848 research outputs found
With a Little Help From our Friends: “Global” Incentives and “Local” Challenges to Feminist Politics in Brazil
What are the major challenges facing feminists working to achieve gender justice in the context of development today? How are we to go about facing them? These were two of the major questions addressed by the ‘Gender Myths and Feminist Fables’ workshop participants, but to which no single solution was to be found. My own reactions
are best conveyed by outlining current
circumstances in Brazil. These reflect my close involvement in recent developments which, I believe, should foster the forging of a more equitable Brazilian society
Influence of nucleonic motion in Relativistic Fermi Gas inclusive responses
Impulsive hadronic descriptions of electroweak processes in nuclei involve
two distinctly different elements: one stems from the nuclear many-body physics
--- the medium --- which is rather similar for the various inclusive response
functions, and the other embodies the responses of the hadrons themselves to
the electroweak probe and varies with the channel selected. In this letter we
investigate within the context of the relativistic Fermi gas in both the
quasi-elastic and regimes the interplay between these two
elements. Specifically, we focus on expansions in the one small parameter in
the problem, namely, the momentum of a nucleon in the initial wave function
compared with the hadronic scale, the nucleon mass. Both parity-conserving and
-violating inclusive responses are studied and the interplay between
longitudinal () and transverse ( and ) contributions is highlighted.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Membrane solitons in eight-dimensional hyper-Kaehler backgrounds
We derive the BPS equations satisfied by lump solitons in -dimensional
sigma models with toric 8-dimensional hyper-K\"ahler () target spaces
and check they preserve 1/2 of the supersymmetry. We show how these solitons
are realised in M theory as M2-branes wrapping holomorphic 2-cycles in the
\bE^{1,2}\times {HK}_8 background. Using the -symmetry of a probe
M2-brane in this background we determine the supersymmetry they preserve, and
note that there is a discrepancy in the fraction of supersymmetry preserved by
these solitons as viewed from the low energy effective sigma model description
of the M2-brane dynamics or the full M theory. Toric manifolds are
dual to a Hanany-Witten setup of D3-branes suspended between 5-branes. In this
picture the lumps correspond to vortices of the three dimensional or theory.Comment: 12+1 pages. LaTex. v2: Typos corrected and references adde
Nuclear response functions for the N-N*(1440) transition
Parity-conserving and -violating response functions are computed for the
inclusive electroexcitation of the N*(1440)(Roper) resonance in nuclear matter
modeled as a relativistic Fermi gas. Using various empirical parameterizations
and theoretical models of the N-N*(1440) transition form factors, the
sensitivity of the response functions to details of the structure of the Roper
resonance is investigated. The possibility of disentangling this resonance from
the contribution of Delta electroproduction in nuclei is addressed. Finally,
the contributions of the Roper resonance to the longitudinal scaling function
and to the Coulomb sum rule are also explored.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures. Minor changes in the Introduction. Accepted in
NP
Brazilian Feminisms in Global Spaces: Beijing and Beijing+20
Within the last decades, feminist movements in Brazil have advanced significantly beyond borders, gaining increasing recognition in global spaces, UN ones in particular, for positively influencing Brazil's official position. Unsurprisingly, Brazil has served four terms in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and, in the eyes of more progressive delegations, is a much needed presence to ensure no lost ground on what has been achieved in previous conferences. However, the actual presence of Brazilian feminist activists in the delegations and the NGO Forums has dwindled considerably. What have been the strategies and mechanisms at play in maintaining a radical vein in our official position? Can it be sustained without the more active involvement of feminist activists – say, throughout Brazil's new role as president of the 60th CSW session? These are some of the issues I address in this article, sharing the views of activists present at those events
Evaluation of a clinical tool for early etiology identification in status epilepticus.
OBJECTIVES: Because early etiologic identification is critical to select appropriate specific status epilepticus (SE) management, we aim to validate a clinical tool we developed that uses history and readily available investigations to guide prompt etiologic assessment.
METHODS: This prospective multicenter study included all adult patients treated for SE of all but anoxic causes from four academic centers. The proposed tool is designed as a checklist covering frequent precipitating factors for SE. The study team completed the checklist at the time the patient was identified by electroencephalography (EEG) request. Only information available in the emergency department or at the time of in-hospital SE identification was used. Concordance between the etiology indicated by the tool and the determined etiology at hospital discharge was analyzed, together with interrater agreement.
RESULTS: Two hundred twelve patients were included. Concordance between the etiology hypothesis generated using the tool and the finally determined etiology was 88.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 86.4-89.8) (κ = 0.88). Interrater agreement was 83.3% (95% CI 80.4-96) (κ = 0.81).
SIGNIFICANCE: This tool is valid and reliable for identification early the etiology of an SE. Physicians managing patients in SE may benefit from using it to identify promptly the underlying etiology, thus facilitating selection of the appropriate treatment
Practice variability and efficacy of clonazepam, lorazepam, and midazolam in status epilepticus: A multicenter comparison.
OBJECTIVE: Benzodiazepines (BZD) are recommended as first-line treatment for status epilepticus (SE), with lorazepam (LZP) and midazolam (MDZ) being the most widely used drugs and part of current treatment guidelines. Clonazepam (CLZ) is also utilized in many countries; however, there is no systematic comparison of these agents for treatment of SE to date.
METHODS: We identified all patients treated with CLZ, LZP, or MDZ as a first-line agent from a prospectively collected observational cohort of adult patients treated for SE in four tertiary care centers. Relative efficacies of CLZ, LZP, and MDZ were compared by assessing the risk of developing refractory SE and the number of antiseizure drugs (ASDs) required to control SE.
RESULTS: Among 177 patients, 72 patients (40.62%) received CLZ, 82 patients (46.33%) LZP, and 23 (12.99%) MDZ; groups were similar in demographics and SE characteristics. Loading dose was considered insufficient in the majority of cases for LZP, with a similar rate (84%, 95%, and 87.5%) in the centers involved, and CLZ was used as recommended in 52% of patients. After adjustment for relevant variables, LZP was associated with an increased risk of refractoriness as compared to CLZ (odds ratio [OR] 6.4, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.66-15.5) and with an increased number of ASDs needed for SE control (OR 4.35, 95% CI 1.8-10.49).
SIGNIFICANCE: CLZ seems to be an effective alternative to LZP and MDZ. LZP is frequently underdosed in this setting. These findings are highly relevant, since they may impact daily practice
Strings on pp-waves and massive two dimensional field theories
We find a general class of pp-wave solutions of type IIB string theory such
that the light cone gauge worldsheet lagrangian is that of an interacting
massive field theory. When the light cone Lagrangian has (2,2) supersymmetry we
can find backgrounds that lead to arbitrary superpotentials on the worldsheet.
We consider situations with both flat and curved transverse spaces. We describe
in some detail the background giving rise to the N=2 sine Gordon theory on the
worldsheet. Massive mirror symmetry relates it to the deformed model (or
sausage model) which seems to elude a purely supergravity target space
interpretation.Comment: harvmac, 26 pages, v2,3: references added, typos correcte
Introduction to M Theory and AdS/CFT Duality
An introductory survey of some of the developments that have taken place in
superstring theory in the past few years is presented. The main focus is on
three particular dualities. The first one is the appearance of an 11th
dimension in the strong coupling limit of the type IIA theory, which give rise
to M theory. The second one is the duality between the type IIB theory
compactified on a circle and M theory on a two-torus. The final topic is an
introduction to the recently proposed duality between superstring theory or M
theory on certain anti de Sitter space backgrounds and conformally invariant
quantum field theories.Comment: 26 pages; To be published in the Proceedings of a conference held in
Corfu, Greece in September 1998. v2: reference adde
Therapeutic coma for status epilepticus: Differing practices in a prospective multicenter study.
Our aim was to analyze and compare the use of therapeutic coma (TC) for refractory status epilepticus (SE) across different centers and its effect on outcome.
Clinical data for all consecutive adults (>16 years) with SE of all etiologies (except postanoxic) admitted to 4 tertiary care centers belonging to Harvard Affiliated Hospitals (HAH) and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) were prospectively collected and analyzed for TC details, mortality, and duration of hospitalization.
Two hundred thirty-six SE episodes in the CHUV and 126 in the HAH were identified. Both groups were homogeneous in demographics, comorbidities, SE characteristics, and Status Epilepticus Severity Score (STESS); TC was used in 25.4% of cases in HAH vs 9.75% in CHUV. After adjustment, TC use was associated with younger age, lower Charlson Comorbidity Index, increasing SE severity, refractory SE, and center (odds ratio 11.3 for HAH vs CHUV, 95% confidence interval 2.47-51.7). Mortality was associated with increasing Charlson Comorbidity Index and STESS, etiology, and refractory SE. Length of stay correlated with STESS, etiology, refractory SE, and use of TC (incidence rate ratio 1.6, 95% confidence interval 1.22-2.11).
Use of TC for SE treatment seems markedly different between centers from the United States and Europe, and did not affect mortality considering the whole cohort. However, TC may increase length of hospital stay and related costs.
This study provides Class III evidence that for patients with SE, TC does not significantly affect mortality. The study lacked the precision to exclude an important effect of TC on mortality
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