Suchergebnisse

The γ-ray decay of isomeric states in the even-even nucleus Cd128 has been observed. The nucleus of interest was produced both by the fragmentation of Xe136 and the fission of U238 primary beams. The level scheme was unambiguously constructed based on γγ coincidence relations in conjunction with detailed lifetime analysis employed for the first time on this nucleus. Large-scale shell-model calculations, without consideration of excitations across the N=82 shell closure, were performed and provide a consistent description of the experimental level scheme. The structure of the isomeric states and their decays exhibit coexistence of proton, neutron, and strongly mixed configurations due to πν interaction in overlapping orbitals for both proton and neutron holes. © 2009 The American Physical Society. ; Supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under Contracts FPA2005-00696 and FPA2007-66069, the European Commission Contract 506065 (EURONS), the Swedish VR, EPSRC, and STFC (United Kingdom), the German BMBF, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Grants 1-P03B-030-30 and 620/E-77/SPB/GSI/P 03/DWM105/2004-2007), and the Bulgarian Science Fund. ; Peer Reviewed

Antioquia Department is the state with the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in Colombia. Our aim was to determine the risk factors associated with unsuccessful TB treatment in HIV-seropositive and homeless persons, compared with non–HIV-infected and non-homeless persons with TB. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using observational, routinely collected health data from all drug-susceptible TB cases in homeless and/or HIV-seropositive individuals in Antioquia from 2014 to 2016. Unsuccessful TB treatment was defined as individuals having been lost to follow-up, having died, or treatment failure occurrence during the study period. Successful treatment was defined as cure of TB or treatment completion according to the WHO definitions. We identified 544 homeless persons with TB (432 HIV− and 112 HIV+), 835 HIV+ persons with TB and non-homeless, and 5,086 HIV−/non-homeless people with TB. Unsuccessful treatment rates were 19.3% in HIV−/non-homeless persons, 37.4% in non-homeless HIV+ patients, 61.5% in homeless HIV− patients, and 70.3% in homeless HIV+ patients; all rates fall below End TB strategy targets. More than 50% of homeless patients were lost to follow-up. Risk factors associated with unsuccessful treatment were HIV seropositivity, homelessness, male gender, age ≥ 25 years, noncontributory-type health insurance, TB diagnosis made during hospitalization, and previous treatment for TB. These results highlight the challenge of treating TB in the homeless population. These findings should put an onus on TB programs, governments, clinicians, and others involved in the collaborative care of TB patients to pursue innovative strategies to improve treatment success in this population.

[Abstract] Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) devices show great potential for application in Forest Inventories (FIs) as they are capable of registering high resolution point clouds rapidly and automatically. Nevertheless, operational use of TLS for FI purposes has been hampered by the absence of algorithms for processing the acquired data, particularly in the single-scan mode, as occlusions result in loss of information. The R package FORTLS has been developed to overcome this obstacle, as it automates the processing of single-scan TLS point cloud data for forestry purposes and includes several features that deal with occlusions. FORTLS makes use of the main advantage of the single-scan scenario in FI, thus improving the efficiency of data acquisition and post-processing. All of these features of the FORTLS package are potentially valuable for the operational use of TLS in FIs, in combination with inference techniques derived from model-based and model-assisted approaches. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [AGL2016-76769-C2-2-R; PID2020-119204RB-C22] and Galician Regional Government [2020-CP031; ED431F 2020/02]; JAMV was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the FPU program [FPU16/03057]; AMC was supported by Galician Regional Government within the framework of the agreement "Development of the Galician continuous forest inventory" [2020-CP031]; CPC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [RYC2018-024939-I] ; Xunta de Galicia; ED431F 2020/02 ; Xunta de Galicia; 2020-CP031

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) devices show great potential for application in Forest Inventories (FIs) as they are capable of registering high resolution point clouds rapidly and automatically. Nevertheless, operational use of TLS for FI purposes has been hampered by the absence of algorithms for processing the acquired data, particularly in the single-scan mode, as occlusions result in loss of information. The R package FORTLS has been developed to overcome this obstacle, as it automates the processing of single-scan TLS point cloud data for forestry purposes and includes several features that deal with occlusions. FORTLS makes use of the main advantage of the single-scan scenario in FI, thus improving the efficiency of data acquisition and post-processing. All of these features of the FORTLS package are potentially valuable for the operational use of TLS in FIs, in combination with inference techniques derived from model-based and model-assisted approaches ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [AGL2016-76769-C2-2-R; PID2020-119204RB-C22] and Galician Regional Government [2020-CP031; ED431F 2020/02]; JAMV was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the FPU program [FPU16/03057]; AMC was supported by Galician Regional Government within the framework of the agreement "Development of the Galician continuous forest inventory" [2020-CP031]; CPC was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [RYC2018-024939-I] ; SI