The Colombian conflict: a description of a mental health program in the Department of Tolima.

Colombia has been seriously affected by an internal armed conflict for more than 40 years affecting mainly the civilian population, who is forced to displace, suffers kidnapping, extortion, threats and assassinations. Between 2005 and 2008, Médecins Sans Frontières-France provided psychological care and treatment in the region of Tolima, a strategic place in the armed conflict. The mental health program was based on a short-term multi-faceted treatment developed according to the psychological and psychosomatic needs of the population. Here we describe the population attending during 2005-2008, in both urban and rural settings, as well as the psychological treatment provided during this period and its outcomes.We observed differences between the urban and rural settings in the traumatic events reported, the clinical expression of the disorders, the disorders diagnosed, and their severity. Although the duration of the treatment was limited due to security reasons and access difficulties, patient condition at last visit improved in most of the patients. These descriptive results suggest that further studies should be conducted to examine the role of short-term psychotherapy, adapted specifically to the context, can be a useful tool to provide psychological care to population affected by an armed conflict

Synergistic Gravity and the Role of Resonances in GRS-Inspired Braneworlds

We consider 5D braneworld models of quasi-localized gravity in which 4D gravity is reproduced at intermediate scales while the extra dimension opens up at both the very short and the very long distances, where the geometry is flat. Our main interest is the interplay between the zero mode of these models, whenever a normalizable zero mode exists, and the effects of zero energy graviton resonant modes coming from the contributions of massive KK modes. We first consider a compactified version of the GRS model and find that quasi-localized gravity is characterized by a scale for which both the resonance and the zero mode have significant contribution to 4D gravity. Above this scale, gravity is primarily mediated by the zero mode, while the resonance gives only minor corrections. Next, we consider an asymmetric version of the standard non-compact GRS model, characterized by different cosmological constants on each AdS side. We show that a resonance is present but the asymmetry, through the form of the localizing potential, can weaken it, resulting in a shorter lifetime and, thus, in a shorter distance scale for 4D gravity. As a third model exhibiting quasi-localization, we consider a version of the GRS model in which the central positive tension brane has been replaced by a configuration of a scalar field propagating in the bulk.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, added 1 figure, revised version as published in Class. Quant. Gra

A short review of "DGP Specteroscopy"

In this paper we provide a short review of the main results developed in hep-th/0604086. We focus on linearised vacuum perturbations about the self-accelerating branch of solutions in the DGP model. These are shown to contain a ghost in the spectrum for any value of the brane tension. We also comment on hep-th/0607099, where some counter arguments have been presented.Comment: Minor typos correcte

Stealth Acceleration and Modified Gravity

We show how to construct consistent braneworld models which exhibit late time acceleration. Unlike self-acceleration, which has a de Sitter vacuum state, our models have the standard Minkowski vacuum and accelerate only in the presence of matter, which we dub ``stealth-acceleration''. We use an effective action for the brane which includes an induced gravity term, and allow for an asymmetric set-up. We study the linear stability of flat brane vacua and find the regions of parameter space where the set-up is stable. The 4-dimensional graviton is only quasi-localised in this set-up and as a result gravity is modified at late times. One of the two regions is strongly coupled and the scalar mode is eaten up by an extra symmetry that arises in this limit. Having filtered the well-defined theories we then focus on their cosmology. When the graviton is quasi-localised we find two main examples of acceleration. In each case, we provide an illustrative model and compare it to LambdaCDM.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure

Cosmic acceleration from asymmetric branes

We consider a single 3-brane sitting in between two different five dimensional spacetimes. On each side of the brane, the bulk is a solution to Gauss-Bonnet gravity, although the bare cosmological constant, funda mental Planck scale, and Gauss-Bonnet coupling can differ. This asymmetry leads to weighted junction conditions across the brane and interesting brane cosmology. We focus on two special cases: a generalized Randall-Sundrum model without any Gauss-Bonnet terms, and a stringy model, without any bare cosmological constants, and positive Gauss-Bonnet coupling. Even though we assume there is no vacuum energy on the brane, we find late time de Sitter cosmologies can occur. Remarkably, in certain parameter regions, this acceleration is preceded by a period of matter/radiation domination, with $H^2 \propto \rho$, all the way back to nucleosynthesis.Comment: Version appearing in CQ

Gauss-Bonnet brane-world cosmology without Z2Z_{2}-symmetry

We consider a single 3-brane situated between two bulk spacetimes that posses the same cosmological constant, but whose metrics do not posses a $Z_{2}$-symmetry. On each side of the brane, the bulk is a solution to Gauss-Bonnet gravity. This asymmetry modifies junction conditions, and so new terms arise in the Friedmann equation. If these terms become dominant, these behave cosmological constant at early times for some case, and might remove the initial singularity for other case. However, we show that these new terms can not become dominant ones under usual conditions when our brane is outside an event horizon. We also show that any brane-world scenarios of this type revert to a $Z_{2}$-symmetric form at late times, and hence rule out certain proposed scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; Minor typos corrected. References added. V3: Numerical errors are corrected. Fig.1 and Fig.3 are replaced. V4: published versio

Lifetimes of states in 19Ne above the 15 O + alpha breakup threshold

The 15O(alpha,gamma)19Ne reaction plays a role in the ignition of Type I x-ray bursts on accreting neutron stars. The lifetimes of states in 19Ne above the 15O + alpha threshold of 3.53 MeV are important inputs to calculations of the astrophysical reaction rate. These levels in 19Ne were populated in the 3He(20Ne,alpha)19Ne reaction at a 20Ne beam energy of 34 MeV. The lifetimes of six states above the threshold were measured with the Doppler shift attenuation method (DSAM). The present measurements agree with previous determinations of the lifetimes of these states and in some cases are considerably more precise

Braneworld holography in Gauss-Bonnet gravity

We investigate holography on an (n-1)-dimensional brane embedded in a background of AdS black holes, in n-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We demonstrate that for a critical brane near the AdS boundary, the Friedmann equation corresponds to that of the standard cosmology driven by a CFT dual to the AdS bulk. We show that there is no holographic description for non-critical branes, or when the brane is further away from the AdS boundary. We then derive a Cardy-Verlinde formula for the dual CFT on the critical brane near the boundary. This gives us insight into the remarkable correspondence between Cardy-Verlinde formulae and Friedmann equations in Einstein gravity.Comment: 24 pages, no figures; references added, minor changes, version to appear in CQ

Research priorities of women at risk for preterm birth: findings and a call to action.

BACKGROUND:Traditional hierarchical approaches to research give privilege to small groups with decision-making power, without direct input from those with lived experience of illness who bear the burden of disease. A Research Justice framework values the expertise of patients and communities as well as their power in creating knowledge and in decisions about what research is conducted. Preterm birth has persisted at epidemic levels in the United States for decades and disproportionately affects women of color, especially Black women. Women of color have not been included in setting the agenda regarding preterm birth research. METHODS:We used the Research Priorities of Affected Communities protocol to elicit and prioritize potential research questions and topics directly from women of color living in three communities that experience disproportionately high rates of preterm birth. Women participated in two focus group sessions, first describing their healthcare experiences and generating lists of uncertainties about their health and/or healthcare during pregnancy. Women then participated in consensus activities to achieve 'top-priority' research questions and topic lists. The priority research questions and topics produced by each group were examined within and across the three regions for similarities and differences. RESULTS:Fifty-four women participated in seven groups (14 sessions) and generated 375 researchable questions, clustered within 22 topics and four overarching themes: Maternal Health and Care Before, During, and After Pregnancy; Newborn Health and Care of the Preterm Baby; Understanding Stress and Interventions to Prevent or Reduce Stress; and Interpersonal and Structural Health Inequities. The questions and topics represent a wide range of research domains, from basic science, translational, clinical, health and social care delivery to policy and economic research. There were many similarities and some unique differences in the questions, topics and priorities across the regions. CONCLUSIONS:These findings can be used to design and fund research addressing unanswered questions that matter most to women at high risk for preterm birth. Investigators and funders are strongly encouraged to incorporate women at the front lines of the preterm birth epidemic in research design and funding decisions, and more broadly, to advance methods to deepen healthcare research partnerships with affected communities

Effects of mergers and galaxy interactions at intermediate densities in the SDSS-DR4

Recently, several observational works have provided evidence in favor of a pre-processing of galaxies at moderate environments. These evidences show that the transition of galaxies onto the red-sequence could take place in galaxy groups in the outskirt of clusters or in the infalling populations. Based on the evidence that interacting and merging systems are priviledged found at intermediate densities, we use the SDSSDR4 data to analyse the role of mergers and close galaxy interactions as environmental processes to lead to evolutionary transformations. We explore the properties of galaxy pairs and merging systems at different local and global density environments, comparing them with those of isolated galaxies in an unbiased control sample.Recientemente varios autores han aportado evidencia observacional que sugerir´ıa que las galaxias son pre-procesadas en regiones de densidad intermedia, produciendo una gran transformacion en las mismas. Estos resultados observacionales muestran que la transicion de las galaxias hacia la secuencia roja se producir´ıa en regiones perifericas de los cumulos de galaxias. Por otra parte, existe evidencia tanto teorica como observacional que indicar´ıa que las interacciones y fusiones de galaxias son particularmente frecuentes en estas regiones. En este trabajo analizamos el rol de las interacciones y colisiones de galaxias en regiones de densidad intermedia, utilizando para tal efecto galaxias del cat´alogo SDSS-DR4.Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y GeofísicasConsejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica