175 research outputs found
Superfluid vs Ferromagnetic Behaviour in a Bose Gas of Spin-1/2 Atoms
We study the thermodynamic phases of a gas of spin-1/2 atoms in the
Hartree-Fock approximation. Our main result is that, for repulsive or
weakly-attractive inter-component interaction strength, the superfluid and
ferromagnetic phase transitions occur at the same temperature. For
strongly-attractive inter-component interaction strength, however, the
ferromagnetic phase transition occurs at a higher temperature than the
superfluid phase transition. We also find that the presence of a condensate
acts as an effective magnetic field that polarizes the normal cloud. We finally
comment on the validity of the Hartree-Fock approximation in describing
different phenomena in this system.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Presumptive self-diagnosis of malaria and other febrile illnesses in Sierra Leone
Introduction: The objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of self-diagnosis of malaria and other febrile illnesses in Bo, Sierra Leone. Methods: All households in two neighboring sections of Bo were invited to participate in a cross-sectional survey. Results: A total of 882 households (an 85% participation rate) that were home to 5410 individuals participated in the study. Of the 910 individuals reported to have had what the household considered to be malaria in the past month, only 41% were diagnosed by a healthcare professional or a laboratory test. Of the 1402 individuals reported to have had any type of febrile illness within the past six months, only 34% had sought a clinical or laboratory diagnosis. Self-diagnosis of influenza, yellow fever, typhoid, and pneumonia was also common. Conclusion: Self-diagnosis and presumptive treatment with antimalarial drugs and other antibiotic medications that are readily available without a prescription may compromise health outcomes for febrile adults and children.Key words: Malaria, fevers, self-care, health services accessibility, community pharmacy services, West Afric
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in a quenched ferromagnetic spinor Bose condensate
A central goal in condensed matter and modern atomic physics is the
exploration of many-body quantum phases and the universal characteristics of
quantum phase transitions in so far as they differ from those established for
thermal phase transitions. Compared with condensed-matter systems, atomic gases
are more precisely constructed and also provide the unique opportunity to
explore quantum dynamics far from equilibrium. Here we identify a second-order
quantum phase transition in a gaseous spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, a
quantum fluid in which superfluidity and magnetism, both associated with
symmetry breaking, are simultaneously realized. Rb spinor condensates
were rapidly quenched across this transition to a ferromagnetic state and
probed using in-situ magnetization imaging to observe spontaneous symmetry
breaking through the formation of spin textures, ferromagnetic domains and
domain walls. The observation of topological defects produced by this symmetry
breaking, identified as polar-core spin-vortices containing non-zero spin
current but no net mass current, represents the first phase-sensitive in-situ
detection of vortices in a gaseous superfluid.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Predicting the demand of physician workforce: an international model based on "crowd behaviors"
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Appropriateness of physician workforce greatly influences the quality of healthcare. When facing the crisis of physician shortages, the correction of manpower always takes an extended time period, and both the public and health personnel suffer. To calculate an appropriate number of Physician Density (PD) for a specific country, this study was designed to create a PD prediction model, based on health-related data from many countries.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twelve factors that could possibly impact physicians' demand were chosen, and data of these factors from 130 countries (by reviewing 195) were extracted. Multiple stepwise-linear regression was used to derive the PD prediction model, and a split-sample cross-validation procedure was performed to evaluate the generalizability of the results.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using data from 130 countries, with the consideration of the correlation between variables, and preventing multi-collinearity, seven out of the 12 predictor variables were selected for entry into the stepwise regression procedure. The final model was: PD = (5.014 - 0.128 × proportion under age 15 years + 0.034 × life expectancy)<sup>2</sup>, with R<sup>2 </sup>of 80.4%. Using the prediction equation, 70 countries had PDs with "negative discrepancy", while 58 had PDs with "positive discrepancy".</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provided a regression-based PD model to calculate a "norm" number of PD for a specific country. A large PD discrepancy in a country indicates the needs to examine physician's workloads and their well-being, the effectiveness/efficiency of medical care, the promotion of population health and the team resource management.</p
Extreme genetic fragility of the HIV-1 capsid
Genetic robustness, or fragility, is defined as the ability, or lack thereof, of a biological entity to maintain function in the face of mutations. Viruses that replicate via RNA intermediates exhibit high mutation rates, and robustness should be particularly advantageous to them. The capsid (CA) domain of the HIV-1 Gag protein is under strong pressure to conserve functional roles in viral assembly, maturation, uncoating, and nuclear import. However, CA is also under strong immunological pressure to diversify. Therefore, it would be particularly advantageous for CA to evolve genetic robustness. To measure the genetic robustness of HIV-1 CA, we generated a library of single amino acid substitution mutants, encompassing almost half the residues in CA. Strikingly, we found HIV-1 CA to be the most genetically fragile protein that has been analyzed using such an approach, with 70% of mutations yielding replication-defective viruses. Although CA participates in several steps in HIV-1 replication, analysis of conditionally (temperature sensitive) and constitutively non-viable mutants revealed that the biological basis for its genetic fragility was primarily the need to coordinate the accurate and efficient assembly of mature virions. All mutations that exist in naturally occurring HIV-1 subtype B populations at a frequency >3%, and were also present in the mutant library, had fitness levels that were >40% of WT. However, a substantial fraction of mutations with high fitness did not occur in natural populations, suggesting another form of selection pressure limiting variation in vivo. Additionally, known protective CTL epitopes occurred preferentially in domains of the HIV-1 CA that were even more genetically fragile than HIV-1 CA as a whole. The extreme genetic fragility of HIV-1 CA may be one reason why cell-mediated immune responses to Gag correlate with better prognosis in HIV-1 infection, and suggests that CA is a good target for therapy and vaccination strategies
Способы перевода аббревиатур и сокращений в области компьютерных технологий (на примере русского и немецкого языков)
Выпускная квалификационная работа 75 с., 2 главы, 42 источника.
Предмет исследования: способы перевода аббревиатур и сокращений в области компьютерных технологий с немецкого языка на русский язык.
Объектом исследования: аббревиатуры и сокращения, относящиеся к области компьютерных технологий.
Цель работы: выявить эффективные способы перевода аббревиатур и сокращений в области компьютерных технологий с немецкого языка на русский.
Результаты исследования: были сформулированы особенности перевода аббревиатур и сокращений в области компьютерных технологий
Степень внедрения/апробация работы: Было опубликовано две статьи
Область применения: лингвистика, языкознание, переводоведение.Graduation thesis: 75 pg., 2 chapters, 42 resources.
Subject of research: translation methods of acronyms and reductions in the field of computer technology from German into Russian.
Object of research: Acronyms and reductions in the field of computer technology.
Purpose of research: : to identify the translation methods of acronyms and reductions in the field of computer technology from German into Russian.
Results of research: The features of the translation of acronyms and reductions in the area of computer technology has been revealed.
Degree of implementation /work approbation: two articles were published.
Field of application: Linguistic, theory of translatio
Momentum-Resolved Bragg Spectroscopy in Optical Lattices
Strongly correlated many-body systems show various exciting phenomena in
condensed matter physics such as high-temperature superconductivity and
colossal magnetoresistance. Recently, strongly correlated phases could also be
studied in ultracold quantum gases possessing analogies to solid-state physics,
but moreover exhibiting new systems such as Fermi-Bose mixtures and magnetic
quantum phases with high spin values. Particularly interesting systems here are
quantum gases in optical lattices with fully tunable lattice and atomic
interaction parameters. While in this context several concepts and ideas have
already been studied theoretically and experimentally, there is still great
demand for new detection techniques to explore these complex phases in detail.
Here we report on measurements of a fully momentum-resolved excitation
spectrum of a quantum gas in an optical lattice by means of Bragg spectroscopy.
The bandstructure is measured with high resolution at several lattice depths.
Interaction effects are identified and systematically studied varying density
and excitation fraction.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Chromosomal Inversions between Human and Chimpanzee Lineages Caused by Retrotransposons
The long interspersed element-1 (LINE-1 or L1) and Alu elements are the most abundant mobile elements comprising 21% and 11% of the human genome, respectively. Since the divergence of human and chimpanzee lineages, these elements have vigorously created chromosomal rearrangements causing genomic difference between humans and chimpanzees by either increasing or decreasing the size of genome. Here, we report an exotic mechanism, retrotransposon recombination-mediated inversion (RRMI), that usually does not alter the amount of genomic material present. Through the comparison of the human and chimpanzee draft genome sequences, we identified 252 inversions whose respective inversion junctions can clearly be characterized. Our results suggest that L1 and Alu elements cause chromosomal inversions by either forming a secondary structure or providing a fragile site for double-strand breaks. The detailed analysis of the inversion breakpoints showed that L1 and Alu elements are responsible for at least 44% of the 252 inversion loci between human and chimpanzee lineages, including 49 RRMI loci. Among them, three RRMI loci inverted exonic regions in known genes, which implicates this mechanism in generating the genomic and phenotypic differences between human and chimpanzee lineages. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of mobile element bases inversion breakpoints between human and chimpanzee lineages, and highlights their role in primate genome evolution
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