12,637 research outputs found
Association between Hepatitis B-Related Knowledge and Health-Related Quality of Life
Purpose: To evaluate the association between patientâs knowledge of Hepatitis-B and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL).Methods: A cross sectional, descriptive study was undertaken with 390 hepatitis-B patients attending two public hospitals in Quetta City, Pakistan. Knowledge of hepatitis-B was assessed using a prevalidated questionnaire. European Quality of Life scale was used for the assessment of HRQoL. Descriptive analysis was used to elaborate patientsâ demographic characteristics while inferential statistics were applied to report the association among study variables. Spearmanâs rho correlation was used to identify the association between variables.Results: Out of 390, (230, 59.5 %) were males and the mean age of the subjects was 36.2 ± 9.2 years. One hundred and three (26 %) had primary level of education and 109 (27.9 %) were employees in the private sector. Eighty four (21 %) had a monthly income of between 10001-15000 Pakistan rupees (1 PKR = 0.0115527 USD) with 272 (69.7 %) respondents resident in urban areas. Mean HRQoL and Hepatitis-B related knowledge (HBRK) scores were categorized as poor (0.37± 0.3) and (8.52 ± 2.7) respectively. The correlation coefficient between HRQoL and HBRK was -0.102 (p < 0.001), indicating a week negative association between the study variables.Conclusion: The findings indicate a negative association between Hepatitis-B related knowledge and HRQoL. Therefore, providing disease-related knowledge to patients does not necessarily improve HRQoL. More attention should be given to identify individual factors that affect HRQoL among patients with Hepatitis-B.Keywords: Health related quality of life, HRQoL, Hepatitis-B, Disease-related knowledge, Associatio
Gamma-rays from millisecond pulsars in Globular Clusters
Globular clusters (GCs) with their ages of the order of several billion years
contain many final products of evolution of stars such as: neutron stars, white
dwarfs and probably also black holes. These compact objects can be at present
responsible for the acceleration of particles to relativistic energies.
Therefore, gamma-ray emission is expected from GCs as a result of radiation
processes occurring either in the inner magnetosperes of millisecond pulsars or
in the vicinity of accreting neutron stars and white dwarfs or as a result of
interaction of particles leaving the compact objects with the strong radiation
field within the GC. Recently, GeV gamma-ray emission has been detected from
several GCs by the new satellite observatory Fermi. Also Cherenkov telescopes
reported interesting upper limits at the TeV energies which start to constrain
the content of GCs. We review the results of these gamma-ray observations in
the context of recent scenarios for their origin.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, will be published in Astrophysics and Space
Science Series (Springer), eds. N. Rea and D.F. Torre
High-density information storage in an absolutely defined aperiodic sequence of monodisperse copolyester
Synthesis of a polymer composed of a large discrete number of chemically distinct monomers in an absolutely defined aperiodic sequence remains a challenge in polymer chemistry. The synthesis has largely been limited to oligomers having a limited number of repeating units due to the difficulties associated with the step-by-step addition of individual monomers to achieve high molecular weights. Here we report the copolymers of ??-hydroxy acids, poly(phenyllactic-co-lactic acid) (PcL) built via the cross-convergent method from four dyads of monomers as constituent units. Our proposed method allows scalable synthesis of sequence-defined PcL in a minimal number of coupling steps from reagents in stoichiometric amounts. Digital information can be stored in an aperiodic sequence of PcL, which can be fully retrieved as binary code by mass spectrometry sequencing. The information storage density (bit/Da) of PcL is 50% higher than DNA, and the storage capacity of PcL can also be increased by adjusting the molecular weight (~38???kDa)
Compilation of a social network lexicon for determining the profile of authors
The use of social networks is steadily increasing worldwide. Hundreds of users daily register in the different existing platforms, therefore, the content extracted from the social networks is fundamental for tasks such as sentiment analysis, detection of author profiles, identification of authors, opinions mining, plagiarism detection, calculation of similarity between texts and to develop robust systems that help to make decisions in related areas such as politics, education, economy, among others. This paper provides a lexical aid for the pre-processing of texts posted in social networks evolved for the subsequent languages: English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian
Characterisation of feline renal cortical fibroblast cultures and their transcriptional response to transforming growth factor beta 1
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common in geriatric cats, and the most prevalent pathology is chronic tubulointerstitial inflammation and fibrosis. The cell type predominantly responsible for the production of extra-cellular matrix in renal fibrosis is the myofibroblast, and fibroblast to myofibroblast differentiation is probably a crucial event. The cytokine TGF-ÎČ1 is reportedly the most important regulator of myofibroblastic differentiation in other species. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterise renal fibroblasts from cadaverous kidney tissue of cats with and without CKD, and to investigate the transcriptional response to TGF-ÎČ1
Neutrons from multiplicity-selected Au-Au collisions at 150, 250, 400, and 650 AMeV
We measured neutron triple-differential cross sections from
multiplicity-selected Au-Au collisions at 150, 250, 400, and 650 \AMeV. The
reaction plane for each collision was estimated from the summed transverse
velocity vector of the charged fragments emitted in the collision. We examined
the azimuthal distribution of the triple-differential cross sections as a
function of the polar angle and the neutron rapidity. We extracted the average
in--plane transverse momentum and the normalized
observable , where is the neutron
transverse momentum, as a function of the neutron center-of-mass rapidity, and
we examined the dependence of these observables on beam energy. These
collective flow observables for neutrons, which are consistent with those of
protons plus bound nucleons from the Plastic Ball Group, agree with the
Boltzmann--Uehling--Uhlenbeck (BUU) calculations with a momentum--dependent
interaction. Also, we calculated the polar-angle-integrated maximum azimuthal
anisotropy ratio R from the value of .Comment: 20 LaTeX pages. 11 figures to be faxed on request, send email to
sender's addres
Flat bands as a route to high-temperature superconductivity in graphite
Superconductivity is traditionally viewed as a low-temperature phenomenon.
Within the BCS theory this is understood to result from the fact that the
pairing of electrons takes place only close to the usually two-dimensional
Fermi surface residing at a finite chemical potential. Because of this, the
critical temperature is exponentially suppressed compared to the microscopic
energy scales. On the other hand, pairing electrons around a dispersionless
(flat) energy band leads to very strong superconductivity, with a mean-field
critical temperature linearly proportional to the microscopic coupling
constant. The prize to be paid is that flat bands can generally be generated
only on surfaces and interfaces, where high-temperature superconductivity would
show up. The flat-band character and the low dimensionality also mean that
despite the high critical temperature such a superconducting state would be
subject to strong fluctuations. Here we discuss the topological and
non-topological flat bands discussed in different systems, and show that
graphite is a good candidate for showing high-temperature flat-band interface
superconductivity.Comment: Submitted as a chapter to the book on "Basic Physics of
functionalized Graphite", 21 pages, 12 figure
Tailoring the atomic structure of graphene nanoribbons by STM lithography
The practical realization of nano-scale electronics faces two major
challenges: the precise engineering of the building blocks and their assembly
into functional circuits. In spite of the exceptional electronic properties of
carbon nanotubes only basic demonstration-devices have been realized by
time-consuming processes. This is mainly due to the lack of selective growth
and reliable assembly processes for nanotubes. However, graphene offers an
attractive alternative. Here we report the patterning of graphene nanoribbons
(GNRs) and bent junctions with nanometer precision, well-defined widths and
predetermined crystallographic orientations allowing us to fully engineer their
electronic structure using scanning tunneling microscope (STM) lithography. The
atomic structure and electronic properties of the ribbons have been
investigated by STM and tunneling spectroscopy measurements. Opening of
confinement gaps up to 0.5 eV, allowing room temperature operation of GNR-based
devices, is reported. This method avoids the difficulties of assembling
nano-scale components and allows the realization of complete integrated
circuits, operating as room temperature ballistic electronic devices.Comment: 8 pages text, 5 figures, Nature Nanotechnology, in pres
Magnetic Vortex Core Reversal by Excitation of Spin Waves
Micron-sized magnetic platelets in the flux closed vortex state are
characterized by an in-plane curling magnetization and a nanometer-sized
perpendicularly magnetized vortex core. Having the simplest non-trivial
configuration, these objects are of general interest to micromagnetics and may
offer new routes for spintronics applications. Essential progress in the
understanding of nonlinear vortex dynamics was achieved when low-field core
toggling by excitation of the gyrotropic eigenmode at sub-GHz frequencies was
established. At frequencies more than an order of magnitude higher vortex state
structures possess spin wave eigenmodes arising from the magneto-static
interaction. Here we demonstrate experimentally that the unidirectional vortex
core reversal process also occurs when such azimuthal modes are excited. These
results are confirmed by micromagnetic simulations which clearly show the
selection rules for this novel reversal mechanism. Our analysis reveals that
for spin wave excitation the concept of a critical velocity as the switching
condition has to be modified.Comment: Minor corrections and polishing of previous versio
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