Involving experts by experience in craniofacial research

Many areas of health research increasingly involve end users of research (typically patients and their families/caregivers) in study design, management, and dissemination. Beyond recruiting patients as research participants, the shift is towards engaging patients, parents and caregivers as active partners on the research team, who are recognised and valued as ‘experts-by-experience’ (EbyE). Currently, involving EbyE is not routine in global craniofacial research. This paper highlights the value of EbyE involvement, addresses how to incorporate EbyE at all stages of research and discusses key considerations in facilitating positive experiences for EbyE

A search for rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts in the Parkes high-latitude pulsar survey

Discoveries of rotating radio transients and fast radio bursts (FRBs) in pulsar surveys suggest that more of such transient sources await discovery in archival data sets. Here we report on a single-pulse search for dispersed radio bursts over a wide range of Galactic latitudes (|b| < $60^{\circ}$) in data previously searched for periodic sources by Burgay et al. We re-detected 20 of the 42 pulsars reported by Burgay et al. and one rotating radio transient reported by Burke-Spolaor. No FRBs were discovered in this survey. Taking into account this result, and other recent surveys at Parkes, we corrected for detection sensitivities based on the search software used in the analyses and the different backends used in these surveys and find that the all-sky FRB event rate for sources with a fluence above 4.0 Jy ms at 1.4 GHz to be ${\cal R} = 4.4^{+5.2}_{-3.1} \times 10^3$ FRBs day$^{-1}$ sky$^{-1}$, where the uncertainties represent a $99\%$ confidence interval. While this rate is lower than inferred from previous studies, as we demonstrate, this combined event rate is consistent with the results of all systematic FRB searches at Parkes to date and does not require the need to postulate a dearth of FRBs at intermediate latitudes.Comment: Accepted, 10 pages, 6 figure

Molecular Weight Dependence of Polymersome Membrane Elasticity and Stability

Vesicles prepared in water from a series of diblock copolymers and termed "polymersomes" are physically characterized. With increasing molecular weight $\bar{M}_n$, the hydrophobic core thickness $d$ for the self-assembled bilayers of polyethyleneoxide - polybutadiene (PEO-PBD) increases up to 20 $nm$ - considerably greater than any previously studied lipid system. The mechanical responses of these membranes, specifically, the area elastic modulus $K_a$ and maximal areal strain $\alpha_c$ are measured by micromanipulation. As expected for interface-dominated elasticity, $K_a$ ($\simeq$ 100 $pN/nm$) is found to be independent of $\bar{M}_n$. Related mean-field ideas also predict a limiting value for $\alpha_c$ which is universal and about 10-fold above that typical of lipids. Experiments indeed show $\alpha_c$ generally increases with $\bar{M}_n$, coming close to the theoretical limit before stress relaxation is opposed by what might be chain entanglements at the highest $\bar{M}_n$. The results highlight the interfacial limits of self-assemblies at the nano-scale.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, and 1 tabl

Radiation Induced Damage in GaAs Particle Detectors

The motivation for investigating the use of GaAs as a material for detecting particles in experiments for High Energy Physics (HEP) arose from its perceived resistance to radiation damage. This is a vital requirement for detector materials that are to be used in experiments at future accelerators where the radiation environments would exclude all but the most radiation resistant of detector types.Comment: 5 pages. PS file only - original in WORD Also available at http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/preprints/97/06

The effect of topology on the structure and free energy landscape of DNA kissing complexes

We use a recently developed coarse-grained model for DNA to study kissing complexes formed by hybridization of complementary hairpin loops. The binding of the loops is topologically constrained because their linking number must remain constant. By studying systems with linking numbers -1, 0 or 1 we show that the average number of interstrand base pairs is larger when the topology is more favourable for the right-handed wrapping of strands around each other. The thermodynamic stability of the kissing complex also decreases when the linking number changes from -1 to 0 to 1. The structures of the kissing complexes typically involve two intermolecular helices that coaxially stack with the hairpin stems at a parallel four-way junction

Pulsar J0453+1559: A Double Neutron Star System with a Large Mass Asymmetry

To understand the nature of supernovae and neutron star (NS) formation, as well as binary stellar evolution and their interactions, it is important to probe the distribution of NS masses. Until now, all double NS (DNS) systems have been measured to have a mass ratio close to unity (q $\geq$ 0.91). Here we report the measurement of the individual masses of the 4.07-day binary pulsar J0453+1559 from measurements of the rate of advance of periastron and Shapiro delay: The mass of the pulsar is 1.559(5) $M_{\odot}$ and that of its companion is 1.174(4) $M_{\odot}$; q = 0.75. If this companion is also a neutron star (NS), as indicated by the orbital eccentricity of the system (e=0.11), then its mass is the smallest precisely measured for any such object. The pulsar has a spin period of 45.7 ms and a spin derivative of 1.8616(7) x$10^-19$; from these we derive a characteristic age of ~ 4.1 x $10^9$ years and a magnetic field of ~ 2.9 x $10^9$ G,i.e, this pulsar was mildly recycled by accretion of matter from the progenitor of the companion star. This suggests that it was formed with (very approximately) its current mass. Thus NSs form with a wide range of masses, which is important for understanding their formation in supernovae. It is also important for the search for gravitational waves released during a NS-NS merger: it is now evident that we should not assume all DNS systems are symmetric

Probing a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets

We give a criterion to test a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets of $D_{2h}$ symmetry based upon the components of three order parameter tensors. We investigated the nematic behavior of monodisperse infinitely thin rectangular hard platelet systems by using the criterion. Starting with a square platelet system, and we compared it with rectangular platelet systems of various aspect ratios. For each system, we performed equilibration runs by using isobaric Monte Carlo simulations. Each system did not show a biaxial nematic behavior but a uniaxial nematic one, despite of the shape anisotropy of those platelets. The relationship between effective diameters by simulations and theoretical effective diameters of the above systems was also determined.Comment: Submitted to JPS