| 1. |
- Ademuyiwa, Adesoji O., et al.
(författare)
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Determinants of morbidity and mortality following emergency abdominal surgery in children in low-income and middle-income countries
- 2016
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Ingår i: BMJ Global Health. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 2059-7908. ; 1:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Child health is a key priority on the global health agenda, yet the provision of essential and emergency surgery in children is patchy in resource-poor regions. This study was aimed to determine the mortality risk for emergency abdominal paediatric surgery in low-income countries globally.Methods: Multicentre, international, prospective, cohort study. Self-selected surgical units performing emergency abdominal surgery submitted prespecified data for consecutive children aged <16 years during a 2-week period between July and December 2014. The United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI) was used to stratify countries. The main outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality, analysed by multilevel logistic regression.Results: This study included 1409 patients from 253 centres in 43 countries; 282 children were under 2 years of age. Among them, 265 (18.8%) were from low-HDI, 450 (31.9%) from middle-HDI and 694 (49.3%) from high-HDI countries. The most common operations performed were appendectomy, small bowel resection, pyloromyotomy and correction of intussusception. After adjustment for patient and hospital risk factors, child mortality at 30 days was significantly higher in low-HDI (adjusted OR 7.14 (95% CI 2.52 to 20.23), p<0.001) and middle-HDI (4.42 (1.44 to 13.56), p=0.009) countries compared with high-HDI countries, translating to 40 excess deaths per 1000 procedures performed.Conclusions: Adjusted mortality in children following emergency abdominal surgery may be as high as 7 times greater in low-HDI and middle-HDI countries compared with high-HDI countries. Effective provision of emergency essential surgery should be a key priority for global child health agendas.
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| 2. |
- Alberto, Helena, V, et al.
(författare)
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Characterization of the Interfacial Defect Layer in Chalcopyrite Solar Cells by Depth-Resolved Muon Spin Spectroscopy
- 2022
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Ingår i: Advanced Materials Interfaces. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2196-7350. ; 9:19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As devices become smaller and more complex, the interfaces between adjacent materials become increasingly important and are often critical to device performance. An important research goal is to improve the interface between the absorber and the window layer by inserting buffer layers to adjust the transition. Depth-resolved studies are key for a fundamental understanding of the interface. In the present experiment, the interface between the chalcopyrite Cu(In,Ga)Se-2 absorber and various buffer layers are investigated using low-energy muon spin rotation (mu SR) spectroscopy. Depth resolution in the nm range is achieved by implanting the muons with different energies so that they stop at different depths in the sample. Near the interface, a region about 50 nm wide is detected where the lattice is more distorted than further inside the absorber. The distortion is attributed to the long-range strain field caused by defects. These measurements allow a quantification of the corresponding passivation effect of the buffer layer. Bath-deposited cadmium sulfide provides the best defect passivation in the near interface region, in contrast to the dry-deposited oxides, which have a much smaller effect. The experiment demonstrates the great potential of low energy mu SR spectroscopy for microscopic interfacial studies of multilayer systems.
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| 3. |
- Dreiser, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Direct observation of a ferri-to-ferromagnetic transition in a fluoride-bridged 3d-4f molecular cluster
- 2012
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Ingår i: Chemical Science. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2041-6520. ; 3:4, s. 1024-1032
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the synthesis, crystal structure and magnetic characterisation of the trinuclear, fluoride-bridged, molecular nanomagnet [Dy(hfac)(3)(H2O)-CrF2(py)(4)-Dy(hfac)(3)(NO3)] (1) (hfacH = 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoroacetylacetone, py = pyridine) and a closely related dinuclear species [Dy(hfac)(4)-CrF2( py)(4)]center dot 1/2 CHCl3 (2). Element-specific magnetisation curves obtained on 1 by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) allow us to directly observe the field-induced transition from a ferrimagnetic to a ferromagnetic arrangement of the Dy and Cr magnetic moments. By fitting a spin-Hamiltonian model to the XMCD data we extract a weak antiferromagnetic exchange coupling of j -0.18 cm(-1) between the Dy-III and Cr-III ions. The value found from XMCD is consistent with SQUID magnetometry and inelastic neutron scattering measurements. Furthermore, alternating current susceptibility and muon-spin relaxation measurements reveal that 1 shows thermally activated relaxation of magnetisation with a small effective barrier for magnetisation reversal of Delta(eff) 3 cm(-1). Density-functional theory calculations show that the Dy-Cr couplings originate from superexchange via the fluoride bridges.
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| 4. |
- Morenzoni, Elvezio, et al.
(författare)
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Low-Energy Muons at PSI: Examples of Investigations of Superconducting Properties in Near-Surface Regions and Heterostuctures
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Science Explored by Ultra Slow Muon (USM2013). - : The Physical Society of Japan.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the advent of polarized low-energy muons, with tunable energy in the kiloelectronvolt range, it is possible to use the sensitivity and the local-probe character of µSR to perform depth-dependent investigations on the nanometer scale of magnetic and superconducting properties of materials. Here, after a brief summary of the present status of LE-µSR at PSI, we give some examples of investigations of superconducting properties in the near-surface regions of single crystals and thin-film materials.
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| 7. |
- Salman, Saleem A., et al.
(författare)
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Changes in Climatic Water Availability and Crop Water Demand for Iraq Region
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - Switzerland : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 12:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Decreases in climatic water availability (CWA) and increases in crop water demand (CWD) in the background of climate change are a major concern in arid regions because of less water availability and higher irrigation requirements for crop production. Assessment of the spatiotemporal changes in CWA and CWD is important for the adaptation of irrigated agriculture to climate change for such regions. The recent changes in CWA and CWD during growing seasons of major crops have been assessed for Iraq where rapid changes in climate have been noticed in recent decades. Gridded precipitation of the global precipitation climatology center (GPCC) and gridded temperature of the climate research unit (CRU) having a spatial resolution of 0.5°, were used for the estimation of CWA and CWD using simple water balance equations. The Mann–Kendall (MK) test and one of its modified versions which can consider long-term persistence in time series, were used to estimate trends in CWA for the period 1961–2013. In addition, the changes in CWD between early (1961–1990) and late (1984–2013) periods were evaluated using the Wilcoxon rank test. The results revealed a deficit in water in all the seasons in most of the country while a surplus in the northern highlands in all the seasons except summer was observed. A significant reduction in the annual amount of CWA at a rate of −1 to −13 mm/year was observed at 0.5 level of significance in most of Iraq except in the north. Decreasing trends in CWA in spring (−0.4 to −1.8 mm/year), summer (−5.0 to −11 mm/year) and autumn (0.3 to −0.6 mm/year), and almost no change in winter was observed. The CWA during the growing season of summer crop (millet and sorghum) was found to decrease significantly in most of Iraq except in the north. The comparison of CWD revealed an increase in agricultural water needs in the late period (1984–2013) compared to the early period (1961–1990) by 1.0–8.0, 1.0–14, 15–30, 14–27 and 0.0–10 mm for wheat, barley, millet, sorghum and potato, respectively. The highest increase in CWD was found in April, October, June, June and April for wheat, barley, millet, sorghum and potato, respectively.
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| 8. |
- Sugiyama, Jun, et al.
(författare)
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Li-ion diffusion in Li4Ti5O12 and LiTi2O4 battery materials detected by muon spin spectroscopy
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physical Review B. Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. - 1098-0121 .- 1550-235X. ; 92:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lithium diffusion in spinel Li4Ti5O12 and LiTi2O4 compounds for future battery applications has been studied with muon spin relaxation (mu+SR). Measurements were performed on both thin-film and powder samples in the temperature range between 25 and 500 K. For Li4Ti5O12 and above about similar to 200 K, the field distribution width (Delta) is found to decrease gradually, while the field fluctuation rate (nu) increases exponentially with temperature. For LiTi2O4, on the contrary, the Delta(T) curve shows a steplike decrease at similar to 350 K, around which the nu(T) curve exhibits a local maximum. These behaviors suggest that Li+ starts to diffuse above around 200 K for both spinels. Assuming a jump diffusion of Li+ at the tetrahedral 8a site to the vacant octahedral 16c site, diffusion coefficients of Li+ at 300 K in the film samples are estimated as (3.2 +/- 0.8) x 10(-11) cm(2)/s for Li4Ti5O12 and (3.6 +/- 1.1) x 10(-11) cm(2)/s for LiTi2O4. Further, some small differences are found in both thermal activation energies and Li-ion diffusion coefficients between the powder and thin-film samples.
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