197 research outputs found
A participatory process for modelling green infrastructure implementation in London
Cities face the interlinked challenges of transforming environmental quality, sustainability, population health and health equity. There is increasing interest in green infrastructure in connection with these challenges. In order to go beyond an understanding of the effects of green infrastructure and develop an understanding of how policymakers should think about it, we need to capture potential interactions and be aware of possible unintended consequences. In our research, we applied a systems-thinking approach: integrating participatory engagements, qualitative system dynamics modelling, and an assessment framework in order to address the challenge. This allowed us to see multiple dynamics between the prioritisation of policymakers, different types of green infrastructure, and environmental and health outcomes. It also made us ask different and more integrated questions, and suggested a methodology for addressing the challenge of transforming cities
Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health: A structured approach to support the development and implementation of city policies for population and planetary health
Context: The multi-disciplinary and multi-partner CUSSH project (Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health) seeks to support cities to take transformative action towards population and planetary health goals. Rationale: As all cities are complex systems with unique contexts and priorities, our approach is to engage with partner cities in a participatory process to build a shared understanding of relevant systems that will inform the development and implementation of new city policies. Description: Six partner cities were selected to represent larger and smaller cities from across the global spectrum of income: London (UK) and Rennes (France) in Europe, Nairobi and Kisumu in Kenya, and Beijing and Ningbo in China. In each setting we are engaging stakeholders in a broadly similar structured approach that integrates evidence gathering and modelling, participatory engagement framework, and ongoing tracking and evaluation. In addition, we are developing a working theory of change in each setting to explain how and why the chosen policies may work. Achievements: Our city engagement to date has focused on indoor air pollution (Nairobi), green infrastructure (London) and GHG emissions (Rennes), where findings highlighted not only multiple pathways by which policy interventions could affect health, but also potential counter-intuitive influences and tensions, and synergistic opportunities for solving both sustainability and health problems
Effects of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Eating Plan on Cardiovascular Risks Among Type 2 Diabetic Patients: A randomized crossover clinical trial
Objective: To determine the effects of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating pattern on cardiometabolic risks in type 2 diabetic patients. Research design and methods: A randomized crossover clinical trial was undertaken in 31 type 2 diabetic patients. For 8 weeks, participants were randomly assigned to a control diet or the DASH eating pattern. Results: After following the DASH eating pattern, body weight (P = 0.007) and waist circumference (P = 0.002) reduced significantly. Fasting blood glucose levels and A1C decreased after adoption of the DASH diet (â29.4 ± 6.3 mg/dl; P = 0.04 and â1.7 ± 0.1%; P = 0.04, respectively). After the DASH diet, the mean change for HDL cholesterol levels was higher (4.3 ± 0.9 mg/dl; P = 0.001) and LDL cholesterol was reduced (â17.2 ± 3.5 mg/dl; P = 0.02). Additionally, DASH had beneficial effects on systolic (â13.6 ± 3.5 vs. â3.1 ± 2.7 mmHg; P = 0.02) and diastolic blood pressure (â9.5 ± 2.6 vs. â0.7 ± 3.3 mmHg; P = 0.04). Conclusions: Among diabetic patients, the DASH diet had beneficial effects on cardiometabolic risks
Quasielastic 12C(e,e'p) Reaction at High Momentum Transfer
We measured the 12C(e,e'p) cross section as a function of missing energy in
parallel kinematics for (q,w) = (970 MeV/c, 330 MeV) and (990 MeV/c, 475 MeV).
At w=475 MeV, at the maximum of the quasielastic peak, there is a large
continuum (E_m > 50 MeV) cross section extending out to the deepest missing
energy measured, amounting to almost 50% of the measured cross section. The
ratio of data to DWIA calculation is 0.4 for both the p- and s-shells. At w=330
MeV, well below the maximum of the quasielastic peak, the continuum cross
section is much smaller and the ratio of data to DWIA calculation is 0.85 for
the p-shell and 1.0 for the s-shell. We infer that one or more mechanisms that
increase with transform some of the single-nucleon-knockout into
multinucleon knockout, decreasing the valence knockout cross section and
increasing the continuum cross section.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, Revtex (multicol, prc and aps styles), to appear
in Phys Rev
Polarization degrees of freedom in photoinduced two-nucleon knockout from finite nuclei
The polarization degrees of freedom in photoinduced two-nucleon knockout from
finite nuclei are studied. It is pointed out that they open good perspectives
to study the dynamics of dinucleons in the medium in detail. The ()
and () angular cross sections, photon asymmetries and outgoing
nucleon polarizations are calculated for the target nuclei O and
C and photonenergies ranging from 100 up to 500 MeV. It is investigated
to which degree the two-nucleon emission reaction is dominated by
photoabsorption on proton-neutron and proton-proton
pairs in the nuclear medium. The calculations demonstrate that dominance of
wave photoabsorption in the () channel does not necessarily imply
that the reaction mechanism is similar to what is observed in deuteron
photodisintegration.Comment: 27 pages, REVTeX 3.0 with epsf.sty, 11 figures in EPS forma
Association between diabetes mellitus and multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis
Massively distributed authorship of academic papers
Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative researc
A Measurement of the Interference Structure Function, R_LT, for the 12C(e,e'p) reaction in the Quasielastic Region
The coincidence cross-section and the interference structure function, R_LT,
were measured for the 12C(e,e'p) 11B reaction at quasielastic kinematics and
central momentum transfer of q=400 MeV/c. The measurement was at an opening
angle of theta_pq=11 degrees, covering a range in missing energy of E_m = 0 to
65 MeV. The R_LT structure function is found to be consistent with zero for E_m
> 50 MeV, confirming an earlier study which indicated that R_L vanishes in this
region. The integrated strengths of the p- and s-shell are compared with a
Distorted Wave Impulse Approximation calculation. The s-shell strength and
shape are compared with a Hartree Fock-Random Phase Approximation calculation.
The DWIA calculation overestimates the cross sections for p- and s-shell proton
knockout as expected, but surprisingly agrees with the extracted R_LT value for
both shells. The HF-RPA calculation describes the data more consistently, which
may be due to the inclusion of 2-body currents in this calculation.Comment: 8 Pages LaTex, 5 postscript figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Microscopic calculations of medium effects for 200-MeV (p,p') reactions
We examine the quality of a G-matrix calculation of the effective
nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction for the prediction of the cross section and
analyzing power for 200-MeV (p,p') reactions that populate natural parity
states in O, Si, and Ca. This calculation is based on a
one-boson-exchange model of the free NN force that reproduces NN observables
well. The G-matrix includes the effects of Pauli blocking, nuclear binding, and
strong relativistic mean-field potentials. The implications of adjustments to
the effective mass ansatz to improve the quality of the approximation at
momenta above the Fermi level will be discussed, along with the general quality
of agreement to a variety of (p,p') transitions.Comment: 36 pages, TeX, 18 figure
Realistic Model of the Nucleon Spectral Function in Few- and Many- Nucleon Systems
By analysing the high momentum features of the nucleon momentum distribution
in light and complex nuclei, it is argued that the basic two-nucleon
configurations generating the structure of the nucleon Spectral Function at
high values of the nucleon momentum and removal energy, can be properly
described by a factorised ansatz for the nuclear wave function, which leads to
a nucleon Spectral Function in the form of a convolution integral involving the
momentum distributions describing the relative and center-of-mass motion of a
correlated nucleon-nucleon pair embedded in the medium. The Spectral Functions
of and infinite nuclear matter resulting from the convolution formula
and from many-body calculations are compared, and a very good agreement in a
wide range of values of nucleon momentum and removal energy is found.
Applications of the model to the analysis of inclusive and exclusive processes
are presented, illustrating those features of the cross section which are
sensitive to that part of the Spectral Function which is governed by
short-range and tensor nucleon-nucleon correlations.Comment: 40 pages Latex , 16 ps figures available from the above e-mail
address or from [email protected]
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