Epidemiological surveillance of lumbar disc surgery in the general population: a pilot study in a French region.

OBJECTIVES: Disc-related sciatica (DRS) is a significant and costly health problem in the working population. The aim of this pilot study was to assess the feasibility of a surveillance system for DRS using hospital databases for lumbar disc surgery (LDS). METHODS: A total of 272 inpatients (119 men and 153 women) living in a French region and discharged in 2002-2003 from a spine center of a large University Hospital following LDS were compared with demographic and socioeconomic data on the population of the same region. Medical and occupational histories were gathered using a mailed questionnaire. The age-adjusted relative risks and population attributable fraction of risk (PAF) were calculated in relation to occupations and industries. RESULTS: Information on employment was available for the 75 women and 71 men. The risk of LDS varied according to occupations and industries. PAFs ranged between 30% (12-48) for male blue collar workers and 22% (4-40) for female lower white collar workers. PAFs ranged between 7 and 17% in the economic sectors at high risk. CONCLUSION: The surveillance of LDS can identify occupations and industries at risk

Population attributable risk of lumbar disc surgery according to occupation: a study in a French general population

Aims: Disc-related sciatica represents one of the most significant and costly health problems occurring in the working population. The aim of this study was to assess the work-related population attributable fraction (PAF) of lumbar disc surgery (LDS) for disc-related sciatica in occupational categories at high risk in the general population. Methods: Patients living in a French region in 2003 and discharged from a large University Hospital following LDS were compared with demographic and socioeconomic data from the population census. Medical and occupational histories from 75 women and 71 men were gathered using a mailed questionnaire. The ageadjusted relative risks and PAF of CTS were calculated according to occupational categories. Results: The PAFs of lumbar disc surgery was 37% [19-54] for the male blue-collar workers suggesting that about 37% of the cases occurring in this category of workers could be avoided if the excess risk of LDS could be eliminated. The PAF value for male and female lower-grade white collar workers and female intermediate occupations were 18%, 33% and 13%, respectively. Conclusion: The study suggested that 13–37% of LDS for disc-related sciatica might be avoided in the whole population if totally effective intervention programs were implemented in specific occupational categories or industries. However, these preliminary findings must be confirmed by a larger study conducted in the whole region to assess more accurately the proportion of avoidable cases of LDS in the population

Discretized rotation has infinitely many periodic orbits

For a fixed k in (-2,2), the discretized rotation on Z^2 is defined by (x,y)->(y,-[x+ky]). We prove that this dynamics has infinitely many periodic orbits.Comment: Revised after referee reports, and added a quantitative statemen

The ALPS project release 2.0: Open source software for strongly correlated systems

We present release 2.0 of the ALPS (Algorithms and Libraries for Physics Simulations) project, an open source software project to develop libraries and application programs for the simulation of strongly correlated quantum lattice models such as quantum magnets, lattice bosons, and strongly correlated fermion systems. The code development is centered on common XML and HDF5 data formats, libraries to simplify and speed up code development, common evaluation and plotting tools, and simulation programs. The programs enable non-experts to start carrying out serial or parallel numerical simulations by providing basic implementations of the important algorithms for quantum lattice models: classical and quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) using non-local updates, extended ensemble simulations, exact and full diagonalization (ED), the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) both in a static version and a dynamic time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) code, and quantum Monte Carlo solvers for dynamical mean field theory (DMFT). The ALPS libraries provide a powerful framework for programers to develop their own applications, which, for instance, greatly simplify the steps of porting a serial code onto a parallel, distributed memory machine. Major changes in release 2.0 include the use of HDF5 for binary data, evaluation tools in Python, support for the Windows operating system, the use of CMake as build system and binary installation packages for Mac OS X and Windows, and integration with the VisTrails workflow provenance tool. The software is available from our web server at http://alps.comp-phys.org/.Comment: 18 pages + 4 appendices, 7 figures, 12 code examples, 2 table

Metallic, magnetic and molecular nanocontacts

Scanning tunnelling microscopy and break-junction experiments realize metallic and molecular nanocontacts that act as ideal one-dimensional channels between macroscopic electrodes. Emergent nanoscale phenomena typical of these systems encompass structural, mechanical, electronic, transport, and magnetic properties. This Review focuses on the theoretical explanation of some of these properties obtained with the help of first-principles methods. By tracing parallel theoretical and experimental developments from the discovery of nanowire formation and conductance quantization in gold nanowires to recent observations of emergent magnetism and Kondo correlations, we exemplify the main concepts and ingredients needed to bring together ab initio calculations and physical observations. It can be anticipated that diode, sensor, spin-valve and spin-filter functionalities relevant for spintronics and molecular electronics applications will benefit from the physical understanding thus obtained

High mass photon pairs in lepton+ lepton-gamma gamma events at LEP

High mass photon pairs in lepton+ lepton-gamma gamma events at LEP Adriani, O.; Aguilar-Benitez, M.; Ahlen, S.P.; Alcaraz, J.; Aloisio, A.; Alverson, G.; Alviggi, M.G.; Ambrosi, G.; Linde, F.L. Published in: Physics Letters B DOI: 10.1016/0370-2693(92)91576-U Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Adriani, O., Aguilar-Benitez, M., Ahlen, S. P., Alcaraz, J., Aloisio, A., Alverson, G., ... Linde, F. L. (1992). High mass photon pairs in lepton+ lepton-gamma gamma events at LEP. Physics Letters B, 295,[337][338][339][340][341][342][343][344][345][346] https://doi.org/10.1016/0370-2693(92)91576-U General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Download date: 28 Jun 2019 Physics Letters B 295 (1992) From the analysis of the reactions e + e-~ g + g-(n?) (g = e, #, ~) we observe four events, one e+e -~'7 and three #+ ~-??, with the invariant mass of the photon pairs close to 60 GeV. These events were selected from a data sample collected in the L3 detector corresponding to 950000 produced Z°'s. More data are necessary to ascertain the origin of these events

Tilings induced by a class of cubic Rauzy fractals

We study aperiodic and periodic tilings induced by the Rauzy fractal and its subtiles associated with beta-substitutions related to the polynomial x3-ax2-bx-1 for a≥b≥1. In particular, we compute the corresponding boundary graphs, describing the adjacencies in the tilings. These graphs are a valuable tool for more advanced studies of the topological properties of the Rauzy fractals. As an example, we show that the Rauzy fractals are not homeomorphic to a closed disc as soon as a≤2b-4. The methods presented in this paper may be used to obtain similar results for other classes of substitutions.© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved