A retrospective study was conducted on 134 HIV-infected females evaluated at an HIV/AIDS centre in south India to characterize their sociodemographics, HIV risk factors and initial clinical ...presentations. The mean age was 29 years; 81% were housewives; 95% were currently or previously married; 89% reported heterosexual sex as their only HIV risk factor; and 88% reported a history of monogamy. The majority were of reproductive age, thus the potential for vertical transmission of HIV and devastating impacts on families is alarming. Nearly half of these women initially presented asymptomatically implying that partner recruitment can enable early HIV detection. Single partner heterosexual sex with their husband was the only HIV risk factor for the majority of women. HIV prevention and intervention strategies need to focus on married, monogamous Indian women whose self-perception of HIV risk may be low, but whose risk is inextricably linked to the behaviour of their husbands.
Thermal Expansion of HfO2 and ZrO2 Haggerty, Ryan P.; Sarin, Pankaj; Apostolov, Zlatomir D. ...
Journal of the American Ceramic Society,
July 2014, Letnik:
97, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The thermal expansion of a low symmetry crystal can be much more interesting than the lattice parameter expansion would suggest. Here, the complete thermal expansion tensors for monoclinic and ...tetragonal phases of ZrO2 and HfO2 have been measured in air, by high‐resolution, high‐temperature X‐ray diffraction. These results reveal the highly anisotropic nature of thermal expansion in the monoclinic phase as well as a cooperative movement of ions and the existence of a zero thermal expansion plane.
...the paper by Harrison and colleagues 3 does not adequately represent a generalised level of exposure of the individuals to carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and particulate matter ...(PM10). ...one hour personal CO exposures measured in vehicles were significantly higher than those measured in other microenvironments, and the correlation between personal PM2.5 exposures and ambient concentrations was lowest in the winter months for indoor non-residential microenvironments and highest in vehicle microenvironments. ...the conclusions drawn by Harrison and colleagues 3 from the data on a relatively small sample of subjects utilising microenvironment modelling of CO, NO2, and PM may not adequately reflect the overall exposure patterns.
Adiposity, as indicated by body mass index (BMI), has been associated with risk of cardiovascular diseases in epidemiological studies. We aimed to investigate if these associations are causal, using ...Mendelian randomization (MR) methods.
The associations of BMI with cardiovascular outcomes coronary heart disease (CHD), heart failure and ischaemic stroke, and associations of a genetic score (32 BMI single nucleotide polymorphisms) with BMI and cardiovascular outcomes were examined in up to 22,193 individuals with 3062 incident cardiovascular events from nine prospective follow-up studies within the ENGAGE consortium. We used random-effects meta-analysis in an MR framework to provide causal estimates of the effect of adiposity on cardiovascular outcomes.
There was a strong association between BMI and incident CHD (HR = 1.20 per SD-increase of BMI, 95% CI, 1.12-1.28, P = 1.9.10(-7)), heart failure (HR = 1.47, 95% CI, 1.35-1.60, P = 9.10(-19)) and ischaemic stroke (HR = 1.15, 95% CI, 1.06-1.24, P = 0.0008) in observational analyses. The genetic score was robustly associated with BMI (β = 0.030 SD-increase of BMI per additional allele, 95% CI, 0.028-0.033, P = 3.10(-107)). Analyses indicated a causal effect of adiposity on development of heart failure (HR = 1.93 per SD-increase of BMI, 95% CI, 1.12-3.30, P = 0.017) and ischaemic stroke (HR = 1.83, 95% CI, 1.05-3.20, P = 0.034). Additional cross-sectional analyses using both ENGAGE and CARDIoGRAMplusC4D data showed a causal effect of adiposity on CHD.
Using MR methods, we provide support for the hypothesis that adiposity causes CHD, heart failure and, previously not demonstrated, ischaemic stroke.
A family of oligonucleotides and phosphorothioate oligonucleotide analogues was synthesized with a cholesteryl group tethered at the 3′-terminal internucleoside link. This modification, introduced to ...enhance interaction of the polyanions with cell membranes, significantly increases the antiviral activity of the oligomers, as judged by inhibition of syncytia formation and expression of viral proteins p17, p24, and reverse transcriptase for human immunodeficiency virus 1 in Molt-3 cells. In the most favorable case, with a 20-mer cholesteryl-phosphorothioate derivative, complete inhibition by all assays was obtained with an oligomer concentration of 0.2 μ M. Even decamers were active, and some antiviral activity was observed for a heptanucleotide cholesteryl-phosphorothioate derivative, which binds very poorly to complementary oligonucleotides. These facts, and the finding that the activity of the phosphorothioate decamers does not correlate with a specific sequence, suggests that a mechanism other than ``antisense inhibition'' may be operative in these systems.
We describe the fabrication and characterization of a novel UV and ionizing radiation detector using polycrystalline TiO 2 wide bandgap semiconductor as the active material. The detector geometry we ...have developed and tested is a polycrystalline TiO 2 thin film with planar electrode contacts for signal pickup. Several prototypes were fabricated using two single-step techniques. We present the DC characterization of these devices and the signal response to ultraviolet (UV) light and low energy proton beam irradiation. The detector prototypes show excellent DC characteristics and fast AC signal response at bias voltage as low as 50V.
To help sustain large-scale pervasive computing in emerging markets, researchers must address unique challenges in the delivery fabric and enterprise backbone. Such challenges present opportunities ...for high impact innovation. Although most research organizations have focused on developing consumer-facing solutions, we posit that future research must take an end-to-end perspective. That is, researchers must not only consider the front end (such as consumer devices) but also the medium to reach the consumer (for example, the delivery fabric) and the back end (for example, the enterprise backbone) to create an economically sustainable, scalable solution. Although our end-to-end perspective generalizes to all emerging markets, in this article, we mainly discuss the Indian market from which we based our observations.
•We have studied VO2, V2O5, V2O3, V3O5, V4O7 and V6O13 using first principles.•Each compound has been analyzed in its high- and low-temperature phase.•Strong structural distortions have major impacts ...on electronic properties.•Hybrid functionals provide accurate prediction of electronic band gaps.•The GGA + U method provides accurate prediction of optical spectra.
We have studied the structural, energetic, electronic, and optical properties of six compounds belonging to the system of vanadium oxides (VO2, V2O5, V2O3, V3O5, V4O7, and V6O13), including both high- and low-temperature phases, obtained using first principles calculations based on density functional theory. The optimized structure of each compound is found to display strong octahedral distortion. This has a major impact on the electronic structures, causing strong mixing of t2g and eg orbitals. The electronic density of states was calculated with hybrid HSE06 functionals and the GGA + U method. The results show that the HSE06 functionals provide band gap values consistent with available experimental data. For the high-temperature phase of V2O5, we predict a band gap of 2.32 eV. Charge transfer is shown to decrease monotonically as a function of V-O ratio for all compounds. Complex dielectric functions, as computed with hybrid functionals and the GGA + U method, are reported. Hybrid functionals overestimate the energies at which absorption peaks occur, indicating strong electron-hole interaction and lattice polarization within the system. The computed optical conductivity, as derived from optical properties found with the GGA + U method, is in good quantitative agreement with available experimental data. The theoretical framework developed is applicable for other vanadium oxide phases and similar transition metal oxides.
An experimental realization of resonant toroidal dipole excitation in the microwave regime is presented in this paper. The metasurface proposed herewith is an asymmetric double split-ring resonator ...exhibiting Fano-like resonance profile. One could observe that cascading the metasurface results in near-field transverse and longitudinal coupling creating dual-band toroidal moments on the structure. This planar scheme will simulate the development of enhanced light–matter interaction, electromagnetic wave slowdown and sensor design. Here we report the experimental realization of the phenomenon in the S-band frequencies, and the results are verified using multipole scattering analysis.
PDF
