6,179 research outputs found
Organophosphate induced chronic neurotoxicity: Health, environmental and risk exposure issues in developing nations of the world
Organophosphate insecticides account for about half of all the insecticides used in the world and have found very wide applications in agriculture and in household vector control. Exposures of human populations to a wide variety of organophosphates have generated profound concerns about theirneurotoxic consequences. Among these concerns are their potential impacts on children and exposures to the neurodegenerative diseases associated with advancing age. This paper therefore tends to make a review of the health, environmental and other risk exposure issues of organophosphates especially in Africa and other developing nations of the world where data abound toshow that many agents considered toxic and banned in many parts of the industrialized world are still in use. This paper also makes recommendations on the way out of this menace
Multilayer structural determination of the GaAs(1¯1¯1¯)2×2 reconstruction by automated tensor LEED
The multilayer atomic coordinates for the GaAs(1¯ 1¯ 1¯)(2×2) surface have been determined using automated tensor low-energy electron diffraction. The results confirm the As adatom trimer model found by total-energy calculations and scanning tunneling microscopy studies although details of the displacements are different. The low-energy electron diffraction analysis, being sensitive to multilayer spacings in the surface region, shows that substantial subsurface relaxations are present.published_or_final_versio
Measuring Slepton Masses and Mixings at the LHC
Flavor physics may help us understand theories beyond the standard model. In
the context of supersymmetry, if we can measure the masses and mixings of
sleptons and squarks, we may learn something about supersymmetry and
supersymmetry breaking. Here we consider a hybrid gauge-gravity supersymmetric
model in which the observed masses and mixings of the standard model leptons
are explained by a U(1) x U(1) flavor symmetry. In the supersymmetric sector,
the charged sleptons have reasonably large flavor mixings, and the lightest is
metastable. As a result, supersymmetric events are characterized not by missing
energy, but by heavy metastable charged particles. Many supersymmetric events
are therefore fully reconstructible, and we can reconstruct most of the charged
sleptons by working up the long supersymmetric decay chains. We obtain
promising results for both masses and mixings, and conclude that, given a
favorable model, precise measurements at the LHC may help shed light not only
on new physics, but also on the standard model flavor parameters.Comment: 24 pages; v2: fixed a typo in our computer program that led to some
miscalculated branching ratios, various clarifications and minor
improvements, conclusions unchanged, published versio
Regional difference of the start time of the recent warming in Eastern China: prompted by a 165-year temperature record deduced from tree rings in the Dabie Mountains
Tree-ring studies from tropical to subtropical regions are rarer than that from extratropical regions, which greatly limit our understanding of some critical climate change issues. Based on the tree-ring-width chronology of samples collected from the Dabie Mountains, we reconstructed the April-June mean temperature for this region with an explained variance of 46.8%. Five cold (1861-1869, 1889-1899, 1913-1920, 1936-1942 and 1952-1990) and three warm (1870-1888, 1922-1934 and 2000-2005) periods were identified in the reconstruction. The reconstruction not only agreed well with the instrumental records in and around the study area, but also showed good resemblance to previous temperature reconstructions from nearby regions, indicating its spatial and temporal representativeness of the temperature variation in the central part of eastern China. Although no secular warming trend was found, the warming trend since 1970 was unambiguous in the Dabie Mountains (0.064 A degrees C/year). Further temperature comparison indicated that the start time of the recent warming in eastern China was regional different. It delayed gradually from north to south, starting at least around 1940 AD in the north part, around 1970 AD in the central part and around 1980s in the south part. This work enriches the high-resolution temperature reconstructions in eastern China. We expect that climate warming in the future would promote the radial growth of alpine Pinus taiwanensis in the subtropical areas of China, therefore promote the carbon capture and carbon storage in the Pinus taiwanensis forest. It also helps to clarify the regional characteristic of recent warming in eastern China.</p
Adjusting for multiple prognostic factors in the analysis of randomised trials
Background: When multiple prognostic factors are adjusted for in the analysis of a randomised trial, it is unclear (1) whether it is necessary to account for each of the strata, formed by all combinations of the prognostic factors (stratified analysis), when randomisation has been balanced within each stratum (stratified randomisation), or whether adjusting for the main effects alone will suffice, and (2) the best method of adjustment in terms of type I error rate and power, irrespective of the randomisation method.
Methods: We used simulation to (1) determine if a stratified analysis is necessary after stratified randomisation, and (2) to compare different methods of adjustment in terms of power and type I error rate. We considered the following methods of analysis: adjusting for covariates in a regression model, adjusting for each stratum using either fixed or random effects, and Mantel-Haenszel or a stratified Cox model depending on outcome.
Results: Stratified analysis is required after stratified randomisation to maintain correct type I error rates when (a) there are strong interactions between prognostic factors, and (b) there are approximately equal number of patients in each stratum. However, simulations based on real trial data found that type I error rates were unaffected by the method of analysis (stratified vs unstratified), indicating these conditions were not met in real datasets. Comparison of different analysis methods found that with small sample sizes and a binary or time-to-event outcome, most analysis methods lead to either inflated type I error rates or a reduction in power; the lone exception was a stratified analysis using random effects for strata, which gave nominal type I error rates and adequate power.
Conclusions: It is unlikely that a stratified analysis is necessary after stratified randomisation except in extreme
scenarios. Therefore, the method of analysis (accounting for the strata, or adjusting only for the covariates) will not generally need to depend on the method of randomisation used. Most methods of analysis work well with large
sample sizes, however treating strata as random effects should be the analysis method of choice with binary or
time-to-event outcomes and a small sample size
Does bariatric surgery prior to total hip or knee arthroplasty reduce post-operative complications and improve clinical outcomes for obese patients? Systematic review and meta-analysis.
AIMS: Our aim was to determine whether, based on the current literature, bariatric surgery prior to total hip (THA) or total knee arthroplasty (TKA) reduces the complication rates and improves the outcome following arthroplasty in obese patients. METHODS: A systematic literature search was undertaken of published and unpublished databases on the 5 November 2015. All papers reporting studies comparing obese patients who had undergone bariatric surgery prior to arthroplasty, or not, were included. Each study was assessed using the Downs and Black appraisal tool. A meta-analysis of risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) was performed to determine the incidence of complications including wound infection, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE), revision surgery and mortality. RESULTS: From 156 potential studies, five were considered to be eligible for inclusion in the study. A total of 23 348 patients (657 who had undergone bariatric surgery, 22 691 who had not) were analysed. The evidence-base was moderate in quality. There was no statistically significant difference in outcomes such as superficial wound infection (relative risk (RR) 1.88; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.95 to 0.37), deep wound infection (RR 1.04; 95% CI 0.65 to 1.66), DVT (RR 0.57; 95% CI 0.13 to 2.44), PE (RR 0.51; 95% CI 0.03 to 8.26), revision surgery (RR 1.24; 95% CI 0.75 to 2.05) or mortality (RR 1.25; 95% CI 0.16 to 9.89) between the two groups. CONCLUSION: For most peri-operative outcomes, bariatric surgery prior to THA or TKA does not significantly reduce the complication rates or improve the clinical outcome. This study questions the previous belief that bariatric surgery prior to arthroplasty may improve the clinical outcomes for patients who are obese or morbidly obese. This finding is based on moderate quality evidence. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2016;98-B:1160-6
Controlling Curie temperature in (Ga,Ms)As through location of the Fermi level within the impurity band
The ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As has emerged as the most studied
material for prototype applications in semiconductor spintronics. Because
ferromagnetism in (Ga,Mn)As is hole-mediated, the nature of the hole states has
direct and crucial bearing on its Curie temperature TC. It is vigorously
debated, however, whether holes in (Ga,Mn)As reside in the valence band or in
an impurity band. In this paper we combine results of channeling experiments,
which measure the concentrations both of Mn ions and of holes relevant to the
ferromagnetic order, with magnetization, transport, and magneto-optical data to
address this issue. Taken together, these measurements provide strong evidence
that it is the location of the Fermi level within the impurity band that
determines TC through determining the degree of hole localization. This finding
differs drastically from the often accepted view that TC is controlled by
valence band holes, thus opening new avenues for achieving higher values of TC.Comment: 5 figures, supplementary material include
Room temperature plasmon laser by total internal reflection
Plasmon lasers create and sustain intense and coherent optical fields below
light's diffraction limit with the unique ability to drastically enhance
light-matter interactions bringing fundamentally new capabilities to
bio-sensing, data storage, photolithography and optical communications.
However, these important applications require room temperature operation, which
remains a major hurdle. Here, we report a room temperature semiconductor
plasmon laser with both strong cavity feedback and optical confinement to
1/20th of the wavelength. The strong feedback arises from total internal
reflection of surface plasmons, while the confinement enhances the spontaneous
emission rate by up to 20 times.Comment: 8 Page, 2 Figure
Experimental Quantum Teleportation of a Two-Qubit Composite System
Quantum teleportation, a way to transfer the state of a quantum system from
one location to another, is central to quantum communication and plays an
important role in a number of quantum computation protocols. Previous
experimental demonstrations have been implemented with photonic or ionic
qubits. Very recently long-distance teleportation and open-destination
teleportation have also been realized. Until now, previous experiments have
only been able to teleport single qubits. However, since teleportation of
single qubits is insufficient for a large-scale realization of quantum
communication and computation2-5, teleportation of a composite system
containing two or more qubits has been seen as a long-standing goal in quantum
information science. Here, we present the experimental realization of quantum
teleportation of a two-qubit composite system. In the experiment, we develop
and exploit a six-photon interferometer to teleport an arbitrary polarization
state of two photons. The observed teleportation fidelities for different
initial states are all well beyond the state estimation limit of 0.40 for a
two-qubit system. Not only does our six-photon interferometer provide an
important step towards teleportation of a complex system, it will also enable
future experimental investigations on a number of fundamental quantum
communication and computation protocols such as multi-stage realization of
quantum-relay, fault-tolerant quantum computation, universal quantum
error-correction and one-way quantum computation.Comment: 16pages, 4 figure
Incidence rate trends of histological subtypes of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Hong Kong
The overall decline in incidence rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Hong Kong during 1988–2002 was limited primarily to a decrease in keratinising carcinoma, which could be explained by the decline in cigarette smoking. Genetic and Epstein–Barr virus interactions may explain the relatively stable incidence rate of non-keratinising carcinoma
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