16,897 research outputs found
Economic evaluation of a nursing-led intermediate care unit
Objectives: The aim of this paper is to examine the costs of introducing a nursing-led ward program together with examining the impact this may have on patients' outcomes. Methods; The study had a sample size of 177 patients with a mean age of 77, and randomized to either a treatment group (care on a nursing-led ward, n = 97) or a control group (standard care usually on a consultant-led acute ward, n = 80). Resource use data including length of stay, tests and investigations performed, and multidisciplinary involvement in care were collected. Results: There were no significant differences in outcome between the two groups. The inpatient costs for the treatment group were significantly higher, due to the longer length of stay in this group. However, the postdischarge costs were significantly lower for the treatment group. Conclusions: The provision of nursing-led intermediate care units has been proposed as a solution to inappropriate use of acute medical wards by patients who require additional nursing rather than medical care. Whether the treatment group is ultimately cost-additive is dependent on how long reductions in postdischarge resource use are maintained
Solving the characteristic initial value problem for colliding plane gravitational and electromagnetic waves
A method is presented for solving the characteristic initial value problem
for the collision and subsequent nonlinear interaction of plane gravitational
or gravitational and electromagnetic waves in a Minkowski background. This
method generalizes the monodromy transform approach to fields with nonanalytic
behaviour on the characteristics inherent to waves with distinct wave fronts.
The crux of the method is in a reformulation of the main nonlinear symmetry
reduced field equations as linear integral equations whose solutions are
determined by generalized (``dynamical'') monodromy data which evolve from data
specified on the initial characteristics (the wavefronts).Comment: 4 pages, RevTe
Consistent Resolution of Some Relativistic Quantum Paradoxes
A relativistic version of the (consistent or decoherent) histories approach
to quantum theory is developed on the basis of earlier work by Hartle, and used
to discuss relativistic forms of the paradoxes of spherical wave packet
collapse, Bohm's formulation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen, and Hardy's paradox.
It is argued that wave function collapse is not needed for introducing
probabilities into relativistic quantum mechanics, and in any case should never
be thought of as a physical process. Alternative approaches to stochastic time
dependence can be used to construct a physical picture of the measurement
process that is less misleading than collapse models. In particular, one can
employ a coarse-grained but fully quantum mechanical description in which
particles move along trajectories, with behavior under Lorentz transformations
the same as in classical relativistic physics, and detectors are triggered by
particles reaching them along such trajectories. States entangled between
spacelike separate regions are also legitimate quantum descriptions, and can be
consistently handled by the formalism presented here. The paradoxes in question
arise because of using modes of reasoning which, while correct for classical
physics, are inconsistent with the mathematical structure of quantum theory,
and are resolved (or tamed) by using a proper quantum analysis. In particular,
there is no need to invoke, nor any evidence for, mysterious long-range
superluminal influences, and thus no incompatibility, at least from this
source, between relativity theory and quantum mechanics.Comment: Latex 42 pages, 7 figures in text using PSTrick
Arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay Bundles on complete intersection varieties of sufficiently high multidegree
Recently it has been proved that any arithmetically Cohen-Macaulay (ACM)
bundle of rank two on a general, smooth hypersurface of degree at least three
and dimension at least four is a sum of line bundles. When the dimension of the
hypersurface is three, a similar result is true provided the degree of the
hypersurface is at least six. We extend these results to complete intersection
subvarieties by proving that any ACM bundle of rank two on a general, smooth
complete intersection subvariety of sufficiently high multi-degree and
dimension at least four splits. We also obtain partial results in the case of
threefolds.Comment: 15 page
P,T-Violating Nuclear Matrix Elements in the One-Meson Exchange Approximation
Expressions for the P,T-violating NN potentials are derived for ,
and exchange. The nuclear matrix elements for and
exchange are shown to be greatly suppressed, so that, under the assumption of
comparable coupling constants, exchange would dominate by two orders of
magnitude. The ratio of P,T-violating to P-violating matrix elements is found
to remain approximately constant across the nuclear mass table, thus
establishing the proportionality between time-reversal-violation and
parity-violation matrix elements. The calculated values of this ratio suggest a
need to obtain an accuracy of order for the ratio of the
PT-violating to P-violating asymmetries in neutron transmission experiments in
order to improve on the present limits on the isovector pion coupling constant.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, no figure
Weak Lensing Determination of the Mass in Galaxy Halos
We detect the weak gravitational lensing distortion of 450,000 background
galaxies (20<R<23) by 790 foreground galaxies (R<18) selected from the Las
Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS). This is the first detection of weak lensing by
field galaxies of known redshift, and as such permits us to reconstruct the
shear profile of the typical field galaxy halo in absolute physical units
(modulo H_0), and to investigate the dependence of halo mass upon galaxy
luminosity. This is also the first galaxy-galaxy lensing study for which the
calibration errors are negligible. Within a projected radius of 200 \hkpc, the
shear profile is consistent with an isothermal profile with circular velocity
164+-20 km/s for an L* galaxy, consistent with typical disk rotation at this
luminosity. This halo mass normalization, combined with the halo profile
derived by Fischer et al (2000) from lensing analysis SDSS data, places a lower
limit of (2.7+-0.6) x 10^{12}h^{-1} solar masses on the mass of an L* galaxy
halo, in good agreement with satellite galaxy studies. Given the known
luminosity function of LCRS galaxies, and the assumption that for galaxies, we determine that the mass within 260\hkpc of normal
galaxies contributes to the density of the Universe (for
) or for . These lensing data suggest
that (95% CL), only marginally in agreement with the usual
Faber-Jackson or Tully-Fisher scaling. This is the most
complete direct inventory of the matter content of the Universe to date.Comment: 18 pages, incl. 3 figures. Submitted to ApJ 6/7/00, still no response
from the referee after four months
Entanglement requirements for implementing bipartite unitary operations
We prove, using a new method based on map-state duality, lower bounds on
entanglement resources needed to deterministically implement a bipartite
unitary using separable (SEP) operations, which include LOCC (local operations
and classical communication) as a particular case. It is known that the Schmidt
rank of an entangled pure state resource cannot be less than the Schmidt rank
of the unitary. We prove that if these ranks are equal the resource must be
uniformly (maximally) entangled: equal nonzero Schmidt coefficients. Higher
rank resources can have less entanglement: we have found numerical examples of
Schmidt rank 2 unitaries which can be deterministically implemented, by either
SEP or LOCC, using an entangled resource of two qutrits with less than one ebit
of entanglement.Comment: 7 pages Revte
GSH23.0-0.7+117, a neutral hydrogen shell in the inner Galaxy
GSH23.0-0.7+117 is a well-defined neutral hydrogen shell discovered in the
VLA Galactic Plane Survey (VGPS). Only the blueshifted side of the shell was
detected. The expansion velocity and systemic velocity were determined through
the systematic behavior of the HI emission with velocity. The center of the
shell is at (l,b,v)=(23.05,-0.77,+117 km/s). The angular radius of the shell is
6.8', or 15 pc at a distance of 7.8 kpc. The HI mass divided by the volume of
the half-shell implies an average density n_H = 11 +/- 4 cm^{-3} for the medium
in which the shell expanded. The estimated age of GSH23.0-0.7+117 is 1 Myr,
with an upper limit of 2 Myr. The modest expansion energy of 2 * 10^{48} erg
can be provided by the stellar wind of a single O4 to O8 star over the age of
the shell. The 3 sigma upper limit to the 1.4 GHz continuum flux density
(S_{1.4} < 248 mJy) is used to derive an upper limit to the Lyman continuum
luminosity generated inside the shell. This upper limit implies a maximum of
one O9 star (O8 to O9.5 taking into account the error in the distance) inside
the HI shell, unless most of the incident ionizing flux leaks through the HI
shell. To allow this, the shell should be fragmented on scales smaller than the
beam (2.3 pc). If the stellar wind bubble is not adiabatic, or the bubble has
burst (as suggested by the HI channel maps), agreement between the energy and
ionization requirements is even less likely. The limit set by the non-detection
in the continuum provides a significant challenge for the interpretation of
GSH23.0-0.7+117 as a stellar wind bubble. A similar analysis may be applicable
to other Galactic HI shells that have not been detected in the continuum.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. Figures 1 and 4 separately in GIF format.
Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa
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