Where's the harm? A social marketing approach to reframing 'problem' drinking cultures

Alcohol consumption is often linked to a broad range of social and health problems, yet alcohol also plays a fundamental role in social bonding between people. This paper considers the potential of social marketing to contribute to alcohol consumption reduction and reframe social norms that encourage 'problem' drinking. Based on qualitative research with a variety of Scottish drinkers, the paper emphasises how and why a better understanding of the culturally bound meanings of alcohol (e.g. social identity, self-concept) are of crucial importance to inform any social marketing approach to reframing excessive drinking

A tunable macroscopic quantum system based on two fractional vortices

We propose a tunable macroscopic quantum system based on two fractional vortices. Our analysis shows that two coupled fractional vortices pinned at two artificially created \kappa\ discontinuities of the Josephson phase in a long Josephson junction can reach the quantum regime where coherent quantum oscillations arise. For this purpose we map the dynamics of this system to that of a single particle in a double-well potential. By tuning the \kappa\ discontinuities with injector currents we are able to control the parameters of the effective double-well potential as well as to prepare a desired state of the fractional vortex molecule. The values of the parameters derived from this model suggest that an experimental realisation of this tunable macroscopic quantum system is possible with today's technology.Comment: We updated our manuscript due to a change of the focus from qubit to macroscopic quantum effect

Pattern formation during the evaporation of a colloidal nanoliter drop: a numerical and experimental study

An efficient way to precisely pattern particles on solid surfaces is to dispense and evaporate colloidal drops, as for bioassays. The dried deposits often exhibit complex structures exemplified by the coffee ring pattern, where most particles have accumulated at the periphery of the deposit. In this work, the formation of deposits during the drying of nanoliter colloidal drops on a flat substrate is investigated numerically and experimentally. A finite-element numerical model is developed that solves the Navier-Stokes, heat and mass transport equations in a Lagrangian framework. The diffusion of vapor in the atmosphere is solved numerically, providing an exact boundary condition for the evaporative flux at the droplet-air interface. Laplace stresses and thermal Marangoni stresses are accounted for. The particle concentration is tracked by solving a continuum advection-diffusion equation. Wetting line motion and the interaction of the free surface of the drop with the growing deposit are modeled based on criteria on wetting angles. Numerical results for evaporation times and flow field are in very good agreement with published experimental and theoretical results. We also performed transient visualization experiments of water and isopropanol drops loaded with polystyrene microsphere evaporating on respectively glass and polydimethylsiloxane substrates. Measured evaporation times, deposit shape and sizes, and flow fields are in very good agreement with the numerical results. Different flow patterns caused by the competition of Marangoni loops and radial flow are shown to determine the deposit shape to be either a ring-like pattern or a homogeneous bump

Guidelines for a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim's Quantum Theory

The text of the calligraphy on the front page means Cosmos, comprising the two chinese symbols for space and time. This calligraphy was done by Hozumi Gensho Roshi, Professor of Applied Sci-ences at Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan in September 2003. The two red squares depict the sea

BEGINNING A NEW ERA OF DROUGHT MONITORING ACROSS NORTH AMERICA

Drought experts from the United States, Canada, and Mexico met at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, for a three-day workshop in late April 2002 to discuss the U.S. Drought Monitor program and to develop a plan for initiating a new program of drought monitoring for North America. Since its inception in 1999, the U.S. Drought Monitor (DM) has been extremely successful in assessing and communicating the state of drought in the United States on a weekly basis. This success, and the recognition that an ongoing comprehensive and integrated drought assessment was needed throughout all three countries, led to a commitment to build a continent-scale program on the model of the DM. The new drought monitoring program is part of a broader effort to improve the monitoring and assessment of climate extremes across the continent through a cooperative effort that was established in 2001 between the three countries. Drought monitoring has become an integral part of drought planning, preparedness, and mitigation efforts at the national, regional, and local levels. Drought can develop in all regions of the continent, and its effects can be devastating. Since 1980, major droughts and heat waves within the United States alone have resulted in costs exceeding $100 billion (inflation-adjusted), easily becoming one of the most costly weather-related disasters on the continent during that time (Lott and Ross 2000). The presence of severe to extreme drought in approximately 30% of the United States at the beginning of June 2002, heavy agricultural losses, water restrictions, and numerous large wildfires throughout much of the western United States are reminders of the devastation that can result from prolonged precipitation deficits

Evaluational adjectives

This paper demarcates a theoretically interesting class of "evaluational adjectives." This class includes predicates expressing various kinds of normative and epistemic evaluation, such as predicates of personal taste, aesthetic adjectives, moral adjectives, and epistemic adjectives, among others. Evaluational adjectives are distinguished, empirically, in exhibiting phenomena such as discourse-oriented use, felicitous embedding under the attitude verb `find', and sorites-susceptibility in the comparative form. A unified degree-based semantics is developed: What distinguishes evaluational adjectives, semantically, is that they denote context-dependent measure functions ("evaluational perspectives")—context-dependent mappings to degrees of taste, beauty, probability, etc., depending on the adjective. This perspective-sensitivity characterizing the class of evaluational adjectives cannot be assimilated to vagueness, sensitivity to an experiencer argument, or multidimensionality; and it cannot be demarcated in terms of pretheoretic notions of subjectivity, common in the literature. I propose that certain diagnostics for "subjective" expressions be analyzed instead in terms of a precisely specified kind of discourse-oriented use of context-sensitive language. I close by applying the account to `find x PRED' ascriptions

Geometry and symmetries of multi-particle systems

The quantum dynamical evolution of atomic and molecular aggregates, from their compact to their fragmented states, is parametrized by a single collective radial parameter. Treating all the remaining particle coordinates in d dimensions democratically, as a set of angles orthogonal to this collective radius or by equivalent variables, bypasses all independent-particle approximations. The invariance of the total kinetic energy under arbitrary d-dimensional transformations which preserve the radial parameter gives rise to novel quantum numbers and ladder operators interconnecting its eigenstates at each value of the radial parameter. We develop the systematics and technology of this approach, introducing the relevant mathematics tutorially, by analogy to the familiar theory of angular momentum in three dimensions. The angular basis functions so obtained are treated in a manifestly coordinate-free manner, thus serving as a flexible generalized basis for carrying out detailed studies of wavefunction evolution in multi-particle systems.Comment: 37 pages, 2 eps figure

We police it ourselves': Group processes in the escalation and regulation of violence in the night-time economy

The attempt to regenerate city centres has led to the creation of a ‘night-time economy’ (NTE) based around alcohol-led entertain ment. This has been accompanied by an increase of violence. Using insights from social identity research on collective action, we argue that NTE violence can be viewed as a group-level phenomenon. Twenty focus groups were conducted with participants who socialise together (total number of participants = 53). Participants discussed their experiences of the NTE, including violence. A thematic analysis of the transcripts drew out four ways in which NTE violence is discussed in group terms: intergroup violence, intragroup violence, intragroup intervention (escalation) and intragroup intervention (regulation). The analysis reveals that groups can have both negative and positive roles in NTE violence, including regulating fellow group members away from violence. In demonstrating the importance of intragroup regulation of violence in the NTE, we extend social identity research beyond the focus on intergroup crowd violence and reveal the practical potential of harnessing such processes in anti-violence intervention