Cerebro-spinal disease and its relation to the optic nerve: a critical review

In this review the optic nerve is interpretated as that part of the optic pathway which lies between the chiasm and the retina. The review is limited to a consideration of the conditions of this part of the visual tract

Key dating features for timber-framed dwellings in Surrey

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ The Vernacular Architecture Group 2013. MORE OpenChoice articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.The main component of the Surrey Dendrochronology Project is the accurate dating of 177 ‘dwellings’, nearly all by tree-ring analysis. The dates are used to establish date ranges for 52 ‘key features’, which cover many aspects of timber-framing from building type to details of carpentry. It is shown that changes of method and fashion were in many cases surprisingly rapid, almost abrupt in historical terms. Previous dating criteria for timber-framed dwellings in the county have been refined and new criteria introduced. Clusters of change from the 1440s and the 1540s are shown and some possible historical links suggested.The Heritage Lottery Fund, the Domestic Buildings Research Group (Surrey), the Surrey Archaeological Society and the historical societies of Charlwood, Farnham and Nutfield

Practice to Policy: Clinical Psychologists' Experiences of Macro-Level Work

Aims: Many clinical psychologists have ventured beyond therapeutic and assessment roles to undertake public policy work. However, little research has systematically examined clinical psychologists’ roles in policy work and the implications of such work for the profession. This qualitative study examined the influences, processes, skills and knowledge underpinning policy work by clinical psychologists, and the challenges and facilitators encountered. / Method: Participants were 37 UK clinical psychologists, from a broad spectrum of specialties, who had engaged in public policy work. They were selected by purposive sampling and snowballing to take part in a semi-structured interview about their experiences of policy work and social action. Transcripts were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. / Results: The analysis yielded six themes, grouped into two domains: (1) ’Getting There’, describing participants’ professional journeys to policy work, including early influences and career paths, and (2) ‘Being There’ describing their experiences of working in this way, the challenges and facilitators in the process, and the skills and knowledge upon which they drew. / Conclusions: Clinical psychologists already possess core clinical and research skills that may potentially be adapted to work within broader political systems. However, they need to learn to use their existing skills in a different context, and also acquire some additional skills unique to policy-level work

Possible Cosmological Implications of the Quark-Hadron Phase Transition

We study the quark-hadron phase transition within an effective model of QCD, and find that in a reasonable range of the main parameters of the model, bodies with quark content between $10^{-2}$ and 10 solar masses can have been formed in the early universe. In addition, we show that a significant amount of entropy is released during the transition. This may imply the existence of a higher baryon number density than what is usually expected at temperatures above the QCD scale. The cosmological QCD transition may then provide a natural way for decreasing the high baryon asymmetry created by an Affleck-Dine like mechanism down to the value required by primordial nucleosynthesis.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 5 Postscript figures included. Submitted to Journal of Physics

Microlensing as a probe of the Galactic structure; 20 years of microlensing optical depth studies

Microlensing is now a very popular observational astronomical technique. The investigations accessible through this effect range from the dark matter problem to the search for extra-solar planets. In this review, the techniques to search for microlensing effects and to determine optical depths through the monitoring of large samples of stars will be described. The consequences of the published results on the knowledge of the Milky-Way structure and its dark matter component will be discussed. The difficulties and limitations of the ongoing programs and the perspectives of the microlensing optical depth technique as a probe of the Galaxy structure will also be detailed.Comment: Accepted for publication in General Relativity and Gravitation. General Relativity and Gravitation in press (2010) 0

Can a galaxy redshift survey measure dark energy clustering?

(abridged) A wide-field galaxy redshift survey allows one to probe galaxy clustering at largest spatial scales, which carries an invaluable information on horizon-scale physics complementarily to the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Assuming the planned survey consisting of z~1 and z~3 surveys with areas of 2000 and 300 square degrees, respectively, we study the prospects for probing dark energy clustering from the measured galaxy power spectrum, assuming the dynamical properties of dark energy are specified in terms of the equation of state and the effective sound speed c_e in the context of an adiabatic cold dark matter dominated model. The dark energy clustering adds a power to the galaxy power spectrum amplitude at spatial scales greater than the sound horizon, and the enhancement is sensitive to redshift evolution of the net dark energy density, i.e. the equation of state. We find that the galaxy survey, when combined with Planck, can distinguish dark energy clustering from a smooth dark energy model such as the quintessence model (c_e=1), when c_e<0.04 (0.02) in the case of the constant equation of state w_0=-0.9 (-0.95). An ultimate full-sky survey of z~1 galaxies allows the detection when c_e<0.08 (0.04) for w_0=0.9 (-0.95). We also investigate a degeneracy between the dark energy clustering and the non-relativistic neutrinos implied from the neutrino oscillation experiments, because the two effects both induce a scale-dependent modification in the galaxy power spectrum shape at largest spatial scales accessible from the galaxy survey. It is shown that a wider redshift coverage can efficiently separate the two effects by utilizing the different redshift dependences, where dark energy clustering is apparent only at low redshifts z<1.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures; minor changes to match the published versio

A new clue to the transition mechanism between optical high and low states of the supersoft X-ray source RX J0513.9-6951, implied from the recurrent nova CI Aquilae 2000 outburst model

We have found a new clue to the transition mechanism between optical high/X-ray off and optical low/X-ray on states of the LMC supersoft X-ray source RX J0513.9-6951. A sharp ~1 mag drop is common to the CI Aql 2000 outburst. These drops are naturally attributed to cessation of optically thick winds on white dwarfs. A detailed light-curve analysis of CI Aql indicates that the size of a disk drastically shrinks when the wind stops. This causes ~1-2 mag drop in the optical light curve. In RX J0513.9-6951, the same mechanism reproduces sharp ~1 mag drop from optical high to low states. We predict this mechanism also works on the transition from low to high states. Interaction between the wind and the companion star attenuates the mass transfer and drives full cycles of low and high states.Comment: 9 pages including 5 figures, to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Production technology of Nabataean painted pottery compared with that of Roman terra sigillata

The Nabataeans, who founded the city of Petra (southern Jordan) in the late first millennium BCE, are noted for the production of a distinctive very fine pottery with painted decoration and a wall thickness sometimes as little as 1.5 mm; this pottery appears largely locally made and not widely circulated. Using a combination of OM, SEM with attached EDS, surface XRF, and XRD, it is shown that the Nabataean fine pottery bodies were produced using semi-calcareous clays which were fired to temperatures of about 950 °C. In contrast, published data indicate that contemporary and in many ways apparently functionally equivalent Roman terra sigillata, which was traded throughout the Roman Empire, was produced using fully-calcareous clays which were fired to temperatures in the range 1000–1100 °C. Furthermore, the high gloss slip applied to Roman terra sigillata is fully vitrified whereas the red-painted decoration applied to the Nabataean pottery is unvitrified. The more robust Roman terra sigillata is therefore better suited as tableware for serving and consuming food than would be the case for Nabataean fine pottery, and would be a more successful export material

Community resource centres to improve the health of women and children in Mumbai slums: study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

Background: The trial addresses the general question of whether community resource centers run by a non-government organization improve the health of women and children in slums. The resource centers will be run by the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action, and the trial will evaluate their effects on a series of public health indicators. Each resource center will be located in a vulnerable Mumbai slum area and will serve as a base for salaried community workers, supervised by officers and coordinators, to organize the collection and dissemination of health information, provision of services, home visits to identify and counsel families at risk, referral of individuals and families to appropriate services and support for their access, meetings of community members and providers, and events and campaigns on health issues. Methods/design: A cluster randomized controlled trial in which 20 urban slum areas with resource centers are compared with 20 control areas. Each cluster will contain approximately 600 households and randomized allocation will be in three blocked phases, of 12, 12 and 16 clusters. Any resident of an intervention cluster will be able to participate in the intervention, but the resource centers will target women and children, particularly women of reproductive age and children under 5. The outcomes will be assessed through a household census after 2 years of resource center operations. The primary outcomes are unmet need for family planning in women aged 15 to 49 years, proportion of children under 5 years of age not fully immunized for their ages, and proportion of children under 5 years of age with weight for height less than 2 standard deviations below the median for age and sex. Secondary outcomes describe adolescent pregnancies, home deliveries, receipt of conditional cash transfers for institutional delivery, other childhood anthropometric indices, use of public sector health and nutrition services, indices of infant and young child feeding, and consultation for violence against women and children

Theory and laboratory astrophysics

Science opportunities in the 1990's are discussed. Topics covered include the large scale structure of the universe, galaxies, stars, star formation and the interstellar medium, high energy astrophysics, and the solar system. Laboratory astrophysics in the 1990's is briefly surveyed, covering such topics as molecular, atomic, optical, nuclear and optical physics. Funding recommendations are given for the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy. Recommendations for laboratory astrophysics research are given