5,946 research outputs found

    Outcomes and safety of concomitant nevirapine and rifampicin treatment under programme conditions in Malawi.

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    SETTING: Thyolo District Hospital, rural Malawi. OBJECTIVES: To report on 1) clinical, immunological and virological outcomes and 2) safety among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patients with tuberculosis (TB) who received concurrent nevirapine (NVP) and rifampicin (RMP) based treatment. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. METHODS: Analysis of programme data, June-December 2007. RESULTS: Of a total of 156 HIV-infected TB patients who started NVP-based antiretroviral treatment, 136 (87%) completed TB treatment successfully, 16 (10%) died and 5 (4%) were transferred out. Mean body weight and CD4 gain (adults) were respectively 4.4 kg (95%CI 3.3-5.4) and 140 cells/mm(3) (95%CI 117-162). Seventy-four per cent of patients who completed TB treatment and had a viral load performed (n = 74) had undetectable levels (<50 copies/ml), while 17 (22%) had a viral load of 50-1000 copies/ml. Hepatotoxicity was present in 2 (1.3%) patients at baseline. Two patients developed Grade 2 and one developed Grade 3 alanine transaminase enzyme elevations during TB treatment (incidence rate per 10 years of follow-up 4.2, 95%CI 1.4-13.1). There were no reported deaths linked to hepatotoxicity. CONCLUSIONS: In a rural district in Malawi, concomitant NVP and RMP treatment is associated with good TB treatment outcomes and appears safe. Further follow-up of patients would be useful to ascertain the longer-term effects of this concurrent treatment

    Concentration-dependent mobility in organic field-effect transistors probed by infrared spectromicroscopy of the charge density profile

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    We show that infrared imaging of the charge density profile in organic field-effect transistors (FETs) can probe transport characteristics which are difficult to access by conventional contact-based measurements. Specifically, we carry out experiments and modeling of infrared spectromicroscopy of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) FETs in which charge injection is affected by a relatively low resistance of the gate insulators. We conclude that the mobility of P3HT has a power-law density dependence, which is consistent with the activated transport in disorder-induced tails of the density of states.Comment: 3+ pages, 2 figure

    Percolation in living neural networks

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    We study living neural networks by measuring the neurons' response to a global electrical stimulation. Neural connectivity is lowered by reducing the synaptic strength, chemically blocking neurotransmitter receptors. We use a graph-theoretic approach to show that the connectivity undergoes a percolation transition. This occurs as the giant component disintegrates, characterized by a power law with critical exponent β0.65\beta \simeq 0.65 is independent of the balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurons and indicates that the degree distribution is gaussian rather than scale freeComment: PACS numbers: 87.18.Sn, 87.19.La, 64.60.Ak http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/tlusty/papers/PhysRevLett2006.pd

    Four Phases Quality Function Deployment (QFD) by Considering Kano Concept, TIME and Manufacturing Cost

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    Each company must carry out product development to maintain or build sales. Relationship between specifications and parameters of quality products to the wishes of the customer is an important consideration in doing product development. Product development methods QFD (Quality Function Deployment) has been widely applied in industry to maximize customer satisfaction based on quality, cost, time and other, become source of constraints. Quality, time and cost are important factors for a company to maintain existency of the company in the industry. This study will provide customer deployment requirements to consider not only the quality factors are more often a point of view assuming the successful development of a product, but also on the factors of time and cost. Factors to be considered in stages creating new products or improving old products are not only detailed data about the four phases of phasing as product planning, product design, process planning, process control and planning is needed, but also a complete view of the overall technical response . The final integration of the four phases of QFD is influential in producing and marketing the products. Team of product development must plan how to design new products to exploit existing technical response. Matters relating to the quality characteristic and the voice of stakeholders is very relevant and should be well understood and thoroughly. Technical approach to a more detailed response can lead a team of product developers to pay attention to the changes of each phase to obtain the allocation of resources for each of the responses are perfectly

    Surveyor batteries Final engineering report

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    Design and performance of Surveyor spacecraft silver-zinc main batter

    Subharmonic bifurcation cascade of pattern oscillations caused by winding number increasing entrainment

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    Convection structures in binary fluid mixtures are investigated for positive Soret coupling in the driving regime where solutal and thermal contributions to the buoyancy forces compete. Bifurcation properties of stable and unstable stationary square, roll, and crossroll (CR) structures and the oscillatory competition between rolls and squares are determined numerically as a function of fluid parameters. A novel type of subharmonic bifurcation cascade (SC) where the oscillation period grows in integer steps as n(2π)/(ω)n (2\pi)/(\omega) is found and elucidated to be an entrainment process.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

    High count rate {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy with LaBr3:Ce scintillation detectors

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    The applicability of LaBr3:Ce detectors for high count rate {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy is investigated. A 3"x3" LaBr3:Ce detector is used in a test setup with radioactive sources to study the dependence of energy resolution and photo peak efficiency on the overall count rate in the detector. Digitized traces were recorded using a 500 MHz FADC and analysed with digital signal processing methods. In addition to standard techniques a pile-up correction method is applied to the data in order to further improve the high-rate capabilities and to reduce the losses in efficiency due to signal pile-up. It is shown, that {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy can be performed with high resolution at count rates even above 1 MHz and that the performance can be enhanced in the region between 500 kHz and 10 MHz by using pile-up correction techniques
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