Examining Disparities in Care in an Uninsured, Diabetic Population

Type 2 diabetes is a common health problem that requires continuing medical care, self-management, and education. However, different populations experience diabetes and diabetes-related care differently. This study examined diabetes care and health outcomes at a Midwest community health clinic serving the uninsured. Two waves of data were obtained from medical records. Wave 1 consisted of 88 medical records of people who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and also had previous medical record reviews regarding routine diabetes care and outcomes. Wave 2 consisted of in-depth review of 20 medical records of male patients, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, whose primary language was either Spanish or English. Wave 2 data collection utilized the list of medical records from Wave 1. Statistical analyses utilized non-parametric tests, due to the small sample size. Research questions compared the quality of diabetes care and related health outcomes for Spanish-speaking and English-speaking patients, as recorded in the medical record. Spanish-speaking patients were found to be patients at the clinic for a longer period, have poorer glycemic control, and be less adherent to medication recommendations. A few results from Wave 1 varied from those of Wave 2, including emergency department visits and hospitalizations related to diabetic complications. These conflicting results reflect conflicting outcomes in research, showing the need for further research. Additional research should address reasoning behind these disparities so as to better address them in the future

A comparison of themes and narratives of K-pop artist Min Yoongi’s translated lyrics under two aliases

Abstract. While K-pop is a growing phenomenon in the West, not much of its lyrical contents have been under academic investigation. This thesis examines the themes and narratives in English translations of K-pop idol and rapper Min Yoongi’s lyrics from two albums. In each album, Min uses a different stage name: Suga in the album Wings and Agust D in the album Agust D. The aim of the study is to find out whether these different aliases show in the lyrics of the songs. The methods of analysis are thematic analysis, for the full albums, and semantic analysis, for two specific songs chosen from the albums: First Love from Wings and The Last from Agust D. The semantic analysis further focuses on comparing the narratives and narrators of the songs. The thematic analysis revealed that the overall themes of the albums were very similar, but there were differences in, for example, the most prominent vocabulary themes used. The narratives were found to be undefined in both of the songs, however, The Last had only one interpretation supported by the lyrics whereas First Love had many due to the metaphorical use of the word “piano” in the song. Both songs used personal voice, a first-person narrator, in the narration of the stories, but the texts seemed to be aimed at different audiences. Overall, the differences in the songs were caused by the aliases, the different target audiences of the aliases, and the rules and censorship of the K-pop genre. The biggest differences were the rawness and vulgarity in Agust D’s lyrics and the generalization and ambiguity in Suga’s lyrics.K-pop artisti Min Yoongin käännettyjen sanoitusten teemojen ja narratiivien vertaus kahden nimimerkin alla. Tiivistelmä. Vaikka k-pop (korealainen popmusiikki) on kasvava ilmiö länsimaissa, sen sanoituksia ei ole juurikaan tutkittu akateemisesti. Tämä tutkielma käsittelee englanninkielisiä käännöksiä k-pop idoli ja räppäri Min Yoongin sanoituksista kahdelta eri albumilta keskittyen teemoihin ja narratiiveihin. Minillä on käytössä kaksi eri artistinimeä: Suga albumilla Wings ja Agust D albumilla Agust D. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää näkyvätkö artistinimet laulujen sanoituksissa. Analyysien menetelminä käytetään temaattista analyysia koko albumien analysointiin, sekä semanttista analyysia kahden albumeilta valitun kappaleen analysointiin. Albumilta Wings valittiin kappale First Love ja albumilta Agust D valittiin kappale The Last. Semanttinen analyysi keskittyy analysoimaan kappaleiden narratiiveja sekä kertojia. Temaattinen analyysi osoitti, että albumien yleiset teemat olivat lähellä toisiaan, mutta eroja löytyi muun muassa eri sanastoteemojen käytöstä ja yleisyydestä. Kummankaan kappaleen narratiivi ei ollut tarkasti määritelty, mutta The Lastin sanoitukset tukivat ainoastaan tiettyä tulkintaa, kun taas First Love oli monitulkintaisempi johtuen sanan “piano” metaforisesta käytöstä. Molemmat kappaleet käyttivät minäkertojaa narratiiveissa, mutta kappaleet vaikuttivat olevan suunnattuja eri yleisöille. Yleisesti ottaen kappaleiden erot voidaan nähdä johtuvan artistinimistä, niiden erilaisista yleisöistä, sekä k-pop genren sisäisestä sensuurista ja säännöistä. Suurimmat erot olivat vulgaarius ja karkeus Agust D:n sanoituksissa sekä monitulkintaisuus ja yleistäminen Sugan sanoituksissa

Chemical equilibrium study in nucleus-nucleus collisions at relativistic energies

We present a detailed study of chemical freeze-out in nucleus-nucleus collisions at beam energies of 11.6, 30, 40, 80 and 158A GeV. By analyzing hadronic multiplicities within the statistical hadronization approach, we have studied the strangeness production as a function of centre of mass energy and of the parameters of the source. We have tested and compared different versions of the statistical model, with special emphasis on possible explanations of the observed strangeness hadronic phase space under-saturation. We show that, in this energy range, the use of hadron yields at midrapidity instead of in full phase space artificially enhances strangeness production and could lead to incorrect conclusions as far as the occurrence of full chemical equilibrium is concerned. In addition to the basic model with an extra strange quark non-equilibrium parameter, we have tested three more schemes: a two-component model superimposing hadrons coming out of single nucleon-nucleon interactions to those emerging from large fireballs at equilibrium, a model with local strangeness neutrality and a model with strange and light quark non-equilibrium parameters. The behaviour of the source parameters as a function of colliding system and collision energy is studied. The description of strangeness production entails a non-monotonic energy dependence of strangeness saturation parameter gamma_S with a maximum around 30A GeV. We also present predictions of the production rates of still unmeasured hadrons including the newly discovered Theta^+(1540) pentaquark baryon.Comment: 36 pages, 14 figures. Revised version published in Phys. Rev. C: title changed, one paragraph added in section 2, other typos correcte

Composite fermions from the algebraic point of view

Composite fermion wavefuctions have been used to describe electrons in a strong magnetic field. We show that the polynomial part of these wavefunctions can be obtained by applying a normal ordered product of suitably defined annihilation and creation operators to an even power of the Vandermonde determinant, which can been considered as a kind of a non-trivial Fermi sea. In the case of the harmonic interaction we solve the system exactly in the lowest Landau level. The solution makes explicit the boson-fermion correspondence proposed recently.Comment: 11 pages 1 figur

Energy and system size dependence of chemical freeze-out in relativistic nuclear collisions

We present a detailed study of chemical freeze-out in p-p, C-C, Si-Si and Pb-Pb collisions at beam momenta of 158A GeV as well as Pb-Pb collisions at beam momenta of 20A, 30A, 40A and 80A GeV. By analyzing hadronic multiplicities within the statistical hadronization model, we have studied the parameters of the source as a function of the number of the participating nucleons and the beam energy. We observe a nice smooth behaviour of temperature, baryon chemical potential and strangeness under-saturation parameter as a function of energy and nucleus size. Interpolating formulas are provided which allow to predict the chemical freeze-out parameters in central collisions at centre-of-mass energies > 4.5 GeV and for any colliding ions. Specific discrepancies between data and model emerge in particle ratios in Pb-Pb collisions at SPS between 20A and 40A GeV of beam energy which cannot be accounted for in the considered model schemes.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures. References added and updated. Table correcte

Vortices in fermion droplets with repulsive dipole-dipole interactions

Vortices are found in a fermion system with repulsive dipole-dipole interactions, trapped by a rotating quasi-two-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential. Such systems have much in common with electrons in quantum dots, where rotation is induced via an external magnetic field. In contrast to the Coulomb interactions between electrons, the (externally tunable) anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interaction breaks the rotational symmetry of the Hamiltonian. This may cause the otherwise rotationally symmetric exact wavefunction to reveal its internal structure more directly.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Electronic structure of triangular, hexagonal and round graphene flakes near the Fermi level

The electronic shell structure of triangular, hexagonal and round graphene quantum dots (flakes) near the Fermi level has been studied using a tight-binding method. The results show that close to the Fermi level the shell structure of a triangular flake is that of free massless particles, and that triangles with an armchair edge show an additional sequence of levels ("ghost states"). These levels result from the graphene band structure and the plane wave solution of the wave equation, and they are absent for triangles with an zigzag edge. All zigzag triangles exhibit a prominent edge state at the Fermi level, and few low-energy conduction electron states occur both in triangular and hexagonal flakes due to symmetry reasons. Armchair triangles can be used as building blocks for other types of flakes that support the ghost states. Edge roughness has only a small effect on the level structure of the triangular flakes, but the effect is considerably enhanced in the other types of flakes. In round flakes, the states near the Fermi level depend strongly on the flake radius, and they are always localized on the zigzag parts of the edge

Magnetism in one-dimensional quantum dot arrays

We employ the density functional Kohn-Sham method in the local spin-density approximation to study the electronic structure and magnetism of quasi one-dimensional periodic arrays of few-electron quantum dots. At small values of the lattice constant, the single dots overlap, forming a non-magnetic quantum wire with nearly homogenous density. As the confinement perpendicular to the wire is increased, i.e. as the wire is squeezed to become more one-dimensional, it undergoes a spin-Peierls transition. Magnetism sets in as the quantum dots are placed further apart. It is determined by the electronic shell filling of the individual quantum dots. At larger values of the lattice constant, the band structure for odd numbers of electrons per dot indicates that the array could support spin-polarized transport and therefore act as a spin filter.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Advanced surface characterization of silver nanocluster segregation in Ag-TiCN bioactive coatings by RBS, GDOES and ARXPS

Surface modification by means of wear protective and antibacterial coatings represents, nowadays, a crucial challenge in the biomaterials field in order to enhance the lifetime of bio-devices. It is possible to tailor the properties of the material by using an appropriate combination of high wear resistance (e.g., nitride or carbide coatings) and biocide agents (e.g., noble metals as silver) to fulfill its final application. This behavior is controlled at last by the outmost surface of the coating. Therefore, the analytical characterization of these new materials requires high-resolution analytical techniques able to provide information about surface and depth composition down to the nanometric level. Among these techniques are Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES), and angle resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ARXPS). In this work, we present a comparative RBS–GDOES–ARXPS study of the surface characterization of Ag–TiCN coatings with Ag/Ti atomic ratios varying from 0 to 1.49, deposited at room temperature and 200 °C. RBS analysis allowed a precise quantification of the silver content along the coating with a non-uniform Ag depth distribution for the samples with higher Ag content. GDOES surface profiling revealed that the samples with higher Ag content as well as the samples deposited at 200 °C showed an ultrathin (1–10 nm) Ag-rich layer on the coating surface followed by a silver depletion zone (20–30 nm), being the thickness of both layers enhanced with Ag content and deposition temperature. ARXPS analysis confirmed these observations after applying general algorithm involving regularization in addition to singular value decomposition techniques to obtain the concentration depth profiles. Finally, ARXPS measurements were used to provide further information on the surface morphology of the samples obtaining an excellent agreement with SEM observations when a growth model of silver islands with a height d = 1.5 nm and coverage θ = 0.20 was applied to the sample with Ag/Ti = 1.49 and deposited at room temperature.This work was financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects FUNCOAT CSD2008-00023 and RyC2007-0026). This research is sponsored by FEDER funds through the program COMPETE "Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade" and by national funds through FCT "Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia", in the framework of the Strategic Projects PEST-C/FIS/UI607/2011, and PEST-C/EME/UI0285/2011 and under the project PTDC/CTM/102853/2008. The authors would like to acknowledge I. Caretti and R. Velasco for the fruitful discussions and the proofreading of the manuscript

Harvinaisten neurologisten sairauksien diagnostiikka

Tiivistelmä. Tutkielman tarkoituksena oli tarkastella neurologisten harvinaissairauksien diagnostiikkaa Oulun yliopistollisen sairaalan neurologian poliklinikalla vuosina 2010–2014. Tarkasteltaviksi valittiin sekundaariset parkinsonismit ja muut tyvitumakkeiden rappeumasairaudet. Valittujen diagnoosien saaneiden potilaiden sairauskertomuksista selvitettiin potilaiden diagnostiikan ja hoidon historia. 112 tapauksen joukossa miesten osuus korostui melkein kaikissa diagnoosiryhmissä. Alkoholianamneesin frekvenssi oli korkea malignia neuroleptisyndroomaa sekä määrittämätöntä parkinsonismia sairastaneiden keskuudessa. Muissa tyvitumakkeiden rappeumasairauksissa korostui sukuanamneesi. Aineistossa potilaiden keskimääräinen ikä oireiden alkaessa oli pääsääntöisesti korkeampi kuin kirjallisuudessa, eikä tässä aineistossa näyttäytynyt Parkinson plus -oireyhtymille tyypillistä oireiden varhaista alkamisikää. Hoitoon pääsy ja diagnostinen viive venyivät pisimmäksi tyvitumakkeiden rappeumasairauksissa. Kuvantamistutkimukset olivat tutkimusmenetelmistä käytetyimpiä. Eri kuvantamismenetelmien valikoituminen oli asianmukaista. Geenitestejä ja vasta-ainetutkimuksia tehtiin harvoin. Neurofysiologisia ja -psykologisia tutkimuksia oli käytetty jonkin verran diagnostiikan tukena. Tämän tutkielman perusteella Parkinson plus -oireyhtymien tunnistaminen on haastavaa sekä perusterveydenhuollon että erikoissairaanhoidon tasolla. Erityisen haastavana näyttäytyi tyvitumakkeiden rappeumasairauksien diagnostiikka. Lepovapina oli merkittävin kliininen erottava tekijä sekundaaristen parkinsonismien ja tyvitumakkeiden rappeumasairauksien välillä