578 research outputs found
An investigation into the pathogenesis of vulvo-vaginal candidosis
OBJECTIVE: To monitor yeasts isolated from women during and between episodes of recurrent
vulvo-vaginal candidosis (VVC) to determine whether vaginal relapse or re-infection occurred.
METHODS:Women presenting at the genitourinary medicine clinic with signs and symptoms of VVC
were recruited to the study (n = 121). A vaginal washing, high vaginal swab (HVS) and rectal swab
were taken and the women treated with a single 500 mg clotrimazole pessary.Women were asked to
re-attend after 1, 4, and 12 weeks, or when the VVC recurred, when vaginal washings and HVS were
repeated. Candida isolates recovered were strain typed using the Ca3 probe and their similarity
assessed. Antifungal susceptibility to fluconazole and clotrimazole were determined.
RESULTS: Of the women recruited, 47 completed the study, either returning for four visits or suffering
a recurrence during the study period. Of the 22 women who experienced recurrence, the
same strain was responsible for the initial and recurrent episode in 17 women. For the remaining
five women, four had strain replacement and one had a change of species. None of the isolates
recovered from the women demonstrated resistance to either clotrimazole or fluconazole.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the theory of vaginal relapse and thus may support the use
of more prolonged courses of antifungal therapy initially to increase the chances of eradication of
the yeast
Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy
I review the current status of X-ray reflection (a.k.a. broad iron line)
based black hole spin measurements. This is a powerful technique that allows us
to measure robust black hole spins across the mass range, from the stellar-mass
black holes in X-ray binaries to the supermassive black holes in active
galactic nuclei. After describing the basic assumptions of this approach, I lay
out the detailed methodology focusing on "best practices" that have been found
necessary to obtain robust results. Reflecting my own biases, this review is
slanted towards a discussion of supermassive black hole (SMBH) spin in active
galactic nuclei (AGN). Pulling together all of the available XMM-Newton and
Suzaku results from the literature that satisfy objective quality control
criteria, it is clear that a large fraction of SMBHs are rapidly-spinning,
although there are tentative hints of a more slowly spinning population at high
(M>5*10^7Msun) and low (M<2*10^6Msun) mass. I also engage in a brief review of
the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. In general,
reflection-based and continuum-fitting based spin measures are in agreement,
although there remain two objects (GROJ1655-40 and 4U1543-475) for which that
is not true. I end this review by discussing the exciting frontier of
relativistic reverberation, particularly the discovery of broad iron line
reverberation in XMM-Newton data for the Seyfert galaxies NGC4151, NGC7314 and
MCG-5-23-16. As well as confirming the basic paradigm of relativistic disk
reflection, this detection of reverberation demonstrates that future large-area
X-ray observatories such as LOFT will make tremendous progress in studies of
strong gravity using relativistic reverberation in AGN.Comment: 19 pages. To appear in proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The
Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 Oct 2012). Revised version adds
a missing source to Table 1 and Fig.6 (IRAS13224-3809) and corrects the
referencing of the discovery of soft lags in 1H0707-495 (which were in fact
first reported in Fabian et al. 2009
Nanostructure and paramagnetic centres in diamond-like carbon: Effect of Ar dilution in PECVD process
Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited utilising plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) with acetylene precursor, diluted with 0 – 45% argon. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements show the presence of one paramagnetic centre with no change in spin population over the range of film deposition conditions. However, the EPR linewidth decreases with increasing argon content of the precursor mix, suggesting an enhancement of motional narrowing due to an increase in electron delocalization, related to an increase in the sp2 cluster size. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements indicate the surface of the DLC is formed of nanoscale asperities of material. With radii of tens of nanometres for films deposited with zero argon, the size of the features increases with the argon dilution of the acetylene. Energy dispersive x-ray analysis and electrical measurements further elucidate the changes in film structure
ANN-based energy reconstruction procedure for TACTIC gamma-ray telescope and its comparison with other conventional methods
The energy estimation procedures employed by different groups, for
determining the energy of the primary -ray using a single atmospheric
Cherenkov imaging telescope, include methods like polynomial fitting in SIZE
and DISTANCE, general least square fitting and look-up table based
interpolation. A novel energy reconstruction procedure, based on the
utilization of Artificial Neural Network (ANN), has been developed for the
TACTIC atmospheric Cherenkov imaging telescope. The procedure uses a 3:30:1 ANN
configuration with resilient backpropagation algorithm to estimate the energy
of a -ray like event on the basis of its image SIZE, DISTANCE and
zenith angle. The new ANN-based energy reconstruction method, apart from
yielding an energy resolution of 26%, which is comparable to that of
other single imaging telescopes, has the added advantage that it considers
zenith angle dependence as well. Details of the ANN-based energy estimation
procedure along with its comparative performance with other conventional energy
reconstruction methods are presented in the paper and the results indicate that
amongst all the methods considered in this work, ANN method yields the best
results. The performance of the ANN-based energy reconstruction has also been
validated by determining the energy spectrum of the Crab Nebula in the energy
range 1-16 TeV, as measured by the TACTIC telescope.Comment: 23pages, 9 figures Accepted for publication in NIM
Anisotropic intrinsic lattice thermal conductivity of phosphorene from first principles
Phosphorene, the single layer counterpart of black phosphorus, is a novel
two-dimensional semiconductor with high carrier mobility and a large
fundamental direct band gap, which has attracted tremendous interest recently.
Its potential applications in nano-electronics and thermoelectrics call for a
fundamental study of the phonon transport. Here, we calculate the intrinsic
lattice thermal conductivity of phosphorene by solving the phonon Boltzmann
transport equation (BTE) based on first-principles calculations. The thermal
conductivity of phosphorene at is
(zigzag) and
(armchair), showing an obvious anisotropy along different directions. The
calculated thermal conductivity fits perfectly to the inverse relation with
temperature when the temperature is higher than Debye temperature (). In comparison to graphene, the minor contribution around
of the ZA mode is responsible for the low thermal conductivity of
phosphorene. In addition, the representative mean free path (MFP), a critical
size for phonon transport, is also obtained.Comment: 5 pages and 6 figures, Supplemental Material available as
http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/cp/c4/c4cp04858j/c4cp04858j1.pd
Constraints from and the isotope effect for MgB
With the constraint that K, as observed for MgB, we use the
Eliashberg equations to compute possible allowed values of the isotope
coefficient, . We find that while the observed value can
be obtained in principle, it is difficult to reconcile a recently calculated
spectral function with such a low observed value
Calculating invariants as coreflexive bisimulations
Invariants, bisimulations and assertions are the main ingredients of coalgebra theory applied to software systems. In this paper we reduce the first to a particular case of the second and show how both together pave the way to a theory of coalgebras which regards invariant predicates as types. An outcome of such a theory is a calculus of invariants’ proof obligation discharge, a fragment of which is presented in the paper.
The approach has two main ingredients: one is that of adopting relations as “first class citizens” in a pointfree reasoning style; the other lies on a synergy found between a relational construct, Reynolds’ relation on functions involved in the abstraction theorem on parametric polymorphism and the coalgebraic account of bisimulations and invariants. This leads to an elegant proof of the equivalence between two different definitions of bisimulation found in coalgebra literature (due to B. Jacobs and Aczel & Mendler, respectively) and to their instantiation to the classical Park-Milner definition popular in process algebra.Partially supported by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, Portugal, under grant number SFRH/BD/27482/2006
On the spherical-axial transition in supernova remnants
A new law of motion for supernova remnant (SNR) which introduces the quantity
of swept matter in the thin layer approximation is introduced. This new law of
motion is tested on 10 years observations of SN1993J. The introduction of an
exponential gradient in the surrounding medium allows to model an aspherical
expansion. A weakly asymmetric SNR, SN1006, and a strongly asymmetric SNR,
SN1987a, are modeled. In the case of SN1987a the three observed rings are
simulated.Comment: 19 figures and 14 pages Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Science in the year 201
Simplified Multistep Outflow Method to Estimate Unsaturated Hydraulic Functions for Coarse-Textured Soils
Although the multistep outfl ow (MSO) method is well suited for the estimation of soil hydraulic properties by
inverse solution techniques, this method has not been widely adopted because it requires advanced instrumentation
and is time consuming. Th e objective of this study was to develop a modifi ed version of the multistep outfl ow
technique that largely simplifi es laboratory procedures and reduces costs and time. Th e numerical inversion
procedures require applying user-friendly HYDRUS soft ware to estimate fi tting parameters for soil water retention
and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curves. Whereas values of saturated water content and saturated hydraulic
conductivity must be measured independently, the remaining functional parameters are estimated using an inverse
solution of a transient drainage experiment using multiple suction steps and a hanging water column, with drainage
outfl ows measured during drainage. A comparison test showed that the simplifi ed experiment without tensiometric
measurements provided suffi cient information in the parameter identifi cation compared with a traditional pressure
outfl ow experiment with tensiometric measurements for an Oso Flaco sand and a loamy sand fi eld soil in the
suction range of 0 to 17 kPa
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