Pertussis (whooping cough) is aptly called “The Hundred Day Cough” (bai re ke) in Chinese medicine. Vaccinations against pertussis contained in the DPT (diphtheriapertussis-tetanus) shot have reduced the incidence in the United States significantly, but parental rejection of the vaccination has resulted in a reemergence of the illness throughout the country. Both my city and state, Boulder, Col...

We document insider opportunism in an insolvency regime that is characterized by weak creditor rights and uses an accounting rule to determine bankruptcy eligibility. Using a unique dataset of bankrupt firms from India, we show insiders manage earnings downward before filing for bankruptcy via inventory and trade receivable accruals. A battery of robustness tests confirm accrual behavior is not...

Using a general formalism of a q-deformation of an arbitrary Lie algebra, new kinds of qdeformed centerless Virasoro and U(1) Kac-Moody algebras are found. This q-deformation is associated to an R-matrix of unit square satisfying the quantum Yang-Baxter equation and allows a nontrivial Hopf structure. The central extension is also incorporated in this formalism. MIRAMARE { TRIESTE August 1998 J...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular disease is a growing public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Cough and dyspnea are symptoms of both lung diseases and heart failure. This study aimed at determining the contribution of cardiac diseases versus pulmonary diseases in the etiological profile of patients presenting with cough and dyspnea in a Center for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tuberculosis (CDT)...

BACKGROUND Pneumonia substantially kills children aged 2-59 months in South Sudan. However, information on health workers adherence to Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) guideline in treating children with cough/difficulty in breathing remains scarce. This study assessed factors associated with adherence to IMCI guideline in Aweil East County, South Sudan. METHODS This cross-...

Microbial pathogens of respiratory infectious diseases are often transmitted through particles in sneeze and cough. Therefore, understanding the particle movement is important for infection control. Images of a sneeze induced by nasal cavity stimulation by healthy adult volunteers, were taken by a digital high-vision, high-speed video system equipped with a computer system and treated as a rese...

BACKGROUND Mechanically assisted cough devices are used in patients with impaired cough to avoid secretion accumulation. We compared 5 mechanically assisted cough devices by bench testing using a breathing simulator and assessed their user-friendliness. METHODS We measured inspiratory and expiratory airway pressures and peak expiratory flow, the strongest indicator of cough efficacy. We perfo...

This natural experiment provides substantial evidence for the following major themes, which are based on a cognitively oriented, process-centered theory of stress and coping: First, a stressful encounter should be viewed as a dynamic, unfolding process, not as a static, unitary event. Emotion and coping (including the use of social support) were assessed at three stages of a midterm examination...

Innocent people who have been arrested, but never convicted of a crime, will have their DNA records stored on the national database for a period of six years under plans unveiled in the government’s new Crime and Security Bill. The Bill, presented to parliament by Home Secretary Alan Johnson on 19 November 2009, also includes a number of new rules for the collection, retention and use of DNA an...

These lecture notes are a brief introduction to Wess-Zumino-Witten models, and their current algebras, the affine Kac-Moody algebras. After reviewing the general background, we focus on the application of representation theory to the computation of 3-point functions and fusion rules.