Interprofessional Learning during an International Fieldwork Placement

The need for competent interprofessional health care professionals is well recognised. Various educational activities have been developed to facilitate the development of interprofessional competence. In this paper we describe an interprofessional, fieldwork experience conducted in a developing country, and the learning gained by the first cohort of students who completed the five week immersion. Eight final year students from Medicine, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Speech Pathology were interviewed pre- and post-placement by an independent researcher. The transcribed interviews were analysed thematically. Findings indicated that over the placement students gained an appreciation of the skills of the other disciplines and were able to move beyond a textbook definition of what a certain profession did to acquire a real understanding of interprofessional practice. However, students reported that this understanding was predicated on their first clarifying the extent to which they were working in a transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary team, and becoming more confident in their own disciplinary contribution without reliance on formal documentation or standardised assessments. Using daily team discussions, self-reflections and discussions with clinical educators, the students learned to prioritise their busy caseload, share resources and skills, and facilitate team members to achieve therapeutic goals. The interprofessional learning took place in an intercultural context where the students learned to work with children with severe disabilities, with staff with different classroom approaches, and with interpreters, while adjusting emotionally to the level of unmet need of many of the children. Based on the students' experiences, immersion in an intercultural fieldwork experience is a useful way to facilitate interprofessional learning

CBR Anisotropy from Primordial Gravitational Waves in Two-Component Inflationary Cosmology

We examine stochastic temperature fluctuations of the cosmic background radiation (CBR) arising via the Sachs-Wolfe effect from gravitational wave perturbations produced in the early universe. We consider spatially flat, perturbed FRW models that begin with an inflationary phase, followed by a mixed phase containing both radiation and dust. The scale factor during the mixed phase takes the form $a(\eta)=c_1\eta^2+c_2\eta+c_3$, where $c_i$ are constants. During the mixed phase the universe smoothly transforms from being radiation to dust dominated. We find analytic expressions for the graviton mode function during the mixed phase in terms of spheroidal wave functions. This mode function is used to find an analytic expression for the multipole moments $\langle a_l^2\rangle$ of the two-point angular correlation function $C(\gamma)$ for the CBR anisotropy. The analytic expression for the multipole moments is written in terms of two integrals, which are evaluated numerically. The results are compared to multipoles calculated for models that are {\it completely} dust dominated at last-scattering. We find that the multipoles $\langle a_l^2\rangle$ of the CBR temperature perturbations for $l>10$ are significantly larger for a universe that contains both radiation and dust at last-scattering. We compare our results with recent, similar numerical work and find good agreement. The spheroidal wave functions may have applications to other problems of cosmological interest.Comment: 28 pgs + 6 postscript figures, RevTe

Asymptotic Expansions for Stationary Distributions of Perturbed Semi-Markov Processes

New algorithms for computing of asymptotic expansions for stationary distributions of nonlinearly perturbed semi-Markov processes are presented. The algorithms are based on special techniques of sequential phase space reduction, which can be applied to processes with asymptotically coupled and uncoupled finite phase spaces.Comment: 83 page

Adolescent risk-taking as a function of prenatal cocaine exposure and biological sex

Objective: To examine the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and biological sex on adolescent risk-taking while controlling for early environmental risk. Methods: Adolescents (n. = 114, mean age. = 16) were grouped according to high and low risk-taking propensity as measured by the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Prenatal cocaine exposure was assessed at birth, while environmental risk was assessed at three points during early childhood. Results: A binary regression analysis indicated that males were 3.5 times more likely than females to be high risk-takers. Biological sex and prenatal cocaine exposure interacted such that exposed males were most likely to be high risk-takers while exposed females were the least likely to be high risk-takers. This pattern held after controlling for prenatal alcohol exposure and early environmental risk. Early environmental risk did not predict adolescent risk-taking. Conclusions: These findings complement and extend earlier research demonstrating that prenatal cocaine exposure interacts with biological sex in domains related to inhibitory control, emotion regulation, antisocial behavior, and health risk behaviors during preadolescence. © 2013 Elsevier Inc

Crystallization of a classical two-dimensional electron system: Positional and orientational orders

Crystallization of a classical two-dimensional one-component plasma (electrons interacting with the Coulomb repulsion in a uniform neutralizing positive background) is investigated with a molecular dynamics simulation. The positional and the orientational correlation functions are calculated for the first time. We have found an indication that the solid phase has a quasi-long-range (power-law) positional order along with a long-range orientational order. This indicates that, although the long-range Coulomb interaction is outside the scope of Mermin's theorem, the absence of ordinary crystalline order at finite temperatures applies to the electron system as well. The `hexatic' phase, which is predicted between the liquid and the solid phases by the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young theory, is also discussed.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures; Corrected typos; Double columne

Non-Gaussianity from Inflation

Correlated adiabatic and isocurvature perturbation modes are produced during inflation through an oscillation mechanism when extra scalar degrees of freedom other than the inflaton field are present. We show that this correlation generically leads to sizeable non-Gaussian features both in the adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations. The non-Gaussianity is first generated by large non-linearities in some scalar sector and then efficiently transferred to the inflaton sector by the oscillation process. We compute the cosmic microwave background angular bispectrum, providing a characteristic feature of such inflationary non-Gaussianity,which might be detected by upcoming satellite experiments.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D. 19 pages, LaTeX fil

Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the ‘promise of phenomenology’ remains largely under-realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the ‘flesh’ of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide-ranging, multi-stranded, and interpretatively contested perspective, phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method, and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the ‘essences’, corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is also critically addressed. Key words: phenomenology; existentialist phenomenology; interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA); sporting embodiment; the lived-body; Merleau-Pont

Competition of charge, orbital, and ferromagnetic correlations in layered manganites

The competition of charge, orbital, and ferromagnetic interactions in layered manganites is investigated by magneto-Raman scattering spectroscopy. We find that the colossal magnetoresistance effect in the layered compounds results from the interplay of the orbital and ferromagnetic double-exchange correlations. Inelastic scattering by charge-order fluctuations dominates the quasiparticle dynamics in the ferromagnetic-metal state. The scattering is suppressed at low frequencies, consistent with the opening of a charge-density wave pseudogap.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure