Polarized Proton Pionic Capture in Deuterium as a Probe of 3N Dynamics

The proton analyzing power Ay in pion production reaction pd --> pi0 3He has been calculated including one- and two-body meson production mechanisms with a proper treatment of the three-nucleon dynamics and an accurate solution of the 3N bound-state problem for phenomenological two-nucleon potentials. In the region around the Delta resonance, the structure of the analyzing power can be understood once interference effects among amplitudes describing intermediate Delta N formation in different orbital states are considered along with the additional interference with the S-wave pion production amplitudes. Then, the inclusion of three-nucleon dynamics in the initial state produces the structure of the analyzing power that has been observed experimentally.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Neutrino Bremsstrahlung Process in highly degenerate magnetized electron gas

In this article the neutrino bremsstrahlung process is considered in presence of strong magnetic field, though the calculations for this process in absence of magnetic field are also carried out simultaneously. The electrons involved in this process are supposed to be highly degenerate and relativistic. The scattering cross sections and energy loss rates for both cases, in presence and absence of magnetic field, are calculated in the extreme-relativistic limit. Two results are compared in the range of temperature $5.9\times 10^{9}$ K $< T\leq 10^{11}$ K and magnetic field $10^{14} - 10^{16}$ G at a fixed density $\sim 10^{15}$ $gm/cc$, a typical environment during the cooling of magnetized neutron star. The interpretation of our result is briefly discussed and the importance of this process during the stellar evolution is speculated.Comment: 12 pages including 2 figures and 1 tabl

Evaluation of drug therapy problems among renal patients receiving care in some tertiary hospitals in Nigeria

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of drug therapy problems (DTPs), identify the types of DTPs and assess outcomes of DTP interventions among renal patients receiving care in three Nigerian tertiary hospitals.Methods: This prospective descriptive study was conducted in nephrology units of three tertiary hospitals in Nigeria, based on recommendations of working conference of the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe, version 6.2 while the reviews,  classification of DTPs and principles of drug use in chronic kidney diseases (CKD) were based on evidence-based clinical guidelines and standards of practice (Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO).Results: Out of 234 DTPs identified, 90 (38.46%) had drug choice problem, 86 (36.75%), had problems of drug interactions; 47(20.09%), had dosing problem, while 11 (4.70%) had drug use problem. Clinical interventions (459) were  undertaken at prescriber level (78; 16.99%); patient/carer level (211, 46.00 %) and drug level (170, 30.04 %). Pharmacists recommended 376 of the interventions for approval, out of which 310 (67.54%) were approved. Amongst the DTPs indentified, 47.86 % were successfully resolved.Conclusion: Drug therapy problems among renal patients were high. Inappropriate drug selection and drug interactions were the commonest drug therapy problems. The acceptance of pharmacists’ interventions by prescribers was appreciable.Keywords: Drug therapy problems, Renal patients, Therapy, Intervention, Outcome

Quaternion Analysis for Generalized Electromagnetic Fields of Dyons in Isotropic Medium

Quaternion analysis of time dependent Maxwell's equations in presence of electric and magnetic charges has been developed and the solutions for the classical problem of moving charges (electric and magnetic) are obtained in unique, simple and consistent manner

Health-related quality of life of HIV-infected patients taking different antiretroviral regimens at a tertiary healthcare facility in northern Nigeria

Purpose: To evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients taking different antiretroviral regimens.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive design was used to evaluate HRQoL of patients on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto, Nigeria. Data were collected using HIV/AIDS-Targeted Quality of Life instrument between May and November, 2015 from 872 adult outpatients who had been on their regimen for at least 6 months. Data were statistically analysed.Results: The overall HRQoL score of the patients was 59.40 ± 18.66. Among  patients on the first-line regimens, those on TDF + FTC + EFZ (60.52 ± 19.17) and those on TDF + 3TC + EFZ (64.41 ± 18.04) reported the best HRQoL scores. The difference between the scores of patients on the two most utilised regimens; AZT + 3TC + NVP (58.14 ± 18.53) and TDF + 3TC + EFZ (64.41 ± 18.04) was significant (p &lt; 0.05). Among patients on second-line regimens, those on TDF + FTC + LPVr (67.58 ± 14.80) reported the highest HRQoL score.Conclusion: Patients in this facility had a moderate HRQoL. TDF + 3TC + EFZ, TDF + FTC + EFZ and TDF + FTC + LPVr were the regimens with the best HRQoL  outcomes. The use of these regimens should be encouraged for better patient well-being.Keywords: HIV, Health-related quality of life, Antiretroviral therapy, First-line  antiretroviral regimen, Second-line antiretroviral regime

Coordination of Mobile Mules via Facility Location Strategies

In this paper, we study the problem of wireless sensor network (WSN) maintenance using mobile entities called mules. The mules are deployed in the area of the WSN in such a way that would minimize the time it takes them to reach a failed sensor and fix it. The mules must constantly optimize their collective deployment to account for occupied mules. The objective is to define the optimal deployment and task allocation strategy for the mules, so that the sensors' downtime and the mules' traveling distance are minimized. Our solutions are inspired by research in the field of computational geometry and the design of our algorithms is based on state of the art approximation algorithms for the classical problem of facility location. Our empirical results demonstrate how cooperation enhances the team's performance, and indicate that a combination of k-Median based deployment with closest-available task allocation provides the best results in terms of minimizing the sensors' downtime but is inefficient in terms of the mules' travel distance. A k-Centroid based deployment produces good results in both criteria.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, conferenc

Pengembangan Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (Lks) Kimia Sma/ma Berbasis Learning Cycle 5e Pada Materi Laju Reaksi

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) mengembangkan Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E, (2) mengetahui kualitas Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E, (3) mengetahui efektivitas Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E untuk meningkatkan prestasi belajar siswa. Penelitian dan pengembangan Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E menggunakan prosedur penelitian dan pengembangan dari Borg and Gall yang disederhanakan menjadi 9 tahapan yaitu: (1) penelitian pendahuluan dan pengumpulan data, (2) perencanaan, (3) pengembangan produk, (4) uji coba lapangan awal, (5) revisi produk awal, (6) uji coba pelaksanaan lapangan, (7) penyempurnaan produk hasil uji coba lapangan, (8) uji coba pelaksanaan lapangan, (9) penyempurnaan produk akhir. Analisis Data yang digunakan adalah analisis deskriptif kualitatif. Hasil Penelitian menunjukkan: (1) telah berhasil dikembangkan Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E pada materi Laju Reaksi yang dilakukan berdasarkan tahapan penelitian dan pengembangan R&amp;D yang terdiri dari 9 tahapan, (2) kualitas Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E pada materi Laju Reaksi memiliki kualitas sangat baik pada aspek komponen kelayakan isi, bahasa, penyajian dan kegrafisan dengan persentase sebesar 84,06% berdasarkan penilaian siswa dan 90,88% berdasarkan penilaian guru, (hasil uji efektivitas pada aspek pengetahuan terdapat perbedaan antara kelas eksperimen (pembelajaran dengan menggunakan model Learning Cycle 5E disertai Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E ) dan kelas baseline (pembelajaran dengan menggunakan model pembelajaran Learning Cycle 5E tanpa disertai Lembar Kegiatan Siswa (LKS) berbasis Learning Cycle 5E ),, sedangkan pada aspek sikap dan keterampilan tidak terdapat perbedaan

Isoscalar off-shell effects in threshold pion production from pd collisions

We test the presence of pion-nucleon isoscalar off-shell effects in the $pd\to \pi^+ t$ reaction around the threshold region. We find that these effects significantly modify the production cross section and that they may provide the missing strength needed to reproduce the data at threshold.Comment: 6 pages, REVTeX, twocolumn, including 3 figures (Postscript), uses psfig, updated and extended versio

Realizability of metamaterials with prescribed electric permittivity and magnetic permeability tensors

We show that any pair of real symmetric tensors \BGve and \BGm can be realized as the effective electric permittivity and effective magnetic permeability of a metamaterial at a given fixed frequency. The construction starts with two extremely low loss metamaterials, with arbitrarily small microstructure, whose existence is ensured by the work of Bouchitt{\'e} and Bourel and Bouchitt\'e and Schweizer, one having at the given frequency a permittivity tensor with exactly one negative eigenvalue, and a positive permeability tensor, and the other having a positive permittivity tensor, and a permeability tensor having exactly one negative eigenvalue. To achieve the desired effective properties these materials are laminated together in a hierarchical multiple rank laminate structure, with widely separated length scales, and varying directions of lamination, but with the largest length scale still much shorter than the wavelengths and attenuation lengths in the macroscopic effective medium.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

A novel series solution to the renormalization group equation in QCD

Recently, the QCD renormalization group (RG) equation at higher orders in MS-like renormalization schemes has been solved for the running coupling as a series expansion in powers of the exact 2-loop order coupling. In this work, we prove that the power series converges to all orders in perturbation theory. Solving the RG equation at higher orders, we determine the running coupling as an implicit function of the 2-loop order running coupling. Then we analyze the singularity structure of the higher order coupling in the complex 2-loop coupling plane. This enables us to calculate the radii of convergence of the series solutions at the 3- and 4-loop orders as a function of the number of quark flavours $n_{\rm f}$. In parallel, we discuss in some detail the singularity structure of the ${\bar{\rm MS}}$ coupling at the 3- and 4-loops in the complex momentum squared plane for $0\leq n_{\rm f} \leq 16$. The correspondence between the singularity structure of the running coupling in the complex momentum squared plane and the convergence radius of the series solution is established. For sufficiently large $n_{\rm f}$ values, we find that the series converges for all values of the momentum squared variable $Q^2=-q^2>0$. For lower values of $n_{\rm f}$, in the ${\bar{\rm MS}}$ scheme, we determine the minimal value of the momentum squared $Q_{\rm min}^2$ above which the series converges. We study properties of the non-power series corresponding to the presented power series solution in the QCD Analytic Perturbation Theory approach of Shirkov and Solovtsov. The Euclidean and Minkowskian versions of the non-power series are found to be uniformly convergent over whole ranges of the corresponding momentum squared variables.Comment: 29 pages,LateX file, uses IOP LateX class file, 2 figures, 13 Tables. Formulas (4)-(7) and Table 1 were relegated to Appendix 1, some notations changed, 2 footnotes added. Clarifying discussion added at the end of Sect. 3, more references and acknowledgments added. Accepted for publication in Few-Body System