834 research outputs found
Increasing prevalence of asthma diagnosis and symptoms in children is confined to mild symptoms
BACKGROUND: The prevalence of childhood asthma is increasing but few studies have investigated trends in asthma severity. We investigated trends in asthma diagnosis and symptom morbidity between an eight year time period in a paired prevalence study.
METHODS: All children in one single school year aged 8-9 years in the city of Sheffield were given a parent respondent questionnaire in 1991 and 1999 based on questions from the International Survey of Asthma and Allergy in Children (ISAAC). Data were obtained regarding the prevalence of asthma and wheeze and current (12 month) prevalences of wheeze attacks, speech limiting wheeze, nocturnal cough and wheeze, and exertional symptoms.
RESULTS: The response rates in 1991 and 1999 were 4580/5321 (85.3%) and 5011/6021 (83.2%), respectively. There were significant increases between the two surveys in the prevalence of asthma ever (19.9% v 29.7%, mean difference 11.9%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 10.16 to 13.57, p<0.001), current asthma (10.3% v 13.0%, mean difference 2.7%, 95% CI 1.44 to 4.03, p<0.001), wheeze ever (30.3% v 35.8%, mean difference 5.7%, 95% CI 3.76 to 7.56, p<0.001), wheeze in the previous 12 months (17.0% v 19.4%, mean difference 2.5, 95% CI 0.95 to 4.07, p<0.01), and reporting of medication use (16.9% v 20%, mean difference 3.0%, 95% CI 1.46 to 4.62, p<0.001). There were also significant increases in reported hayfever and eczema diagnoses.
CONCLUSIONS: Diagnostic labelling of asthma and lifetime prevalence of wheeze has increased. The current 12 month point prevalence of wheeze has increased but this is confined to occasional symptoms. The increased medication rate may be responsible for the static prevalence of severe asthma symptoms. The significant proportion of children receiving medication but reporting no asthma symptoms identified from our 1999 survey suggests that some children are being inappropriately treated or overtreated
EXIT-Chart-Aided Three-Stage Concatenated Ultrawideband Time-Hopping Spread-Spectrum Impulse Radio Design
Hall Conductivity near the z=2 Superconductor-Insulator Transition in 2D
We analyze here the behavior of the Hall conductivity near a
insulator-superconductor quantum critical point in a perpendicular
magnetic field. We show that the form of the conductivity is sensitive to the
presence of dissipation , and depends non-monotonically on once
is weak enough. passes through a maximum at in the quantum critical regime, suggesting that the limits and
do not commute.Comment: 4 pages, 1 .eps figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.
The embedding method beyond the single-channel case: Two-mode and Hubbard chains
We investigate the relationship between persistent currents in multi-channel
rings containing an embedded scatterer and the conductance through the same
scatterer attached to leads. The case of two uncoupled channels corresponds to
a Hubbard chain, for which the one-dimensional embedding method is readily
generalized. Various tests are carried out to validate this new procedure, and
the conductance of short one-dimensional Hubbard chains attached to perfect
leads is computed for different system sizes and interaction strengths. In the
case of two coupled channels the conductance can be obtained from a statistical
analysis of the persistent current or by reducing the multi-channel scattering
problem to several single-channel setups.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, submitted for publicatio
Split transition in ferromagnetic superconductors
The split superconducting transition of up-spin and down-spin electrons on
the background of ferromagnetism is studied within the framework of a recent
model that describes the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity
induced by magnetic fluctuations. It is shown that one generically expects the
two transitions to be close to one another. This conclusion is discussed in
relation to experimental results on URhGe. It is also shown that the magnetic
Goldstone modes acquire an interesting structure in the superconducting phase,
which can be used as an experimental tool to probe the origin of the
superconductivity.Comment: REVTeX4, 15 pp, 7 eps fig
Disorder Induced Phases in Higher Spin Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Chains
Extensive DMRG calculations for spin S=1/2 and S=3/2 disordered
antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chains show a rather distinct behavior in the two
cases. While at sufficiently strong disorder both systems are in a random
singlet phase, we show that weak disorder is an irrelevant perturbation for the
S=3/2 chain, contrary to what expected from a naive application of the Harris
criterion. The observed irrelevance is attributed to the presence of a new
correlation length due to enhanced end-to-end correlations. This phenomenon is
expected to occur for all half-integer S > 1/2 chains. A possible phase diagram
of the chain for generic S is also discussed.Comment: 6 Pages and 6 figures. Final version as publishe
Kondo effect induced by a magnetic field
We study peculiarities of transport through a Coulomb blockade system tuned
to the vicinity of the spin transition in its ground state. Such transitions
can be induced in practice by application of a magnetic field. Tunneling of
electrons between the dot and leads mixes the states belonging to the ground
state manifold of the dot. Remarkably, both the orbital and spin degrees of
freedom of the electrons are engaged in the mixing at the singlet-triplet
transition point. We present a model which provides an adequate theoretical
description of recent experiments with semiconductor quantum dots and carbon
nanotubes
Search for the decay in the momentum region
We have searched for the decay in the kinematic
region with pion momentum below the peak. One event was
observed, consistent with the background estimate of . This
implies an upper limit on
(90% C.L.), consistent with the recently measured branching ratio of
, obtained using the standard model
spectrum and the kinematic region above the peak. The
same data were used to search for , where is a weakly
interacting neutral particle or system of particles with .Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Fano Resonances in Electronic Transport through a Single Electron Transistor
We have observed asymmetric Fano resonances in the conductance of a single
electron transistor resulting from interference between a resonant and a
nonresonant path through the system. The resonant component shows all the
features typical of quantum dots, but the origin of the non-resonant path is
unclear. A unique feature of this experimental system, compared to others that
show Fano line shapes, is that changing the voltages on various gates allows
one to alter the interference between the two paths.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to PR
Asymptotic behavior of w in general quintom model
For the quintom models with arbitrary potential , the
asymptotic value of equation of state parameter w is obtained by a new method.
In this method, w of stable attractors are calculated by using the ratio (d ln
V)/(d ln a) in asymptotic region. All the known results, have been obtained by
other methods, are reproduced by this method as specific examples.Comment: 8 pages, one example is added, accepted for publication in Gen. Rel.
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