Attitudes to a male contraceptive pill in a group of contraceptive users in the UK

BACKGROUND. Small scale trials of male hormonal contraception have produced encouraging results. Attitudes to and beliefs about a proposed male pill may affect uptake. METHODS. This paper examines attitudes towards a proposed ‘male contraceptive pill’ among a self selected sample of 54 men and 134 women, living in a non-metropolitan centre in the East of England, United Kingdom who were already users of contraception. Thirty four respondents were also interviewed and their views on the male pill were qualitatively analysed. RESULTS. The acceptability of a male pill was high with just under half (49.5%) of respondents indicating that they would use it. Gender, length of relationship, age and educational achievement did not affect the reported acceptability. 42% of respondents expressed concerns that men would forget to take a male pill. Women were significantly more likely to express this concern than men. 26% of respondents expressed health concerns. Willingness to take a male pill was associated with expressing the view that increased protection against pregnancy would be an advantage of such a method. Those unwilling or undecided were more likely to express concerns about the effect of a pill on future fertility. CONCLUSIONS. A male pill was accepted as a potential aid to increased fertility control by a large proportion of a convenience sample of contraceptive users in the East of England. If a male pill were to be marketed in the UK this study suggests that concerns about effects on future fertility and health risks may need to be addressed

An extreme value theory approach to calculating minimum capital risk requirements

This paper investigates the frequency of extreme events for three LIFFE futures contracts for the calculation of minimum capital risk requirements (MCRRs). We propose a semiparametric approach where the tails are modelled by the Generalized Pareto Distribution and smaller risks are captured by the empirical distribution function. We compare the capital requirements form this approach with those calculated from the unconditional density and from a conditional density - a GARCH(1,1) model. Our primary finding is that both in-sample and for a hold-out sample, our extreme value approach yields superior results than either of the other two models which do not explicitly model the tails of the return distribution. Since the use of these internal models will be permitted under the EC-CAD II, they could be widely adopted in the near future for determining capital adequacies. Hence, close scrutiny of competing models is required to avoid a potentially costly misallocation capital resources while at the same time ensuring the safety of the financial system

Disorder-to-order transition in the magnetic and electronic properties of URh_2Ge_2

We present a study of annealing effects on the physical properties of tetragonal single--crystalline URh_2Ge_2. This system, which in as-grown form was recently established as the first metallic 3D random-bond heavy-fermion spin glass, is transformed by an annealing treatment into a long-range antiferromagnetically (AFM) ordered heavy-fermion compound. The transport properties, which in the as-grown material were dominated by the structural disorder, exhibit in the annealed material signs of typical metallic behavior along the crystallographic a axis. From our study URh_2Ge_2 emerges as exemplary material highlighting the role and relevance of structural disorder for the properties of strongly correlated electron systems. We discuss the link between the magnetic and electronic behavior and how they are affected by the structural disorder.Comment: Phys. Rev. B, in print (scheduled 1 Mar 2000

The Effect of Hot Deformation Parameters on Microstructure Evolution of the α-Phase in Ti-6Al-4V

The effect of high-temperature deformation and the influence of hot working parameters on microstructure evolution during isothermal hot forging of Ti-6Al-4V in the alpha phase field were investigated. A series of hot isothermal axis-symmetric compression tests were carried out at temperatures both low and high in the alpha stability field [(1153 K and 1223 K (880 °C and 950 °C), respectively], using three strain rates (0.01, 0.1 and 1.0/s) relevant to industrial press forging. The microstructures and orientation of the alpha laths were determined using optical microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction techniques. The experimental results show that there is a change in lath morphology of the secondary α phase under the influence of the deformation parameters, and that α lath thickness appears to have little influence on flow behavior

A Single-Lumen Central Venous Catheter for Continuous and Direct Intra-abdominal Pressure Measurement

Background: Abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS) is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Therefore, the need for a good diagnostic tool to predict intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH) and progression to ACS is paramount. Bladder pressure (BP) has been used for several years for intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) measurement but has the disadvantage that it is not a continuous measurement. In this study, a single-lumen central venous catheter (CVC) is placed through the abdominal wall into the abdominal cavity to continuously and directly monitor the intra-abdominal pressure (CDIAP). The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of CDIAP to measure BP as a representative of the true IAP. Methods: Both BP and CDIAP were prospectively recorded on a variety of surgical patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) from March 2003 up to December 2004. At the end of the surgical procedure, the CVC was placed through the abdominal wall and connected to a pressure transducer. In addition, the BP was measured through the urine drainage port after clamping the catheter and filling the bladder with 50 ml of 0.9% saline. At least three paired measurements (BP and CDIAP) were performed for at least one day on the ICU in a standardized manner at preset time intervals on each patient. The paired measurements were compared using the Bland-Altman (B-A) method. Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation. Results: Over a period of 22 months (March 2003 until December 2004), 125 paired measurements of both BP and CDIAP were recorded on 25 patients. The mean age was 72.4 ± 6.6 years. Eighteen patients underwent central vascular surgery, and seven patients with peritonitis received laparotomy. The mean CDIAP was 11.4 ± 4.8 (range 2-30) mmHg, and the BP was 12.9 ± 5.3 (range 3-37) mmHg. The mean difference between CDIAP and BP was 1.6 ± 2.7 mmHg. There was an acceptable level of agreement (intraclass correlation 0.82) between IAP measured by BP and IAP measured via CDIAP. Conclusion: Continuous direct intra-abdominal pressure measurement proved that the BP measurement approach of Kron is representative of the IAP. CDIAP measurement is accurate and makes it easier for the nursing staff to be informed of the IAP

Observation of hard scattering in photoproduction events with a large rapidity gap at HERA

Events with a large rapidity gap and total transverse energy greater than 5 GeV have been observed in quasi-real photoproduction at HERA with the ZEUS detector. The distribution of these events as a function of the $\gamma p$ centre of mass energy is consistent with diffractive scattering. For total transverse energies above 12 GeV, the hadronic final states show predominantly a two-jet structure with each jet having a transverse energy greater than 4 GeV. For the two-jet events, little energy flow is found outside the jets. This observation is consistent with the hard scattering of a quasi-real photon with a colourless object in the proton.Comment: 19 pages, latex, 4 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Nucleon electromagnetic form factors in a quark-gluon core model

We study the nucleon electromagnetic form factors in a quark-gluon core model framework, which can be viewed as an extension of the Isgur-Karl model of baryons. Using this picture we derive nucleon electromagnetic dipole form factors at low Q^2 and the deviation from the dipole form at high Q^2, that are consistent with the existing experimental data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Setting Research Priorities to Reduce Global Mortality from Childhood Pneumonia by 2015

Igor Rudan and colleagues report the results of their consensus building exercise that identified health research priorities to help reduce child mortality from pneumonia