4,106 research outputs found
Does the UK Local Finance Improvement Trust (Lift)Initiative Improve Risk Management in Public-Private Procurement?
The UK government introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and, latterly, the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) in an attempt to improve public service provision. As a variant of PFI, LIFT seeks to create a framework for the effective provision of primary care facilities. Like conventional PFI procurement, LIFT projects involve long-term contracts, complex multi-party interactions and thus create various risks to public sector clients. This paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of LIFT with a focus on how this approach facilitates or impedes risk management from the public sector client perspective. Our paper concludes that LIFT has a potential for creating additional problems, including the further reduction of public sector control, conflicts of interest, the inappropriate use of enabling funds, and higher than market rental costs affecting the uptake of space in the buildings by local health care providers. However, there is also evidence that LIFT has facilitated new investment and that Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) have themselves started addressing some of the weaknesses of this procurement format through the bundling of projects and other forms of regional co-operation
The relationship between particle freeze-out distributions and HBT radius parameters
The relationship between pion and kaon space-time freeze-out distributions
and the HBT radius parameters in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is
investigated. We show that the HBT radius parameters in general do not reflect
the R.M.S. deviations of the single particle production points. Instead, the
HBT radius parameters are most closely related to the curvature of the
two-particle space-time relative position distribution at the origin. We
support our arguments by studies with a dynamical model (RQMD 2.4).Comment: RevTex, 10 pages including 3 figures. v2: Discussion of the lambda
parameter has been added. PRC, in prin
A rank based social norms model of how people judge their levels of drunkenness whilst intoxicated
Background:
A rank based social norms model predicts that drinkers’ judgements about their drinking will be based on the rank of their breath alcohol level amongst that of others in the immediate environment, rather than their actual breath alcohol level, with lower relative rank associated with greater feelings of safety. This study tested this hypothesis and examined how people judge their levels of drunkenness and the health consequences of their drinking whilst they are intoxicated in social drinking environments.
Methods:
Breath alcohol testing of 1,862 people (mean age = 26.96 years; 61.86 % male) in drinking environments. A subset (N = 400) also answered four questions asking about their perceptions of their drunkenness and the health consequences of their drinking (plus background measures).
Results:
Perceptions of drunkenness and the health consequences of drinking were regressed on: (a) breath alcohol level, (b) the rank of the breath alcohol level amongst that of others in the same environment, and (c) covariates. Only rank of breath alcohol level predicted perceptions: How drunk they felt (b 3.78, 95 % CI 1.69 5.87), how extreme they regarded their drinking that night (b 3.7, 95 % CI 1.3 6.20), how at risk their long-term health was due to their current level of drinking (b 4.1, 95 % CI 0.2 8.0) and how likely they felt they would experience liver cirrhosis (b 4.8. 95 % CI 0.7 8.8). People were more influenced by more sober others than by more drunk others.
Conclusion:
Whilst intoxicated and in drinking environments, people base judgements regarding their drinking on how their level of intoxication ranks relative to that of others of the same gender around them, not on their actual levels of intoxication. Thus, when in the company of others who are intoxicated, drinkers were found to be more likely to underestimate their own level of drinking, drunkenness and associated risks. The implications of these results, for example that increasing the numbers of sober people in night time environments could improve subjective assessments of drunkenness, are discussed
Probing Transport Theories via Two-Proton Source Imaging
Imaging technique is applied to two-proton correlation functions to extract
quantitative information about the space-time properties of the emitting source
and about the fraction of protons that can be attributed to fast emission
mechanisms. These new analysis techniques resolve important ambiguities that
bedeviled prior comparisons between measured correlation functions and those
calculated by transport theory. Quantitative comparisons to transport theory
are presented here. The results of the present analysis differ from those
reported previously for the same reaction systems. The shape of the two-proton
emitting sources are strongly sensitive to the details about the in-medium
nucleon-nucleon cross sections and their density dependence.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures. Figures are in GIF format. If you need
postscript format, please contact: [email protected]
Magnetic free energy at elevated temperatures and hysteresis of magnetic particles
We derive a free energy for weakly anisotropic ferromagnets which is valid in
the whole temperature range and interpolates between the micromagnetic energy
at zero temperature and the Landau free energy near the Curie point T_c. This
free energy takes into account the change of the magnetization length due to
thermal effects, in particular, in the inhomogeneous states. As an
illustration, we study the thermal effect on the Stoner-Wohlfarth curve and
hysteresis loop of a ferromagnetic nanoparticle assuming that it is in a
single-domain state. Within this model, the saddle point of the particle's free
energy, as well as the metastability boundary, are due to the change in the
magnetization length sufficiently close to T_c, as opposed to the usual
homogeneous rotation process at lower temperatures.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
Imaging Sources with Fast and Slow Emission Components
We investigate two-proton correlation functions for reactions in which fast
dynamical and slow evaporative proton emission are both present. In such cases,
the width of the correlation peak provides the most reliable information about
the source size of the fast dynamical component. The maximum of the correlation
function is sensitive to the relative yields from the slow and fast emission
components. Numerically inverting the correlation function allows one to
accurately disentangle fast dynamical from slow evaporative emission and
extract details of the shape of the two-proton source.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
The Other (Muscarinic) Acetylcholine Receptors in Sympathetic Ganglia: Actions and Mechanisms
Acetylcholine released from preganglionic sympathetic fibers can activate two types of
acetylcholine receptors in sympathetic neurons, nicotinic and muscarinic. The former
are ligand-gated ion channels responsible for direct synaptic transmission; the latter are
G protein-coupled receptorsthat mediate variousindirect modulatory effects. Most mammalian
sympathetic neurons express three muscarinic receptor subtypes, M1, M2, and M4; some also
express M3 receptors. Activation of M1 receptors stimulates the G protein Gq and causes a
slow postsynaptic depolarization and an increase in the excitability, ultimately leading to an
asynchronous action potential discharge, which can “break through” the nicotinic ganglion
block. This is largely mediated by closure of voltage-gated K+ channels (the M channels)
composed of Kv7.2 and Kv7.3 subunits and results from hydrolysis and depletion of
membrane phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate. Activation of M2 receptors hyperpolarizes
and inhibits the postsynaptic neuron by opening G protein-gated inwardly-rectifying Kir K+
channels via the G protein Gi. M4 receptors inhibit N-type (CaV(2)) calcium channels via
the G protein Go. In the postganglionic neuron somata, this enhances the excitability by
reducing calcium-dependent potassium currents. Conversely, in postganglionic processes
and axon terminals, CaV(2)-mediated inhibition reduces norepinephrine release and inhibits
postganglionic transmission. Different muscarinic receptors may be anatomically segregated
with their cognate G proteins and (in some cases) ion channels in signalling microdomains.Ацетилхолін, котрий вивільнюється з прегангліонарних волокон, може активувати в симпатичних гангліях ацетилхолінові рецептори двох типів – нікотинові та мускаринові.
Перші з них мають лігандкеровані іонні канали, відповідальні за пряму синаптичну передачу; другі ж є рецепторами, зв’язаними з G-протеїнами, та опосередковують різні непрямі модуляторні ефекти. У більшості симпатичних
нейронів ссавців експресуються мускаринові рецептори
трьох підтипів – M1, M2 та M4; у деяких також експресуються рецептори підтипу M3. Активація рецепторів M1 зумовлює стимуляцію G-протеїну Gq; це викликає повільну
деполяризацію постсинаптичного нейрона та підвищення
його збудливості, що, кінець кінцем, призводить до генерації асинхронного розряду потенціалів дії. Така генерація може проривати „нікотинове” блокування ганглія. Цей
ефект в основному опосередковується закриванням потенціалкерованих калієвих М-каналів, що складаються із субодиниць Kv7.2 та Kv7.3, завдяки гідролізу та вичерпанню
запасів мембранного фосфатидилінозитол-4,5-бісфосфату.
Активація рецепторів M2 призводить до гіперполяризації та гальмування постсинаптичного нейрона в результаті відкривання G-протеїнкерованих калієвих каналів внутрішнього випрямлення Kir, опосередкованого G-протеїном Gi.
Рецептори M4 гальмують кальцієві канали N-типу CaV(2);
ефект опосередковується G-протеїном Go. У сомах постгангліонарних нейронів це зумовлює збільшення збудливості (через зменшення кальційзалежних калієвих струмів).
У відростках постгангліонарних нейронів та аксонних терміналях, навпаки, CaV(2)-опосередковане гальмуванням
зменшує вивільнення норепінефрину та пригнічує постгангліонарну передачу. Різні мускаринові рецептори можуть
бути анатомічно відокремленими одні від інших завдяки локалізації їх споріднених G-протеїнів та (у деяких випадках)
іонних каналів у різних сигнальних мікродоменах
Universal Quantum Computation using Exchange Interactions and Teleportation of Single-Qubit Operations
We show how to construct a universal set of quantum logic gates using control
over exchange interactions and single- and two-spin measurements only.
Single-spin unitary operations are teleported instead of being executed
directly, thus eliminating a major difficulty in the construction of several of
the most promising proposals for solid-state quantum computation, such as
spin-coupled quantum dots, donor-atom nuclear spins in silicon, and electrons
on helium. Contrary to previous proposals dealing with this difficulty, our
scheme requires no encoding redundancy. We also discuss an application to
superconducting phase qubits.Comment: 4.5 pages, including 2 figure
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