121 research outputs found
Semiaquatic adaptations in a giant predatory dinosaur
Mysterious dinosaur a swimmer?
Dinosaurs are often appreciated for their size and oddity. In this regard, the North African carnivorous theropod
Spinosaurus
, with its huge dorsal sail and a body larger than
Tyrannosaurus rex
, has long stood out. This species also stands out because of its history. The unfortunate loss of the type specimen during World War II left much of what we know about
Spinosaurus
to be divined through speculation and reconstruction. Ibrahim
et al.
now describe new fossils of this unusual species. They conclude it was, at least partly, aquatic, a first for dinosaurs.
Science
, this issue p.
1613
</jats:p
A thermal instability for positive brane cosmological constant in the Randall-Sundrum cosmologies
We describe a novel dynamical mechanism to radiate away a positive four
dimensional cosmological constant, in the Randall-Sundrum cosmological
scenario. We show that there are modes of the bulk gravitational field for
which the brane is effectively a mirror. This will generally give rise to an
emission of thermal radiation from the brane into the bulk. The temperature
turns out to be nonvanishing only if the effective four dimensional
cosmological constant is positive. In any theory where the four dimensional
vacuum energy is a function of physical degrees of freedom, there is then a
mechanism that radiates away any positive four dimensional cosmological
constant.Comment: 14 pages. The discussion on the relation between temperature and
effective 4d cosmological constant is changed. References are adde
Public Health Stops at the School House Door.
In the United States, all children of appropriate age are required to attend school, and many parents send their children to child care. Many school and day care buildings have been found to have environmental health problems that impact children’s health and diminish their ability to learn. No federal agency has the capacity or authority to identify, track, or remediate these problems. A recent meeting, coordinated by Healthy Schools Network, Inc., has developed a set of recommendations to begin to deal with the issue of environmental health problems in schools
The Schwinger Mechanism, the Unruh Effect and the Production of Accelerated Black Holes
We compute the corrections to the transition amplitudes of an accelerated
Unruh ``box'' that arise when the accelerated box is replaced by a ``two level
ion'' immersed in a constant electric field and treated in second quantization.
There are two kinds of corrections, those due to recoil effects induced by the
momentum transfers and those due to pair creation. Taken together, these
corrections show that there is a direct relationship between pair creation
amplitudes described by the Heisenberg-Euler-Schwinger mechanism and the Unruh
effect, i.e. the thermalisation of accelerated systems at temperature where is the acceleration. In particular, there is a thermodynamical
consistency between both effects whose origin is that the euclidean action
governing pair creation rates acts as an entropy in delivering the Unruh
temperature. Upon considering pair creation of charged black holes in an
electric field, these relationships explain why black holes are created from
vacuum in thermal equilibrium, i.e. with their Hawking temperature equal to
their Unruh temperature.Comment: Revised version: expanded introduction and discussion of pair
creation of black holes, 2figures added, 22 pages, Late
A study of patent thickets
Report analysing whether entry of UK enterprises into patenting in a technology area is affected by patent thickets in the technology area
Nucleic acid detection with CRISPR-Cas13a/C2c2
Rapid, inexpensive, and sensitive nucleic acid detection may aid point-of-care pathogen detection, genotyping, and disease monitoring. The RNA-guided, RNA-targeting clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) effector Cas13a (previously known as C2c2) exhibits a "collateral effect" of promiscuous ribonuclease activity upon target recognition. We combine the collateral effect of Cas13a with isothermal amplification to establish a CRISPR-based diagnostic (CRISPR-Dx), providing rapid DNA or RNA detection with attomolar sensitivity and single-base mismatch specificity. We use this Cas13a-based molecular detection platform, termed Specific High-Sensitivity Enzymatic Reporter UnLOCKing (SHERLOCK), to detect specific strains of Zika and Dengue virus, distinguish pathogenic bacteria, genotype human DNA, and identify mutations in cell-free tumor DNA. Furthermore, SHERLOCK reaction reagents can be lyophilized for cold-chain independence and long-term storage and be readily reconstituted on paper for field applications.United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant FA9550-14-1-0060)Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) (Grant HDTRA1-14-1-0006)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant 5DP1-MH100706)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01-MH110049
A gaming simulation approach to understanding blue ocean strategy development as a transition from traditional competitive strategy
Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) has attracted a resurgence of interest following various market discontinuities, including digital disruption, the growth of the sharing economy and the development of ecosystems. BOS is a combination of value innovation and new markets, driving sustained higher performance through specific marketing activities, but it is difficult to conceive and implement.
We outline five cases that use various transition paths to BOS through white spaces - with product extensions in the existing market. An important part of this transition are ‘blue ocean droplets’ which drive profitable growth through the transition and then onto a successful deployment of a blue ocean strategy. Blue ocean droplets drive profitable growth - simultaneously increasing volume sales, maintaining/increasing prices and maintaining/decreasing costs.
We then use an inductive qualitative approach in a multi-team gaming simulation to examine drivers of firm performance. Higher than average performance is driven by repositioning in white spaces and execution of the three blue ocean droplets.
Finally, we discuss implications for firms: execute a number of real options to follow one of several transition paths to a full BOS. This approach involves less downside risk than a full BOS approach, but can still be sustainably profitable, while also breaking the traditional value/cost trade-off
The encounter with the unknown: Nurses lived experiences of their responsibility for the care of the patient in the Swedish ambulance service
Registered nurses (RNs) have, according to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, the overall responsibility for the medical care in the ambulance care setting. Bringing RNs into the ambulance service are judged, according to earlier studies, to lead to a degree of professionalism with a higher quality of medical care. Implicitly in earlier studies, the work in the ambulance service involves interpersonal skills. The aim of this study was to describe RNs' experiences of being responsible for the care of the patient in the Swedish ambulance service. A reflective lifeworld approach within the perspective of caring science was used. Five RNs with at least five years experience from care in the ambulance care setting were interviewed. The findings show that the essence of the phenomenon is to prepare and create conditions for care and to accomplish care close to the patient. Three meaning constituents emerged in the descriptions: prepare and create conditions for the nursing care, to be there for the patient and significant others and create comfort for the patient and significant others. The responsibility is a complex phenomenon, with a caring perspective, emerging from the encounter with the unique human being
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