Neighbourhoods and self rated health: a comparison of public sector employees in London and Helsinki

Study objective: Mortality and morbidity vary across neighbourhoods and larger residential areas. Effects of area deprivation on health may vary across countries, because of greater spatial separation of people occupying high and low socioeconomic positions and differences in the provision of local services and facilities. Neighbourhood variations in health and the contribution of residents' characteristics and neighbourhood indicators were compared in London and Helsinki, two settings where inequality and welfare policies differ.Design: Data from two cohorts were used to investigate associations between self rated health and neighbourhood indicators using a multilevel approach.Setting: London and Helsinki.Participants: From the Whitehall II study (London, aged 39-63) and the Helsinki health study (aged 40-60).Main results: Socioeconomic segregation was higher in London than in Helsinki. Age and sex adjusted differences in self rated health between neighbourhoods were also greater in London. Independent of individual socioeconomic position, neighbourhood unemployment, proportion of residents in manual occupations, and proportion of single households were associated with health. In pooled data, residence in a neighbourhood with highest unemployment was associated with an odds ratio of less than good self rated health of 1.51 (95% CI 1.30 to 1.75). High rates of single parenthood were associated with health in London but not in Helsinki.Conclusions: Neighbourhood socioeconomic context was associated with health in both countries, with some evidence of greater neighbourhood effects in London. Greater socioeconomic segregation in London may have emergent effects at the neighbourhood level. Local and national social policies may reduce, or restrict, inequality and segregation between areas

Multi-orbital bosons in bipartite optical lattices

We study interacting bosons in a two dimensional bipartite optical lattice. By focusing on the regime where the first three excited bands are nearly degenerate we derive a three orbital tight-binding model which captures the most relevant features of the bandstructure. In addition, we also derive a corresponding generalized Bose-Hubbard model and solve it numerically under different situations, both with and without a confining trap. It is especially found that the hybridization between sublattices can strongly influence the phase diagrams and in a trap enable even appearances of condensed phases intersecting the same Mott insulating plateaus.Comment: Minor change

Quantum fluctuations of a vortex in an optical lattice

Using a variational ansatz for the wave function of the Bose-Einstein condensate, we develop a quantum theory of vortices and quadrupole modes in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We study the coupling between the quadrupole modes and Kelvin modes, which turns out to be formally analogous to the theory of parametric processes in quantum optics. This leads to the possibility of squeezing vortices. We solve the quantum multimode problem for the Kelvin modes and quadrupole modes numerically and find properties that cannot be explained with a simple linear-response theory.Comment: final version, minor change

Superfluid phases of fermions with hybridized ss and pp orbitals

We explore the superfluid phases of a two-component Fermi mixture with hybridized orbitals in optical lattices. We show that there exists a general mapping of this system to the Lieb lattice. By using simple multiband models with hopping between $s$ and $p$-orbital states, we show that superfluid order parameters can have a $\pi$-phase difference between lattice sites, which is distinct from the case with hopping between $s$-orbitals. If the population imbalance between the two spin species is tuned, the superfluid phase may evolve through various phases due to the interplay between hopping, interactions and imbalance. We show that the rich behavior is observable in experimentally realizable systems.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures. Published versio

Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality Rates in Old Age in the World Health Organization Europe Region

Socioeconomic adversity is among the foremost fundamental causes of human suffering, and this is no less true in old age. Recent reports on socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rate in old age suggest that a low socioeconomic position continues to increase the risk of death even among the oldest old. We aimed to examine the evidence for socioeconomic mortality rate inequalities in old age, including information about associations with various indicators of socioeconomic position and for various geographic locations within the World Health Organization Region for Europe. The articles included in this review leave no doubt that inequalities in mortality rate by socioeconomic position persist into the oldest ages for both men and women in all countries for which information is available, although the relative risk measures observed were rarely higher than 2.00. Still, the available evidence base is heavily biased geographically, inasmuch as it is based largely on national studies from Nordic and Western European countries and local studies from urban areas in Southern Europe. This bias will hamper the design of European-wide policies to reduce inequalities in mortality rate. We call for a continuous update of the empiric evidence on socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rate

Spontaneous squeezing of a vortex in an optical lattice

We study the equilibrium states of a vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We find that quantum effects can be important and that it is even possible for the vortex to be strongly squeezed, which reflects itself in a different quantum mechanical uncertainty of the vortex position in two orthogonal directions. The latter is observable by measuring the atomic density after an expansion of the Bose-Einstein condensate in the lattice.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, more details added, some new citation

Nuclear antiferromagnetism in rhodium metal at positive and negative nanokelvin temperatures

We have measured the dynamic susceptibility of polycrystalline rhodium foils down to 280 pK and up to -750 pK. These record-low and -high nuclear spin temperatures were reached by adiabatic demagnetization using initial polarizations of 83 and -60%. At T>0, the static susceptibility, integrated from NMR spectra, displays an antiferromagnetic Curie-Weiss law, with θ=-1.8±0.3 nK. At T<0, a crossover from ferro- to antiferromagnetic tendency is found around -6 nK. We obtain Jnn/h=-17±3 Hz and Jnnn/h=10±3 Hz if only nearest and next nearest neighbor interactions are assumed.Peer reviewe