True Airspeed Measurement by Ionization-Tracer Technique

Ion bundles produced in a pulse-excited corona discharge are used as tracers with a radar-like pulse transit-time measuring instrument in order to provide a measurement of airspeed that is independent of all variables except time and distance. The resulting instrumentation need not project into the air stream and, therefore, will not cause any interference in supersonic flow. The instrument was tested at Mach numbers ranging from 0.3 to 3.8. Use of the proper instrumentation and technique results in accuracy of the order of 1 percent

The True NTH prostate cancer survivorship care programme: development and evaluation of a model for delivering follow up care to men with prostate cancer

42 Background: Increasing use of prostate specific antigen (PSA), improvements in treatment and aging population have led to the escalating incidence of prostate cancer. 5 year survival rate is relatively high and men who have completed treatment require long-term follow-up to detect recurrence or progression of disease, monitor adverse effects of treatment and identify and address psychosocial needs. Studies demonstrate men have a range of unmet physical and psychosocial needs, and health services are struggling to cope with the growing numbers. Changes is critical for long-term sustainability of the health system in many developed nations Methods: This presentation presents a model of follow up care centered on remote surveillance of PSA combined with promoting patient self-management. This initiative is part of the True NTH programme of developments initiated in the UK with funding from Movember Foundation and Prostate Cancer UK. Traditional face to face clinic follow up consultations are replaced with: patient directed individually tailored care and surveillance programme which involves: a 4 hour preparatory patient workshop, remote assessment of unmet needs and symptoms and surveillance of PSA, patient information resources, survivorship care plan, communication of treatment summary and management plan to primary care, and rapid recall system for assessment in secondary care should the need arise. The care programme is mediated through clinician and patient access to an IT portal enabling communication. Results: The second part of the presentation will describe the evaluation protocol. A historical cohort design is comparing a group of men receiving clinic follow up care (N = 300) with men enrolled on the care programme (N = 300) in 3 centers. Patient-reported outcomes are collected at baseline, 4 months and 8 months. Health economic evaluation will compare costs of clinic based follow up with those of the care programme from both a health service and patient perspective. Conclusions: The evaluation will generate data on impact, acceptability and cost of this model of follow-up care. </jats:p

Probing Spectral Line Gradients Beyond One Effective Radius in NGC 3610

The outer region (0.75--1.25 r_e in the B-band) of the merger-remnant elliptical NGC 3610 is studied using extremely high signal to noise Keck spectra, with a supplementary spectrum of the galaxy center. Stellar population parameters -- age, [Z/H], [$\alpha$/Fe] -- are measured in several apertures along the slit. Using the multi-index simultaneous fitting method of Proctor et al. (2004), no significant stellar population gradients are detected in the outer parts of the galaxy. The overall gradients relative to the galaxy center are consistent with those found in many other early-type galaxies, though the metallicity gradient is much steeper than would be expected if NGC 3610 formed in a major merger event. Standard analysis methods using the H$\beta$ index are found to produce spurious radially variable gradients.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted by A

Symmetry-projected variational approach for ground and excited states of the two-dimensional Hubbard model

We present a symmetry-projected configuration mixing scheme to describe ground and excited states, with well defined quantum numbers, of the two-dimensional Hubbard model with nearestneighbor hopping and periodic boundary conditions. Results for the half-filled 2{\times}4, 4{\times}4, and 6{\times}6 lattices, as well as doped 4 {\times} 4 systems, compare well with available results, both exact and from other state-of-the-art approximations. We report spectral functions and density of states obtained from a well-controlled ansatz for the (Ne {\pm} 1)-electron system. Symmetry projected methods have been widely used for the many-body nuclear physics problem but have received little attention in the solid state community. Given their relatively low (mean-field) computational cost and the high quality of results here reported, we believe that they deserve further scrutiny

The Globular Cluster System of the Virgo Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy VCC 1087

We have analysed the globular cluster (GC) system of the nucleated dwarf elliptical galaxy VCC 1087 in the Virgo cluster, based on Keck/LRIS spectroscopy and archival HST/ACS imaging. We estimate VCC 1087 hosts a total population of 77+/-19 GCs, which corresponds to a relatively high V-band specific frequency of 5.8+/-1.4. The g-z color distribution of the GCs shows a blue (metal-poor) peak with a tail of redder (metal-rich) clusters similar in color to those seen in luminous ellipticals. Spectroscopy of a subsample of 12 GCs suggests that the GC system is old and coeval (~10 Gyr), with a fairly broad metallicity distribution (-1.8<[m/H]<-0.8). In contrast, an integrated spectrum of the underlying galaxy starlight reveals that its optical luminosity is dominated by metal-rich, intermediate-aged stars. Radial velocities of the GCs suggest rotation close to the major axis of the galaxy, and this rotation is dynamically significant with (v/sigma)^* >1. A compilation of the kinematics of the GC systems of 9 early-type galaxies shows surprising diversity in the v/sigma parameter for GC systems. In this context, the GC system of VCC 1087 exhibits the most significant rotation to velocity dispersion signature. Modeling the velocity dispersion profile of the GCs and galaxy stars suggest fairly constant mass-to-light ratios of ~3 out to 6.5 kpc. The present observations can entertain both baryonic and non-baryonic solutions, and GC velocities at larger radii would be most valuable with regard to this issue. We discuss the evolution of VCC 1087 in terms of the galaxy ``harassment'' scenario, and conclude that this galaxy may well be the remains of a faded, tidally perturbed Sc spiral [abridged].Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, to appear in the A

Young people, crime and school exclusion: a case of some surprises

During the 1990s the number of young people being permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales increased dramatically from 2,910 (1990/91) to a peak of 12,700 (1996/97). Coinciding with this rise was a resurgence of the debate centring on lawless and delinquent youth. With the publication of Young People and Crime (Graham and Bowling 1995) and Misspent Youth (Audit Commission 1996) the 'common sense assumption' that exclusion from school inexorably promoted crime received wide support, with the school excludee portrayed as another latter day 'folk devil'. This article explores the link between school exclusion and juvenile crime, and offers some key findings from a research study undertaken with 56 young people who had experience of being excluded from school. Self-report interview questions reveal that whilst 40 of the young people had offended, 90% (36) reported that the onset of their offending commenced prior to their first exclusion. Moreover, 50 (89.2% of the total number of young people in the sample), stated that they were no more likely to offend subsequent to being excluded and 31 (55.4%) stated that they were less likely to offend during their exclusion period. Often, this was because on being excluded, they were 'grounded' by their parents

Star cluster dynamics

Dynamical evolution plays a key role in shaping the current properties of star clusters and star cluster systems. A detailed understanding of the effects of evolutionary processes is essential to be able to disentangle the properties which result from dynamical evolution from those imprinted at the time of cluster formation. In this review, we focus our attention on globular clusters and review the main physical ingredients driving their early and long-term evolution, describe the possible evolutionary routes and show how cluster structure and stellar content are affected by dynamical evolution.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures. To appear as invited review article in a special issue of the Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A: Ch. 7 "Star clusters as tracers of galactic star-formation histories" (ed. R. de Grijs). Fully peer reviewed. LaTeX, requires rspublic.cls style fil

The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands

Researchers and brand managers have limited understanding of the effects social media communication has on how consumers perceive brands. We investigated 504 Facebook users in order to observe the impact of firm-created and user-generated social media communication on brand equity, brand attitude and purchase intention by using a standardized online survey throughout Poland. To test the conceptual model, we analyzed 60 brands across three different industries: non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and mobile network operators. When analyzing the data, we applied the structural equation modeling technique to both investigate the interplay of firm-created and user-generated social media communication and examine industry-specific differences. The results of the empirical studies showed that user-generated social media communication had a positive influence on both brand equity and brand attitude, whereas firm-created social media communication affected only brand attitude. Both brand equity and brand attitude were shown to have a positive influence on purchase intention. In addition, we assessed measurement invariance using a multi-group structural modeling equation. The findings revealed that the proposed measurement model was invariant across the researched industries. However, structural path differences were detected across the models

Addicting via hashtags: How is Twitter making addiction?

Persons, substances, bodies, consumption: an ever widening process of ‘‘addicting’’ is underway in Western societies. In this article, we turn our attention to the production of addiction on the microblogging social media platform, Twitter, as an important emerging site in which the addicting of contemporary societies is also occurring. Our analysis explores two questions. First, we investigate the ways in which addiction is enacted via Twitter. How is addiction being made on Twitter? Second, we ask how the technology of Twitter itself is shaping meaning: how do the technological ‘‘affordances’’ of Twitter help constitute the kinds of addiction being materialized? While we find a multiplicity of meanings in the 140-character messages, we also find a pattern: a tendency toward extremes—addiction riven between pain and pleasure. In addition, we find significant areas of commonality between approaches and notable silences around alternatives to common understandings of addiction. We argue that the constraints on communication imposed by Twitter technology afford a ‘‘shorthand’’ of addiction that is both revealing and productive. Illuminated is the importance of addiction as a piece of cultural shorthand that draws on and simultaneously reproduces simplistic, reductive addiction objects. In concluding, we consider what these realities of addiction being enacted through Twitter can tell us about contemporary conditions of possibility for drug use in society and for individual subjectivities and experiences

D-Brane Chemistry

We study several different kinds of bound states built from D-branes and orientifolds. These states are to atoms what branonium - the bound state of a brane and its anti-brane - is to positronium, inasmuch as they typically involve a light brane bound to a much heavier object with conserved charges which forbid the system's decay. We find the fully relativistic motion of a probe Dp'-brane in the presence of source Dp-branes is integrable by quadratures. Keplerian conic sections are obtained for special choices for p and p' and the systems are shown to be equivalent to nonrelativistic systems. Their quantum behaviour is also equivalent to the corresponding non-relativistic limit. In particular the p=6, p'=0 case is equivalent to a non-relativistic dyon in a magnetic monopole background, with the trajectories in the surface of a cone. We also show that the motion of the probe branes about D6-branes in IIA theory is equivalent to the motion of the corresponding probes in the uplift to M-theory in 11 dimensions, for which there are no D6-branes but their fields are replaced by a particular Taub-NUT geometry. We further discuss the interactions of D-branes and orientifold planes having the same dimension. this system behaves at large distances as a brane-brane system but at shorter distances it does not have the tachyon instability.Comment: ref. added and typos correcte