City University London

About: City University London is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 5735 authors who have published 17285 publications receiving 453290 citations.

Gold nanorod-based localized surface plasmon resonance biosensors: A review

Abstract: Noble metal nanoparticle-based localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is an advanced and powerful label-free biosensing technique which is well-known for its high sensitivity to the surrounding refractive index change in the local environment caused by the biomolecular interactions around the sensing area. The characteristics of the LSPR effect in such sensors are highly dependent on the size, shape and nature of the material properties of the metallic nanoparticles considered. Among the various types of metallic nanoparticles used in studies employing the LSPR technique, the use of gold nanorods (GNRs) has attracted particular attention for the development of sensitive LSPR biosensors, this arising from the unique and intriguing optical properties of the material. This paper provides a detailed review of the key underpinning science for such systems and of recent progress in the development of a number of LSPR-based biosensors which use GNR as the active element, including an overview of the sensing principle, the synthesis of GNRs, the fabrication of a number of biosensors, techniques for surface modification of GNRs and finally their performance in several biosensing applications. The review ends with a consideration of key advances in GNR-based LSPR sensing and prospects for future research and advances for the development of the GNR-based LSPR biosensors.

The current cost of heart failure to the National Health Service in the UK.

Abstract: We have recently shown that heart failure admission rates continue to increase in the UK -- particularly in older age groups. As hospital activity represents the major cost component of health care expenditure related to heart failure, this study evaluated the current cost of this syndrome to the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. We applied contemporary estimates of health care activity associated with heart failure to the whole UK population on an age and sex-specific basis to calculate its cost to the NHS for the year 1995. Direct components of health care included in these estimates were hospital admissions associated with a principal diagnosis of heart failure, associated outpatient consultations, general practice consultations and prescribed drug therapy. We also calculated the cost of nursing-home care following a primary heart failure admission and the cost of hospitalisations associated with a secondary diagnosis of heart failure. Adjusting for probable increases in hospital activity and the progressive ageing of the UK population, we have also projected the cost of heart failure to the NHS for the year 2000. We estimated that there were 988000 individuals requiring treatment for heart failure in the UK during 1995. The 'direct' cost of health care for these patients was estimated to be pound 716 million, or 1.83% of total NHS expenditure. Hospitalisations and drug prescriptions accounted for 69 and 18% of this expenditure, respectively. The additional costs associated with long-term nursing home care and secondary heart failure admissions accounted for a further pound 751 million (2.0% of total NHS expenditure). By the year 2000, we estimated that the combined total direct cost of heart failure would have risen to pound 905 million -- equivalent to 1.91% of total NHS expenditure. Using well-validated sets of data, these findings re-confirm the importance of heart failure as a major public health problem in the UK. The annual direct cost of heart failure to the NHS in 2000 is likely to be of the order of 1.9% of total expenditure -- the predominant cost component being hospitalisation.

An Organizational Approach to Comparative Corporate Governance: Costs, Contingencies, and Complementarities

Abstract: This paper develops an organizational approach to corporate governance and assesses the effectiveness of corporate governance and implications for policy. Most corporate governance research focuses on a universal link between corporate governance practices (e.g., board structure, shareholder activism) and performance outcomes, but neglects how interdependencies between the organization and diverse environments lead to variations in the effectiveness of different governance practices. In contrast to such closed systems approaches, we propose a framework based on open systems approaches to organizations, which examines these organizational interdependencies in terms of the costs, contingencies, and complementarities of different corporate governance practices. These three sets of organizational factors are useful in analyzing the effectiveness of corporate governance in diverse organizational environments. We also explore the impact of costs, contingencies, and complementarities on the effectiveness of different governance aspects through the use of stylized cases and discuss the implications for different approaches to policy such as soft law or hard law.

Emergent Hydrodynamics in Integrable Quantum Systems Out of Equilibrium

Abstract: Understanding the general principles underlying strongly interacting quantum states out of equilibrium is one of the most important tasks of current theoretical physics. With experiments accessing the intricate dynamics of many-body quantum systems, it is paramount to develop powerful methods that encode the emergent physics. Up to now, the strong dichotomy observed between integrable and nonintegrable evolutions made an overarching theory difficult to build, especially for transport phenomena where space-time profiles are drastically different. We present a novel framework for studying transport in integrable systems: hydrodynamics with infinitely many conservation laws. This bridges the conceptual gap between integrable and nonintegrable quantum dynamics, and gives powerful tools for accurate studies of space-time profiles. We apply it to the description of energy transport between heat baths, and provide a full description of the current-carrying nonequilibrium steady state and the transition regions in a family of models including the Lieb-Liniger model of interacting Bose gases, realized in experiments.