8,245 research outputs found
Health needs of the Roma population in the Czech and Slovak Republics.
In the growing literature on the human rights of Roma people in Central Europe, their relatively poor health status is often mentioned. However, little concrete information exists about the contemporary health status of the Roma in this region. We sought information on the health of the Roma in two of countries with significant Roma minorities, the Czech and Slovak Republics, by means of systematic searches for literature on the health of Roma people published in Czech or Slovak or by authors from the two countries. Published research on health of the Roma population is sparse. The topics that have received attention suggest a focus on concepts of contagion or social Darwinism, indicating a greater concern with the health needs of the majority populations with which they live. What limited evidence exists indicates that the health needs of the Roma population are considerable. With very few exceptions, the health status of Roma is worse than that of non-Roma population in both countries. The burden of communicable disease among Roma is high and diseases associated with poor hygiene seem to be particularly important. Evidence on health care suggests poor communication between Roma and health workers and low uptake of preventative care. The health needs of Roma lack visibility, not only because of the absence of research but also the absence of advocacy on their behalf. Since 1989, Czech and Slovak researchers have largely turned away from health research on particular ethnic groups. This probably reflects a growing sensitivity about stigmatising Roma, but it also makes it difficult to know how their circumstances might be improved. There is a need for further research into the health of Roma people with particular emphasis on non-communicable disease and for interventions that would improve their health
Ledoux-Convection in Protoneutron Stars --- a Clue to Supernova Nucleosynthesis?
Two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the deleptonization of a newly
formed neutron star were performed. Driven by negative lepton fraction and
entropy gradients, convection starts near the neutrinosphere about 20-30 ms
after core bounce, but moves deeper into the protoneutron star, and after about
one second the whole protoneutron star is convective. The deleptonization of
the star proceeds much faster than in the corresponding spherically symmetrical
model because the lepton flux and the neutrino luminosities increase by up to a
factor of two. The convection below the neutrinosphere raises the
neutrinospheric temperatures and mean energies of the emitted neutrinos by
10-20%. This can have important implications for the supernova explosion
mechanism and changes the detectable neutrino signal from the Kelvin-Helmholtz
cooling of the protoneutron star. In particular, the enhanced electron neutrino
flux relative to the electron antineutrino flux during the early post-bounce
evolution might solve the overproduction problem of certain elements in the
neutrino-heated ejecta in models of type-II supernova explosions.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 8 postscript figures, uses epsf.sty. To appear in
ApJ 473 (Letters), 1996 December 1
Fabrication and Characterization of Modulation-Doped ZnSe/(Zn,Cd)Se (110) Quantum Wells: A New System for Spin Coherence Studies
We describe the growth of modulation-doped ZnSe/(Zn,Cd)Se quantum wells on
(110) GaAs substrates. Unlike the well-known protocol for the epitaxy of
ZnSe-based quantum structures on (001) GaAs, we find that the fabrication of
quantum well structures on (110) GaAs requires significantly different growth
conditions and sample architecture. We use magnetotransport measurements to
confirm the formation of a two-dimensional electron gas in these samples, and
then measure transverse electron spin relaxation times using time-resolved
Faraday rotation. In contrast to expectations based upon known spin relaxation
mechanisms, we find surprisingly little difference between the spin lifetimes
in these (110)-oriented samples in comparison with (100)-oriented control
samples.Comment: To appear in Journal of Superconductivity (Proceedings of 3rd
Conference on Physics and Applications of Spin-dependent Phenomena in
Semiconductors
Limit cycles in the presence of convection, a travelling wave analysis
We consider a diffusion model with limit cycle reaction functions, in the
presence of convection. We select a set of functions derived from a realistic
reaction model: the Schnakenberg equations. This resultant form is
unsymmetrical. We find a transformation which maps the irregular equations into
model form. Next we transform the dependent variables into polar form. From
here, a travelling wave analysis is performed on the radial variable. Results
are complex, but we make some simple estimates.
We carry out numerical experiments to test our analysis. An initial `knock'
starts the propagation of pattern. The speed of the travelling wave is not
quite as expected. We investigate further. The system demonstrates distinctly
different behaviour to the left and the right. We explain how this phenomenon
occurs by examining the underlying behaviour.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Large area pulse ionization chamber for measurement of extremely heavy cosmic rays
Parallel plate ionization chamber for identifying relativistic cosmic ray nucle
Autocatalytic plume pinch-off
A localized source of buoyancy flux in a non-reactive fluid medium creates a
plume. The flux can be provided by either heat, a compositional difference
between the fluid comprising the plume and its surroundings, or a combination
of both. For autocatalytic plumes produced by the iodate-arsenous acid
reaction, however, buoyancy is produced along the entire reacting interface
between the plume and its surroundings. Buoyancy production at the moving
interface drives fluid motion, which in turn generates flow that advects the
reaction front. As a consequence of this interplay between fluid flow and
chemical reaction, autocatalytic plumes exhibit a rich dynamics during their
ascent through the reactant medium. One of the more interesting dynamical
features is the production of an accelerating vortical plume head that in
certain cases pinches-off and detaches from the upwelling conduit. After
pinch-off, a new plume head forms in the conduit below, and this can lead to
multiple generations of plume heads for a single plume initiation. We
investigated the pinch-off process using both experimentation and simulation.
Experiments were performed using various concentrations of glycerol, in which
it was found that repeated pinch-off occurs exclusively in a specific
concentration range. Autocatalytic plume simulations revealed that pinch-off is
triggered by the appearance of accelerating flow in the plume conduit.Comment: 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys Rev E. See also
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/nonlinear/papers_chemwave.htm
EPG-representations with small grid-size
In an EPG-representation of a graph each vertex is represented by a path
in the rectangular grid, and is an edge in if and only if the paths
representing an share a grid-edge. Requiring paths representing edges
to be x-monotone or, even stronger, both x- and y-monotone gives rise to three
natural variants of EPG-representations, one where edges have no monotonicity
requirements and two with the aforementioned monotonicity requirements. The
focus of this paper is understanding how small a grid can be achieved for such
EPG-representations with respect to various graph parameters.
We show that there are -edge graphs that require a grid of area
in any variant of EPG-representations. Similarly there are
pathwidth- graphs that require height and area in
any variant of EPG-representations. We prove a matching upper bound of
area for all pathwidth- graphs in the strongest model, the one where edges
are required to be both x- and y-monotone. Thus in this strongest model, the
result implies, for example, , and area bounds
for bounded pathwidth graphs, bounded treewidth graphs and all classes of
graphs that exclude a fixed minor, respectively. For the model with no
restrictions on the monotonicity of the edges, stronger results can be achieved
for some graph classes, for example an area bound for bounded treewidth
graphs and bound for graphs of bounded genus.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
Semiclassical Gravity Theory and Quantum Fluctuations
We discuss the limits of validity of the semiclassical theory of gravity in
which a classical metric is coupled to the expectation value of the stress
tensor. It is argued that this theory is a good approximation only when the
fluctuations in the stress tensor are small. We calculate a dimensionless
measure of these fluctuations for a scalar field on a flat background in
particular cases, including squeezed states and the Casimir vacuum state. It is
found that the fluctuations are small for states which are close to a coherent
state, which describes classical behavior, but tend to be large otherwise. We
find in all cases studied that the energy density fluctuations are large
whenever the local energy density is negative. This is taken to mean that the
gravitational field of a system with negative energy density, such as the
Casimir vacuum, is not described by a fixed classical metric but is undergoing
large metric fluctuations. We propose an operational scheme by which one can
describe a fluctuating gravitational field in terms of the statistical behavior
of test particles. For this purpose we obtain an equation of the form of the
Langevin equation used to describe Brownian motion.Comment: In REVTEX. 20pp + 4 figures(not included, available upon request)
TUTP-93-
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