Edge channel mixing induced by potential steps in an integer quantum Hall system

We investigate the coherent mixing of co-propagating edge channels in a quantum Hall bar produced by step potentials. In the case of two edge channels it is found that, although a single step induces only a few percent mixing, a series of steps could yield 50% mixing. In addition, a strong mixing is found when the potential height of a single step allows a different number of edge channels on the two sides of the step. Charge density probability has been also calculated even for the case where the step is smoothened.Comment: final version: 7 pages, 6 figure

Adjunctive therapy with vitamin c and thiamine in patients treated with steroids for refractory septic shock: A propensity matched before-after, case-control study

Purpose: Triple therapy with steroids, vitamin C and thiamine has been recently proposed as a safe and beneficial in patients with sepsis. In 2017, we added the use of intravenous vitamin C and thiamine in septic shock patients receiving low dose hydrocortisone because poorly responsive to vasopressors. Aim of this study is to verify whether triple therapy rather than steroids alone can improve outcome in patients with refractory shock. Materials and methods: In this before-after retrospective analysis, we compared septic shock patients admitted to our intensive care unit (ICU) who received triple therapy from June 2017 to November 2019 to septic shock patients who received only hydrocortisone from January 2015 to June 2017. Patients of the two study periods were matched 1:1 using a propensity score model. Results: A final cohort of 56 patients treated with triple therapy were matched to 56 patients treated only with steroids. Triple therapy reduced the length of mechanical ventilation (p = 0,01) and showed a trend in lowering the 30-day and hospital mortality compared to therapy with only hydrocortisone. Conclusions: Although with significant limitations, our experience indicated that triple therapy seems to provide an improvement of clinical outcomes in patients with refractory septic shock

How Does Financial Market Evaluate Business Models? Evidence From European Banks

This paper investigates the way in which the financial market defines and evaluates different business models/business mix, using a sample of listed European banking groups, with a total asset value greater than 50 billion US$, for the period 2006-2015. The main results suggest that non-interest components foster market valuation and that financial market seems to associate a better risk-return trade-off to non-banking fees compared to the banking ones. This evidence enables us to identify 3 clusters of European banking groups based on the main components of income. These findings have strategic implications both for bank managers, regulators and supervisors due to the impact of the crisis on banking business, bank profitability and riskiness and the new challenges they entail

Oral health and depressive symptoms: findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Aim We assessed the cross-sectional association between depressive symptoms and oral health using a nationally representative sample of older adults aged 50 years and older living in England.Methods Data came from wave 7 (2014-2015) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the association between depressive symptoms, measured through the eight-item Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and three oral health outcomes, namely self-rated oral health, edentulousness and oral impacts.Results The analytical sample comprised 3,617 individuals. The proportion of participants that reported poor self-rated oral health, being edentate and having at least one oral health impact in the last six months was 19.8%, 7.7% and 8.9%, respectively. Around a tenth of the participants reported having depressive symptoms (10%). All unadjusted associations between depressive symptoms and the oral health measures were statistically significant. However, after accounting for potential confounders, only the relationship between depressive symptoms and self-rated oral health remained significant (OR = 1.38; 95% CI 1.01-1.89). Socioeconomic and general health-related variables appeared to influence the associations between depressive symptoms and oral health, particularly edentulousness and oral impacts.Conclusion Depressive symptoms were associated with poor self-rated oral health in older English adults

Experimental evidence of antiproton reflection by a solid surface

We report here experimental evidence of the reflection of a large fraction of a beam of low energy antiprotons by an aluminum wall. This derives from the analysis of a set of annihilations of antiprotons that come to rest in rarefied helium gas after hitting the end wall of the apparatus. A Monte Carlo simulation of the antiproton path in aluminum indicates that the observed reflection occurs primarily via a multiple Rutherford-style scattering on Al nuclei, at least in the energy range 1-10 keV where the phenomenon is most visible in the analyzed data. These results contradict the common belief according to which the interactions between matter and antimatter are dominated by the reciprocally destructive phenomenon of annihilation.Comment: 5 pages with 5 figure

Crystal Structure Studies of Human Dental Apatite as a Function of Age

Studies of the average crystal structure properties of human dental apatite as a function of the tooth-age in the range of 5-87 years are reported. The crystallinity of the dental hydroxyapatite decreases with the tooth-age. The a-lattice constant that is associated with the carbonate content in carbonate apatite decreases with the tooth-age in a systematic way, whereas the c-lattice constant does not change significantly. Thermogravimetric measurements demonstrate an increase of the carbonate content with the tooth-age. FTIR spectroscopy reveals both, B and A-type carbonate substitutions with the B-type greater than the A-type substitution by a factor up to ~5. An increase of the carbonate content as a function of the tooth-age can be deduced from the ratio of the v2 CO3 to the v1 PO4 IR modes.Comment: 17 page

Symbolic dynamics for the NN-centre problem at negative energies

We consider the planar $N$-centre problem, with homogeneous potentials of degree -\a<0, \a \in [1,2). We prove the existence of infinitely many collisions-free periodic solutions with negative and small energy, for any distribution of the centres inside a compact set. The proof is based upon topological, variational and geometric arguments. The existence result allows to characterize the associated dynamical system with a symbolic dynamics, where the symbols are the partitions of the $N$ centres in two non-empty sets