Does clinical management improve outcomes following self-Harm? Results from the multicentre study of self-harm in England

Background Evidence to guide clinical management of self-harm is sparse, trials have recruited selected samples, and psychological treatments that are suggested in guidelines may not be available in routine practice. Aims To examine how the management that patients receive in hospital relates to subsequent outcome. Methods We identified episodes of self-harm presenting to three UK centres (Derby, Manchester, Oxford) over a 10 year period (2000 to 2009). We used established data collection systems to investigate the relationship between four aspects of management (psychosocial assessment, medical admission, psychiatric admission, referral for specialist mental health follow up) and repetition of self-harm within 12 months, adjusted for differences in baseline demographic and clinical characteristics. Results 35,938 individuals presented with self-harm during the study period. In two of the three centres, receiving a psychosocial assessment was associated with a 40% lower risk of repetition, Hazard Ratios (95% CIs): Centre A 0.99 (0.90–1.09); Centre B 0.59 (0.48–0.74); Centre C 0.59 (0.52–0.68). There was little indication that the apparent protective effects were mediated through referral and follow up arrangements. The association between psychosocial assessment and a reduced risk of repetition appeared to be least evident in those from the most deprived areas. Conclusion These findings add to the growing body of evidence that thorough assessment is central to the management of self-harm, but further work is needed to elucidate the possible mechanisms and explore the effects in different clinical subgroups

Stirring and transport enhancement in a continuously modulated free-surface flow

The transport of fluid from a recirculation region adjacent to a free surface is studied using a numerical method validated with experimental flow visualization. The flow is an example of a liquid film coating process, and consists of two counter-rotating rolls placed side-by-side and half-submerged in a bath of fluid. In the gap between the rolls a recirculation zone exists just below the free surface, around which the flow splits into two films. Fluid recirculating for long periods has been identified as a source of coating defects, so this paper considers a possible method of inducing stirring. The flow is modulated by driving one of the rolls through a Hooke's joint, which delivers a well-characterized periodic perturbation to the roll speed. In response to this speed modulation, the free surface undergoes a periodic change in position and shape which drives an exchange of fluid between the recirculation region and the surrounding flow. The amplitude of the free-surface motion is strongly dependent on modulation frequency. The dynamics of the free surface preclude a quasi-steady approach, even in the small-frequency limit, and so a fully time-dependent analysis based on the finite element method is employed. Trigonometric temporal interpolation of the finite element data is used to make passive tracer advection calculations more efficient, and excellent agreement is seen between simulation and experiment. Computations of the stable and unstable invariant manifolds associated with periodic points on the free surface reveal that the exchange of fluid is governed by a self-intersecting turnstile mechanism, by which most fluid entrained during a modulation cycle is ejected later in the same cycle. Transport over several cycles is explored by observation of the evacuation of passive tracers initially distributed uniformly in the recirculation zone. Results demonstrate the persistence of unmixed cores whose size is dependent on the modulation frequency. By considering the percentage of tracers remaining after a fixed number of cycles, contours in frequency-amplitude space show that for each modulation amplitude there is a frequency which produces the most effective transport, with up to 80 % of tracers removed by a modulation which produces only a 5 % change in film thickness. Finally it is shown how modulation of both rolls at slightly different phases can reduce the film thickness variation to about 1 % while maintaining the level of transport

Information entropy and nucleon correlations in nuclei

The information entropies in coordinate and momentum spaces and their sum ($S_r$, $S_k$, $S$) are evaluated for many nuclei using "experimental" densities or/and momentum distributions. The results are compared with the harmonic oscillator model and with the short-range correlated distributions. It is found that $S_r$ depends strongly on $\ln A$ and does not depend very much on the model. The behaviour of $S_k$ is opposite. The various cases we consider can be classified according to either the quantity of the experimental data we use or by the values of $S$, i.e., the increase of the quality of the density and of the momentum distributions leads to an increase of the values of $S$. In all cases, apart from the linear relation $S=a+b\ln A$, the linear relation $S=a_V+b_V \ln V$ also holds. V is the mean volume of the nucleus. If $S$ is considered as an ensemble entropy, a relation between $A$ or $V$ and the ensemble volume can be found. Finally, comparing different electron scattering experiments for the same nucleus, it is found that the larger the momentum transfer ranges, the larger the information entropy is. It is concluded that $S$ could be used to compare different experiments for the same nucleus and to choose the most reliable one.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Antibody localization in horse, rabbit, and goat antilymphocyte sera

The localization of antibodies was studied in rabbit, goat, and horse ALS raised by weekly immunization with canine or human spleen cells for 4 to 12 weeks. A combination of analytic techniques was used including column chromatography, electrophoresis, immunoelectrophoresis, determination of protein concentration, and measurement of antibody titers. In the rabbit and goat ALS, virtually all of the leukoagglutinins and lymphocytotoxins were in the easily separable IgG; accidentally induced thromboagglutinins were in the same location. In the rabbit hemagglutinins were found in both the IgG and IgM, whereas in the goat these were almost exclusively in the IgM. The antiwhite cell antibodies were most widely distributed in the horse. The cytotoxins were primarily in the IgG, but the leukoagglutinins were most heavily concentrated in the T-equine globulin which consists mostly of IgA. By differential ammonium sulfate precipitation of a horse antidoglymphocyte serum, fractions were prepared that were rich in IgG and IgA. Both were able to delay the rejection of canine renal homografts, the IgA-rich preparation to a somewhat greater degree. The findings in this study have been discussed in relation to the refining techniques that have been used for the production of globulin from heterologous ALS. © 1970

Rectification by charging -- the physics of contact-induced current asymmetry in molecular conductors

We outline the qualitatively different physics behind charging-induced current asymmetries in molecular conductors operating in the weakly interacting self-consistent field (SCF) and the strongly interacting Coulomb Blockade (CB) regimes. A conductance asymmetry arises in SCF because of the unequal mean-field potentials that shift a closed-shell conducting level differently for positive and negative bias. A very different current asymmetry arises for CB due to the unequal number of open-shell excitation channels at opposite bias voltages. The CB regime, dominated by single charge effects, typically requires a computationally demanding many-electron or Fock space description. However, our analysis of molecular Coulomb Blockade measurements reveals that many novel signatures can be explained using a {{simpler}} orthodox model that involves an incoherent sum of Fock space excitations and {\it{hence treats the molecule as a metallic dot or an island}}. This also reduces the complexity of the Fock space description by just including various charge configurations only, thus partially underscoring the importance of electronic structure, while retaining the essence of the single charge nature of the transport process. We finally point out, however, that the inclusion of electronic structure and hence well-resolved Fock space excitations is crucial in some notable examples.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

A model for film-forming with Newtonian and shear-thinning fluids

The formation of a thin film by (i) the slow penetration of a gas bubble into a liquid filled tube, (ii) the withdrawal of a planar substrate from a liquid filled gap, is investigated theoretically for the cases of both Newtonian and shear-thinning liquids; the latter conforming to either a power-law or Ellis model. Formulated as a boundary value problem underpinned by lubrication theory, the analysis gives rise to a system of ordinary differential equations which are solved numerically subject to appropriate boundary conditions. For Newtonian liquids comparison of the predicted residual film thickness for a wide range of capillary number, Ca ∈ (10-4, 10), is made with others obtained using existing expressions, including the classical one of Bretherton, in the region of parameter space over which they apply. In the case of (i), prediction of the behaviour of the residual fluid fraction and gap-to-film thickness ratio, for a Newtonian liquid and one that is shear-thinning and modelled via a power-law, is found to be in particularly good agreement with experimental data for Ca < 0.2. For (ii), both shear-thinning models are utilized and contour plots of residual film thickness generated as a function of Ca and the defining parameters characteristic of each model. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Similar solutions of the boundary layer equations for power law fluids

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Maximum-Entropy Principle in Flexible Manufacturing Systems

It is shown that the entropy of the joint probability distribution of the queue lengths of the M machine-groups in a closed queuing network model of a flexible manufacturing system is maximum when the loads on the different machine-groups are equal for both single-machine machine-groups and for those multiple-machine machine-groups of which group sizes are equal. It is also shown that for unequal machine-group-sizes, the entropy is not maximum when the workload is balanced. The simultaneous variations of the entropy function of the load distribution, the entropy function of joint probability distribution lengths of queues and the expected production function are studied in order to investigate the relationship between the information content and productive capacity of manufacturing systems. Four measures of load balance in a flexible manufacturing system are given

A combined experimental and computational fluid dynamics analysis of the dynamics of drop formation

This article presents a complementary experimental and computational investigation of the effect of viscosity and flowrate on the dynamics of drop formation in the dripping mode. In contrast to previous studies, numerical simulations are performed with two popular commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) packages, CFX and FLOW-3D, both of which employ the volume of fluid (VOF) method. Comparison with previously published experimental and computational data and new experimental results reported here highlight the capabilities and limitations of the aforementioned packages