The DIRAC experiment at CERN

The DIRAC experiment at CERN aims to measure the lifetime of the pionium atom ($A_{2\pi}$), a $\pi^+\pi^-$ bound state with an accuracy of 10%. The experimental setup consists of a high precision magnetic double arm spectrometer, located at the high intensity proton beam of the CERN Proton Synchrotron. This measurement will provide - in a model independent way - the S-wave pion scattering length difference $|a_0 - a_2|$ with 5% precision.Comment: Talk presented at the XXXVIIIth Rencontres de Moriond session devoted to QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions. We give a status report of the DIRAC experiment and present new analysis result

Cattle producers' participation in market channels in Central America: supermarkets, processors, and auctions.

This paper focuses on the determinants and effects of the participation of cattle producers in the supermarket channel, export processor channel, and traditional auction channel. It begins with the analysis of the market channels using qualitative data from 50 interviews of retailers, processors, auction market managers, and other key informants in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, two widely differing cases. It then analyzes patterns and supplies of producers by channel using farm level data (from the authors’ survey of farmers in 2004) from 300 farms in the two countries

Serum procalcitonin for discrimination of blood contamination from bloodstream infection due to coagulase-negative staphylococci

The diagnostic value of serum procalcitonin (PCT) to distinguish blood contamination from bloodstream infection (BSI) due to coagulase-negative staphylococci was evaluated. Patients with BSI had higher PCT concentration than those with blood contamination at day -1, day 0 and day +1 with regard to blood culture collection (p > 0.05), whereas serum C-reactive protein values were significantly higher only on day +1. At a cutoff of 0.1 ng/dl, PCT had a sensitivity of 86% and 100%, and a specificity of 60% and 80% for the diagnosis of BSI on day -1 and 0, respectively. In addition to clinical and microbiological parameters, PCT may help discriminating blood contamination from BSI due coagulase-negative staphylococci

Serum Procalcitonin for Discrimination of Blood Contamination from Bloodstream Infection due to Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci

Abstract : The diagnostic value of serum procalcitonin (PCT) to distinguish blood contamination from bloodstream infection (BSI) due to coagulase-negative staphylococci was evaluated. Patients with BSI had higher PCT concentration than those with blood contamination at day -1, day 0 and day +1 with regard to blood culture collection (p < 0.05), whereas serum C-reactive protein values were significantly higher only on day +1. At a cutoff of 0.1 ng/dl, PCT had a sensitivity of 86% and 100%, and a specificity of 60% and 80% for the diagnosis of BSI on day -1 and 0, respectively. In addition to clinical and microbiological parameters, PCT may help discriminating blood contamination from BSI due coagulase-negative staphylococc

Exact renormalisation group flow for ultracold Fermi gases in unitary limit

We study the exact renormalisation group flow for ultracold Fermi-gases in unitary regime. We introduce a pairing field to describe the formation of the Cooper pairs, and take a simple ansatz for the effective action. Set of approximate flow equations for the effective couplings including boson and fermionic fluctuations is derived. At some value of the running scale, the system undergoes a phase transition to a gapped phase. The values of the energy density, chemical potential, pairing gap and the corresponding proportionality constants relating the interacting and non-interacting Fermi gases are calculated. Standard mean field results are recovered if we omit the boson loops.Comment: 11 pages, Revtex, misprints corrected, references and comments adde