9,611 research outputs found
Family planning methods among women in a vaginal microbicide feasibility study in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
This study investigated contraceptive use among women in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Of 866 sexually active women not intending pregnancy and screened for a microbicide feasibility study, 466 (54%) reported currently using modern contraceptives: injectables (31%), condoms (12%), sterilization (60%) and pills (4%). Multivariable logistic regression analyses revealed statistically significantly higher odds of current contraceptive use among married vs. engaged/unmarried women (aOR 1.64), multiparous vs. nulliparous (aOR 4.45) and women who completed secondary education or above vs. primary or less (aOR 1.64). Significantly lower odds of use were observed among women aged 40+ vs. age 15-19 (aOR 0.38). Age, marital status, education level and parity were associated with different contraceptive method choices. Among 195 women followed longitudinally for 9 months, contraceptive use increased significantly from 56% to 70%, largely due to increased condom use (15% to 28%). Results highlight the importance of integrating family planning and HIV/STI prevention counseling and informing promotion of further contraceptive uptake among women not intending pregnancy
Heating and Turbulence Driving by Galaxy Motions in Galaxy Clusters
Using three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we investigate heating and
turbulence driving in an intracluster medium (ICM) by orbital motions of
galaxies in a galaxy cluster. We consider Ng member galaxies on isothermal and
isotropic orbits through an ICM typical of rich clusters. An introduction of
the galaxies immediately produces gravitational wakes, providing perturbations
that can potentially grow via resonant interaction with the background gas.
When Ng^{1/2}Mg_11 < 100, where Mg_11 is each galaxy mass in units of 10^{11}
Msun, the perturbations are in the linear regime and the resonant excitation of
gravity waves is efficient to generate kinetic energy in the ICM, resulting in
the velocity dispersion sigma_v ~ 2.2 Ng^{1/2}Mg_11 km/s. When Ng^{1/2}Mg_11 >
100, on the other hand, nonlinear fluctuations of the background ICM destroy
galaxy wakes and thus render resonant excitation weak or absent. In this case,
the kinetic energy saturates at the level corresponding to sigma_v ~ 220 km/s.
The angle-averaged velocity power spectra of turbulence driven in our models
have slopes in the range of -3.7 to -4.3. With the nonlinear saturation of
resonant excitation, none of the cooling models considered are able to halt
cooling catastrophe, suggesting that the galaxy motions alone are unlikely to
solve the cooling flow problem.Comment: 12 pages including 3 figures, To appear in ApJ
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The art of spending and recommendations in personal finance
Happiness is one of the most important aspects of human lives, yet the literature on emotional well-being indicates that people often fail to correctly anticipate the hedonic consequences of future events. As a result, individuals end up being not as happy as they thought they would be. This phenomenon also applies to the domain of personal finance where people make bad decisions about purchases. In this paper, we identified a new opportunity for the research on recommender systems in personal finance and through analysis demonstrated that intelligent recommenders can help to minimize errors in affective forecasts and enhance happiness of people in the domain of consumption. Furthermore, we reviewed problems associated with design of such recommenders and proposed approaches to overcome them.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 655723
A Unified treatment of small and large- scale dynamos in helical turbulence
Helical turbulence is thought to provide the key to the generation of
large-scale magnetic fields. Turbulence also generically leads to rapidly
growing small-scale magnetic fields correlated on the turbulence scales. These
two processes are usually studied separately. We give here a unified treatment
of both processes, in the case of random fields, incorporating also a simple
model non-linear drift. In the process we uncover an interesting plausible
saturated state of the small-scale dynamo and a novel analogy between quantum
mechanical (QM) tunneling and the generation of large scale fields. The steady
state problem of the combined small/large scale dynamo, is mapped to a
zero-energy, QM potential problem; but a potential which, for non-zero mean
helicity, allows tunneling of bound states. A field generated by the
small-scale dynamo, can 'tunnel' to produce large-scale correlations, which in
steady state, correspond to a force-free 'mean' field.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, Physical Review Letters, in pres
Penetration depth of low-coherence enhanced backscattered light in sub-diffusion regime
The mechanisms of photon propagation in random media in the diffusive
multiple scattering regime have been previously studied using diffusion
approximation. However, similar understanding in the low-order (sub-diffusion)
scattering regime is not complete due to difficulties in tracking photons that
undergo very few scatterings events. Recent developments in low-coherence
enhanced backscattering (LEBS) overcome these difficulties and enable probing
photons that travel very short distances and undergo only a few scattering
events. In LEBS, enhanced backscattering is observed under illumination with
spatial coherence length L_sc less than the scattering mean free path l_s. In
order to understand the mechanisms of photon propagation in LEBS in the
subdiffusion regime, it is imperative to develop analytical and numerical
models that describe the statistical properties of photon trajectories. Here we
derive the probability distribution of penetration depth of LEBS photons and
report Monte Carlo numerical simulations to support our analytical results. Our
results demonstrate that, surprisingly, the transport of photons that undergo
low-order scattering events has only weak dependence on the optical properties
of the medium (l_s and anisotropy factor g) and strong dependence on the
spatial coherence length of illumination, L_sc, relative to those in the
diffusion regime. More importantly, these low order scattering photons
typically penetrate less than l_s into the medium due to low spatial coherence
length of illumination and their penetration depth is proportional to the
one-third power of the coherence volume (i.e. [l_s \pi L_sc^2 ]^1/3).Comment: 32 pages(including 7 figures), modified version to appear in Phys.
Rev.
Inflation-Produced Magnetic Fields in R^n F^2 and I F^2 models
We re-analyze the production of seed magnetic fields during Inflation in
(R/m^2)^n F_{\mu \nu}F^{\mu \nu} and I F_{\mu \nu}F^{\mu \nu} models, where n
is a positive integer, R the Ricci scalar, m a mass parameter, and I \propto
\eta^\alpha a power-law function of the conformal time \eta, with \alpha a
positive real number. If m is the electron mass, the produced fields are
uninterestingly small for all n. Taking m as a free parameter we find that, for
n \geq 2, the produced magnetic fields can be sufficiently strong in order to
seed dynamo mechanism and then to explain galactic magnetism. For \alpha
\gtrsim 2, there is always a window in the parameters defining Inflation such
that the generated magnetic fields are astrophysically interesting. Moreover,
if Inflation is (almost) de Sitter and the produced fields almost
scale-invariant (\alpha \simeq 4), their intensity can be strong enough to
directly explain the presence of microgauss galactic magnetic fields.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Minor revisions. References added. Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
Is the Aligning Prism Measured with the Mallett Unit Correlated with Fusional Vergence Reserves?
Background: The Mallett Unit is a clinical test designed to detect the fixation disparity that is most likely to occur in the presence of a decompensated heterophoria. It measures the associated phoria, which is the “aligning prism” needed to nullify the subjective disparity. The technique has gained widespread acceptance within professions such as optometry, for investigating suspected cases of decompensating heterophoria; it is, however, rarely used by orthoptists and ophthalmologists. The aim of this study was to investigate whether fusional vergence reserves, measured routinely by both orthoptists and ophthalmologists to detect heterophoria decompensation, were correlated with aligning prism (associated phoria) in a normal clinical population.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Aligning prism (using the Mallett Unit) and fusional vergence reserves (using a prism bar) were measured in 500 participants (mean 41.63 years; standard deviation 11.86 years) at 40 cm and 6 m. At 40 cm a strong correlation (p<0.001) between base in aligning prism (Exo FD) and positive fusional reserves was found. Of the participants with zero aligning prism 30% had reduced fusional reserves. At 6 m a weak correlation between base out aligning prism (Eso FD) and negative fusional reserves was found to break (p = 0.01) and to recovery (p = 0.048). Of the participants with zero aligning prism 12% reported reduced fusional reserves.
Conclusions/Significance: For near vision testing, the strong inverse correlation between base in aligning prism (Exo FD) and fusional vergence reserves supports the notion that both measures are indicators of decompensation of heterophoria. For distance vision testing and for those patients reporting zero aligning prism further research is required to determine why the relationship appears to be weak/non-existent
Cosmological Magnetic Fields from Primordial Helical Seeds
Most early Universe scenarios predict negligible magnetic fields on
cosmological scales if they are unprocessed during subsequent expansion of the
Universe. We present a new numerical treatment of the evolution of primordial
fields and apply it to weakly helical seeds as they occur in certain early
Universe scenarios. We find that initial helicities not much larger than the
baryon to photon number can lead to fields of about 10^{-13} Gauss with
coherence scales slightly below a kilo-parsec today.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 2 postscript figures include
A novel heavy-fermion state in CaCu_3Ru_4O12
We have measured susceptibility, specific heat, resistivity, and thermopower
of CaCuTiRuO and CaCuMnRuO, and
have found that CaCuRuO can be regarded as a heavy-fermion oxide
in d-electron systems. The Kondo temperature is near 200 K, and the
susceptibility (1.4 emu/Cu mol) and the electron specific heat
coefficient (28 mJ/Cu molK) are moderately enhanced. The resistivity is
proportional to at low temperatures, and satisfies the Kadowaki-Woods
relation. The heavy-fermion state comes from the interaction between the
localized moment of Cu 3d and the conduction electron of Ru 4d. An
insulator-metal transition occurs between and 4 in
CaCuTiRuO, which can be regarded as a transition from
magnetic insulator to heavy-fermion metal.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp
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