The phenomenon of coping for women with primary breast cancer

This study provides insight into the phenomenon of coping, revealing detailed information outlining what the participants coped with and how they managed life, both during and after a diagnosis of primary breast cancer. This experience was reported as a significant life event for all participants, requiring flexible use of different coping styles to adjust to the global disruption in their lives. The interview questions for the study used the existential framework of The Four Dimensions (van Deurzen, 2010; van Deurzen & Arnold-Baker, 2005). This framework guided the extraction of detailed accounts relating to the phenomenon of coping across the physical, personal, social, and spiritual dimensions of lived experience. In addition, participants also shared their experience of time. IPA methodology (Smith et al., 2009) was used to interpret the data, producing findings describing coping across the dimensions of lived existence and time informed by an existential lens, highlighting the use of meaning-focused coping strategies particularly in the social and spiritual dimensions of lived experience. The findings are important because they have significant implications for the psychological support of women with primary breast cancer and point to individual differences in coping repertoires and resources. The researcher recommends how an existential-phenomenological approach could be used with this population. Recommendations for further research include studies that consider coping for women with metastatic breast cancer, studies that specifically explore difficulties in coping with anxiety at the end of breast cancer treatment, studies that explore coping specifically with iatrogenic trauma after breast cancer surgery, and studies that consider coping with long-term burdens of breast cancer, particularly health inequalities for women with fewer socioeconomic advantages

New Models for X-Ray Synchrotron Radiation from the Remnant of Supernova 1006 AD

Galactic cosmic rays up to energies of around 10^15 eV are assumed to originate in supernova remnants (SNRs). The shock wave of a young SNR like SN 1006 AD can accelerate electrons to energies greater than 1 TeV, where they can produce synchrotron radiation in the X-ray band. A new model (SRESC) designed to model synchrotron X-rays from Type Ia supernovae can constrain values for the magnetic-field strength and electron scattering properties, with implications for the acceleration of the unseen ions which dominate the cosmic-ray energetics. New observations by ASCA, ROSAT, and RXTE have provided enormously improved data, which now extend to higher X-ray energies. These data allow much firmer constraints. We will describe model fits to these new data on SN 1006 AD, emphasizing the physical constraints that can be placed on SNRs and on the cosmic-ray acceleration process.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. to appear in "Cosmic Explosions", proceeding of the 10th Annual October Astrophysics Conference (ed. S.S. Holt and W. W. Zhang) LaTex aipproc.st

Raising the Dead: Clues to Type Ia Supernova Physics from the Remnant 0509-67.5

We present Chandra X-ray observations of the young supernova remnant (SNR) 0509-67.5 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), believed to be the product of a Type Ia supernova (SN Ia). The remnant is very round in shape, with a distinct clumpy shell-like structure. Our Chandra data reveal the remnant to be rich in silicon, sulfur, and iron. The yields of our fits to the global spectrum confirm that 0509-67.5 is the remnant of an SN Ia and show a clear preference for delayed detonation explosion models for SNe Ia. We study the spectrum of the single brightest isolated knot in the remnant and find that it is enhanced in iron by a factor of roughly two relative to the global remnant abundances. This feature, along with similar knots seen in Tycho's SNR, argues for the presence of modest small-scale composition inhomogeneities in SNe Ia. The presence of both Si and Fe, with abundance ratios that vary from knot to knot, indicates that these came from the transition region between the Si- and Fe-rich zones in the exploded star, possibly as a result of energy input to the ejecta at late times due to the radioactive decay of 56Ni and 56Co. Two cases for the continuum emission from the global spectrum were modeled: one where the continuum is dominated by hydrogen thermal bremsstrahlung radiation; another where the continuum arises from non-thermal synchrotron radiation. The former case requires a relatively large value for the ambient density (~1 cm^-3). Another estimate of the ambient density comes from using the shell structure of the remnant in the context of dynamical models. This requires a much lower value for the density (<0.05 cm^-3) which is more consistent with other evidence known about 0509-67.5. We therefore conclude that the bulk of the continuum emission from 0509-67.5 has a non-thermal origin.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures (1 color), accepted to ApJ (10 June 2004 issue); correction made to calculation of magnetic field, small sentence change

X-Ray Synchrotron Emitting Fe-Rich Ejecta in SNR RCW 86

Supernova remnants may exhibit both thermal and nonthermal X-ray emission. We present Chandra observations of RCW 86. Striking differences in the morphology of X-rays below 1 keV and above 2 keV point to a different physical origin. Hard X-ray emission is correlated fairly well with the edges of regions of radio emission, suggesting that these are the locations of shock waves at which both short-lived X-ray emitting electrons, and longer-lived radio-emitting electrons, are accelerated. Soft X-rays are spatially well-correlated with optical emission from nonradiative shocks, which are almost certainly portions of the outer blast wave. These soft X-rays are well fit with simple thermal plane-shock models. Harder X-rays show Fe K alpha emission and are well described with a similar soft thermal component, but a much stronger synchrotron continuum dominating above 2 keV, and a strong Fe K alpha line. Quantitative analysis of this line and the surrounding continuum shows that it cannot be produced by thermal emission from a cosmic-abundance plasma; the ionization time is too short, as shown both by the low centroid energy (6.4 keV) and the absence of oxygen lines below 1 keV. Instead, a model of a plane shock into Fe-rich ejecta, with a synchrotron continuum, provides a natural explanation. This requires that reverse shocks into ejecta be accelerating electrons to energies of order 50 TeV. We show that maximum energies of this order can be produced by radiation-limited diffusive shock acceleration at the reverse shocks.Comment: ApJ, accepted; full resolution images in http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/rho/rcw86chandra.p

Boundary Terms and Junction Conditions for the DGP Pi-Lagrangian and Galileon

In the decoupling limit of DGP, Pi describes the brane-bending degree of freedom. It obeys second order equations of motion, yet it is governed by a higher derivative Lagrangian. We show that, analogously to the Einstein-Hilbert action for GR, the Pi-Lagrangian requires Gibbons-Hawking-York type boundary terms to render the variational principle well-posed. These terms are important if there are other boundaries present besides the DGP brane, such as in higher dimensional cascading DGP models. We derive the necessary boundary terms in two ways. First, we derive them directly from the brane-localized Pi-Lagrangian by demanding well-posedness of the action. Second, we calculate them directly from the bulk, taking into account the Gibbons-Hawking-York terms in the bulk Einstein-Hilbert action. As an application, we use the new boundary terms to derive Israel junction conditions for Pi across a sheet-like source. In addition, we calculate boundary terms and junction conditions for the galileons which generalize the DGP Pi-lagrangian, showing that the boundary term for the n-th order galileon is the (n-1)-th order galileon.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure. Extended the analysis to the general galileon field. Version to appear in JHE