22,535 research outputs found
Patients' preferences for the management of non-metastatic prostate cancer: discrete choice experiment
Objective To establish which attributes of conservative treatments for prostate cancer are most important to men. Design Discrete choice experiment. Setting Two London hospitals. Participants 129 men with non-metastatic prostate cancer, mean age 70 years; 69 of 118 (58%) with T stage 1 or 2 cancer at diagnosis. Main outcome measures Men's preferences for, and trade-offs between, the attributes of diarrhoea, hot flushes, ability to maintain an erection, breast swelling or tenderness, physical energy, sex drive, life expectancy, and out of pocket expenses. Results The men's responses to changes in attributes were all statistically significant. When asked to assume a starting life expectancy of five years, the men were willing to make trade-offs between life expectancy and side effects. On average, they were most willing to give up life expectancy to avoid limitations in physical energy (mean three months) and least willing to trade life expectancy to avoid hot flushes (mean 0.6 months to move from a moderate to mild level or from mild to none). Conclusions Men with prostate cancer are willing to participate in a relatively complex exercise that weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of various conservative treatments for their condition. They were willing to trade off some life expectancy to be relieved of the burden of troublesome side effects such as limitations in physical energy
Optimization of a neutrino factory oscillation experiment
We discuss the optimization of a neutrino factory experiment for neutrino
oscillation physics in terms of muon energy, baselines, and oscillation
channels (gold, silver, platinum). In addition, we study the impact and
requirements for detector technology improvements, and we compare the results
to beta beams. We find that the optimized neutrino factory has two baselines,
one at about 3000 to 5000km, the other at about 7500km (``magic'' baseline).
The threshold and energy resolution of the golden channel detector have the
most promising optimization potential. This, in turn, could be used to lower
the muon energy from about 50GeV to about 20GeV. Furthermore, the inclusion of
electron neutrino appearance with charge identification (platinum channel)
could help for large values of \sin^2 2 \theta_{13}. Though tau neutrino
appearance with charge identification (silver channel) helps, in principle, to
resolve degeneracies for intermediate \sin^2 2 \theta_{13}, we find that
alternative strategies may be more feasible in this parameter range. As far as
matter density uncertainties are concerned, we demonstrate that their impact
can be reduced by the combination of different baselines and channels. Finally,
in comparison to beta beams and other alternative technologies, we clearly can
establish a superior performance for a neutrino factory in the case \sin^2 2
\theta_{13} < 0.01.Comment: 51 pages, 25 figures, 6 tables, references corrected, final version
to appear in Phys. Rev.
Effects of interstellar particles upon the interplanetary magnetic field
The flow of interstellar neutral particles into the interplanetary medium and their subsequent ionization in the presence of the electromagnetic field of the solar wind can cause a loss of field angular momentum by the solar wind. One effect of this loss of field angular momentum is a significant unwinding of the spiral field. This effect is evaluated using simple models for neutral density and ion production. For a free-stream interstellar medium with a neutral hydrogen density of 1 per cubic centimeter and a velocity relative to the sun of 10 to 20 km per second, the spiral angle at the orbit of Jupiter will be less than its nominal value of 45 deg at the orbit of the earth
Prospects of accelerator and reactor neutrino oscillation experiments for the coming ten years
We analyze the physics potential of long baseline neutrino oscillation
experiments planned for the coming ten years, where the main focus is the
sensitivity limit to the small mixing angle . The discussed
experiments include the conventional beam experiments MINOS, ICARUS, and OPERA,
which are under construction, the planned superbeam experiments J-PARC to
Super-Kamiokande and NuMI off-axis, as well as new reactor experiments with
near and far detectors, represented by the Double-Chooz project. We perform a
complete numerical simulation including systematics, correlations, and
degeneracies on an equal footing for all experiments using the GLoBES software.
After discussing the improvement of our knowledge on the atmospheric parameters
and by these experiments, we investigate the
potential to determine within the next ten years in detail.
Furthermore, we show that under optimistic assumptions and for
close to the current bound, even the next generation of experiments might
provide some information on the Dirac CP phase and the type of the neutrino
mass hierarchy.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures, Eqs. (1) and (5) corrected, small corrections
in Figs. 8, 9, and Tab. 4, discussion improved, ref. added, version to appear
in PRD, high resolution figures are available at
http://www.sns.ias.edu/~winter/figs0403068.htm
Re-entrant magnetic field induced charge and spin gaps in the coupled dual-chain quasi-one dimensional organic conductor Perylene[Pt(mnt)]
An inductive method is used to follow the magnetic field-dependent
susceptibility of the coupled charge density wave (CDW) and spin-Peierls (SP)
ordered state behavior in the dual chain organic conductor
Perylene[Pt(mnt)]. In addition to the coexisting SP-CDW state phase
below 8 K and 20 T, the measurements show that a second spin-gapped phase
appears above 20 T that coincides with a field-induced insulating phase. The
results support a strong coupling of the CDW and SP order parameters even in
high magnetic fields, and provide new insight into the nature of the magnetic
susceptibility of dual-chain spin and charge systems.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Influence of magnetic impurities on the heat capacity of nuclear spins
It is found that in a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields even a
small concentration of magnetic impurities in a sample leads to a
temperature dependence of the nuclear heat capacity. This effect is related to
a nuclear-spin polarization by the magnetic impurities. The parameter that
controls the theory turns out not to be the impurity concentration
but instead the quantity , where and are
the magnetic moments of an electron and a nucleus, respectively. The ratio of
and is of order of
FUSE Spectra of the Black Hole Binary LMC X-3
Far-ultraviolet spectra of LMC X-3 were taken covering photometric phases
0.47 to 0.74 in the 1.7-day orbital period of the black-hole binary (phase zero
being superior conjunction of the X-ray source). The continuum is faint and
flat, but appears to vary significantly during the observations. Concurrent
RXTE/ASM observations show the system was in its most luminous X-ray state
during the FUSE observations. The FUV spectrum contains strong terrestrial
airglow emission lines, while the only stellar lines clearly present are
emissions from the O VI resonance doublet. Their flux does not change
significantly during the FUSE observations. These lines are modelled as two
asymmetrical profiles, including the local ISM absorptions due to C II and
possibly O VI. Velocity variations of O VI emission are consistent with the
orbital velocity of the black hole and provide a new constraint on its mass.Comment: 12 pages including 1 table, 4 diagrams To appear in A
Intercontinental antenna arraying by symbol stream combining at ICE Giacobini-Zinner encounter
Deep space tracking stations on different continents were arrayed during the encounter of the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft with the comet Giacobini-Zinner during September 9 through 12, 1985. This is the first time that telemetry signals received on different continents have been combined to enhance signal to noise ratio. The arraying was done in non-real time using the method of symbol stream combining. The improvement in signal to noise ratio was typically 2 dB over the stronger of the two stations in each array
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