242 research outputs found
Maxillofacial surgery in patients with obstructive sleep apnea and snoring
The present survey systematizes the modern foreign literature devoted to the recent advances in the surgical management of the patients with obstructive sleep apnea and snoring. The results from the application of a variety of contemporaty methods are briefly described. A special attention is paid to the maxillomandibular advancement that represents the most common maxillofacial surgical technique in this interdisciplinary field. The promising perspectives of multi-level surgery of the upper airway for obstructive sleep apnea are mentioned, too
Generalized Mittag-Leffler functions in the theory of finite-size scaling for systems with strong anisotropy and/or long-range interaction
The difficulties arising in the investigation of finite-size scaling in
--dimensional O(n) systems with strong anisotropy and/or long-range
interaction, decaying with the interparticle distance as
(), are discussed. Some integral representations aiming at the
simplification of the investigations are presented for the classical and
quantum lattice sums that take place in the theory. Special attention is paid
to a more general form allowing to treat both cases on an equal footing and in
addition cases with strong anisotropic interactions and different geometries.
The analysis is simplified further by expressing this general form in terms of
a generalization of the Mittag-Leffler special functions. This turned out to be
very useful for the extraction of asymptotic finite-size behaviours of the
thermodynamic functions.Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. A: Math. and Gen.; 14 pages. The
manuscript has been improved to help reader
Efficiency of antenatal care and childbirth services in selected primary health care facilities in rural Tanzania : a cross-sectional study
Background: Cost studies are paramount for demonstrating how resources have been spent and identifying opportunities for more efficient use of resources. The main objective of this study was to assess the actual dimension and distribution of the costs of providing antenatal care (ANC) and childbirth services in selected rural primary health care facilities in Tanzania. In addition, the study analyzed determining factors of service provision efficiency in order to inform health policy and planning.
Methods: This was a retrospective quantitative cross-sectional study conducted in 11 health centers and dispensaries in Lindi and Mtwara rural districts. Cost analysis was carried out using step down cost accounting technique. Unit costs reflected efficiency of service provision. Multivariate regression analysis on the drivers of observed relative efficiency in service provision between the study facilities was conducted. Reported personnel workload was also described.
Results: The health facilities spent on average 7 USD per capita in 2009. As expected, fewer resources were spent for service provision at dispensaries than at health centers. Personnel costs contributed a high approximate 44% to total costs. ANC and childbirth consumed approximately 11% and 12% of total costs; and 8% and 10% of reported service provision time respectively. On average, unit costs were rather high, 16 USD per ANC visit and 79.4 USD per childbirth. The unit costs showed variation in relative efficiency in providing the services between the health facilities. The results showed that efficiency in ANC depended on the number of staff, structural quality of care, process quality of care and perceived quality of care. Population-staff ratio and structural quality of basic emergency obstetric care services highly influenced childbirth efficiency.
Conclusions: Differences in the efficiency of service provision present an opportunity for efficiency improvement. Taking into consideration client heterogeneity, quality improvements are possible and necessary. This will stimulate utilization of ANC and childbirth services in resource-constrained health facilities. Efficiency analyses through simple techniques such as measurement of unit costs should be made standard in health care provision, health managers can then use the performance results to gauge progress and reward efficiency through performance based incentives
Scaling properties of step bunches induced by sublimation and related mechanisms: A unified perspective
This work provides a ground for a quantitative interpretation of experiments
on step bunching during sublimation of crystals with a pronounced
Ehrlich-Schwoebel (ES) barrier in the regime of weak desorption. A strong step
bunching instability takes place when the kinetic length is larger than the
average distance between the steps on the vicinal surface. In the opposite
limit the instability is weak and step bunching can occur only when the
magnitude of step-step repulsion is small. The central result are power law
relations of the between the width, the height, and the minimum interstep
distance of a bunch. These relations are obtained from a continuum evolution
equation for the surface profile, which is derived from the discrete step
dynamical equations for. The analysis of the continuum equation reveals the
existence of two types of stationary bunch profiles with different scaling
properties. Through a mathematical equivalence on the level of the discrete
step equations as well as on the continuum level, our results carry over to the
problems of step bunching induced by growth with a strong inverse ES effect,
and by electromigration in the attachment/detachment limited regime. Thus our
work provides support for the existence of universality classes of step
bunching instabilities [A. Pimpinelli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 206103
(2002)], but some aspects of the universality scenario need to be revised.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure
Leydig cell-immune cell interaction: an example of neuroendocrine-immune communication in testis
In her paper "Tilings will never be the same again" Dr Kathleen L. Wishner quoted Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock written in 1970. Toffler defined "future shock" as a time phenomenon, a product of the greatly accelerated change in society. The scientific research itself is a demonstration of this accelerated change. In particular, data systematized by Davidoff et al in this volume of Biomedical Reviews indicate the change in the understanding of the nature and origin of Leydig cells of the human testis.Biomedical Reviews 1996; 6: 1-4
Nerve-mast cell-nerve growth factor link: the mast cell as yin-yang modulator in inflammation and fibrosis
Inflammation and fibroproliferation are biological responses aiming at recovering from injury. Wound healing is considered a paradigm of such a homeostatic phenomenon. However, what begins as a protective response, in excess becomes a damaging process we call chronic inflammatory-fibroproliferative disease.Biomedical Reviews 1995; 4: 1-6
Entanglement-assisted quantum low-density parity-check codes
This paper develops a general method for constructing entanglement-assisted
quantum low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, which is based on combinatorial
design theory. Explicit constructions are given for entanglement-assisted
quantum error-correcting codes (EAQECCs) with many desirable properties. These
properties include the requirement of only one initial entanglement bit, high
error correction performance, high rates, and low decoding complexity. The
proposed method produces infinitely many new codes with a wide variety of
parameters and entanglement requirements. Our framework encompasses various
codes including the previously known entanglement-assisted quantum LDPC codes
having the best error correction performance and many new codes with better
block error rates in simulations over the depolarizing channel. We also
determine important parameters of several well-known classes of quantum and
classical LDPC codes for previously unsettled cases.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. Final version appearing in Physical Review
Isospin properties of electric dipole excitations in 48Ca
Two different experimental approaches were combined to study the electric
dipole strength in the doubly-magic nucleus 48Ca below the neutron threshold.
Real-photon scattering experiments using bremsstrahlung up to 9.9 MeV and
nearly mono-energetic linearly polarized photons with energies between 6.6 and
9.51 MeV provided strength distribution and parities, and an
(\alpha,\alpha'\gamma) experiment at E_{\alpha}=136 MeV gave cross sections for
an isoscalar probe. The unexpected difference observed in the dipole response
is compared to calculations using the first-order random-phase approximation
and points to an energy-dependent isospin character. A strong isoscalar state
at 7.6 MeV was identified for the first time supporting a recent theoretical
prediction.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, as accepted in Phys. Lett.
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