1,957 research outputs found
Getting Ready For The Start in the Schooner Race of the Annual Biloxi Yacht Club Regatta, Biloxi, Miss.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/ms_pcards/1044/thumbnail.jp
A Beautiful Scene, West Beach Boulevard, Biloxi, Miss. The Grounds of the White House Hotel
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/ms_pcards/1045/thumbnail.jp
Changing knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards cytomegalovirus in pregnancy through film-based antenatal education: a feasibility randomised controlled trial of a digital educational intervention
Background
Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common congenital infection globally, however information about CMV is not routinely included in antenatal education in the United Kingdom. This feasibility study aimed to gather the essential data needed to design and power a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) to investigate the efficacy of a digital intervention in reducing the risk of CMV acquisition in pregnancy. In order to do this, we carried out a single-centre RCT, which explored the knowledge, attitudes and risk reduction behaviours in women in the intervention and treatment as usual groups, pre- and post-intervention.
Methods
CMV seronegative women living with a child less than four years old, receiving antenatal care at a single UK tertiary centre, were randomised to the digital intervention or ‘treatment as usual’ groups. Participants completed questionnaires before the digital intervention and after and at 34 gestational weeks, and responses within groups and between groups were compared using tailored randomisation tests. CMV serology was tested in the first trimester and at the end of pregnancy.
Results
Of the 878 women screened, 865 samples were analysed with 43% (n = 372) being CMV seronegative and therefore eligible to take part in the RCT; of these, 103 (27.7%) women were enrolled and 87 (84%) of these completed the study. Most participants (n = 66; 64%) were unfamiliar with CMV at enrolment, however at 34 gestational weeks, women in the intervention group (n = 51) were more knowledgeable about CMV compared to the treatment as usual group (n = 52) and reported engaging in activities that may increase the risk of CMV transmission less frequently. The digital intervention was highly acceptable to pregnant women. Overall, four participants seroconverted over the course of the study: two from each study group.
Conclusions
A large multi-centre RCT investigating the efficacy of a CMV digital intervention is feasible in the United Kingdom; this study has generated essential data upon which to power such a study. This single-centre feasibility RCT demonstrates that a digital educational intervention is associated with increase in knowledge about CMV and can result in behaviour change which may reduce the risk of CMV acquisition in pregnancy
Efficacy of Social Cognitive Interventions on Improving Social Participation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Social cognitive training programs, developed primarily by mental health and educational professionals to teach social skills to children with ASD, may have the potential for implementation in the field of occupational therapy to support social participation among this population.
This current systematic review was conducted to examine the efficacy of social cognitive interventions to improve social participation in children with AS
Silent Transitions in Automata with Storage
We consider the computational power of silent transitions in one-way automata
with storage. Specifically, we ask which storage mechanisms admit a
transformation of a given automaton into one that accepts the same language and
reads at least one input symbol in each step.
We study this question using the model of valence automata. Here, a finite
automaton is equipped with a storage mechanism that is given by a monoid.
This work presents generalizations of known results on silent transitions.
For two classes of monoids, it provides characterizations of those monoids that
allow the removal of \lambda-transitions. Both classes are defined by graph
products of copies of the bicyclic monoid and the group of integers. The first
class contains pushdown storages as well as the blind counters while the second
class contains the blind and the partially blind counters.Comment: 32 pages, submitte
Necessity of Superposition of Macroscopically Distinct States for Quantum Computational Speedup
For quantum computation, we investigate the conjecture that the superposition
of macroscopically distinct states is necessary for a large quantum speedup.
Although this conjecture was supported for a circuit-based quantum computer
performing Shor's factoring algorithm [A. Ukena and A. Shimizu, Phys. Rev. A69
(2004) 022301], it needs to be generalized for it to be applicable to a large
class of algorithms and/or other models such as measurement-based quantum
computers. To treat such general cases, we first generalize the indices for the
superposition of macroscopically distinct states. We then generalize the
conjecture, using the generalized indices, in such a way that it is
unambiguously applicable to general models if a quantum algorithm achieves
exponential speedup. On the basis of this generalized conjecture, we further
extend the conjecture to Grover's quantum search algorithm, whose speedup is
large but quadratic. It is shown that this extended conjecture is also correct.
Since Grover's algorithm is a representative algorithm for unstructured
problems, the present result further supports the conjecture.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. Fixed typos throughout the manuscript. This
version has been publishe
Charged Particles in a 2+1 Curved Background
The coupling to a 2+1 background geometry of a quantized charged test
particle in a strong magnetic field is analyzed. Canonical operators adapting
to the fast and slow freedoms produce a natural expansion in the inverse square
root of the magnetic field strength. The fast freedom is solved to the second
order.
At any given time, space is parameterized by a couple of conjugate operators
and effectively behaves as the `phase space' of the slow freedom. The slow
Hamiltonian depends on the magnetic field norm, its covariant derivatives, the
scalar curvature and presents a peculiar coupling with the spin-connection.Comment: 22 page
Chern - Simons Gauge Field Theory of Two - Dimensional Ferromagnets
A Chern-Simons gauged Nonlinear Schr\"odinger Equation is derived from the
continuous Heisenberg model in 2+1 dimensions. The corresponding planar magnets
can be analyzed whithin the anyon theory. Thus, we show that static magnetic
vortices correspond to the self-dual Chern - Simons solitons and are described
by the Liouville equation. The related magnetic topological charge is
associated with the electric charge of anyons. Furthermore, vortex - antivortex
configurations are described by the sinh-Gordon equation and its conformally
invariant extension. Physical consequences of these results are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, Plain TeX, Lecce, June 199
Bounded Languages Meet Cellular Automata with Sparse Communication
Cellular automata are one-dimensional arrays of interconnected interacting
finite automata. We investigate one of the weakest classes, the real-time
one-way cellular automata, and impose an additional restriction on their
inter-cell communication by bounding the number of allowed uses of the links
between cells. Moreover, we consider the devices as acceptors for bounded
languages in order to explore the borderline at which non-trivial decidability
problems of cellular automata classes become decidable. It is shown that even
devices with drastically reduced communication, that is, each two neighboring
cells may communicate only constantly often, accept bounded languages that are
not semilinear. If the number of communications is at least logarithmic in the
length of the input, several problems are undecidable. The same result is
obtained for classes where the total number of communications during a
computation is linearly bounded
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