10,014 research outputs found
ARE W ITTY PEOPLE HEALTHIER? THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN FACETS OF HUMOUR AND HEALTH
For decades, physicians, theorists, and members of the media have popularized the old
adage that “laughter is the best medicine.” Despite arguments for the beneficial effects of humour, the evidence relating humour and health is weak and inconsistent. Two understudied areas o f research pertain to humour conceptualized as a creation ability (i.e., wittiness) and emotional temperament. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate relationships between these humour dimensions (in addition to humour styles) and a series of mental health variables, illness symptoms, and health-related lifestyle behaviours. Two humour production activities and a variety of self-report questionnaires were completed by 215 university students. Correlation analyses indicated that playfulness was important for humour creation ability, but neither playfulness nor wittiness were important for mental health. Furthermore, the ability to be witty was related to general health, but overall, unrelated to lifestyle behaviours. These findings have implications for humour-health interventions
Condensation and Clustering in the Driven Pair Exclusion Process
We investigate particle condensation in a driven pair exclusion process on
one- and two- dimensional lattices under the periodic boundary condition. The
model describes a biased hopping of particles subject to a pair exclusion
constraint that each particle cannot stay at a same site with its pre-assigned
partner. The pair exclusion causes a mesoscopic condensation characterized by
the scaling of the condensate size and the number of
condensates with the total number of sites .
Those condensates are distributed randomly without hopping bias. We find that
the hopping bias generates a spatial correlation among condensates so that a
cluster of condensates appears. Especially, the cluster has an anisotropic
shape in the two-dimensional system. The mesoscopic condensation and the
clustering are studied by means of numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Direct Evidence of the Discontinuous Character of the Kosterlitz-Thouless Jump
It is numerically shown that the discontinuous character of the helicity
modulus of the two-dimensional XY model at the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT)
transition can be directly related to a higher order derivative of the free
energy without presuming any {\it a priori} knowledge of the nature of the
transition. It is also suggested that this higher order derivative is of
intrinsic interest in that it gives an additional characteristics of the KT
transition which might be associated with a universal number akin to the
universal value of the helicity modulus at the critical temperature.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in PR
Correlation functions and queuing phenomena in growth processes with drift
We suggest a novel stochastic discrete growth model which describes the
drifted Edward-Wilkinson (EW) equation . From the stochastic model, the
anomalous behavior of the drifted EW equation with a defect is analyzed. To
physically understand the anomalous behavior the height-height correlation
functions and are
also investigated, where the defect is located at . The height-height
correlation functions follow the power law and with around a perfect defect at which no
growth process is allowed. is the same as the anomalous
roughness exponent . For the weak defect at which the growth
process is partially allowed, the normal EW behavior is recovered. We also
suggest a new type queuing process based on the asymmetry of
the correlation function around the perfect defect
Somatic Symptom Disorder, Conversion Disorder, and Chronic Pain: Pediatric Clinician Perspectives
Objectives: The appropriateness and relevance of somatic symptom disorder and conversion disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) diagnoses are in question as they relate to pediatric chronic pain. This survey-based study on pediatric chronic pain explores how these psychiatric diagnoses are made and perceived and how treatment of patients is approached by Canadian health care professionals working in pediatric chronic pain clinics. Method: Health care professionals (N = 50) completed the survey, which contained both qualitative and quantitative items. Results: Of participants, 88% reported moderate/advanced training in pain, whereas only 26% reported moderate/advanced training in somatic symptom disorder and conversion disorder. Somatic symptom disorder and conversion disorder were reportedly diagnosed in approximately 17% and 5% of young people with chronic pain, respectively; however, overall, the participants were not confident or only slightly confident when diagnosing these disorders. There were no major differences in the reported interventions used to treat pain, somatic symptom disorder, or conversion disorder. Conclusions: These results highlight the need for standardized training in pain and psychiatric assessment, diagnosis, and treatment; diagnostic guidelines; and how to best provide this training to health care staff who work with young people with chronic pain
Particles Sliding on a Fluctuating Surface: Phase Separation and Power Laws
We study a system of hard-core particles sliding downwards on a fluctuating
one-dimensional surface which is characterized by a dynamical exponent . In
numerical simulations, an initially random particle density is found to coarsen
and obey scaling with a growing length scale . The structure
factor deviates from the Porod law in some cases. The steady state is unusual
in that the density-segregation order parameter shows strong fluctuations. The
two-point correlation function has a scaling form with a cusp at small argument
which we relate to a power law distribution of particle cluster sizes. Exact
results on a related model of surface depths provides insight into the origin
of this behaviour.Comment: 5 pages, 5 Postscript figure
MEPicides: Potent antimalarial prodrugs targeting isoprenoid biosynthesis
AbstractThe emergence of Plasmodium falciparum resistant to frontline therapeutics has prompted efforts to identify and validate agents with novel mechanisms of action. MEPicides represent a new class of antimalarials that inhibit enzymes of the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis, including the clinically validated target, deoxyxylulose phosphate reductoisomerase (Dxr). Here we describe RCB-185, a lipophilic prodrug with nanomolar activity against asexual parasites. Growth of P. falciparum treated with RCB-185 was rescued by isoprenoid precursor supplementation, and treatment substantially reduced metabolite levels downstream of the Dxr enzyme. In addition, parasites that produced higher levels of the Dxr substrate were resistant to RCB-185. Notably, environmental isolates resistant to current therapies remained sensitive to RCB-185, the compound effectively treated sexually-committed parasites, and was both safe and efficacious in malaria-infected mice. Collectively, our data demonstrate that RCB-185 potently and selectively inhibits Dxr in P. falciparum, and represents a promising lead compound for further drug development.</jats:p
Generation of angular-momentum-dominated electron beams from a photoinjector
Various projects under study require an angular-momentum-dominated electron
beam generated by a photoinjector. Some of the proposals directly use the
angular-momentum-dominated beams (e.g. electron cooling of heavy ions), while
others require the beam to be transformed into a flat beam (e.g. possible
electron injectors for light sources and linear colliders). In this paper, we
report our experimental study of an angular-momentum-dominated beam produced in
a photoinjector, addressing the dependencies of angular momentum on initial
conditions. We also briefly discuss the removal of angular momentum. The
results of the experiment, carried out at the Fermilab/NICADD Photoinjector
Laboratory, are found to be in good agreement with theoretical and numerical
models.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beam
Fermion-scalar interactions with domain wall fermions
Domain wall fermions are defined on a lattice with an extra direction the
size of which controls the chiral properties of the theory. When gauge fields
are coupled to domain wall fermions the extra direction is treated as an
internal flavor space. Here it is found that this is not the case for scalar
fields. Instead, the interaction takes place only along the link that connects
the boundaries of the extra direction. This reveals a richness in the way
different spin particles are coupled to domain wall fermions. As an
application, 4-Fermi models are studied using large N techniques and the
results are supported by numerical simulations with N=2. It is found that the
chiral properties of domain wall fermions in these models are good across a
large range of couplings and that a phase with parity-flavor broken symmetry
can develop for negative bare masses if the number of sites along the extra
direction is finite.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 8 eps figures; comment regarding the width of Aoki
phase added in sec. 3; references adde
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