Large Magnetoresistance in Co/Ni/Co Ferromagnetic Single Electron Transistors

We report on magnetotransport investigations of nano-scaled ferromagnetic Co/Ni/Co single electron transistors. As a result of reduced size, the devices exhibit single electron transistor characteristics at 4.2K. Magnetotransport measurements carried out at 1.8K reveal tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) traces with negative coercive fields, which we interpret in terms of a switching mechanism driven by the shape anisotropy of the central wire-like Ni island. A large TMR of about 18% is observed within a finite source-drain bias regime. The TMR decreases rapidly with increasing bias, which we tentatively attribute to excitation of magnons in the central island.Comment: 12 pages (including 4 figures). Accepted for publishing on AP

Enterococcus faecalis from healthy infants modulates inflammation through MAPK signaling pathways

10.1371/journal.pone.0097523PLoS ONE95-POLN

Severe asphyxia due to delivery-related malpractice in Sweden 1990–2005

Aim The objective of the thesis was to describe the most common causes of substandard care during labour contributing to severe asphyxia or neonatal death, to study risk factors related to asphyxia associated with substandard care and to explore the occurrence of substandard care during labour. Background There are about 100 000 infants born every year in Sweden. Most infants are born healthy after uncomplicated deliveries. However, 20-50 claims for financial compensation are made annually to the Patients Advisory Committee (PA C) on suspicion that substandard care during labour has contributed to severe asphyxia causing cerebral palsy or death. Even if this group of patients is notably small, asphyxia causes life-long impairment and immeasurable suffering to the patients and their families. In addition, the insurance costs are substantial and amount to 25% of all costs related to substandard care in Sweden. With the exception of this group of patients, and claims to the Health Services Disciplinary Board, the frequency of substandard care in relation to childbirth is fairly unknown. Material and methods Inclusion criteria were pregnancies with a gestational length ≥ 33 weeks, a spontaneous or induced start of labour, a normal CTG at admission for labour, and Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes of age (Papers I-IV). 472 case records of deliveries from 1990-2005, filed at the PAC were scrutinised. In Paper I and II the deliveries and acts of neonatal resuscitation procedures are described. In Paper III, maternal characteristics, factors related to care and infant characteristics for patients receiving lifelong financial compensation from PAC are compared with all infants with full Apgar score at 5 minutes of age born after a vaginal start during the same time period in Sweden (n=1.141 059). In Paper IV deliveries and risk factors from 313 infants with Apgar score < 7at 5 minutes of age, born in the Stockholm County are compared with 313 infants with full Apgar score at five minutes of age, matched for year of birth. Results One-hundred and seventy-seven infants were considered to have been severely asphyxiated due to substandard care during labour (Paper I-III). The most common occurrences of malpractice in conjunction with labour were neglecting to supervise fetal well-being (98%), neglecting signs of fetal asphyxia (71%), including incautious use of oxytocin (71%) and choosing a non-optimal mode of delivery (52%) (Paper I). Resuscitation of the 177 severely asphyxiated infants was unsatisfactory in 47%. The most important flaw was the defective compliance with the guidelines concerning ventilation and prompt paging for skilled personnel in cases of imminent asphyxia (Paper II). Risk factors associated with asphyxia included maternal age ≥ 30 years, short maternal stature (< 159 cm), previous caesarean delivery, insulin-dependent diabetes, induced deliveries and night deliveries, where the increases in risk were doubled to a four-fold. In addition, dystocia of labour was associated with a five-fold increase in risk, which was further increased if epidural anaesthesia or opioids were used. Small- and large-for-gestational age infants, post-term (> 42 weeks) births, twins and breech deliveries had a three to eight-fold increase in risk of asphyxia when there was substandard care during labour (Paper III). Two thirds of infants born in the Stockholm region 2004-2006, with Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes but also one third of the healthy controls were subjected to some kind of substandard care during labour (Paper IV). The main causes of substandard care during labour were related to misinterpretation of CTG, not acting timely on abnormal CTG, and incautious use of oxytocin. The risk of asphyxia increased with duration of abnormal CTG and was increased fifteen-fold when this was abnormal for ≥ 90 minutes. Oxytocin was provided without sign of inertia in 20% of cases and controls and the risk of asphyxia was increased more than fivefold in cases of tachysystole. Infants born after a spontaneous vaginal delivery with abnormal CTG for more than 45 minutes had a more than sevenfold risk of low Apgar score. In instrumental deliveries that were considered complex, there was a more than seventeen-fold risk of an Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes of age. Assuming that substandard care is causative for low Apgar score, we estimate that 42% of the cases could be prevented by avoiding substandard care (Paper IV). Conclusion It is possible to improve patient safety during labour by applying educational efforts on fetal surveillance and increasing awareness of risk factors associated with asphyxia. The main causes of substandard care during labour are related to misinterpretation of CTG, not acting timely on abnormal CTG, misinterpretation of guidelines and misuse of oxytocin. Low Apgar score at 5 minutes of age can substantially, be prevented by avoiding substandard care

HOMOGENIZATION OF A NON-PERIODIC OSCILLATING BOUNDARY VIA PERIODIC UNFOLDING

This paper deals with the homogenization of an elliptic model problem in a two-dimensional domain with non-periodic oscillating boundary by the method of periodic unfolding. For the non-periodic oscillations, a modulated unfolding is used. The L-2 convergence of the solutions and their fluxes are shown, under natural hypotheses on the domain

Current AATS guidelines on surgical treatment of infective endocarditis

© Annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery. The 2016 American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) guidelines for surgical treatment of infective endocarditis (IE) are question based and address questions of specific relevance to cardiac surgeons. Clinical scenarios in IE are often complex, requiring prompt diagnosis, early institution of antibiotics, and decision-making related to complications, including risk of embolism and timing of surgery when indicated. The importance of an early, multispecialty team approach to patients with IE is emphasized. Management issues are divided into groups of questions related to indications for and timing of surgery, pre-surgical work-up, preoperative antibiotic treatment, surgical risk assessment, intraoperative management, surgical management, surveillance, and follow up. Standard indications for surgery are severe heart failure, severe valve dysfunction, prosthetic valve infection, invasion beyond the valve leaflets, recurrent systemic embolization, large mobile vegetations, or persistent sepsis despite adequate antibiotic therapy for more than 5-7 days. The guidelines emphasize that once an indication for surgery is established, the operation should be performed as soon as possible. Timing of surgery in patients with strokes and neurologic deficits require close collaboration with neurological services. In surgery infected and necrotic tissue and foreign material is radically debrided and removed. Valve repair is performed whenever possible, particularly for the mitral and tricuspid valves. When simple valve replacement is required, choice of valve-mechanical or tissue prosthesis-should be based on normal criteria for valve replacement. For patients with invasive disease and destruction, reconstruction should depend on the involved valve, severity of destruction, and available options for cardiac reconstruction. For the aortic valve, use of allograft is still favored

A Case Study on Artefact-based RE Improvement in Practice

Most requirements engineering (RE) process improvement approaches are solution-driven and activity-based. They focus on the assessment of the RE of a company against an external norm of best practices. A consequence is that practitioners often have to rely on an improvement approach that skips a profound problem analysis and that results in an RE approach that might be alien to the organisational needs. In recent years, we have developed an RE improvement approach (called \emph{ArtREPI}) that guides a holistic RE improvement against individual goals of a company putting primary attention to the quality of the artefacts. In this paper, we aim at exploring ArtREPI's benefits and limitations. We contribute an industrial evaluation of ArtREPI by relying on a case study research. Our results suggest that ArtREPI is well-suited for the establishment of an RE that reflects a specific organisational culture but to some extent at the cost of efficiency resulting from intensive discussions on a terminology that suits all involved stakeholders. Our results reveal first benefits and limitations, but we can also conclude the need of longitudinal and independent investigations for which we herewith lay the foundation

Dealing with change and uncertainty within the regulatory frameworks for flood defense infrastructure in selected European countries

Whereas existing literature on the interactions between law, adaptive governance and resilience in the water sector often focuses on quality or supply issues, this paper addresses adaptation in national water laws in relation to increasing flood risks. In particular, this paper analyzes the extent to which legal rules governing flood defense infrastructure in a selection of European countries (Sweden, France, England and the Netherlands) allow for response and adaptation to change and uncertainty. While there is evidence that the legal rules on the development of new infrastructure require that changing conditions be considered, the adaptation of existing infrastructure is a more complicated matter. Liability rules fail to adequately address damages resulting from causes external to the action or inaction of owners and managers, in particular extreme events. A trend towards clearer, and in some cases, increased public powers to ensure the safety of flood defense infrastructure is observed. The paper concludes that legal rules should ensure not only that decisions to build flood defenses are based on holistic and future-oriented assessments, but also that this is reflected in the implementation and operation of these structures

A Positive-Weight Next-to-Leading-Order Monte Carlo for Z Pair Hadroproduction

We present a first application of a previously published method for the computation of QCD processes that is accurate at next-to-leading order, and that can be interfaced consistently to standard shower Monte Carlo programs. We have considered Z pair production in hadron-hadron collisions, a process whose complexity is sufficient to test the general applicability of the method. We have interfaced our result to the HERWIG and PYTHIA shower Monte Carlo programs. Previous work on next-to-leading order corrections in a shower Monte Carlo (the MC@NLO program) may involve the generation of events with negative weights, that are avoided with the present method. We have compared our results with those obtained with MC@NLO, and found remarkable consistency. Our method can also be used as a standalone, alternative implementation of QCD corrections, with the advantage of positivity, improved convergence, and next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy in the region of small transverse momentum of the radiated parton.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure