182 research outputs found
Stand-alone parabolic solar cookers and rural industrialisation in South Africa
Paper presented to the 3rd Southern African Solar Energy Conference, South Africa, 11-13 May, 2015.Lack of infrastructural facilities, empowerment, hunger and malnutrition are some of the major challenges facing the rural communities in Southern region of Africa, while the latter two often so because of the choices of whether to buy food or to buy the expensive cooking fuel or other family needs with the insufficient available income; inadequate infrastructures on the other hand has led to rural-urban migration boom amounting to an increase of over 62 percentage of the urban population over the last 15 years thereby adding to the urban unemployment problems in Southern Africa. For this purpose developing and promoting affordable solar cooking/heating system that can use the free available energy of the sun for Southern African condition is of utmost importance. Since Parabolic solar cookers are known to be most effective in terms of heat production, this paper thus looks into how the parabolic solar cooking system capable of working during the day and night or when there is no radiation can be used to fight the major challenges facing the rural areas in the southern Africa which are deforestation, hunger and poverty among others and how it can be used to develop local industries (Bread, Brownies, Pancake and Post-harvest) in Southern Africa.dc201
Five features for modelling augmented reality
Augmented reality is growing rapidly and supports people in differ-ent fields such as education, design, navigation and medicine. However, there is limited discussion about the characteristic features of augmented reality and what is meant by the term. This paper presents five different features: changea-bility, synchronicity and instant, antecedent, partial one to one and hidden reali-ty. The explanation of each of these features is given follow a consistent struc-ture. The benefits of generating features and future work are described
An Algorithm for constructing Hjelmslev planes
Projective Hjelmslev planes and Affine Hjelmselv planes are generalisations
of projective planes and affine planes. We present an algorithm for
constructing a projective Hjelmslev planes and affine Hjelsmelv planes using
projective planes, affine planes and orthogonal arrays. We show that all
2-uniform projective Hjelmslev planes, and all 2-uniform affine Hjelsmelv
planes can be constructed in this way. As a corollary it is shown that all
2-uniform Affine Hjelmselv planes are sub-geometries of 2-uniform projective
Hjelmselv planes.Comment: 15 pages. Algebraic Design Theory and Hadamard matrices, 2014,
Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics 13
Looking into the matter of light-quark hadrons
In tackling QCD, a constructive feedback between theory and extant and
forthcoming experiments is necessary in order to place constraints on the
infrared behaviour of QCD's \beta-function, a key nonperturbative quantity in
hadron physics. The Dyson-Schwinger equations provide a tool with which to work
toward this goal. They connect confinement with dynamical chiral symmetry
breaking, both with the observable properties of hadrons, and hence provide a
means of elucidating the material content of real-world QCD. This contribution
illustrates these points via comments on: in-hadron condensates; dressed-quark
anomalous chromo- and electro-magnetic moments; the spectra of mesons and
baryons, and the critical role played by hadron-hadron interactions in
producing these spectra.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. Contribution to the Proceedings of "Applications
of light-cone coordinates to highly relativistic systems - LIGHTCONE 2011,"
23-27 May, 2011, Dallas. The Proceedings will be published in Few Body
System
Generalized Quantum Theory of Recollapsing Homogeneous Cosmologies
A sum-over-histories generalized quantum theory is developed for homogeneous
minisuperspace type A Bianchi cosmological models, focussing on the particular
example of the classically recollapsing Bianchi IX universe. The decoherence
functional for such universes is exhibited. We show how the probabilities of
decoherent sets of alternative, coarse-grained histories of these model
universes can be calculated. We consider in particular the probabilities for
classical evolution defined by a suitable coarse-graining. For a restricted
class of initial conditions and coarse grainings we exhibit the approximate
decoherence of alternative histories in which the universe behaves classically
and those in which it does not. For these situations we show that the
probability is near unity for the universe to recontract classically if it
expands classically. We also determine the relative probabilities of
quasi-classical trajectories for initial states of WKB form, recovering for
such states a precise form of the familiar heuristic "J d\Sigma" rule of
quantum cosmology, as well as a generalization of this rule to generic initial
states.Comment: 41 pages, 4 eps figures, revtex 4. Modest revisions throughout.
Physics unchanged. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Masses of ground and excited-state hadrons
We present the first Dyson-Schwinger equation calculation of the light hadron
spectrum that simultaneously correlates the masses of meson and baryon ground-
and excited-states within a single framework. At the core of our analysis is a
symmetry-preserving treatment of a vector-vector contact interaction. In
comparison with relevant quantities the
root-mean-square-relative-error/degree-of freedom is 13%. Notable amongst our
results is agreement between the computed baryon masses and the bare masses
employed in modern dynamical coupled-channels models of pion-nucleon reactions.
Our analysis provides insight into numerous aspects of baryon structure; e.g.,
relationships between the nucleon and Delta masses and those of the
dressed-quark and diquark correlations they contain.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, 4 table
State sampling dependence of the Hopfield network inference
The fully connected Hopfield network is inferred based on observed
magnetizations and pairwise correlations. We present the system in the glassy
phase with low temperature and high memory load. We find that the inference
error is very sensitive to the form of state sampling. When a single state is
sampled to compute magnetizations and correlations, the inference error is
almost indistinguishable irrespective of the sampled state. However, the error
can be greatly reduced if the data is collected with state transitions. Our
result holds for different disorder samples and accounts for the previously
observed large fluctuations of inference error at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, further discussions added and relevant references
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‘A sword of Damocles’ : patient and caregiver beliefs, attitudes and perspectives on presymptomatic testing for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease: a focus group study
Background and objectives: Presymptomatic testing is available for early diagnosis of hereditary autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). However, the complex ethical and psychosocial implications can make decision-making challenging and require an understanding of patients’ values, goals and priorities. This study aims to describe patient and caregiver beliefs and expectations regarding presymptomatic testing for ADPKD.
Design, setting and participants: 154 participants (120 patients and 34 caregivers) aged 18 years and over from eight centres in Australia, France and Korea participated in 17 focus groups. Transcripts were analysed thematically.
Results: We identified five themes: avoiding financial disadvantage (insecurity in the inability to obtain life insurance, limited work opportunities, financial burden); futility in uncertainty (erratic and diverse manifestations of disease limiting utility, taking preventive actions in vain, daunted by perplexity of results, unaware of risk of inheriting ADPKD); lacking autonomy and support in decisions (overwhelmed by ambiguous information, medicalising family planning, family pressures); seizing control of well-being (gaining confidence in early detection, allowing preparation for the future, reassurance in family resilience); and anticipating impact on quality of life (reassured by lack of symptoms, judging value of life with ADPKD).
Conclusions: For patients with ADPKD, presymptomatic testing provides an opportunity to take ownership of their health through family planning and preventive measures. However, these decisions can be wrought with tensions and uncertainty about prognostic implications, and the psychosocial and financial burden of testing. Healthcare professionals should focus on genetic counselling, mental health and providing education to patients’ families to support informed decision-making. Policymakers should consider the cost burden and risk of discrimination when informing government policies. Finally, patients are recommended to focus on self-care from an early age
Collective perspective on advances in Dyson-Schwinger Equation QCD
We survey contemporary studies of hadrons and strongly interacting quarks
using QCD's Dyson-Schwinger equations, addressing: aspects of confinement and
dynamical chiral symmetry breaking; the hadron spectrum; hadron elastic and
transition form factors, from small- to large-Q^2; parton distribution
functions; the physics of hadrons containing one or more heavy quarks; and
properties of the quark gluon plasma.Comment: 56 pages. Summary of lectures delivered by the authors at the
"Workshop on AdS/CFT and Novel Approaches to Hadron and Heavy Ion Physics,"
2010-10-11 to 2010-12-03, hosted by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical
Physics, China, at the Chinese Academy of Science
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