3 results
Varicella zoster virus outbreak in a long-term care unit of a tertiary care hospital in northern India
- Rushika Saksena, Bonnie J. Thomas, Ruma Das, Sunita Nagpal, Prem R. Suri, Ranjan K. Wadhwa, Aashish Choudhary, Rajni Gaind, Ekta Gupta
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- Journal:
- Epidemiology & Infection / Volume 152 / 2024
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 May 2024, e81
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Nosocomial outbreak of varicella zoster virus (VZV) has been reported when susceptible individuals encounter a case of chicken pox or shingles. A suspected VZV outbreak was investigated in a 50-bedded in-patient facility of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in a tertiary care multispecialty hospital. A 30-year-old female patient admitted with Pott’s spine was clinically diagnosed with chicken pox on 31 December 2022. The following week, four more cases were identified in the same ward. All cases were diagnosed as laboratory-confirmed varicella zoster infection by PCR. Primary case was a housekeeping staff who was clinically diagnosed with chicken pox 3 weeks prior (9 December 2022). He returned to work on eighth day of infection (17 December 2022) after apparent clinical recovery but before the lesions had crusted over. Thirty-one HCWs were identified as contacts a and three had no evidence of immunity. Two of these susceptible HCWs had onset of chickenpox shortly after first dose of VZV vaccination was inoculated. All cases recovered after treatment with no reported complications. VZV infection is highly contagious in healthcare settings with susceptible populations. Prompt identification of cases and implementation of infection prevention and control measures like patient isolation and vaccination are essential for the containment of outbreaks.
Neutron Star Extreme Matter Observatory: A kilohertz-band gravitational-wave detector in the global network
- Part of
- K. Ackley, V. B. Adya, P. Agrawal, P. Altin, G. Ashton, M. Bailes, E. Baltinas, A. Barbuio, D. Beniwal, C. Blair, D. Blair, G. N. Bolingbroke, V. Bossilkov, S. Shachar Boublil, D. D. Brown, B. J. Burridge, J. Calderon Bustillo, J. Cameron, H. Tuong Cao, J. B. Carlin, S. Chang, P. Charlton, C. Chatterjee, D. Chattopadhyay, X. Chen, J. Chi, J. Chow, Q. Chu, A. Ciobanu, T. Clarke, P. Clearwater, J. Cooke, D. Coward, H. Crisp, R. J. Dattatri, A. T. Deller, D. A. Dobie, L. Dunn, P. J. Easter, J. Eichholz, R. Evans, C. Flynn, G. Foran, P. Forsyth, Y. Gai, S. Galaudage, D. K. Galloway, B. Gendre, B. Goncharov, S. Goode, D. Gozzard, B. Grace, A. W. Graham, A. Heger, F. Hernandez Vivanco, R. Hirai, N. A. Holland, Z. J. Holmes, E. Howard, E. Howell, G. Howitt, M. T. Hübner, J. Hurley, C. Ingram, V. Jaberian Hamedan, K. Jenner, L. Ju, D. P. Kapasi, T. Kaur, N. Kijbunchoo, M. Kovalam, R. Kumar Choudhary, P. D. Lasky, M. Y. M. Lau, J. Leung, J. Liu, K. Loh, A. Mailvagan, I. Mandel, J. J. McCann, D. E. McClelland, K. McKenzie, D. McManus, T. McRae, A. Melatos, P. Meyers, H. Middleton, M. T. Miles, M. Millhouse, Y. Lun Mong, B. Mueller, J. Munch, J. Musiov, S. Muusse, R. S. Nathan, Y. Naveh, C. Neijssel, B. Neil, S. W. S. Ng, V. Oloworaran, D. J. Ottaway, M. Page, J. Pan, M. Pathak, E. Payne, J. Powell, J. Pritchard, E. Puckridge, A. Raidani, V. Rallabhandi, D. Reardon, J. A. Riley, L. Roberts, I. M. Romero-Shaw, T. J. Roocke, G. Rowell, N. Sahu, N. Sarin, L. Sarre, H. Sattari, M. Schiworski, S. M. Scott, R. Sengar, D. Shaddock, R. Shannon, J. SHI, P. Sibley, B. J. J. Slagmolen, T. Slaven-Blair, R. J. E. Smith, J. Spollard, L. Steed, L. Strang, H. Sun, A. Sunderland, S. Suvorova, C. Talbot, E. Thrane, D. Töyrä, P. Trahanas, A. Vajpeyi, J. V. van Heijningen, A. F. Vargas, P. J. Veitch, A. Vigna-Gomez, A. Wade, K. Walker, Z. Wang, R. L. Ward, K. Ward, S. Webb, L. Wen, K. Wette, R. Wilcox, J. Winterflood, C. Wolf, B. Wu, M. Jet Yap, Z. You, H. Yu, J. Zhang, J. Zhang, C. Zhao, X. Zhu
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- Journal:
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia / Volume 37 / 2020
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 November 2020, e047
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Gravitational waves from coalescing neutron stars encode information about nuclear matter at extreme densities, inaccessible by laboratory experiments. The late inspiral is influenced by the presence of tides, which depend on the neutron star equation of state. Neutron star mergers are expected to often produce rapidly rotating remnant neutron stars that emit gravitational waves. These will provide clues to the extremely hot post-merger environment. This signature of nuclear matter in gravitational waves contains most information in the 2–4 kHz frequency band, which is outside of the most sensitive band of current detectors. We present the design concept and science case for a Neutron Star Extreme Matter Observatory (NEMO): a gravitational-wave interferometer optimised to study nuclear physics with merging neutron stars. The concept uses high-circulating laser power, quantum squeezing, and a detector topology specifically designed to achieve the high-frequency sensitivity necessary to probe nuclear matter using gravitational waves. Above 1 kHz, the proposed strain sensitivity is comparable to full third-generation detectors at a fraction of the cost. Such sensitivity changes expected event rates for detection of post-merger remnants from approximately one per few decades with two A+ detectors to a few per year and potentially allow for the first gravitational-wave observations of supernovae, isolated neutron stars, and other exotica.
Structural Characterization of PLD-grown Nanometer Size Ferromagnetic NiFeMo Films
- Mitali Banerjee, Alak Kumar Majumdar, R J Choudhary, D M Phase, S Rai, Pragya Tiwari, G S Lodha
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- Journal:
- MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive / Volume 1200 / 2009
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 31 January 2011, 1200-G09-05
- Print publication:
- 2009
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Thin films of 3 different thicknesses each of Ni83.2Fe3.3Mo13.5 and Ni83.1Fe6.0Mo10.9alloys have been grown using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. Our motivation is to investigate the magnetic properties of a few nm thick Ni alloys with mostly Mo (4d element) addition since the corresponding soft ferromagnetic bulk alloys have shown very small coercivity of ˜ 0.1 Oe. Detailed structural characterization has been undertaken before probing the magnetic properties. Arc melted alloy buttons after homogenization are used directly as targets for the deposition. Films were deposited on single crystal Sapphire (0001) substrates using excimer laser. The structural characterization has been done by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Atomic force microscopy (AFM). The X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the films are highly textured and grown along [111] direction of the alloys. They have high lattice strain which makes the films highly resistive and the resistance decreases with increasing thickness. The EDS measurements, using Scanning electron microscope (SEM), indicate that the compositions of the films are almost the same as those of the targets. Thickness, roughness, and density gradients are estimated using XRR measurements. The thinner films have higher roughness compared to the thicker ones for both the compositions. The films have density gradient across their thickness. The bottommost low density layer has high roughness which is supposed to be the result of initial non uniform coverage of the substrate. The density of the middle layer, having the lowest roughness, is approximately near the bulk value and it increases with increasing film thickness. The change in density is not due to the variation of composition; instead it is due to the variation of void densities in the layers. The topmost layer, having the lowest density and the highest roughness, is interpreted as a porous layer which is also evident from the AFM images.