Child and teenager oral health and dental visiting: results from the National Dental Telephone Interview Survey 2010

This publication reports on oral health, dental visiting and dental treatment needs of Australian children as reported in the National Dental Telephone Interview Survey (NDTIS) 2010. Time series data across all NDTISs conducted since 1994 are presented to provide a picture of how key measures have changed over time. Finally, comparisons with international data are presented to provide a picture of how Australian children fare among their international counterparts.Oral healthThe majority of Australian children report good oral health. However, 7% reported that they had experienced toothache and 10% reported that they had avoided certain foods during the previous 12 months. Children from low income households were more likely to report having fair or poor oral health and to have experienced toothache than children from high income households. There was no significant change over time in these measures.Dental visitingAlmost 70% of children made a dental visit in the previous 12 months and the majority (84%) visited for a check-up. Less than a third of pre-school-aged children had ever made a dental visit. Children from the lowest income households were less likely than those from higher income households to have both made a dental visit and to have visited for a check-up. Both of these measures of dental visiting have remained fairly stable over time.Barriers to dental care useAround 13% of children avoided or delayed making a dental visit due to cost. Around 6% did not have a recommended treatment due to cost. Overall, almost 30% of children avoided or delayed seeking care, did not have recommended treatment or their household experienced a large financial burden due to the cost of dental care. Children from low income households were 7 times as likely than those from high income households to avoid or delay due to cost and 6 times as likely to have not had recommended treatment due to cost.International comparisonsComparable data are available for children in Canada and New Zealand. Overall, Australian children were less likely to report that they had fair or poor oral health, and less likely to have made a dental visit in the previous 12 months than their counterparts in New Zealand. Australian teenagers were less likely than their Canadian counterparts to report fair or poor oral health and were more likely to have avoided or delayed making a dental visit due to cost

Non-extensive entropy from incomplete knowledge of Shannon entropy?

In this paper we give an interpretation of Tsallis' nonextensive statistical mechanics based upon the information-theoretic point of view of Luzzi et al. [cond-mat/0306217; cond-mat/0306247; cond-mat/0307325], suggesting Tsallis' entropy to be not a fundamental concept but rather a derived one, stemming from an incomplete knowledge of the system, not taking properly into account its interaction with the environment. This interpretation seems to avoid some problems occurring with the original interpretation of Tsallis statistics.Comment: v.4. 11 pages. Title changed. Content substantially changed: added discussion of several points raised by various referees and readers; Also reference made to work by Luzzi, Vasconcellos, Galvao Ramos. Physica Scripta, to appea

The SCIANTIX code for fission gas behaviour: Status, upgrades, separate-effect validation, and future developments

SCIANTIX is a 0D, open-source code designed to model inert gas behaviour within nuclear fuel at the scale of the grain. The code predominantly employs mechanistic approaches based on kinetic rate-theory models to calculate engineering quantities, such as fission gas release and gaseous fuel swelling. Since its release, SCIANTIX has undergone significant improvements, including the incorporation of new modelling and numerical capabilities. The code architecture has been revamped, embracing an object-orientated structure improving the overall efficiency and usability. This work provides a concise overview of the current state of the SCIANTIX code, highlighting recent updates and advancements. Each SCIANTIX model is presented along with the corresponding separate-effect validation database, which is used to assess its accuracy and predictions

Constraining the evolution of the CMB temperature with SZ measurements from Planck data

The CMB temperature-redshift relation, T_CMB(z)=T_0(1+z), is a key prediction of the standard cosmology, but is violated in many non standard models. Constraining possible deviations to this law is an effective way to test the LambdaCDM paradigm and to search for hints of new physics. We have determined T_CMB(z), with a precision up to 3%, for a subsample (104 clusters) of the Planck SZ cluster catalog, at redshift in the range 0.01-- 0.94, using measurements of the spectrum of the Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect obtained from Planck temperature maps at frequencies from 70 to 353 GHz. The method adopted to provide individual determinations of T_CMB(z) at cluster redshift relies on the use of SZ intensity change, Delta I_SZ(nu), at different frequencies, and on a Monte-Carlo Markov Chain approach. By applying this method to the sample of 104 clusters, we limit possible deviations of the form T_CMB(z)=T_0(1+z)^(1-beta) to be beta= 0.022 +/- 0.018, at 1 sigma uncertainty, consistent with the prediction of the standard model. Combining these measurements with previously published results we get beta=0.016+/-0.012.Comment: submitted to JCAP, 21 pages, 8 figure

Investigation of Lunar Surface Chemical Contamination by LEM Descent Engine and Associated Equipment

Lunar surface and atmospheric contamination study caused by LEM rocket exhaust and inorganic, organic, and microbiological contaminant

Synthesis of the presentation of INSPYRE results to the User Group

INSPYRE created a user group composed of key customers for the project’s results, which included representatives of the designers of the ESNII reactor concepts (ASTRID, MYRRHA, ALFRED, ALLEGRO), as well as of fuel manufacturers and utilities (ORANO, EDF). A first meeting had been organized in August 2018 to present the INSPYRE approach and activities to the users and discuss their needs in the area covered by INSPYRE activities. The synthesis of the meeting is reported in INSPYRE Deliverable D9.4. Three meetings with the user group were then organised throughout the project to present the approach and results of the project to the Users, get their feedback on these results and discuss follow-up activities. - The Second User Group meeting took place on January 17th, 2020 and was dedicated to the developments made in the fuel performance codes considered in the project and their assessment against the selected fast reactor irradiation experiments - The third User Group meeting was held on May 31st, 2021 and was dedicated to the simulation of the fuel elements in normal operating conditions of the ASTRID reactor concept - The final User Group meeting was organised jointly with the second Scientific Advisory Committee meeting on May 24th, 2022 and concerned the overall scientific outcomes of INSPYRE. The present deliverable reports the presentations made during the meetings and the synthesis of the exchanges that followed

Questioning the validity of non-extensive thermodynamics for classical Hamiltonian systems

We examine the non-extensive approach to the statistical mechanics of Hamiltonian systems with $H=T+V$ where $T$ is the classical kinetic energy. Our analysis starts from the basics of the formalism by applying the standard variational method for maximizing the entropy subject to the average energy and normalization constraints. The analytical results show (i) that the non-extensive thermodynamics formalism should be called into question to explain experimental results described by extended exponential distributions exhibiting long tails, i.e. $q$-exponentials with $q>1$, and (ii) that in the thermodynamic limit the theory is only consistent in the range $0\leq q\leq1$ where the distribution has finite support, thus implying that configurations with e.g. energy above some limit have zero probability, which is at variance with the physics of systems in contact with a heat reservoir. We also discuss the ($q$-dependent) thermodynamic temperature and the generalized specific heat.Comment: To appear in EuroPhysics Letter

Method of comparison equations for cosmological perturbations

We apply the method of comparison equations to study cosmological perturbations during inflation, obtaining the full power spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations to first and to second order in the slow-roll parameters. We compare our results with those derived by means of other methods, in particular the Green's function method and the improved WKB approximation, and find agreement for the slow-roll structure. The method of comparison equations, just as the improved WKB approximation, can however be applied to more general situations where the slow-roll approximation fails.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Improved WKB analysis of Slow-Roll Inflation

We extend the WKB method for the computation of cosmological perturbations during inflation beyond leading order and provide the power spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations to second order in the slow-roll parameters. Our method does not require that the slow-roll parameters be constant. Although leading and next-to-leading results in the slow-roll parameters depend on the approximation technique used in the computation, we find that the inflationary theoretical predictions obtained may reach the accuracy required by planned observations. In two technical appendices, we compare our techniques and results with previous findings.Comment: REVTeX 4, 13 pages, no figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.