109 research outputs found
Cell-type-specific profiling of alternative translation identifies regulated protein isoform variation in the mouse brain
Soliton response to transient trap variations
The response of bright and dark solitons to rapid variations in an expulsive
longitudinal trap is investigated. We concentrate on the effect of transient
changes in the trap frequency in the form of temporal delta kicks and the
hyperbolic cotangent functions. Exact expressions are obtained for the soliton
profiles. This is accomplished using the fact that a suitable linear
Schrodinger stationary state solution in time can be effectively combined with
the solutions of non-linear Schrodinger equation, for obtaining solutions of
the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with time dependent scattering length in a
harmonic trap. Interestingly, there is rapid pulse amplification in certain
scenarios
Irrational prescribing of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines in general practice: testing the feasibility of an educational intervention among physicians in five European countries
Background: Irrational prescribing of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines in general practice is common in Southern Europe. Recent findings from a research project funded by the European Commission (FP7), the “OTC SOCIOMED”, conducted in seven European countries, indicate that physicians in countries in the Mediterranean Europe region prescribe medicines to a higher degree in comparison to physicians in other participating European countries. In light of these findings, a feasibility study has been designed to explore the acceptance of a pilot educational intervention targeting physicians in general practice in various settings in the Mediterranean Europe region.
Methods: This feasibility study utilized an educational intervention was designed using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). It took place in geographically-defined primary care areas in Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta, and Turkey. General Practitioners (GPs) were recruited in each country and randomly assigned into two study groups in each of the participating countries. The intervention included a one-day intensive training programme, a poster presentation, and regular visits of trained professionals to the workplaces of participants. Reminder messages and email messages were, also, sent to participants over a 4-week period. A pre- and post-test evaluation study design with quantitative and qualitative data was employed. The primary outcome of this feasibility pilot intervention was to reduce GPs’ intention to provide medicines following the educational intervention, and its secondary outcomes included a reduction of prescribed medicines following the intervention, as well as an assessment of its practicality and acceptance by the participating GPs.
Results: Median intention scores in the intervention groups were reduced, following the educational intervention, in comparison to the control group. Descriptive analysis of related questions indicated a high overall acceptance and perceived practicality of the intervention programme by GPs, with median scores above 5 on a 7-point Likert scale.
Conclusions: Evidence from this intervention will estimate the parameters required to design a larger study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of such educational interventions. In addition, it could also help inform health policy makers and decision makers regarding the management of behavioural changes in the prescribing patterns of physicians in Mediterranean Europe, particularly in Southern European countries
Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with a Real Spectrum and Their Physical Applications
We present an evaluation of some recent attempts at understanding the role of
pseudo-Hermitian and PT-symmetric Hamiltonians in modeling unitary quantum
systems and elaborate on a particular physical phenomenon whose discovery
originated in the study of complex scattering potentials.Comment: 9 pages, contributed to Homi Bhabha Centenary Conference on
Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians in Quantum Physics (8th International Workshop on
Pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonians in Quantum Physics), held in Mumbai, January
13-16, 200
Theoretically-Efficient and Practical Parallel DBSCAN
The DBSCAN method for spatial clustering has received significant attention
due to its applicability in a variety of data analysis tasks. There are fast
sequential algorithms for DBSCAN in Euclidean space that take work
for two dimensions, sub-quadratic work for three or more dimensions, and can be
computed approximately in linear work for any constant number of dimensions.
However, existing parallel DBSCAN algorithms require quadratic work in the
worst case, making them inefficient for large datasets. This paper bridges the
gap between theory and practice of parallel DBSCAN by presenting new parallel
algorithms for Euclidean exact DBSCAN and approximate DBSCAN that match the
work bounds of their sequential counterparts, and are highly parallel
(polylogarithmic depth). We present implementations of our algorithms along
with optimizations that improve their practical performance. We perform a
comprehensive experimental evaluation of our algorithms on a variety of
datasets and parameter settings. Our experiments on a 36-core machine with
hyper-threading show that we outperform existing parallel DBSCAN
implementations by up to several orders of magnitude, and achieve speedups by
up to 33x over the best sequential algorithms
Genome-wide SNP discovery and QTL mapping for fruit quality traits in inbred backcross lines (IBLs) of solanum pimpinellifolium using genotyping by sequencing
- …