Barriers & facilitators to extended working life : a focus on a predominately female ageing workforce

Many countries are reforming their pension systems so people stay in work for longer to improve the long-term sustainability of public finances to support an increasing older population. This research aimed to explore the factors that enable or inhibit people to extend working life (EWL) in a large UK based retail organisation. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample (n=30): 15 employees aged ≥ 60 and 15 supervisors supporting these employees. Older workers were predominately female, reflecting the gender profile of the older workers in the organisation. Older workers and supervisors reported that key facilitators to EWL were: good health, the perception that older workers are of value; flexibility and choice; the need for an ongoing conversation across the life-course; the social and community aspect of work as a facilitator to EWL; and, the financial necessity to EWL. Perceived barriers to EWL included poor health, negative impacts of work on health, and a lack of respect and support

Discovery of a Large-scale Wall in the Direction of Abell 22

We report on the discovery of a large-scale wall in the direction of Abell 22. Using photometric and spectroscopic data from the Las Campanas Observatory and Anglo-Australian Telescope Rich Cluster Survey, Abell 22 is found to exhibit a highly unusual and striking redshift distribution. We show that Abell 22 exhibits a foreground wall-like structure by examining the galaxy distributions in both redshift space and on the colour-magnitude plane. A search for other galaxies and clusters in the nearby region using the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey database suggests that the wall-like structure is a significant large-scale, non-virialized filament which runs between two other Abell clusters either side of Abell 22. The filament stretches over at least >40 Mpc in length and 10 Mpc in width at the redshift of Abell 22.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

Lower Manhattan and the East River: an investigation into the renewal of the Lower East Side waterfront

With the mid-20th Century construction of an elevated highway along Manhattan’s East River, the declining neighborhood of the Lower East Side was removed from its waterfront. As cities begin to re-examine their edges, I feel it is appropriate to address the issues of the Lower East Side community and its former riverfront. Utilizing the recent developments in Manhattan, London, and Chicago as a basis for determining how metropolitan areas are attempting to reconnect with their shores, a set of questions were developed, analyzed, and then applied to the Lower East Side. With the analysis of these questions providing the groundwork for the project, the main concern turns to the elevated highway that has cut through the community along the water’s edge. There are three possible solutions for the future of this ‘wall’ in order to reconnect the Lower East Side with the East River. The first two solutions examine the idea of demolishing the elevated FDR Drive in favor of subterranean or surface streets. The other solution examines the possibility of redesigning the existing elevated highway. In the end, the project focuses on an urban design and planning program that re-establishes the connections between the community and the waterfront

Non-hydrostatic gas in the core of the relaxed galaxy cluster A1795

Chandra data on A1795 reveal a mild edge-shaped discontinuity in the gas density and temperature in the southern sector of the cluster at r=60/h kpc. The gas inside the edge is 1.3-1.5 times denser and cooler than outside, while the pressure is continuous, indicating that this is a "cold front", the surface of contact between two moving gases. The continuity of the pressure indicates that the current relative velocity of the gases is near zero, making the edge appear to be in hydrostatic equilibrium. However, a total mass profile derived from the data in this sector under the equilibrium assumption, exhibits an unphysical jump by a factor of 2, with the mass inside the edge being lower. We propose that the cooler gas is "sloshing" in the cluster gravitational potential well and is now near the point of maximum displacement, where it has zero velocity but nonzero centripetal acceleration. The distribution of this non-hydrostatic gas should reflect the reduced gravity force in the accelerating reference frame, resulting in the apparent mass discontinuity. Assuming that the gas outside the edge is hydrostatic, the acceleration of the moving gas can be estimated from the mass jump, a ~ 800 h km/s/(10^8 yr). The gravitational potential energy of this gas that is available for dissipation is about half of its current thermal energy. The length of the cool filament extending from the cD galaxy (Fabian et al.) may give the amplitude of the gas sloshing, 30-40/h kpc. Such gas bulk motion might be caused by a disturbance of the central gravitational potential by past subcluster infall.Comment: Minor text clarifications to correspond to published version. 5 pages, 1 figure in color, uses emulateapj.sty. ApJ Letters in pres

The ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey: the X-ray Luminosity Function out to z=0.8

We present the X-ray Luminosity Function (XLF) of the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey (RDCS) sample over the redshift range 0.05-0.8. Our results are derived from a complete flux-limited subsample of 70 galaxy clusters, representing the brightest half of the total sample, which have been spectroscopically identified down to the flux limit of 4*10^{-14} erg/cm^2/s (0.5-2.0 keV) and have been selected via a serendipitous search in ROSAT-PSPC pointed observations. The redshift baseline is large enough that evolutionary effects can be studied within the sample. The local XLF (z < 0.25) is found to be in excellent agreement with previous determinations using the ROSAT All-Sky Survey data. The XLF at higher redshifts, when combined with the deepest number counts constructed to date (f>2*10^{-14} arg/cm^2/s), reveal no significant evolution at least out to z=0.8, over a luminosity range 2*10^{42}-3*10^{44} erg/s in the [0.5-2 keV] band. These findings extend the study of cluster evolution to the highest redshifts and the faintest fluxes probed so far in X-ray surveys. They complement and do not necessarily conflict with those of the Einstein Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey, leaving the possibility of negative evolution of the brightest end of the XLF at high redshifts.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX (aasms4.sty). To appear in ApJ Letter

Statistical Topological Insulators

We define a class of insulators with gapless surface states protected from localization due to the statistical properties of a disordered ensemble, namely due to the ensemble's invariance under a certain symmetry. We show that these insulators are topological, and are protected by a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ invariant. Finally, we prove that every topological insulator gives rise to an infinite number of classes of statistical topological insulators in higher dimensions. Our conclusions are confirmed by numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, 1 table, 5 figures, this is the final, published versio

The X-ray Fundamental Plane and LX−TL_X-T Relation of Clusters of Galaxies

We analyze the relations among central gas density, core radius, and temperature of X-ray clusters by plotting the observational data in the three-dimensional ($\log \rho_0$, $\log R$, and $\log T$) space and find that the data lie on a 'fundamental plane'. Its existence implies that the clusters form a two-parameter family. The data on the plane still has a correlation and form a band on the plane. The observed relation $L_{\rm X} \propto T^3$ turns out to be the cross section of the band perpendicular to the major axis, while the major axis is found to describe the virial density. We discuss implications of this two-parameter family nature of X-ray clusters.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. To be published in ApJ Letter

Flight elements: Fault detection and fault management

Fault management for an intelligent computational system must be developed using a top down integrated engineering approach. An approach proposed includes integrating the overall environment involving sensors and their associated data; design knowledge capture; operations; fault detection, identification, and reconfiguration; testability; causal models including digraph matrix analysis; and overall performance impacts on the hardware and software architecture. Implementation of the concept to achieve a real time intelligent fault detection and management system will be accomplished via the implementation of several objectives, which are: Development of fault tolerant/FDIR requirement and specification from a systems level which will carry through from conceptual design through implementation and mission operations; Implementation of monitoring, diagnosis, and reconfiguration at all system levels providing fault isolation and system integration; Optimize system operations to manage degraded system performance through system integration; and Lower development and operations costs through the implementation of an intelligent real time fault detection and fault management system and an information management system

Quantum critical origin of the superconducting dome in SrTiO3_3

We investigate the origin of superconductivity in doped SrTiO$_3$ (STO) using a combination of density functional and strong coupling theories within the framework of quantum criticality. Our density functional calculations of the ferroelectric soft mode frequency as a function of doping reveal a crossover from quantum paraelectric to ferroelectric behavior at a doping level coincident with the experimentally observed top of the superconducting dome. Based on this finding, we explore a model in which the superconductivity in STO is enabled by its proximity to the ferroelectric quantum critical point and the soft mode fluctuations provide the pairing interaction on introduction of carriers. Within our model, the low doping limit of the superconducting dome is explained by the emergence of the Fermi surface, and the high doping limit by departure from the quantum critical regime. We predict that the highest critical temperature will increase and shift to lower carrier doping with increasing $^{18}$O isotope substitution, a scenario that is experimentally verifiable.Comment: 4 pages + supplemental, 3 + 2 figure