20,127 research outputs found
The use of conversation mapping to frame key perceptual issues facing the general dental practice system in England
<b>Objective</b>: To demonstrate the use of a novel qualitative methodology namely conversation mapping, which can be used to capture differences in stakeholder perspectives and give a root definition of the problem in a complex policy area. The methodology is used in the context of the changes introduced in the English general dental practice system in April 2006, to investigate the key issues facing the system, as perceived by general dental practitioners (GDPs). <b>Basic research design</b>: From a broad trigger statement, three transformational statements were produced. Each participant recorded their contribution on a hard diagrammatic form as a ‘map’, with others responding with their own written comment, thus generating three conversation maps. Thematic analysis resulted in the generation of a preliminary model summarising key perceptual issues. <b>Results</b>: The five emergent themes identified were: financing, dentists’ wants/needs, the role of the public and patients, system goals and policy level decision making. Financing was identified as the core category to which all other categories were related. <b>Conclusions</b>: Conversation mapping, a methodology arising from a systems approach, can be used to develop a ‘rich picture’ of an oral health care system in order to define the core problem within this policy area. Findings suggest that GDPs identify the financing of the system as a fundamental source of problems within the general dental practice system. This appears to be at variance with the perception of policy makers, who report a more limited view, identifying the system of remuneration as the ‘heart
of the problem’
Effects of Interactions on the Critical Temperature of a Trapped Bose Gas
We perform high-precision measurements of the condensation temperature of a
harmonically-trapped atomic Bose gas with widely-tuneable interactions. For
weak interactions we observe a negative shift of the critical temperature in
excellent agreement with mean-field theory. However for sufficiently strong
interactions we clearly observe an additional positive shift, characteristic of
beyond-mean-field critical correlations. We also discuss non-equilibrium
effects on the apparent critical temperature for both very weak and very strong
interactions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat (SWOT) Analysis of the Adaptations to Anatomical Education in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland in Response to the Covid‐19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has driven the fastest changes to higher education across the globe, necessitated by social distancing measures preventing any face to face teaching. This has led to an almost immediate switch to distance learning by higher education institutions. Anatomy faces some unique challenges. Intrinsically, anatomy is a three-dimensional subject that requires a sound understanding of the relationships between structures, often achieved by the study of human cadaveric material, models and virtual resources. This study sought to identify the approaches taken in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland to deliver anatomical education through online means. Data were collected from 14 different universities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and compared adopting a thematic analysis approach. Once themes were generated, they were collectively brought together using a strength, weakness, opportunity, threat (SWOT) analysis. Key themes included the opportunity to develop new online resources and the chance to engage in new academic collaborations. Academics frequently mentioned the challenge that time constrains could place on the quality and effectiveness of these resources; especially as in many cases the aim of these resources is to compensate for a lack of exposure to cadaveric exposure. Comparisons of the actions taken by multiple higher education institutions reveals the ways that academics have tried to balance this demand. Discussions will facilitate decisions being made by higher education institutions regarding adapting the curriculum and assessment methods in anatomy
Comparative Negligence
This note will discuss briefly the policy considerations underlying a choice between comparative negligence and contributory negligence, and will attempt to predict the effects, both procedural and substantive, of the new Act on practice in Washington
SAGA: A project to automate the management of software production systems
The Software Automation, Generation and Administration (SAGA) project is investigating the design and construction of practical software engineering environments for developing and maintaining aerospace systems and applications software. The research includes the practical organization of the software lifecycle, configuration management, software requirements specifications, executable specifications, design methodologies, programming, verification, validation and testing, version control, maintenance, the reuse of software, software libraries, documentation, and automated management
Efficient Production of Large 39K Bose-Einstein Condensates
We describe an experimental setup and the cooling procedure for producing 39K
Bose-Einstein condensates of over 4x10^5 atoms. Condensation is achieved via a
combination of sympathetic cooling with 87Rb in a
quadrupole-Ioffe-configuration (QUIC) magnetic trap, and direct evaporation in
a large volume crossed optical dipole trap, where we exploit the broad Feshbach
resonance at 402 G to tune the 39K interactions from weak and attractive to
strong and repulsive. In the same apparatus we create quasi-pure 87Rb
condensates of over 8x10^5 atoms.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures; figure font compatibility improve
Rate of Diffusion of Radioactive Ions in Gels
A simple gel-to-gel method is described for the estimation of diffusion coefficients (D) of radio-isotopic chemicals. Cold and hot gel cylinders, enclosed in small hypodermic syringes with their needle ends cut off, were carefully joined together, and diffusion was allowed to proceed for several hours. Slices of gels were then obtained for counting of activities. Application of the classical theory of diffusion permitted calculations of D values
The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Dependence of halo occupation on stellar mass
In this paper we study the stellar-mass dependence of galaxy clustering in
the 6dF Galaxy Survey. The near-infrared selection of 6dFGS allows more
reliable stellar mass estimates compared to optical bands used in other galaxy
surveys. Using the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) model, we investigate the
trend of dark matter halo mass and satellite fraction with stellar mass by
measuring the projected correlation function, . We find that the
typical halo mass () as well as the satellite power law index ()
increase with stellar mass. This indicates, (1) that galaxies with higher
stellar mass sit in more massive dark matter halos and (2) that these more
massive dark matter halos accumulate satellites faster with growing mass
compared to halos occupied by low stellar mass galaxies. Furthermore we find a
relation between and the minimum dark matter halo mass () of
, in agreement with similar findings for SDSS
galaxies. The satellite fraction of 6dFGS galaxies declines with increasing
stellar mass from 21% at
to 12% at indicating that
high stellar mass galaxies are more likely to be central galaxies. We compare
our results to two different semi-analytic models derived from the Millennium
Simulation, finding some disagreement. Our results can be used for placing new
constraints on semi-analytic models in the future, particularly the behaviour
of luminous red satellites. Finally we compare our results to studies of halo
occupation using galaxy-galaxy weak lensing. We find good overall agreement,
representing a valuable crosscheck for these two different tools of studying
the matter distribution in the Universe.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1104.2447 by other author
Quantum-Inspired Tempering for Ground State Approximation using Artificial Neural Networks
A large body of work has demonstrated that parameterized artificial neural
networks (ANNs) can efficiently describe ground states of numerous interesting
quantum many-body Hamiltonians. However, the standard variational algorithms
used to update or train the ANN parameters can get trapped in local minima,
especially for frustrated systems and even if the representation is
sufficiently expressive. We propose a parallel tempering method that
facilitates escape from such local minima. This methods involves training
multiple ANNs independently, with each simulation governed by a Hamiltonian
with a different "driver" strength, in analogy to quantum parallel tempering,
and it incorporates an update step into the training that allows for the
exchange of neighboring ANN configurations. We study instances from two classes
of Hamiltonians to demonstrate the utility of our approach using Restricted
Boltzmann Machines as our parameterized ANN. The first instance is based on a
permutation-invariant Hamiltonian whose landscape stymies the standard training
algorithm by drawing it increasingly to a false local minimum. The second
instance is four hydrogen atoms arranged in a rectangle, which is an instance
of the second quantized electronic structure Hamiltonian discretized using
Gaussian basis functions. We study this problem in a minimal basis set, which
exhibits false minima that can trap the standard variational algorithm despite
the problem's small size. We show that augmenting the training with quantum
parallel tempering becomes useful to finding good approximations to the ground
states of these problem instances.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. v2: updated Figs. 3, 4, and 5. v3. included two
new QPT schemes. Updated format to SciPost format. 30 pages, 11 figures.
Submission to SciPos
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