Health-care providers' perceptions, attitudes towards and recommendation practice of cervical cancer screening

In Libya, cervical cancer is ranked third as the most frequent cancer among women with early diagnosis being shown to reduce morbidity and mortality. Health-care providers can influence women's screening behaviours, and their lack of recommendations for screening can be one of the barriers that affect women's participation in screening programmes. This study aims to assess the health-care provider's perception around cervical cancer screening. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 16 health-care providers, from both public and private sectors in Az-Zawiya city, Libya, between February and July of 2014. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analysed using thematic analysis. Our findings suggest that health-care providers did not provide sufficient information regarding cervical cancer screening for women who attend health-care facilities. The results highlight the role played by health-care professionals in motivating women to attend cervical cancer screening programs, and the need for health education of health-care providers to offer a precious advice regarding the screening. On the other hand, health-care providers highlighted that implementation of reminding system of cervical cancer screening will support them to improve screening attendance. In addition, health-care providers stressed the necessity for educational and awareness campaigns of cervical cancer screening among Libyan women

Research on parameters optimization of bilateral ring gear blank-holder in thick-plate fine blanking

To compensate for the poor quality of thick-plate blanking parts in cross-section, this paper suggests using the optimizing bilateral ring gear holder parameters to increase burnish zone and improve cutting precision. With the bilateral gear ring, the hydrostatic pressure of shear deformation zone will increase, plasticity of the material will be lifted to maximum and quality of the cross section will be raised. This paper establishes 8mm AISI-1020 fine blanking model by DEFORM2D, analysis different ring gear parameters and clearance that are influenced the stress-strain and cross section quality to predict forming defects. By using the bilateral gear ring blank holder, the poor quality of thick-plate blanking section is successfully enhanced. Therefore, the bilateral gear ring blank holder is vital to improve the quality of blanking parts and provide the reliable theory basis for the practical engineering application

The State of Self-Organized Criticality of the Sun During the Last 3 Solar Cycles. I. Observations

We analyze the occurrence frequency distributions of peak fluxes $P$, total fluxes $E$, and durations $T$ of solar flares over the last three solar cycles (during 1980--2010) from hard X-ray data of HXRBS/SMM, BATSE/CGRO, and RHESSI. From the synthesized data we find powerlaw slopes with mean values of $\alpha_P=1.72\pm0.08$ for the peak flux, $\alpha_E=1.60\pm0.14$ for the total flux, and $\alpha_T=1.98\pm0.35$ for flare durations. We find a systematic anti-correlation of the powerlaw slope of peak fluxes as a function of the solar cycle, varying with an approximate sinusoidal variation $\alpha_P(t)=\alpha_0+\Delta \alpha \cos{[2\pi (t-t_0)/T_{cycle}]}$, with a mean of $\alpha_0=1.73$, a variation of $\Delta \alpha =0.14$, a solar cycle period $T_{cycle}=12.6$ yrs, and a cycle minimum time $t_0=1984.1$. The powerlaw slope is flattest during the maximum of a solar cycle, which indicates a higher magnetic complexity of the solar corona that leads to an overproportional rate of powerful flares.Comment: subm. to Solar Physic

The remodelling index risk stratifies patients with hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy

Aims Hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is associated with increased cardiovascular events. We previously developed the remodelling index (RI) that incorporated left ventricular (LV) volume and wall-thickness in a single measure of advanced hypertrophy in hypertensive patients. This study examined the prognostic potential of the RI in reference to contemporary LVH classifications.Methods and results Cardiovascular magnetic resonance was performed in 400 asymptomatic hypertensive patients. The newly derived RI ((3)root EDV/t, where EDV is LV end-diastolic volume and t is the maximal wall thickness across 16 myocardial segments) stratified hypertensive patients: no LVH, LVH with normal RI (LVHNormal-RI), and LVH with low RI (LVHLow-RI). The primary outcome was a composite of all-cause mortality, acute coronary syndromes, strokes, and decompensated heart failure. LVHLow-RI was associated with increased LV mass index, fibrosis burden, impaired myocardial function and elevated biochemical markers of myocardial injury (high-sensitive cardiac troponin I), and wall stress. Over 18.3 +/- 7.0 months (601.3 patient-years), 14 adverse events occurred (2.2 events/100 patient-years). Patients with LVHLow-RI had more than a five-fold increase in adverse events compared to those with LVHNormal-RI (11.6 events/100 patient-years vs. 2.0 events/100 patient-years, respectively; log-rank P < 0.001). The RI provided incremental prognostic value over and above a model consisting of clinical variables, LVH and concentricity; and predicted adverse events independent of clinical variables, LVH, and other prognostic markers. Concentric and eccentric LVH were associated with adverse prognosis (log-rank P = 0.62) that was similar to the natural history of hypertensive LVH (5.1 events/100 patient-years).Conclusion The RI provides prognostic value that improves risk stratification of hypertensive LVH.Cardiolog

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Reducing heterotic M-theory to five dimensional supergravity on a manifold with boundary

This paper constructs the reduction of heterotic $M$-theory in eleven dimensions to a supergravity model on a manifold with boundary in five dimensions using a Calabi-Yau three-fold. New results are presented for the boundary terms in the action and for the boundary conditions on the bulk fields. Some general features of dualisation on a manifold with boundary are used to explain the origin of some topological terms in the action. The effect of gaugino condensation on the fermion boundary conditions leads to a `twist' in the chirality of the gravitino which can provide an uplifting mechanism in the vacuum energy to cancel the cosmological constant after moduli stabilisation.Comment: 16 pages, RevTe

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters