Electronic State and Magnetic Susceptibility in Orbitally Degenerate (J=5/2) Periodic Anderson Model

Magnetic susceptibility in a heavy fermion systemis composed of the Pauli term (\chi_P) and the Van-Vleck term (\chi_V). The latter comes from the interband excitation, where f-orbital degeneracy is essential. In this work, we study \chi_P and \chi_V in the orbitally degenerate (J=5/2) periodic Anderson model for both the metallic and insulating cases. The effect of the correlation between f-electrons is investigated using the self-consistent second-order perturbation theory. The main results are as follows. (i) Sixfold degenerate model: both \chi_P and \chi_V are enhanced by a factor of 1/z (z is the renormalization constant). (ii) Nondegenerate model: only \chi_P is enhanced by 1/z. Thus, orbital degeneracy is indispensable for enhancement of \chi_V. Moreover, orbital degeneracy reduces the Wilson ratio and stabilizes a nonmagnetic Fermi liquid state.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. (No.8

How well do antivirals shorten genital herpes pain duration?

Q: How well do antivirals shorten genital herpes pain duration? Evidence-based answer: Oral and intravenous (IV) acyclovir each shorten the duration of pain for a first primary outbreak of herpes by about 50%; topical acyclovir shortens it by about 25% (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, small randomized controlled trials [RCTs] with some methodological flaws). Oral valacyclovir and famcyclovir are equivalent to oral acyclovir. Adding topical acyclovir to oral acyclovir doesn't produce additional benefit (SOR: B, RCTs). Patients with severe disease may require IV acyclovir (SOR: C, expert opinion). General treatment measures that may improve patient comfort include keeping lesions clean and dry, avoiding tight clothing, taking analgesics, and using ice packs or taking warm baths (SOR: C, expert opinion). Evidence for using complementary and alternative medicine to treat genital herpes is lacking or conflicting [SOR: C, narrative review of clinical trials]

Josephson Current between Triplet and Singlet Superconductors

The Josephson effect between triplet and singlet superconductors is studied. Josephson current can flow between triplet and singlet superconductors due to the spin-orbit coupling in the spin-triplet superconductor but it is finite only when triplet superconductor has $L_z=-S_z=\pm 1$, where $L_z$ and $S_z$ are the perpendicular components of orbital angular momentum and spin angular momentum of the triplet Cooper pairs, respectively. The recently observed temperature and orientational dependence of the critical current through a Josephson junction between UPt$_3$ and Nb is investigated by considering a non-unitary triplet state.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

The association of types of training and practice settings with doctors’ empathy and patient enablement among patients with chronic illness in Hong Kong

Background: The increase in non-communicable disease (NCD) is becoming a global health problem and there is an increasing need for primary care doctors to look after these patients although whether family doctors are adequately trained and prepared is unknown. Objective: This study aimed to determine if doctors with family medicine (FM) training are associated with enhanced empathy in consultation and enablement for patients with chronic illness as compared to doctors with internal medicine training or without any postgraduate training in different clinic settings. Methods: This was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey using the validated Chinese version of the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) Measure as well as Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) for evaluation of quality and outcome of care. 14 doctors from hospital specialist clinics (7 with family medicine training, and 7 with internal medicine training) and 13 doctors from primary care clinics (7 with family medicine training, and 6 without specialist training) were recruited. In total, they consulted 823 patients with chronic illness. The CARE Measure and PEI scores were compared amongst doctors in these clinics with different training background: family medicine training, internal medicine training and those without specialist training. Generalized estimation equation (GEE) was used to account for cluster effects of patients nested with doctors. <b>Results</b> Within similar clinic settings, FM trained doctors had higher CARE score than doctors with no FM training. In hospital clinics, the difference of the mean CARE score for doctors who had family medicine training (39.2, SD = 7.04) and internal medicine training (35.5, SD = 8.92) was statistically significant after adjusting for consultation time and gender of the patient. In the community care clinics, the mean CARE score for doctors with family medicine training and those without specialist training were 32.1 (SD = 7.95) and 29.2 (SD = 7.43) respectively, but the difference was not found to be significant. For PEI, patients receiving care from doctors in the hospital clinics scored significantly higher than those in the community clinics, but there was no significant difference in PEI between patients receiving care from doctors with different training backgrounds within similar clinic setting. Conclusion: Family medicine training was associated with higher patient perceived empathy for chronic illness patients in the hospital clinics. Patient enablement appeared to be associated with clinic settings but not doctors’ training background. Training in family medicine and a clinic environment that enables more patient doctor time might help in enhancing doctors’ empathy and enablement for chronic illness patients

SafeWeb: A Middleware for Securing Ruby-Based Web Applications

Web applications in many domains such as healthcare and finance must process sensitive data, while complying with legal policies regarding the release of different classes of data to different parties. Currently, software bugs may lead to irreversible disclosure of confidential data in multi-tier web applications. An open challenge is how developers can guarantee these web applications only ever release sensitive data to authorised users without costly, recurring security audits. Our solution is to provide a trusted middleware that acts as a “safety net” to event-based enterprise web applications by preventing harmful data disclosure before it happens. We describe the design and implementation of SafeWeb, a Ruby-based middleware that associates data with security labels and transparently tracks their propagation at different granularities across a multi-tier web architecture with storage and complex event processing. For efficiency, maintainability and ease-of-use, SafeWeb exploits the dynamic features of the Ruby programming language to achieve label propagation and data flow enforcement. We evaluate SafeWeb by reporting our experience of implementing a web-based cancer treatment application and deploying it as part of the UK National Health Service (NHS)

Effect of Impurity Scattering on the Nonlinear Microwave Response in High-Tc Superconductors

We theoretically investigate intermodulation distortion in high-Tc superconductors. We study the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the real and imaginary parts of nonlinear conductivity. The nonlinear conductivity is proportional to the inverse of temperature owing to the dependence of the damping effect on energy, which arises from the phase shift deviating from the unitary limit. It is shown that the final-states interaction makes the real part predominant over the imaginary part. These effects have not been included in previous theories based on the two-fluid model, enabling a consistent explanation for the experiments with the rf and dc fields

An international multi-site, randomized controlled trial of a mindfulness-based psychoeducation group programme for people with schizophrenia

BackgroundWe aimed to test a mindfulness-based psycho-education group (MBPEG), versus conventional psycho-education group (CPEG) versus treatment-as-usual (TAU), in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders over a 24-month follow-up.MethodsThis single-blind, multi-site, pragmatic randomized controlled trial was conducted in six community treatment facilities across three countries (Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan). Patients were randomly allocated to one of the treatment conditions, and underwent six months of treatment. The primary outcomes were changes in duration of rehospitalizations and mental state (PANSS) between baseline and one week, six, 12 and 18 months’ post treatment.ResultsA total of 300 patients in each country were assessed for eligibility between October 2013 and 30 April 2014,38 patients per country (n=342) were assigned to each treatment group and included in the intention-to-treat-analysis. There was a significant difference in the length of re-hospitalizations between the three groups over 24 months F (2,330) =5.23, p=0.005, with MBPEG participants having a shorter mean duration of re-hospitalizations than those in theother groups. The MBPEG and CPEG participants had significant differential changes in proportional ORs of complete remission (all individual PANSS item

Energy Resolved Supercurrent between two superconductors

In this paper I study the energy resolved supercurrent of a junction consisting of a dirty normal metal between two superconductors. I also consider a cross geometry with two additional arms connecting the above mentioned junction with two normal reservoirs at equal and opposite voltages. The dependence of the supercurrent between the two superconductors on the applied voltages is studied.Comment: revtex, 7 pages, 8 figures. accepted by Phys. Rev.

Kinetically driven glassy transition in an exactly solvable toy model with reversible mode coupling mechanism and trivial statics

We propose a toy model with reversible mode coupling mechanism and with trivial Hamiltonian (and hence trivial statics). The model can be analyzed exactly without relying upon uncontrolled approximation such as the factorization approximation employed in the current MCT. We show that the model exhibits a kinetically driven transition from an ergodic phase to nonergodic phase. The nonergodic state is the nonequilibrium stationary solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for the distribution function of the modelComment: 10 pages, 1 figure, contribution to the Proceedings of the Barcelona Workshop 'Glassy Behavior of Kinetically Constrained Models'. To appear in J. Phys. Condens. Matte