492 research outputs found
Trouble in Paradise - A disabled person's right to the satisfaction of a self-defined need:Some conceptual and practical problems
This paper questions the usefulness of the rights-based approach to ameliorating the social situation of disabled people in Britain and advances two criticisms. First, that rights and self-de? ned needs have been under-theorised by disability theorists to the extent that they have insuf? ciently appreciated the problems that these approaches pose. The paper suggests that rights to appropriate resources to satisfy self-de? ned needs will generate vast numbers of competing rights claims and that the resulting tendency of rights to con? ict has been under-appreciated. Secondly, that there has been little consideration of how these con? icts might be reconciled. The ? rst two sections of the paper look at the concepts of ascribed and self-de? ned needs, respectively, whilst the ? nal one looks at some of the problems of the rights approach and some of the dif? culties of making self-de? ned need the basis of rights claims
Vibronic coupling explains the ultrafast carotenoid-to-bacteriochlorophyll energy transfer in natural and artificial light harvesters
The initial energy transfer in photosynthesis occurs between the
light-harvesting pigments and on ultrafast timescales. We analyze the
carotenoid to bacteriochlorophyll energy transfer in LH2 Marichromatium
purpuratum as well as in an artificial light-harvesting dyad system by using
transient grating and two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy with 10 fs time
resolution. We find that F\"orster-type models reproduce the experimentally
observed 60 fs transfer times, but overestimate coupling constants, which leads
to a disagreement with both linear absorption and electronic 2D-spectra. We
show that a vibronic model, which treats carotenoid vibrations on both
electronic ground and excited state as part of the system's Hamiltonian,
reproduces all measured quantities. Importantly, the vibronic model presented
here can explain the fast energy transfer rates with only moderate coupling
constants, which are in agreement with structure based calculations.
Counterintuitively, the vibrational levels on the carotenoid electronic ground
state play a central role in the excited state population transfer to
bacteriochlorophyll as the resonance between the donor-acceptor energy gap and
vibrational ground state energies is the physical basis of the ultrafast energy
transfer rates in these systems
Direct neutron capture of 48Ca at kT = 52 keV
The neutron capture cross section of 48Ca was measured relative to the known
gold cross section at kT = 52 keV using the fast cyclic activation technique.
The experiment was performed at the Van-de-Graaff accelerator, Universitaet
Tuebingen. The new experimental result is in good agreement with a calculation
using the direct capture model. The 1/v behaviour of the capture cross section
at thermonuclear energies is confirmed, and the adopted reaction rate which is
based on several previous experimental investigations remains unchanged.Comment: 9 pages (uses Revtex), 2 postscript figures, accepted for publication
as Brief Report in Phys. Rev.
Predicting sexual problems in women: The relevance of sexual excitation and sexual inhibition
This is the post-print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below.Data from a non-clinical sample of 540 heterosexual women were used to examine the relationships between scores on the Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women (SESII-W) and ratings of current sexual problems, lifetime arousal difficulty, lifetime orgasm difficulty, and lifetime problems with low sexual interest. Multiple regression analyses also included several demographic/background variables as predictors: age, full-time employment, completed college, children in household, married, health ratings, importance of sex, and whether the woman was in a sexual relationship. The strongest statistical predictors of both current and lifetime sexual problems were the SESII-W inhibition factors Arousal Contingency and Concerns about Sexual Function. Demographic factors did not feature largely in any of the models predicting sexual problems even when statistically significant relationships were found. If future research supports the predictive utility of the SESII-W in identifying women who are more likely to experience sexual difficulties, these scales may be used as prognostic factors in treatment studies.This study was funded, in part, by a grant from the Lilly Centre for Women's Health
Measurement of neutron capture on Ca at thermal and thermonuclear energies
At the Karlsruhe pulsed 3.75\,MV Van de Graaff accelerator the thermonuclear
Ca(n,)Ca(8.72\,min) cross section was measured by the
fast cyclic activation technique via the 3084.5\,keV -ray line of the
Ca-decay. Samples of CaCO enriched in Ca by 77.87\,\% were
irradiated between two gold foils which served as capture standards. The
capture cross-section was measured at the neutron energies 25, 151, 176, and
218\,keV, respectively. Additionally, the thermal capture cross-section was
measured at the reactor BR1 in Mol, Belgium, via the prompt and decay
-ray lines using the same target material. The
Ca(n,)Ca cross-section in the thermonuclear and thermal
energy range has been calculated using the direct-capture model combined with
folding potentials. The potential strengths are adjusted to the scattering
length and the binding energies of the final states in Ca. The small
coherent elastic cross section of Ca+n is explained through the nuclear
Ramsauer effect. Spectroscopic factors of Ca have been extracted from
the thermal capture cross-section with better accuracy than from a recent (d,p)
experiment. Within the uncertainties both results are in agreement. The
non-resonant thermal and thermonuclear experimental data for this reaction can
be reproduced using the direct-capture model. A possible interference with a
resonant contribution is discussed. The neutron spectroscopic factors of
Ca determined from shell-model calculations are compared with the values
extracted from the experimental cross sections for Ca(d,p)Ca and
Ca(n,)Ca.Comment: 15 pages (uses Revtex), 7 postscript figures (uses psfig), accepted
for publication in PRC, uuencoded tex-files and postscript-files also
available at ftp://is1.kph.tuwien.ac.at/pub/ohu/Ca.u
Twisting of light around rotating black holes
Kerr black holes are among the most intriguing predictions of Einstein's
general relativity theory. These rotating massive astrophysical objects drag
and intermix their surrounding space and time, deflecting and phase-modifying
light emitted nearby them. We have found that this leads to a new relativistic
effect that imposes orbital angular momentum onto such light. Numerical
experiments, based on the integration of the null geodesic equations of light
from orbiting point-like sources in the Kerr black hole equatorial plane to an
asymptotic observer, indeed identify the phase change and wavefront warping and
predict the associated light-beam orbital angular momentum spectra. Setting up
the best existing telescopes properly, it should be possible to detect and
measure this twisted light, thus allowing a direct observational demonstration
of the existence of rotating black holes. Since non-rotating objects are more
an exception than a rule in the Universe, our findings are of fundamental
importance.Comment: Article: 18 pages (11 pages in form of an Appendix). Total number of
figures:
Direct Neutron Capture for Magic-Shell Nuclei
In neutron capture for magic--shell nuclei the direct reaction mechanism can
be important and may even dominate. As an example we investigated the reaction
Ca(n,Ca for projectile energies below 250\,keV in a direct
capture model using the folding procedure for optical and bound state
potentials. The obtained theoretical cross sections are in agreement with the
experimental data showing the dominance of the direct reaction mechanism in
this case. The above method was also used to calculate the cross section for
Ca(n,Ca.Comment: REVTeX, 7 pages plus 3 uuencoded figures, the complete uuencoded
postscript file is available at ftp://is1.kph.tuwien.ac.at/pub/ohu/calcium.u
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