Are Albumin levels a good predictor of mortality in elderly patients with neck of femur fractures?

Neck of femur fractures are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. The National Hip Fracture database in England suggest an 8.2% 30 day mortality. Suggested mortality predictors include: The Nottingham Hip Score, POSSUM score, Lactate, End Tidal CO2, Total Lymphocyte Count and Albumin. Predictors of short-term mortality may be a useful healthcare tool in these patients. Hypoalbuminaemia is determined as a level less than 35g/dl. No classification for degree of hypoalbuminaemia exists. It’s clinical significance are associated with liver/renal failure, chronic illness and poor nutritional states. We wanted to assess whether there is an association between hypoalbuminaemia and patient survival, if the severity affected outcomes and whether highlighting those patients with hypoalbuminaemia would be a useful prognostic tool

Chemical Exposure Assessment Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory: A risk based approach

The University of California Contract And DOE Order 5480.10 require that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) perform health hazard assessments/inventories of all employee workplaces. In response to this LANL has developed the Chemical Exposure Assessment Program. This program provides a systematic risk-based approach to anticipation, recognition, evaluation and control of chemical workplace exposures. Program implementation focuses resources on exposures with the highest risks for causing adverse health effects. Implementation guidance includes procedures for basic characterization, qualitative risk assessment, quantitative validation, and recommendations and reevaluation. Each component of the program is described. It is shown how a systematic method of assessment improves documentation, retrieval, and use of generated exposure information

Basic and ultrabasic volcanic rocks from the Argyll Group (Dalradian) of NE Scotland

The Dalradian Supergroup of the Scottish Highlands is a largely metasedimentary succession of Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian age, metamorphosed during the Caledonian Orogeny. The rocks were deposited on the Laurentian margin during and following the break-up of Rodinia. This rift setting is evidenced, in the upper half of the succession, by the presence of several volcanic sequences. A significant development of these volcanic rocks occurs in the NE Grampian Highlands. There, the Blackwater Formation, within the Argyll Group of the Huntly area, is dominated by basic and ultrabasic metavolcanic rocks, with intercalated metasedimentary rocks. The rocks were metamorphosed in the amphibolite facies, with the Mg contents of their dominant amphiboles apparently reflecting those of the whole-rock protoliths. The protoliths ranged from ultrabasic picritic types (MgO up to 35 wt%) through high-magnesia basalts to basaltic andesites and andesites. The magmas feeding the volcanism were of tholeiitic affinity, broadly similar to metavolcanic rocks elsewhere in the Dalradian. Higher-Nb and lower-Nb groups can be distinguished. The inferred parental magmas were basalts with MgO c. 10 wt%. The ultrabasic rocks formed by accumulation of olivine and minor Cr-spinel within the parental basalts. Some more evolved rocks show evidence of minor (5–10 wt%) accumulation of Fe–Ti oxides. Primary magmas of the Blackwater metavolcanic rocks were generated from a mantle source, or sources, relatively enriched compared to the MORB source. It is speculated that all the Dalradian metavolcanic rocks represent varying degrees of mixing of magmas from this source and a depleted, MORB-like, mantle source

Search for Fragmented M1 Strength in 48-Ca

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Search for Fragmented M1 Strength in the 48-Ca(p,p') Reaction

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Examining Periodic Solar Wind Density Structures Observed in the SECCHI Heliospheric Imagers

We present an analysis of small-scale, periodic, solar-wind density enhancements (length-scales as small as \approx 1000 Mm) observed in images from the Heliospheric Imager (HI) aboard STEREO A. We discuss their possible relationship to periodic fluctuations of the proton density that have been identified at 1 AU using in-situ plasma measurements. Specifically, Viall, Kepko, and Spence (2008) examined 11 years of in-situ solar-wind density measurements at 1 AU and demonstrated that not only turbulent structures, but also non-turbulent periodic density structures exist in the solar wind with scale sizes of hundreds to one thousand Mm. In a subsequent paper, Viall, Spence, and Kasper (2009) analyzed the {\alpha} to proton solar-wind abundance ratio measured during one such event of periodic density structures, demonstrating that the plasma behavior was highly suggestive that either temporally or spatially varying coronal source plasma created those density structures. Large periodic density structures observed at 1 AU, which were generated in the corona, can be observable in coronal and heliospheric white-light images if they possess sufficiently high density contrast. Indeed, we identify such periodic density structures as they enter the HI field of view and follow them as they advect with the solar wind through the images. The smaller periodic density structures that we identify in the images are comparable in size to the larger structures analyzed in-situ at 1 AU, yielding further evidence that periodic density enhancements are a consequence of coronal activity as the solar wind is formed.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures. The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Energy Dependence of the NN t-matrix in the Optical Potential for Elastic Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering

The influence of the energy dependence of the free NN t-matrix on the optical potential of nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering is investigated within the context of a full-folding model based on the impulse approximation. The treatment of the pole structure of the NN t-matrix, which has to be taken into account when integrating to negative energies is described in detail. We calculate proton-nucleus elastic scattering observables for $^{16}$O, $^{40}$Ca, and $^{208}$Pb between 65 and 200 MeV laboratory energy and study the effect of the energy dependence of the NN t-matrix. We compare this result with experiment and with calculations where the center-of-mass energy of the NN t-matrix is fixed at half the projectile energy. It is found that around 200 MeV the fixed energy approximation is a very good representation of the full calculation, however deviations occur when going to lower energies (65 MeV).Comment: 11 pages (revtex), 6 postscript figure

Resistance distance, information centrality, node vulnerability and vibrations in complex networks

We discuss three seemingly unrelated quantities that have been introduced in different fields of science for complex networks. The three quantities are the resistance distance, the information centrality and the node displacement. We first prove various relations among them. Then we focus on the node displacement, showing its usefulness as an index of node vulnerability.We argue that the node displacement has a better resolution as a measure of node vulnerability than the degree and the information centrality

Four-point correlator constraints on electromagnetic chiral parameters and resonance effective Lagrangians

We pursue the analysis of a set of generalized DGMLY sum rules for the electromagnetic chiral parameters at order $e^2p^2$ and discuss implications for effective Lagrangians with resonances. We exploit a formalism in which charge spurions are introduced and treated as sources. We show that no inconsistency arises from anomalies up to quadratic order in the spurions. We focus on the sum rules associated with QCD 4-point correlators which were not analyzed in detail before. Convergence properties of the sum rules are deduced from a general analysis of the form of the counterterms in the presence of electromagnetic spurions. Following the approach in which vector and axial-vector resonances are described with antisymmetric tensor fields and have a chiral order, we show that the convergence constraints are violated at chiral order four and can be satisfied by introducing a set of terms of order six. The relevant couplings get completely and uniquely determined from a set of generalized Weinberg sum-rule relations. An update on the corrections to Dashen's low-energy theorem is given.Comment: 42 pages, 1 figure. v2: references adde