9,069 research outputs found
Cohort profile of the UK Biobank: diagnosis and characteristics of cerebrovascular disease
Purpose: The UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical resource, containing sociodemographic and medical information, including data on a previous diagnosis of stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA). We described these participants and their medication usage.
Participants: We identified participants who either self-reported or were identified from a nurse-led interview, having suffered a stroke or a TIA and compared them against participants without stroke ort TIA. We assessed their risk factor burden (sex, age, deprivation, waist to hip ratio (WHR), hypertension, smoking, alcohol intake, diabetes, physical exercise and oral contraception use (oral contraceptive pill, OCP)) and medication usage.
Findings: to date We studied 502 650 people (54.41% women), 6669 (1.23%) participants self-reported a stroke. The nurse-led interview identified 7669 (1.53%) people with stroke and 1781 (0.35%) with TIA. Hypertension, smoking, higher WHR, lower alcohol consumption and diabetes were all more common in people with cerebrovascular disease (p<0.0001 for each). Women with cerebrovascular disease were less likely to have taken the OCP (p=0.0002). People with cerebrovascular disease did more exercise (p=0.03). Antithrombotic medication was taken by 81% of people with stroke (both self-report and nurse-led responders) and 89% with TIA. For self-reported stroke, 63% were taking antithrombotic and cholesterol medications, 54% taking antithrombotic and antihypertensive medications and 46% taking all 3. For the nurse-led interview and TIA, these figures were 65%, 54% and 46%, and 70%, 53% and 45%, respectively.
Future plans: The UK Biobank provides a large, generalisable and contemporary data source in a young population. The characterisation of the UK Biobank cohort with cerebrovascular disease will form the basis for ongoing research using this data source
Plasma properties and Stokes profiles during the lifetime of a photospheric magnetic bright point
Aims: to investigate the evolution of plasma properties and Stokes parameters
in photospheric magnetic bright points using 3D magneto-hydrodynamical
simulations and radiative diagnostics of solar granulation. Methods: simulated
time-dependent radiation parameters and plasma properties were investigated
throughout the evolution of a bright point. Synthetic Stokes profiles for the
FeI 630.25 nm line were calculated, which allowed the evolution of the Stokes-I
line strength and Stokes-V area and amplitude asymmetries to also be
investigated. Results: our results are consistent with theoretical predictions
and published observations describing convective collapse, and confirm this as
the bright point formation process. Through degradation of the simulated data
to match the spatial resolution of SOT, we show that high spatial resolution is
crucial for the detection of changing spectro-polarimetric signatures
throughout a magnetic bright point's lifetime. We also show that the signature
downflow associated with the convective collapse process is reduced towards
zero as the radiation intensity in the bright point peaks, due to the magnetic
forces present restricting the flow of material in the flux tube.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, accepted to A&
Entanglement without nonlocality
We consider the characterization of entanglement from the perspective of a
Heisenberg formalism. We derive an original two-party generalized separability
criteria, and from this describe a novel physical understanding of
entanglement. We find that entanglement may be considered as fundamentally a
local effect, and therefore as a separable computational resource from
nonlocality. We show how entanglement differs from correlation physically, and
explore the implications of this new conception of entanglement for the notion
of classicality. We find that this understanding of entanglement extends
naturally to multipartite cases.Comment: 9 pages. Expanded introduction and sections on physical entanglement
and localit
Information-flux approach to multiple-spin dynamics
We introduce and formalize the concept of information flux in a many-body
register as the influence that the dynamics of a specific element receive from
any other element of the register. By quantifying the information flux in a
protocol, we can design the most appropriate initial state of the system and,
noticeably, the distribution of coupling strengths among the parts of the
register itself. The intuitive nature of this tool and its flexibility, which
allow for easily manageable numerical approaches when analytic expressions are
not straightforward, are greatly useful in interacting many-body systems such
as quantum spin chains. We illustrate the use of this concept in quantum
cloning and quantum state transfer and we also sketch its extension to
non-unitary dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX
What e-patients want from the doctor-patient relationship: content analysis of posts on discussion boards.
People with long-term conditions are encouraged to take control and ownership of managing their condition. Interactions between health care staff and patients become partnerships with sharing of expertise. This has changed the doctor-patient relationship and the division of roles and responsibilities that traditionally existed, but what each party expects from the other may not always be clear. Information that people with long-term conditions share on Internet discussion boards can provide useful insights into their expectations of health care staff. This paper reports on a small study about the expectations that people with a long-term condition (diabetes) have of their doctors using information gleaned from Internet discussion boards
Improvement of Energy Efficiency for Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment requires the elimination of pathogens and reduction of organic matter in the treated sludge to acceptable levels. One process used to achieve this is Autothermal Thermophylic Aerobic Digestion (ATAD), which relies on promoting non-pathogenic thermophilic bacteria to digest organic matter and kill pathogens through metabolic heat generation. This process requires continuous aeration that may be energy consuming, and the final aim of the study is to identify how the process design can minimize the energy input per mass of treated sludge. Appropriate modeling of the reactor process is an essential ingredient, so we explore properties of an existing model and propose a simplified alternative model
The Four-Day School Week: Impact on Student Academic Performance
Although the four-day school week originated in 1936, it was not widely implemented until 1973 when there was a need to conserve energy and reduce operating costs. This study investigated how achievement tests scores of schools with a four-day school week compared with schools with a traditional five-day school week. The study focused on student performance in Colorado where 62 school districts operated a four-day school week. The results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) were utilized to examine student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics in grades 3 through 10. While the mean test scores for five-day week schools exceeded those of four-day week schools in 11 of the 12 test comparisons, the differences were slight, with only one area revealing a statistically significant difference. This study concludes that decisions to change to the four-day week should be for reasons other than student academic performance
A multipole-Taylor expansion for the potential of gravitational lens MG J0414+0534
We employ a multipole-Taylor expansion to investigate how tightly the
gravitational potential of the quadruple-image lens MG J0414+0534 is
constrained by recent VLBI observations. These observations revealed that each
of the four images of the background radio source contains four distinct
components, thereby providing more numerous and more precise constraints on the
lens potential than were previously available. We expand the two-dimensional
lens potential using multipoles for the angular coordinate and a modified
Taylor series for the radial coordinate. After discussing the physical
significance of each term, we compute models of MG J0414+0534 using only VLBI
positions as constraints. The best-fit model has both interior and exterior
quadrupole moments as well as exterior m=3 and m=4 multipole moments. The
deflector centroid in the models matches the optical galaxy position, and the
quadrupoles are aligned with the optical isophotes. The radial distribution of
mass could not be well constrained. We discuss the implications of these models
for the deflector mass distribution and for the predicted time delays between
lensed components.Comment: 44 pages, 5 figures, 11 tables, accepted for publication in Ap
Ruptures and repairs of group therapy alliance. an untold story in psychotherapy research
Although previous studies investigated the characteristics of therapeutic alliance in group treatments, there is still a dearth of research on group alliance ruptures and repairs. The model by Safran and Muran was originally developed to address therapeutic alliance in individual therapies, and the usefulness of this approach to group intervention needs to be demonstrated. Alliance ruptures are possible at member to therapist, member to member, member to group levels. Moreover, repairs of ruptures in group are quite complex, i.e., because other group members have to process the rupture even if not directly involved. The aim of the current study is to review the empirical research on group alliance, and to examine whether the rupture repair model can be a suitable framework for clinical understanding and research of the complexity of therapeutic alliance in group treatments. We provide clinical vignettes and commentary to illustrate theoretical and research aspects of therapeutic alliance rupture and repair in groups. Our colleague Jeremy Safran made a substantial contribution to research on therapeutic alliance, and the current paper illustrates the enduring legacy of this work and its potential application to the group therapy context
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