There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a major public health problem. It is the fourth leading cause of chronic morbidity and mortality in the United States, and is projected to rank fifth in 2020 in burden of disease worldwide, according to a study published by the World Bank/World Health Organization. Yet, COPD remains relatively unknown or ignored by the public as well as public health and government officials. In 1998, in an effort to bring more attention to COPD, its management, and its prevention, a committed group of scientists encouraged the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization to form the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD). Among the important objectives of GOLD are to increase awareness of COPD and to help the millions of people who suffer from this disease and die prematurely of it or its complications. The first step in the GOLD program was to prepare a consensus report, Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD, published in 2001. The present, newly revised document follows the same format as the original consensus report, but has been updated to reflect the many publications on COPD that have appeared. GOLD national leaders, a network of international experts, have initiated investigations of the causes and prevalence of COPD in their countries, and developed innovative approaches for the dissemination and implementation of COPD management guidelines. We appreciate the enormous amount of work the GOLD national leaders have done on behalf of their patients with COPD. Despite the achievements in the 5 years since the GOLD report was originally published, considerable additional work is ahead of us if we are to control this major public health problem. The GOLD initiative will continue to bring COPD to the attention of governments, public health officials, health care workers, and the general public, but a concerted effort by all involved in health care will be necessary.

https://www.who.int/respiratory/copd/GOLD_WR_06.pdf

Global strategy for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: GOLD executive summary.

Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(12)61728-0.pdf

Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(12)61766-8.pdf

A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

There has been a substantial increase in both the number and the rate of opiate overdose deaths in Australia over the past three decades. In 1964, there were 6 deaths due to opiates among those aged 15-44 years, compared to 600 in 1997. The pattern was similar when rates of death were examined, with an increase from 1.3 per 100 000 persons in 1964 to 71.5 in 1997 (Hall, Degenhardt, & Lynskey, 1999). Approximately half of these deaths occurred in NSW (Lynskey & Hall, 1998). Research suggests that 1-3% of heroin users will die from a heroin-related overdose each year (Darke & Zador, 1996). Non-fatal opiate overdoses are even more common among heroin users. Non-fatal overdoses may be defined as instances where loss of consciousness and depression of respiration occurs but is not fatal, due either to medical intervention or the good health of the person. Approximately two thirds (68%) of a sample of 300 long-term Sydney heroin users reported a non-fatal overdose at some point in their lives. Just under half of these (43%) reported an overdose within the past year, and 80% had witnessed the overdose of another person (Darke, Ross, & Hall, 1996a). Around half (56%) of one sample reported that an ambulance had been called for the most recent overdose they had witnessed (Darke, Ross, & Hall, 1996b). Because overdoses attended by ambulance officers are a more common occurrence than fatal overdoses, they provide an important source of information about heroin use. First, data on the number of ambulance calls to suspected drug overdoses provides an indication of trends in rates of heroin use in the community. Second, the location of ambulance attendances provides information about areas in which the use of heroin may be more common. The current report examined data on ambulance calls in New South Wales over a two-year period, July 1997 to June 1999. There are several elements of interest in the current report. First, we examined the number of these events that occurred over the period. Second, we explored of the quality of the data on these calls. Third, we examined the information that ambulance attendances provided on temporal and geographic trends in heroin use. Finally, we compared geographic data on ambulance attendances with data on fatal heroin overdose deaths in NSW.

Ambulance calls to suspected drug overdoses: analysis of New South Wales patterns, July 1997 to June 1999

Assessing the population level impact of the Swiss model of heroin prescription

The Neurobiology of Addiction

Vibrating wire viscometers rely on the principle that the viscosity of the fluid surrounding the wire provides the dominant damping action on the motion of the wire. However, some residual damping is always present due to other effects such as internal friction of the wire (anelastic relaxation), losses through the wire supports, and magnetic damping. Magnetic damping is a physical mechanism that has received relatively less attention than internal friction in the context of viscometers. The phenomenon arises because the current induced by the motion of the wire contributes to the magnetic field in such a way as to oppose its own motion. For a test circuit using a 40 μm diameter tungsten wire in a 0.3 T magnetic field, surprisingly, the effect of magnetic damping was found to be of a similar order of magnitude to other non-viscous damping effects. The effect can be accounted for by including the internal impedance of the oscillating voltage source in the model and it disappears completely for a perfect oscillating current source.

Magnetic Damping Effects in Forced-Oscillation Vibrating-Wire Viscometers

Wayne Hall and Gary Chan discuss Jasmine Khouja and co-workers' accompanying study on genetic susceptibility to tobacco smoking initiation and e-cigarette use.

/pdf/the-gateway-effect-of-e-cigarettes-may-be-explained-by-a-3zy9jfvznd.pdf

Wayne Hall

Papers

Ambulance calls to suspected drug overdoses: analysis of New South Wales patterns, July 1997 to June 1999

Assessing the population level impact of the Swiss model of heroin prescription

The Neurobiology of Addiction

Magnetic Damping Effects in Forced-Oscillation Vibrating-Wire Viscometers

The “gateway” effect of e-cigarettes may be explained by a genetic liability to risk-taking