Holography for field theory solitons

We extend a well-known D-brane construction of the AdS/dCFT correspondence to non-abelian defects. We focus on the bulk side of the correspondence and show that there exists a regime of parameters in which the low-energy description consists of two approximately decoupled sectors. The two sectors are gravity in the ambient spacetime, and a six-dimensional supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The Yang-Mills theory is defined on a rigid AdS_4 x S^2 background and admits sixteen supersymmetries. We also consider a one-parameter deformation that gives rise to a family of Yang-Mills theories on asymptotically AdS_4 x S^2 spacetimes, which are invariant under eight supersymmetries. With future holographic applications in mind, we analyze the vacuum structure and perturbative spectrum of the Yang-Mills theory on AdS_4 x S^2, as well as systems of BPS equations for finite-energy solitons. Finally, we demonstrate that the classical Yang-Mills theory has a consistent truncation on the two-sphere, resulting in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills on AdS_4.Comment: 78 pages plus appendices, 4 figures; v2: references added; v3: typos corrected, published versio

THE NON-ENGLISH LECTURERS’ READING COMPETENCE IN READING ENGLISH TEXT AT HIGHER EDUCATION IN CENTRAL JAVA

Abstract Nowadays, the government offers a lot of scholarships to non-English lecturers to study abroad. However, only a few that could get the scholarship due to their inability to communicate in English or to comprehend English texts. In this paper, therefore, the writers want to find out whether or not the non-English lecturers could get some benefits to comprehend the English texts after being given the manual book developed by the researchers. Besides, the researchers also want to find out the elements of the text that are easy or difficult to be understood by them. The method used in this research was experimental research with the population of non English lecturers at Kopertis Wilayah VI. One hundred (100) people from several universities in Central Java were taken as the sample. Two kinds of instrument for collecting the data, namely reading test and interview were used. Reading test material was taken from the modification of the TOEFL test with the intention to know the ability of non English lecturers in reading English texts and which elements of the text are difficult or easy to be mastered by the lecturers. The interview was used to know the lecturers’ perception on the appropriateness of the manual book given and whether they got some benefits from it

Obstetrician-Gynecologists’ Knowledge of Health Disparities and Barriers among American Indian/Alaska Native Women in Washington State

Background: Health disparities between American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women and other races/ethnicities have long been noted. Obstetricians-Gynecologists (Ob-Gyn) play a significant role in well-woman care and are often the first and most frequent point of medical contact for women, particularly among minority and low-income women. Objective: This study aimed to assess Ob-Gyns’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices related to health disparities among AI/AN women. Method: A self-administered questionnaire, consisting of questions about knowledge, beliefs, and practices of health disparities among AI/AN women, was mailed to 722 members of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) practicing in the state of Washington in September 2013-February 2014. Results: The majority of respondents were knowledgeable about numerous health care disparities among non-pregnant AI/AN women, while slightly fewer were aware of disparities among pregnant AI/AN patients. Ob-Gyns reported low confidence in their training and knowledge of AI/AN culture and health disparities, but high confidence in their ability to treat AI/AN patients. Participants reported dissatisfaction with their AI/AN patients’ breastfeeding rates. Conclusion: Ob-Gyn knowledge of health disparities among AI/AN women is adequate. In spite of this, barriers to quality care are still present and increased identification and implementation of effective resources is needed

Examining the Determinants of Colorectal Cancer Screening Practices among Asian Americans.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

College Students’ Perceptions of the Efficacy of Different Strategies to Reduce the Rate of Abortions

This study examines college students’ perceptions of different strategies and the efficacy of those strategies to reduce the rates of abortions. Factors such as comprehensive, medically accurate sex education, widespread accessibility and affordability of contraception, and affordable and accessible pre-natal care are all factors that the literature has established lower the rates of abortions. Factors such as waiting periods of 24 hours or more to perform a surgical abortion, restricting state funding for abortions, and legal bans of abortions altogether are factors that do not reduce the rates of abortions (Medoff, 2015); they may even be counterproductive to their original purpose and cause the number of abortions to rise, not fall. This study uses a mixed methods approach of qualitative and quantitative questions including a Likert-type scale, to measure participants’ perceptions against what the peer reviewed data knows to be effective in lowering abortion rates. The data had shown that sex education, contraception and prenatal care are factors that these college students thought would lower the rates of abortion which directly links to what the literature lists as factors that will reduce the rates or abortion. However, my participants thought bans on abortion and restrictive laws would lower the rates which we know to be false according to the literature

Autonomy of International Bureaucracies: On the Actor-Level Autonomy in the WTO Secretariat

Masteroppgave offentlig politikk og ledelse- Universitetet i Agder, 2014The research question in this study addresses actor-level autonomy as enacted by civil servants within an international bureaucracy, namely the WTO Secretariat. The objective is to identify underlying mechanisms arguably responsible for inciting patterns of behaviour among civil servants. This study is premised on the assumption that autonomy may be studied by examining behavioural patterns of the incumbents and that such behavioural patterns largely are a consequence of mechanisms of pre-socialization, re-socialization and organizational affiliation. The study consists of two main parts. The first part is descriptive and addresses actor-level autonomy, whereas the second part is explanatory and seeks to identify the driving forces behind the emergence of supranational, departmental and epistemic behavioural dynamics. The main conclusions drawn from this study is that the WTO Secretariat may reinforce and shape behavioural patterns in particular, and that these are related to the emergence of actorlevel autonomy. Furthermore, the Secretariat is invested with the power to influence the outcomes of global policies through various formal and informal channels. Additionally, the study finds that pre-socialization is largely responsible for evoking supranational behavioural logics, and that re-socialization primarily impacts on departmental and epistemic behavioural dynamics, whereas organizational affiliation is unequivocally linked to departmental behavioural logics

Leveraging Program Analysis to Reduce User-Perceived Latency in Mobile Applications

Reducing network latency in mobile applications is an effective way of improving the mobile user experience and has tangible economic benefits. This paper presents PALOMA, a novel client-centric technique for reducing the network latency by prefetching HTTP requests in Android apps. Our work leverages string analysis and callback control-flow analysis to automatically instrument apps using PALOMA's rigorous formulation of scenarios that address "what" and "when" to prefetch. PALOMA has been shown to incur significant runtime savings (several hundred milliseconds per prefetchable HTTP request), both when applied on a reusable evaluation benchmark we have developed and on real applicationsComment: ICSE 201