Extended excitons and compact heliumlike biexcitons in type-II quantum dots.

We have used magneto-photoluminescence measurements to establish that InP/GaAs quantum dots have a type-II band (staggered) alignment. The average excitonic Bohr radius and the binding energy are estimated to be 15 nm and 1.5 meV respectively. When compared to bulk InP, the excitonic binding is weaker due to the repulsive (type-II) potential at the hetero-interface. The measurements are extended to over almost six orders of magnitude of laser excitation powers and to magnetic fields of up to 50 tesla. It is shown that the excitation power can be used to tune the average hole occupancy of the quantum dots, and hence the strength of the electron-hole binding. The diamagnetic shift coe±cient is observed to drastically reduce as the quantum dot ensemble makes a gradual transition from a regime where the emission is from (hydrogen-like) two-particle excitonic states to a regime where the emission from (helium-like) four-particle biexcitonic states also become significant

Spatial accessibility and social inclusion: The impact of Portugal's last health reform

Health policies seek to promote access to health care and should provide appropriate geographical accessibility to each demographical functional group. The dispersal demand of health‐careservices and the provision for such services atfixed locations contribute to the growth of inequality intheir access. Therefore, the optimal distribution of health facilities over the space/area can lead toaccessibility improvements and to the mitigation of the social exclusion of the groups considered mostvulnerable. Requiring for such, the use of planning practices joined with accessibility measures. However,the capacities of Geographic Information Systems in determining and evaluating spatial accessibility inhealth system planning have not yet been fully exploited. This paper focuses on health‐care services planningbased on accessibility measures grounded on the network analysis. The case study hinges on mainlandPortugal. Different scenarios were developed to measure and compare impact on the population'saccessibility. It distinguishes itself from other studies of accessibility measures by integrating network data ina spatial accessibility measure: the enhanced two‐stepfloating catchment area. The convenient location forhealth‐care facilities can increase the accessibility standards of the population and consequently reducethe economic and social costs incurred. Recently, the Portuguese government implemented a reform thataimed to improve, namely, the access and equity in meeting with the most urgent patients. It envisaged,in terms of equity, the allocation of 89 emergency network points that ensured more than 90% of thepopulation be within 30 min from any one point in the network. Consequently, several emergency serviceswere closed, namely, in rural areas. This reform highlighted the need to improve the quality of the emergencycare, accessibility to each care facility, and equity in their access. Hence, accessibility measures becomean efficient decision‐making tool, despite its absence in effective practice planning. According to anapplication of this type of measure, it was possible to verify which levels of accessibility were decreased,including the most disadvantaged people, with a larger time of dislocation of 12 min between 2001 and 2011

Thrombus aspiration in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction: results of a national registry of interventional cardiology.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to evaluate the impact of thrombus aspiration (TA) during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (P-PCI) in 'real-world' settings. METHODS: We performed a retrospective study, using data from the National Registry of Interventional Cardiology (RNCI 2006-2012, Portugal) with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients treated with P-PCI. The primary outcome, in-hospital mortality, was analysed through adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). RESULTS: We assessed data for 9458 STEMI patients that undergone P-PCI (35% treated with TA). The risk of in-hospital mortality with TA (aOR 0.93, 95%CI:0.54-1.60) was not significantly decreased. After matching patients through the propensity score, TA reduced significantly the risk of in-hospital mortality (OR 0.58, 95%CI:0.35-0.98; 3500 patients). CONCLUSIONS: The whole cohort data does not support the routine use of TA in P-PCI, but the results of the propensity-score matched cohort suggests that the use of selective TA may improve the short-term risks of STEMI.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On the dynamics of bubbles in boiling water

We investigate the dynamics of many interacting bubbles in boiling water by using a laser scattering experiment. Specifically, we analyze the temporal variations of a laser intensity signal which passed through a sample of boiling water. Our empirical results indicate that the return interval distribution of the laser signal does not follow an exponential distribution; contrariwise, a heavy-tailed distribution has been found. Additionally, we compare the experimental results with those obtained from a minimalist phenomenological model, finding a good agreement.Comment: Accepted for publication in Chaos, Solitons & Fractal

Canopy habitat area effect on the arthropod species densities in the Azores: pondering the contribution of tourist species and other life histories

"[…]. We performed a PIAR examining how plant cover area and plant crown structure influence the densities of arthropods in the canopies of one specific island, comparing various distinct natural reserves. Species densities were measured for two functional insect herbivore guilds (sap-sucking and leaf-chewing insects) and the most common predatory assembly in this system (spiders) in three different ways: i) the average number of specimens per plant; ii) the average number of specimens per transect, providing both fine and broad scales of species abundance (see Methods); iii) absolute numbers per reserve. Moreover, we investigated common versus scarce arthropod species distributions between various plant species. […]" (da Introdução)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal