74,870 research outputs found
Diamond-Like Carbon film from Liquid Gas on Metallic Substrates
Liquid gas was used to produce DLC films on Cu, Al and steel substrates by DC
plasma technique. The absorption in IR reflectance indicates, grown films are
DLC. By deconvolution of room temperature UV-visible spectra of the films grown
at 50 mtorr and 200C, in addition to the spectra lines reported for
CL, PL, PLC and ESR, some new spectra lines were obtained. We also, have seen
exciton absorption line at room temperature.Comment: 6 pages, Postscript, 2 figure
Quantum effects in the Alcubierre warp drive spacetime
The expectation value of the stress-energy tensor of a free conformally
invariant scalar field is computed in a two-dimensional reduction of the
Alcubierre ``warp drive'' spacetime. The stress-energy is found to diverge if
the apparent velocity of the spaceship exceeds the speed of light. If such
behavior occurs in four dimensions, then it appears implausible that ``warp
drive'' behavior in a spacetime could be engineered, even by an arbitrarily
advanced civilization.Comment: 9 pages, ReVTe
Smoking and intention to quit in deprived areas of Glasgow: is it related to housing improvements and neighbourhood regeneration because of improved mental health?
Background: People living in areas of multiple deprivation are more likely to smoke and less likely to quit smoking. This study examines the effect on smoking and intention to quit smoking for those who have experienced housing improvements (HI) in deprived areas of Glasgow, UK, and investigates whether such effects can be explained by improved mental health.
Methods: Quasi-experimental, 2-year longitudinal study, comparing residents’ smoking and intention to quit smoking for HI group (n=545) with non-HI group (n=517), adjusting for baseline (2006) sociodemographic factors and smoking status. SF-12 mental health scores were used to assess mental health, along with self-reported experience of, and General Practitioner (GP) consultations for, anxiety and depression in the last 12 months.
Results: There was no relationship between smoking and HI, adjusting for baseline rates (OR=0.97, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.67, p=0.918). We found an association between intention to quit and HI, which remained significant after adjusting for sociodemographics and previous intention to quit (OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.12 to 4.16, p=0.022). We found no consistent evidence that this association was attenuated by improvement in our three mental health measures.
Conclusions: Providing residents in disadvantaged areas with better housing may prompt them to consider quitting smoking. However, few people actually quit, indicating that residential improvements or changes to the physical environment may not be sufficient drivers of personal behavioural change. It would make sense to link health services to housing regeneration projects to support changes in health behaviours at a time when environmental change appears to make behavioural change more likely
Final-state interactions and superscaling in the semi-relativistic approach to quasielastic electron and neutrino scattering
The semi-relativistic approach to electron and neutrino quasielastic
scattering from nuclei is extended to include final-state interactions.
Starting with the usual non-relativistic continuum shell model, the problem is
relativized by using the semi-relativistic expansion of the current in powers
of the initial nucleon momentum and relativistic kinematics. Two different
approaches are considered for the final-state interactions: the Smith-Wambach
2p-2h damping model and the Dirac-equation-based potential extracted from a
relativistic mean-field plus the Darwin factor. Using the latter the scaling
properties of and cross sections for intermediate
momentum transfers are investigated.Comment: 36 pages, 17 figure
Arginase from kiwifruit: properties and seasonal variation
The in vitro activity of arginase (EC 3.5.3.1) was investigated in youngest-mature leaves and roots (1-3 mm diameter) of kiwifruit vines (Actinidia deliciosa var. deliciosa) during an annual growth cycle, and enzyme from root material partially purified. No seasonal trend in the specific activity of arginase was observed in roots. Measurements in leaves, however, rose gradually during early growth and plateaued c. 17 weeks after budbreak. Changes in arginase activity were not correlated with changes in the concentration of arginine (substrate) or glutamine (likely end-product of arginine catabolism) in either tissue during the growth cycle. Purification was by (NH4)2SO4 precipitation and DEAE-cellulose chromatography. The kinetic properties of the enzyme, purified 60-fold over that in crude extracts, indicated a pH optimum of 8.8, and a Km (L-arginine) of 7.85 mM. Partially-purified enzyme was deactivated by dialysis against EDTA, and reactivated in the presence of Mn²⁺, Co²⁺, and Ni²⁺
Adaptive Multigrid Algorithm for Lattice QCD
We present a new multigrid solver that is suitable for the Dirac operator in
the presence of disordered gauge fields. The key behind the success of the
algorithm is an adaptive projection onto the coarse grids that preserves the
near null space. The resulting algorithm has weak dependence on the gauge
coupling and exhibits very little critical slowing down in the chiral limit.
Results are presented for the Wilson Dirac operator of the 2d U(1) Schwinger
model.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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