Direct Measurement of Kirkwood-Rihaczek distribution for spatial properties of coherent light beam

We present direct measurement of Kirkwood-Rihaczek (KR) distribution for spatial properties of coherent light beam in terms of position and momentum (angle) coordinates. We employ a two-local oscillator (LO) balanced heterodyne detection (BHD) to simultaneously extract distribution of transverse position and momentum of a light beam. The two-LO BHD could measure KR distribution for any complex wave field (including quantum mechanical wave function) without applying tomography methods (inverse Radon transformation). Transformation of KR distribution to Wigner, Glauber Sudarshan P- and Husimi or Q- distributions in spatial coordinates are illustrated through experimental data. The direct measurement of KR distribution could provide local information of wave field, which is suitable for studying particle properties of a quantum system. While Wigner function is suitable for studying wave properties such as interference, and hence provides nonlocal information of the wave field. The method developed here can be used for exploring spatial quantum state for quantum mapping and computing, optical phase space imaging for biomedical applications.Comment: 27 pages, 14 figure

Learning democracy in social work

In this contribution, we discuss the role of social work in processes of democracy. A key question in this discussion concerns the meaning of ‘the social’ in social work. This question has often been answered in a self-referential way, referring to a methodological identity of social work. This defines the educational role of social work as socialisation (be it socialisation into obedience or into an empowered citizen). However, the idea of democracy as ‘ongoing experiment’ and ‘beyond order’ challenges this methodological identity of social work. From the perspective of democracy as an ‘ongoing experiment’, the social is to be regarded as a platform for dissensus, for ongoing discussions on the relation between private and public issues in the light of human rights and social justice. Hence, the identity of social work cannot be defined in a methodological way; social work is a complex of (institutionalized) welfare practices, to be studied on their underlying views on the ‘social’ as a political and educational concept, and on the way they influence the situation of children, young people and adults in society

Racism, anti-racist practice and social work: articulating the teaching and learning experiences of Black social workers

In the mid 1990s a Black practice teacher programme was established in Manchester and Merseyside with the primary aim to increase the number of Black practice teachers in social work organisations, and in turn provide a supportive and encouraging learning environment for Black student social workers whilst on placement. In the north‐west of England research has been undertaken, to establish the quality of the practice teaching and student learning taking place with Black practice teachers and students. This paper is an exploration of the ideas generated within the placement process that particularly focused on the discourse of racism and ant‐racist practice. Black students and practice teachers explain their understanding of racism and anti‐racist practice within social work. From the research, the paper will critique some of the ideas concerning anti‐racism. In particular, it will question whether anti‐racist social work practice needs to be re‐evaluated in the light of a context with new migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. It will concluded, by arguing that whilst the terms anti‐racism, Black and Minority Ethnic have resonance as a form of political strategic essentialism, it is important to develop more positive representations in the future

Radiopaque Crystalline, Non-Crystalline and Nanostructured Bioceramics

Radiopacity is sometimes an essential characteristic of biomaterials that can help clinicians perform follow-ups during pre- and post-interventional radiological imaging. Due to their chemical composition and structure, most bioceramics are inherently radiopaque but can still be doped/mixed with radiopacifiers to increase their visualization during or after medical procedures. The radiopacifiers are frequently heavy elements of the periodic table, such as Bi, Zr, Sr, Ba, Ta, Zn, Y, etc., or their relevant compounds that can confer enhanced radiopacity. Radiopaque bioceramics are also intriguing additives for biopolymers and hybrids, which are extensively researched and developed nowadays for various biomedical setups. The present work aims to provide an overview of radiopaque bioceramics, specifically crystalline, non-crystalline (glassy), and nanostructured bioceramics designed for applications in orthopedics, dentistry, and cancer therapy. Furthermore, the modification of the chemical, physical, and biological properties of parent ceramics/biopolymers due to the addition of radiopacifiers is critically discussed. We also point out future research lacunas in this exciting field that bioceramists can explore further

Association between Ambient Temperature and Severe Diarrhoea in the National Capital Region, Philippines

Epidemiological studies have quantified the association between ambient temperature and diarrhoea. However, to our knowledge, no study has quantified the temperature association for severe diarrhoea cases. In this study, we quantified the association between mean temperature and two severe diarrhoea outcomes, which were mortality and hospital admissions accompanied with dehydration and/or co-morbidities. Using a 12-year dataset of three urban districts of the National Capital Region, Philippines, we modelled the non-linear association between weekly temperatures and weekly severe diarrhoea cases using a two-stage time series analysis. We computed the relative risks at the 95th (30.4 °C) and 5th percentiles (25.8 °C) of temperatures using minimum risk temperatures (MRTs) as the reference to quantify the association with high- and low-temperatures, respectively. The shapes of the cumulative associations were generally J-shaped with greater associations towards high temperatures. Mortality risks were found to increase by 53.3% [95% confidence interval (CI): 29.4%; 81.7%)] at 95th percentile of weekly mean temperatures compared with the MRT (28.2 °C). Similarly, the risk of hospitalised severe diarrhoea increased by 27.1% (95% CI: 0.7%; 60.4%) at 95th percentile in mean weekly temperatures compared with the MRT (28.6 °C). With the increased risk of severe diarrhoea cases under high ambient temperature, there may be a need to strengthen primary healthcare services and sustain the improvements made in water, sanitation, and hygiene, particularly in poor communities

Ambient-aware continuous care through semantic context dissemination

Background: The ultimate ambient-intelligent care room contains numerous sensors and devices to monitor the patient, sense and adjust the environment and support the staff. This sensor-based approach results in a large amount of data, which can be processed by current and future applications, e. g., task management and alerting systems. Today, nurses are responsible for coordinating all these applications and supplied information, which reduces the added value and slows down the adoption rate. The aim of the presented research is the design of a pervasive and scalable framework that is able to optimize continuous care processes by intelligently reasoning on the large amount of heterogeneous care data. Methods: The developed Ontology-based Care Platform (OCarePlatform) consists of modular components that perform a specific reasoning task. Consequently, they can easily be replicated and distributed. Complex reasoning is achieved by combining the results of different components. To ensure that the components only receive information, which is of interest to them at that time, they are able to dynamically generate and register filter rules with a Semantic Communication Bus (SCB). This SCB semantically filters all the heterogeneous care data according to the registered rules by using a continuous care ontology. The SCB can be distributed and a cache can be employed to ensure scalability. Results: A prototype implementation is presented consisting of a new-generation nurse call system supported by a localization and a home automation component. The amount of data that is filtered and the performance of the SCB are evaluated by testing the prototype in a living lab. The delay introduced by processing the filter rules is negligible when 10 or fewer rules are registered. Conclusions: The OCarePlatform allows disseminating relevant care data for the different applications and additionally supports composing complex applications from a set of smaller independent components. This way, the platform significantly reduces the amount of information that needs to be processed by the nurses. The delay resulting from processing the filter rules is linear in the amount of rules. Distributed deployment of the SCB and using a cache allows further improvement of these performance results

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson