Why do old flies die?

International audienc

The Relationship Between Gambling Behavior and Binge Drinking, Hard Drug Use, and Paying for Sex

We examine the relationship between gambling behavior and other vices : hard drug use, binge drinking, and paying for sex. We utilize survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a comprehensive survey of a representative sample of young adults in the US. We analyze survey data on the behavior of 6,145 respondents using linear probability modeling and a comprehensive set of control variables. Our results indicate that individuals who exhibit signs of problem gambling behavior are significantly more likely to use hard drugs, to binge drink, and to pay for sex. These findings, based on data collected on the general public, provide an interesting contribution to the gambling literature

Calm Multi-Baryon Operators

Outstanding problems in nuclear physics require input and guidance from lattice QCD calculations of few baryons systems. However, these calculations suffer from an exponentially bad signal-to-noise problem which has prevented a controlled extrapolation to the physical point. The variational method has been applied very successfully to two-meson systems, allowing for the extraction of the two-meson states very early in Euclidean time through the use of improved single hadron operators. The sheer numerical cost of using the same techniques in two-baryon systems has been prohibitive. We present an alternate strategy which offers some of the same advantages as the variational method while being significantly less numerically expensive. We first use the Matrix Prony method to form an optimal linear combination of single baryon interpolating fields generated from the same source and different sink interpolators. Very early in Euclidean time this linear combination is numerically free of excited state contamination, so we coin it a calm baryon. This calm baryon operator is then used in the construction of the two-baryon correlation functions. To test this method, we perform calculations on the WM/JLab iso-clover gauge configurations at the SU(3) flavor symmetric point with m{\pi} $\sim$ 800 MeV --- the same configurations we have previously used for the calculation of two-nucleon correlation functions. We observe the calm baryon removes the excited state contamination from the two-nucleon correlation function to as early a time as the single-nucleon is improved, provided non-local (displaced nucleon) sources are used. For the local two-nucleon correlation function (where both nucleons are created from the same space-time location) there is still improvement, but there is significant excited state contamination in the region the single calm baryon displays no excited state contamination.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, proceedings for LATTICE 201

Oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy, thrombophilias and risk of venous thromboembolism: a systematic review The Thrombosis: Risk and Economic Assessment of Thrombophilia Screening (TREATS) Study

Combined oral contraceptives,oral hormone replacement therapy and thrombophilias are recognised risk factors for venous thromboembolism in women.The objective of this study was to assess the risk of thromboembolism among women with thrombophilia who are taking oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy, conducting a systematic review and metaanalysis. Of 201 studies identified, only nine met the inclusion criteria. Seven studies included pre-menopausal women on oral contraceptives and two studies included peri-menopausal women on hormone replacement therapy. For oral contraceptive use, significant associations of the risk of venous thromboembolism were found in women with factor V Leiden (OR 15.62; 95%CI 8.66 to 28.15); deficiencies of antithrombin (OR 12.60; 95%CI 1.37 to 115.79), protein C (OR 6.33; 95%CI 1.68 to 23.87), or protein S (OR 4.88; 95%CI 1.39 to 17.10), elevated levels of factor VIIIc (OR 8.80; 95%CI 4.13 to 18.75); and factor V Leiden and prothrombin G20210A (OR 7.85; 95%CI 1.65 to 37.41). For hormone replacement therapy, a significant association was found in women with factor V Leiden (OR 13.16; 95%CI 4.28 to 40.47).Although limited by the small number of studies, the findings of this study support the presence of interaction between thrombophilia and venous thromboembolism among women taking oral contraceptives. However, further studies are required to establish with greater confidence the associations of these, and other, thrombophilias with venous thromboembolism among hormone users

Simulating the weak death of the neutron in a femtoscale universe with near-Exascale computing

The fundamental particle theory called Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) dictates everything about protons and neutrons, from their intrinsic properties to interactions that bind them into atomic nuclei. Quantities that cannot be fully resolved through experiment, such as the neutron lifetime (whose precise value is important for the existence of light-atomic elements that make the sun shine and life possible), may be understood through numerical solutions to QCD. We directly solve QCD using Lattice Gauge Theory and calculate nuclear observables such as neutron lifetime. We have developed an improved algorithm that exponentially decreases the time-to solution and applied it on the new CORAL supercomputers, Sierra and Summit. We use run-time autotuning to distribute GPU resources, achieving 20% performance at low node count. We also developed optimal application mapping through a job manager, which allows CPU and GPU jobs to be interleaved, yielding 15% of peak performance when deployed across large fractions of CORAL.Comment: 2018 Gordon Bell Finalist: 9 pages, 9 figures; v2: fixed 2 typos and appended acknowledgement

On dynamical mass generation in three dimensional supersymmetric U(1) gauge field theory

We investigate and contrast the non-perturbative infra red structure of N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric non-compact U(1) gauge field theory in three space-time dimensions with N matter flavours. We study the Dyson-Schwinger equations in a general gauge using superfield formalism; this ensures that supersymmetry is kept manifest, though leads to spurious infra red divergences which we have to avoid carefully. In the N=1 case the superfield formalism allows us to choose a vertex which satisfies the U(1) Ward identity exactly, and we find the expected critical behaviour in the wavefunction renormalization and strong evidence for the existence of a gauge independent dynamically generated mass, but with no evidence for a critical flavour number. We study the N=2 model by dimensional reduction from four dimensional N=1 electrodynamics, and we refine the old gauge dependence argument that there is no dynamical mass generation. We recognize that the refinement only holds after dimensional reduction.Comment: 32 pages RevTeX; 3 axodraw figures include

Characteristics of patients who die of necrotizing enterocolitis

Objective:Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is associated with high morbidity and mortality among infants admitted for intensive care. The factors associated with mortality and catastrophic presentation remain poorly understood. Our objective was to describe the factors associated with mortality in infants with NEC and to quantify the degree to which catastrophic presentation contributes to mortality in infants with NEC. Catastrophic NEC was defined before data analysis as NEC that led to death within 7 days of diagnosis.Study Design:We performed a retrospective review of the Pediatrix's Clinical Data Warehouse (1997 to 2009, n=560,227) to compare the demographic, therapeutic and outcome characteristics of infants who survived NEC vs those who died. Associations were tested by bivariate and multivariate analysis.Result:We compared the 5594 infants diagnosed with NEC and who were discharged home with 1505 infants diagnosed with NEC who died. In multivariate analysis, the factors associated with death (P<0.01 in analysis) were lower estimated gestational age, lower birth weight, treatment with assisted ventilation on the day of diagnosis of NEC, treatment with vasopressors at the time of diagnosis, and Black race. Patients who received only ampicillin and gentamicin on the day of diagnosis were less likely to die. Two-thirds of NEC deaths occurred quickly (<7 days from diagnosis), with a median time of death of one day from time of diagnosis. Infants who died within 7 days of diagnosis had a higher birth weight, more often were on vasopressors and high frequency ventilation at the time of diagnosis compared with patients who died at 7 or more days. Although mortality decreased with increasing gestational age, the proportion of deaths that occurred within 7 days was relatively consistent (65 to 75% of the patients who died) across all gestational ages.Conclusion:Mortality among infants who have NEC remains high and infants who die of NEC commonly (66%) die quickly. Most of the factors associated with mortality are related to immaturity, low birth weight and severity of illness