from both of the great European traditions whilst containing distinctive elements of its own. This volume sets out to compare the effects of this historical development by assessing whether shared experience has led to shared law. Key topics from the law of property and obligations are examined, collaboratively and comparatively, by teams of leading experts from both jurisdictions. The individual chapters reveal an intricate pattern of similarity and difference, enabling courts and legal writers in Scotland and South Africa to learn from the experience of a kindred jurisdiction. They also, in a number of areas, reveal an emerging and distinctive jurisprudence of mixed systems, and thus suggest viable answers to some of the great questions which must be answered on the path towards a European private law

Quantum turbulence and correlations in Bose-Einstein condensate collisions

We investigate numerically simulated collisions between experimentally realistic Bose-Einstein condensate wavepackets, within a regime where highly populated scattering haloes are formed. The theoretical basis for this work is the truncated Wigner method, for which we present a detailed derivation, paying particular attention to its validity regime for colliding condensates. This paper is an extension of our previous Letter [A. A. Norrie, R. J. Ballagh, and C. W. Gardiner, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 040401 (2005)] and we investigate both single-trajectory solutions, which reveal the presence of quantum turbulence in the scattering halo, and ensembles of trajectories, which we use to calculate quantum-mechanical correlation functions of the field

Blood rheology, cardiovascular risk factors, and cardiovascular disease: The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study

The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) showed that pravastatin reduced the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events in 6,595 middle-aged hypercholesterolaemic men aged 45-64 years without prior myocardial infarction followed for an average of 4.9 years. We hypothesised prospectively (a) that baseline levels of haemorheological variables were related to baseline and incident CHD and to mortality; and (b) that reduction in lipoproteins by pravastatin would lower plasma and blood viscosity, a potential contributory mechanism to CHD events. We therefore studied plasma and blood viscosity, fibrinogen, haematocrit, and blood cell counts at baseline and 1 year. At baseline, plasma and blood viscosity were related to risk factors, CHD measures, and claudication. On univariate analysis, baseline levels of all rheological variables (except platelet count) were related to incident CHD; CHD mortality; and total mortality. On multivariate analysis including baseline CHD and risk factors, plasma and blood viscosity, haematocrit and white cell count each remained significantly associated with incident CHD; while fibrinogen remained an independent predictor of mortality (all p<0.03). After one year, lipoprotein reduction by pravastatin was associated with significant reductions (about one quarter of a standard deviation) in plasma viscosity (mean difference 0.02 mPa.s, p<0.001) and in blood viscosity (mean difference 0.06 mPa.s, p<0.001), but was not associated with significant changes in other rheological variables. We therefore suggest that pravastatin therapy, which reduces elevated lipoproteins in hypercholesterolaemic men, may lower risks of CHD and mortality partly by lowering plasma and blood viscosity. Further studies are required to test this hypothesis

Three-body recombination of ultracold Bose gases using the truncated Wigner method

We apply the truncated Wigner method to the process of three-body recombination in ultracold Bose gases. We find that within the validity regime of the Wigner truncation for two-body scattering, three-body recombination can be treated using a set of coupled stochastic differential equations that include diffusion terms, and can be simulated using known numerical methods. As an example we investigate the behaviour of a simple homogeneous Bose gas.Comment: Replaced paper same as original; correction to author list on cond-mat mad

Atrial cellular electrophysiological changes in patients with ventricular dysfunction may predispose to AF

<b>Background:</b> Left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF), but the atrial cellular electrophysiological mechanisms in humans are unclear. Objective This study sought to investigate whether LVSD in patients who are in sinus rhythm (SR) is associated with atrial cellular electrophysiological changes that could predispose to AF. <b>Methods:</b> Right atrial myocytes were obtained from 214 consenting patients in SR who were undergoing cardiac surgery. Action potentials or ion currents were measured using the whole-cell-patch clamp technique. <b>Results:</b> The presence of moderate or severe LVSD was associated with a shortened atrial cellular effective refractory period (ERP) (209 ± 8 ms; 52 cells, 18 patients vs 233 ± 7 ms; 134 cells, 49 patients; P <0.05); confirmed by multiple linear regression analysis. The left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was markedly lower in patients with moderate or severe LVSD (36% ± 4%, n = 15) than in those without LVSD (62% ± 2%, n = 31; P <0.05). In cells from patients with LVEF ≤ 45%, the ERP and action potential duration at 90% repolarization were shorter than in those from patients with LVEF > 45%, by 24% and 18%, respectively. The LVEF and ERP were positively correlated (r = 0.65, P <0.05). The L-type calcium ion current, inward rectifier potassium ion current, and sustained outward ion current were unaffected by LVSD. The transient outward potassium ion current was decreased by 34%, with a positive shift in its activation voltage, and no change in its decay kinetics. <b>Conclusion:</b> LVSD in patients in SR is independently associated with a shortening of the atrial cellular ERP, which may be expected to contribute to a predisposition to AF

Quantum turbulence in condensate collisions: an application of the classical field method

We apply the classical field method to simulate the production of correlated atoms during the collision of two Bose-Einstein condensates. Our non-perturbative method includes the effect of quantum noise, and provides for the first time a theoretical description of collisions of high density condensates with very large out-scattered fractions. Quantum correlation functions for the scattered atoms are calculated from a single simulation, and show that the correlation between pairs of atoms of opposite momentum is rather small. We also predict the existence of quantum turbulence in the field of the scattered atoms--a property which should be straightforwardly measurable.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures: Rewritten text, replaced figure