Disordered Type-II Superconductors: A Universal Phase Diagram for Low-Tc_c Systems

A universal phase diagram for weakly pinned low-T$_c$ type-II superconductors is revisited and extended with new proposals. The low-temperature ``Bragg glass'' phase is argued to transform first into a disordered, glassy phase upon heating. This glassy phase, a continuation of the high-field equilibrium vortex glass phase, then melts at higher temperatures into a liquid. This proposal provides an explanation for the anomalies observed in the peak effect regime of 2H-NbSe$_2$ and several other low-T$_c$ materials which is independent of the microscopic mechanisms of superconductivity in these systems.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. Methods: We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defined criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors—the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specific DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI). Findings: Between 1990 and 2015, global exposure to unsafe sanitation, household air pollution, childhood underweight, childhood stunting, and smoking each decreased by more than 25%. Global exposure for several occupational risks, high body-mass index (BMI), and drug use increased by more than 25% over the same period. All risks jointly evaluated in 2015 accounted for 57·8% (95% CI 56·6–58·8) of global deaths and 41·2% (39·8–42·8) of DALYs. In 2015, the ten largest contributors to global DALYs among Level 3 risks were high systolic blood pressure (211·8 million [192·7 million to 231·1 million] global DALYs), smoking (148·6 million [134·2 million to 163·1 million]), high fasting plasma glucose (143·1 million [125·1 million to 163·5 million]), high BMI (120·1 million [83·8 million to 158·4 million]), childhood undernutrition (113·3 million [103·9 million to 123·4 million]), ambient particulate matter (103·1 million [90·8 million to 115·1 million]), high total cholesterol (88·7 million [74·6 million to 105·7 million]), household air pollution (85·6 million [66·7 million to 106·1 million]), alcohol use (85·0 million [77·2 million to 93·0 million]), and diets high in sodium (83·0 million [49·3 million to 127·5 million]). From 1990 to 2015, attributable DALYs declined for micronutrient deficiencies, childhood undernutrition, unsafe sanitation and water, and household air pollution; reductions in risk-deleted DALY rates rather than reductions in exposure drove these declines. Rising exposure contributed to notable increases in attributable DALYs from high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, occupational carcinogens, and drug use. Environmental risks and childhood undernutrition declined steadily with SDI; low physical activity, high BMI, and high fasting plasma glucose increased with SDI. In 119 countries, metabolic risks, such as high BMI and fasting plasma glucose, contributed the most attributable DALYs in 2015. Regionally, smoking still ranked among the leading five risk factors for attributable DALYs in 109 countries; childhood underweight and unsafe sex remained primary drivers of early death and disability in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Interpretation: Declines in some key environmental risks have contributed to declines in critical infectious diseases. Some risks appear to be invariant to SDI. Increasing risks, including high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, drug use, and some occupational exposures, contribute to rising burden from some conditions, but also provide opportunities for intervention. Some highly preventable risks, such as smoking, remain major causes of attributable DALYs, even as exposure is declining. Public policy makers need to pay attention to the risks that are increasingly major contributors to global burden. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Indo‐Fijian fiction: Towards an interpretation

The thesis developed here looks at the relationship between the Indian indenture consciousness, moulded from the experience of some forty years of servitude, and the fictions which are now coming out of Fiji..

Two truths are told: Tagore's Kabir

This article attempts to re-examine the poetry of Kabir by using Tagore's translation as its focal point

The Gothic sublime Theory, practice and interpretation

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D96802 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Rama's banishment: A theoretical footnote to Indo‐Fijian writing

Just over a hundred years ago the first Indian indentured labourers cam to Fiji. 1979, in fact, marked the girmit centenary, reflecting in the adoption of a corrupt form of the word "agreement" an entire Fiji-Indian ethos..

Diagnostic accuracy of MRI knee in reference to arthroscopy in meniscal and anterior cruciate ligament injuries

Objective: Data regarding the diagnostic accuracy of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) are contradictory. The aim of this study was to find the accuracy of MRI knee against arthroscopy, in cases of meniscus and Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest Indian study comparing MRI knee with arthroscopy comprehensively. Subjects and methods: 210 patients with knee injury who underwent both MRI knee and arthroscopy and either investigation showing ACL or meniscal tear were studied. MRI findings were correlated with arthroscopic findings, considering arthroscopy as the gold standard. Results: The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of MRI in reference to arthroscopy for ACL tear was 97.46%, 90.38% and 95.71%, respectively; for Medial Meniscus (MM) tear was 95.69%, 94.87% and 95.23%, respectively; and for Lateral Meniscus (LM) tear was 86.04%, 97.01%, 88.09%, 96.42% and 94.76%, respectively. In ACL tear, mid substance tear was the most common site (66.03%) and discontinuity of ACL fibres was the most common pattern (42.8%). In meniscal tears, posterior horn was the most common site and vertical tears was the most common pattern. Conclusion: MRI is an excellent noninvasive imaging modality which can accurately detect and characterize various ligament tears of the knee joint. Keywords: MRI knee, Arthroscopy, ACL tear, Meniscal tea

A Novel Real Coded Genetic Algorithm for Software Mutation Testing

Information Technology has rapidly developed in recent years and software systems can play a critical role in the symmetry of the technology. Regarding the field of software testing, white-box unit-level testing constitutes the backbone of all other testing techniques, as testing can be entirely implemented by considering the source code of each System Under Test (SUT). In unit-level white-box testing, mutants can be used; these mutants are artificially generated faults seeded in each SUT that behave similarly to the realistic ones. Executing test cases against mutants results in the adequacy (mutation) score of each test case. Efficient Genetic Algorithm (GA)-based methods have been proposed to address different problems in white-box unit testing and, in particular, issues of mutation testing techniques. In this research paper, a new approach, which integrates the path coverage-based testing method with the novel idea of tracing a Fault Detection Matrix (FDM) to achieve maximum mutation coverage, is proposed. The proposed real coded GA for mutation testing is designed to achieve the highest Mutation Score, and it is thus named RGA-MS. The approach is implemented in two phases: path coverage-based test data are initially generated and stored in an optimized test suite. In the next phase, the test suite is executed to kill the mutants present in the SUT. The proposed method aims to achieve the minimum test dataset, having at the same time the highest Mutation Score by removing duplicate test data covering the same mutants. The proposed approach is implemented on the same SUTs as these have been used for path testing. We proved that the RGA-MS approach can cover maximum mutants with a minimum number of test cases. Furthermore, the proposed method can generate a maximum path coverage-based test suite with minimum test data generation compared to other algorithms. In addition, all mutants in the SUT can be covered by less number of test data with no duplicates. Ultimately, the generated optimal test suite is trained to achieve the highest Mutation Score. GA is used to find the maximum mutation coverage as well as to delete the redundant test cases. © 2022 by the authors