Bosonic behavior of entangled fermions

Two bound, entangled fermions form a composite boson, which can be treated as an elementary boson as long as the Pauli principle does not affect the behavior of many such composite bosons. The departure of ideal bosonic behavior is quantified by the normalization ratio of multi-composite-boson states. We derive the two-fermion-states that extremize the normalization ratio for a fixed single-fermion purity P, and establish general tight bounds for this indicator. For very small purities, P<1/N^2, the upper and lower bounds converge, which allows to quantify accurately the departure from perfectly bosonic behavior, for any state of many composite bosons.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted by PR

Obesity as a risk factor for COVID-19 mortality in women and men in the UK Biobank: comparisons with influenza/pneumonia and coronary heart disease

Obesity is associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes, yet, it unclear whether the risk of COVID-19 mortality associated with obesity is similar between the sexes. We used data from the UK Biobank to assess the risk of COVID-19 mortality associated with various anthropometric measures in women and men. To put these results in context, we also compared these estimates with those for mortality from influenza/pneumonia and coronary heart disease (CHD). The analyses included 502,493 individuals (54% women), of whom 410 (36% women) died of COVID-19, 549 (36% women) died of influenza/pneumonia, and 3355 (19% women) died of CHD. A higher BMI, waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist-to-height ratio were each associated with a greater risk of death from COVID-19, influenza/pneumonia, and CHD in both sexes, with the exception of the association between higher BMI and the risk of influenza/pneumonia death in men. A higher BMI was associated with a stronger risk of COVID-19 mortality in women than men; the women-to-men ratio of hazard ratios was 1.20 (95% confidence interval: 1.00; 1.43). This study demonstrates the role of obesity in COVID-19 mortality and shows that the relative effects of a higher BMI on COVID-19 mortality may be stronger in women than men. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The referee's challenge: a threshold process model for decision making in sport games

Judgment and decision making in sporting officials is a challenging task that involves the use of context. Although process models of decision making describe decision contexts, none of the existing models explains when sports officials use rule-driven decision making, or game management. The basic idea of our work is that referees use a subjective threshold to apply game management, which may explain this decision behavior. We propose a new dynamic threshold model that is based on concepts derived from Decision Field Theory (Busemeyer & Townsend, 1993). The model includes two thresholds of game management (high/low) and two contact situations (foul/no foul) as approaching one of these thresholds. Using the example of soccer refereeing, we argue that if the game hits a subjective threshold of aggressive play, then the referee shifts from applying the rules to managing the game. This new approach changes the scientific discussion from one focused on what referees should decide in one situation or the other, to a dynamic model that explains the basic psychological mechanism underlying the referee’s change in behavior during the game, both at the intra-individual as well as inter-individual leve

INJURY INCIDENCE, DISTRIBUTION, AND SEVERITY DURING A MARATHON TRAINING SEASON AND THE IMPLICATIONS

Marathon runners and their coaches are concerned about the potential for injury during an individual season. No published studies of running injuries address this training season as a meaningful entity. This study reports the incidence of injury and the distribution of injuries for runners (n=75) on two established marathon training teams during an individual season. An injury was defined as affecting seven consecutive days or three consecutive workouts. The incidence/risks of overuse injuries, for marathon runners in a single season were found to be: anterior knee pain (20%), iliotibial band syndrome (29%), plantar fasciitis (1%), Achilles tendonitis (9%) shin splints (16%) and stress fractures (4%). This risk, overall injury distribution, severity and length of longest run prior to presentation of injury are of interest to runners, coaches and biomechanists

BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF THE HANDBALL IN AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

The handball pass in Australian Football has become increasingly important in recent years. However, important technical elements of handballing have not been identified in the scientific literature. The purposes of this study were to provide a descriptive analysis of the handball through the evaluation of a player considered to have good technique, to compare handballs for maximal speed and accuracy, and to compare preferred and non-preferred hands. Three-dimensional data were collected from one elite level Australian Football player using Optotrak Certus. The player performed three handballs for maximal speed and three handballs for accuracy with both the preferred and non-preferred hand. Linear hand speed, linear shoulder speed, shoulder angular velocity and elbow angular velocity were larger in the maximal speed condition. Differences in the development of hand speed were found for preferred and non-preferred hands

Associations of inflammatory and hemostatic variables with the risk of recurrent stroke

&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Background and Purpose:&lt;/b&gt; Several prospective studies have shown significant associations between plasma fibrinogen, viscosity, C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrin D-dimer, or tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) antigen and the risk of primary cardiovascular events. Little has been published on the associations of these variables with recurrent stroke. We studied such associations in a nested case-control study derived from the Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Methods:&lt;/b&gt; Nested case-control study of ischemic (n=472) and hemorrhagic (n=83) strokes occurring during a randomized, placebo-controlled multicenter trial of perindopril-based therapy in 6105 patients with a history of stroke or transient ischemic attack. Controls were matched for age, treatment group, sex, region, and most recent qualifying event at entry to the parent trial.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Results:&lt;/b&gt; Fibrinogen and CRP were associated with an increased risk of recurrent ischemic stroke after accounting for the matching variables and adjusting for systolic blood pressure, smoking, peripheral vascular disease, and statin and antiplatelet therapy. The odds ratio for the last compared with the first third of fibrinogen was 1.34 (95% CI, 1.01 to 1.78) and for CRP was 1.39 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.85). After additional adjustment for each other, these 2 odds ratios stayed virtually unchanged. Plasma viscosity, tPA, and D-dimer showed no relationship with recurrent ischemic stroke, although tPA was significant for lacunar and large artery subtypes. Although each of these variables showed a negative relationship with recurrent hemorrhagic stroke, none of these relationships achieved statistical significance.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Conclusions:&lt;/b&gt; Fibrinogen and CRP are risk predictors for ischemic but not hemorrhagic stroke, independent of potential confounders.&lt;/p&gt

Prior events predict cerebrovascular and coronary outcomes in the PROGRESS trial

&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Background and Purpose:&lt;/b&gt; The relationship between baseline and recurrent vascular events may be important in the targeting of secondary prevention strategies. We examined the relationship between initial event and various types of further vascular outcomes and associated effects of blood pressure (BP)–lowering.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Methods:&lt;/b&gt; Subsidiary analyses of the Perindopril Protection Against Recurrent Stroke Study (PROGRESS) trial, a randomized, placebo-controlled trial that established the benefits of BP–lowering in 6105 patients (mean age 64 years, 30% female) with cerebrovascular disease, randomly assigned to either active treatment (perindopril for all, plus indapamide in those with neither an indication for, nor a contraindication to, a diuretic) or placebo(s).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Results:&lt;/b&gt; Stroke subtypes and coronary events were associated with 1.5- to 6.6-fold greater risk of recurrence of the same event (hazard ratios, 1.51 to 6.64; P=0.1 for large artery infarction, P&#60;0.0001 for other events). However, 46% to 92% of further vascular outcomes were not of the same type. Active treatment produced comparable reductions in the risk of vascular outcomes among patients with a broad range of vascular events at entry (relative risk reduction, 25%; P&#60;0.0001 for ischemic stroke; 42%, P=0.0006 for hemorrhagic stroke; 17%, P=0.3 for coronary events; P homogeneity=0.4).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Conclusions:&lt;/b&gt; Patients with previous vascular events are at high risk of recurrences of the same event. However, because they are also at risk of other vascular outcomes, a broad range of secondary prevention strategies is necessary for their treatment. BP–lowering is likely to be one of the most effective and generalizable strategies across a variety of major vascular events including stroke and myocardial infarction.&lt;/p&gt

XRD TEM EELS Studies on Memory Device Structures

Over the past decade, numerous emerging memory technologies are being considered as contenders to displace either or both NAND flash and DRAM as scaling limitations of these conventional memories are perceived for applications in mobile devices. Some of these include Magnetic and Spin Transfer Torque Random Access Memory MRAM, STTRAM , Phase Change RAM PCRAM , Ferroelectric RAM and Resistive RAM memories. These technologies can be classified as relying on one of the movements atomic, ionic, electron charge or spin in nanoscale thin films comprising of a variety of materials. The literature shows about 50 elements of the periodic table being investigated for these memory applications owing to their unique physical and chemical properties. Engineering memory devices requires nanoscale characterizations of film stacks for their chemical compositions and crystalline nature in addition to electronic properties such as resistance, magnetization and polarization depending upon the principle involved. This paper focuses on how x ray diffraction XRD , transmission electron microscopy TEM and electron energy loss spectroscopy EELS techniques have been employed to obtain insight into engineering magnetic tunnel junctions MTJ and PCM device