Seasonal and recurrent intensive care unit admissions for acute severe asthma in children

Life-threatening attacks of asthma requiring intensive care unit (ICU) management at Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital in Cape Town were noted to occur in some patients in the same or adjacent months of different years. A retrospective case-controlled study was performed of 21 such 'seasonal' patients who presented to the ICU over a 14-year period. The group tnade up 6,5% of all asthma patients adtnitted to the ICU and their 65 admissions made up 15,6% of all ICU asthma admissions during this period. The control group consisted of patients with recurrent admissions that occurred in 'random' months. The two groups were compared in respect of demographic and clinical data. Patients requiring seasonal adtnissions were shown to form a distinct sub-population of children with severe asthma, some with a family history of fatal asthma, who were less likely to 'outgrow' asthma in childhood, were Inore likely to require Inaintenance steroid therapy for asthtna management, and significantly more often had positive radioallergosorbent tests to Aspergillus and Cladosporium sp. and to grass pollen. A retrospective analysis of dates of severe asthtna attacks Inay identify individual seasonality, which is a risk factor for life-threatening and intractable asthma

Accumulation of housedust mite (Der-p-1) levels on mattress covers

No Abstract

A covariant approach to general field space metric in multi-field inflation

We present a covariant formalism for general multi-field system which enables us to obtain higher order action of cosmological perturbations easily and systematically. The effects of the field space geometry, described by the Riemann curvature tensor of the field space, are naturally incorporated. We explicitly calculate up to the cubic order action which is necessary to estimate non-Gaussianity and present those geometric terms which have not yet known before.Comment: (v1) 18 pages, 1 figure; (v2) references added, typos corrected, to appear in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics; (v3) typos in (54), (62) and (64) correcte

Quantum measurement problem and cluster separability

A modified Beltrametti-Cassinelli-Lahti model of measurement apparatus that satisfies both the probability reproducibility condition and the objectification requirement is constructed. Only measurements on microsystems are considered. The cluster separability forms a basis for the first working hypothesis: the current version of quantum mechanics leaves open what happens to systems when they change their separation status. New rules that close this gap can therefore be added without disturbing the logic of quantum mechanics. The second working hypothesis is that registration apparatuses for microsystems must contain detectors and that their readings are signals from detectors. This implies that separation status of a microsystem changes during both preparation and registration. A new rule that specifies what happens at these changes and that guarantees the objectification is formulated and discussed. A part of our result has certain similarity with 'collapse of the wave function'.Comment: 31 pages, no figure. Published versio

Two- and Three-Point Functions in the Extended NJL Model

The two-point functions in generalized Nambu--Jona-Lasinio models are calculated to all orders in momenta and quark masses to leading order in $1/N_c$. The use of Ward identities and the heat-kernel expansion allows for a large degree of regularization independence. We also show how this approach works to the same order for three-point functions on the example of the vector-pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar three-point function. The inclusion of the chiral anomaly effects at this level is shown by calculating the pseudoscalar-vector-vector three-point function to the same order. Finally we comment on how (vector-)meson-dominance comes out in the presence of explicit chiral symmetry breaking in both the anomalous and the non-anomalous sectors.Comment: Latex, 42 pages, 3 latex figures, 7 postscript figures included, NORDITA 94/11 N,P. Improvement in the regularization procedure for the PVV three point functio

Lectures on Chiral Disorder in QCD

I explain the concept that light quarks diffuse in the QCD vacuum following the spontaneous breakdown of chiral symmetry. I exploit the striking analogy to disordered electrons in metals, identifying, among others, the universal regime described by random matrix theory, diffusive regime described by chiral perturbation theory and the crossover between these two domains.Comment: Lectures given at the Cargese Summer School, August 6-18, 200

Low--Energy Behavior of Two--Point Functions of Quark Currents

We discuss vector, axial-vector, scalar and pseudoscalar two-point functions at low and intermediate energies. We first review what is known from chiral perturbation theory, as well as from a heat kernel expansion within the context of the extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (ENJL) model of ref. \cite{12}. In this work we derive then these two-point functions to all orders in the momenta and to leading order in $1/N_c$. We find an improved high-energy behaviour and a general way of parametrizing them that shows relations between some of the two-point functions, which are also valid in the presence of gluonic interactions. The similarity between the shape of the experimentally known spectral functions and the ones we derive, is greatly improved with respect to those predicted by the usual constituent quark like models. We also obtain the scalar mass $M_S = 2 M_Q$ independent of the regularization scheme. In the end, we calculate fully an example of a nonleptonic matrix element in the ENJL--model, the $\pi^+-\pi^0$ electromagnetic mass difference and find good agreement with the measured value.Comment: 37 pages + 6 uuencoded figures, CERN TH 6924/93, CPT-93/P.2917, NORDITA 93/43-N,

Tensor meson exchange at low energies

We complete the analysis of meson resonance contributions to chiral low-energy constants of O(p^4) by including all quark-antiquark bound states with orbital angular momentum less or equal to one. Different tensor meson Lagrangians used in previous work are shown to produce the same final results for the low-energy constants once QCD short-distance constraints are properly implemented. We also discuss the possible relevance of axial-vector mesons with odd C-parity.Comment: 20 pages, comparison with previous work updated, typos removed, results unchanged, version to appear in EPJ

Coherent information analysis of quantum channels in simple quantum systems

The coherent information concept is used to analyze a variety of simple quantum systems. Coherent information was calculated for the information decay in a two-level atom in the presence of an external resonant field, for the information exchange between two coupled two-level atoms, and for the information transfer from a two-level atom to another atom and to a photon field. The coherent information is shown to be equal to zero for all full-measurement procedures, but it completely retains its original value for quantum duplication. Transmission of information from one open subsystem to another one in the entire closed system is analyzed to learn quantum information about the forbidden atomic transition via a dipole active transition of the same atom. It is argued that coherent information can be used effectively to quantify the information channels in physical systems where quantum coherence plays an important role.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figs; Final versiob after minor changes, title changed; to be published in Phys. Rev. A, September 200

Two-point function of strangeness-carrying vector-currents in two-loop Chiral Perturbation Theory

We calculate the correlator between two external vector-currents having the quantum-numbers of a charged kaon. We give the renormalized expression to two loops in standard chiral perturbation theory in the isospin limit, which, as a physical result, is finite and scale-independent. Applications include a low energy theorem, valid at two loop order, of a flavor breaking combination of vector current correlators as well as a determination of the phenomenologically relevant finite $O(p^6)$-counterterm combination $Q_V$ by means of inverse moment finite energy sum rules. This determination is less sensitive to isospin-breaking effects than previous attempts.Comment: 24 pages, revtex, 4 figures, 2 tables, revised version, one ref. adde