15,896 research outputs found
Setting up an acupuncture knee clinic under Practice Based Commissioning
Original article can be found at: http://www.acupunctureinmedicine.org.uk/index.shtmlThis paper outlines the setting up of a new service in primary care offering acupuncture to patients with severe osteoarthritis of the knee. The high volume clinic is funded under the Practice Based Commissioning initiative and is the first of its type in the UK. It would appear to offer a model for similar services elsewhere.Peer reviewe
Homological Product Codes
Quantum codes with low-weight stabilizers known as LDPC codes have been
actively studied recently due to their simple syndrome readout circuits and
potential applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing. However, all
families of quantum LDPC codes known to this date suffer from a poor distance
scaling limited by the square-root of the code length. This is in a sharp
contrast with the classical case where good families of LDPC codes are known
that combine constant encoding rate and linear distance. Here we propose the
first family of good quantum codes with low-weight stabilizers. The new codes
have a constant encoding rate, linear distance, and stabilizers acting on at
most qubits, where is the code length. For comparison, all
previously known families of good quantum codes have stabilizers of linear
weight. Our proof combines two techniques: randomized constructions of good
quantum codes and the homological product operation from algebraic topology. We
conjecture that similar methods can produce good stabilizer codes with
stabilizer weight for any . Finally, we apply the homological
product to construct new small codes with low-weight stabilizers.Comment: 49 page
Parametric evaluation of ball milling of SiC in water
A statistically designed experiment was conducted to determine optimum conditions for ball milling alpha-SiC in water. The influence of pH adjustment, volume percent solids loading, and mill rotational speed on grinding effectiveness was examined. An equation defining the effect of those milling variables on specific surface area was obtained. The volume percent solids loading of the slurry had the greatest influence on the grinding effectiveness in terms of increase in specific surface area. As grinding effectiveness improved, mill and media wear also increased. Contamination was minimized by use of sintered alpha-SiC milling hardware
Atmospheric Sulfur Photochemistry on Hot Jupiters
We develop a new 1D photochemical kinetics code to address stratospheric
chemistry and stratospheric heating in hot Jupiters. Here we address optically
active S-containing species and CO2 at 1200 < T < 2000 K. HS (mercapto) and S2
are highly reactive species that are generated photochemically and
thermochemically from H2S with peak abundances between 1-10 mbar. S2 absorbs UV
between 240 and 340 nm and is optically thick for metallicities [SH] > 0 at T >
1200 K. HS is probably more important than S2, as it is generally more abundant
than S2 under hot Jupiter conditions and it absorbs at somewhat redder
wavelengths. We use molecular theory to compute an HS absorption spectrum from
sparse available data and find that HS should absorb strongly between 300 and
460 nm, with absorption at the longer wavelengths being temperature sensitive.
When the two absorbers are combined, radiative heating (per kg of gas) peaks at
100 microbars, with a total stratospheric heating of about 8 x 10^4 W/m^2 for a
jovian planet orbiting a solar-twin at 0.032 AU. Total heating is insensitive
to metallicity. The CO2 mixing ratio is a well-behaved quadratic function of
metallicity, ranging from 1.6 x 10^-8 to 1.6 x 10^-4 for -0.3 < [M/H] < 1.7.
CO2 is insensitive to insolation, vertical mixing, temperature (1200 < T <2000
K), and gravity. The photochemical calculations confirm that CO2 should prove a
useful probe of planetary metallicity.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Lett. in press; important revision includes
effect of updated thermodynamic data and a new opacity sourc
Particle size reduction of Si3N4 with Si3N4 milling hardware
The grinding of Si3N4 powder using reaction bonded Si3N4 attrition, vibratory, and ball mills with Si3N4 media was examined. The rate of particle size reduction and the change in the chemical composition of the powder were determined in order to compare the grinding efficiency and the increase in impurity content resulting from mill and media wear for each technique. Attrition and vibratory milling exhibited rates of specific surface area increase that were approximately eight times that observed in ball milling. Vibratory milling introduced the greatest impurity pickup
Energies of knot diagrams
We introduce and begin the study of new knot energies defined on knot
diagrams. Physically, they model the internal energy of thin metallic solid
tori squeezed between two parallel planes. Thus the knots considered can
perform the second and third Reidemeister moves, but not the first one. The
energy functionals considered are the sum of two terms, the uniformization term
(which tends to make the curvature of the knot uniform) and the resistance term
(which, in particular, forbids crossing changes). We define an infinite family
of uniformization functionals, depending on an arbitrary smooth function
and study the simplest nontrivial case , obtaining neat normal forms
(corresponding to minima of the functional) by making use of the Gauss
representation of immersed curves, of the phase space of the pendulum, and of
elliptic functions
A Unified Theory for the Atmospheres of the Hot and Very Hot Jupiters: Two Classes of Irradiated Atmospheres
We highlight the importance of gaseous TiO and VO opacity on the highly
irradiated close-in giant planets. The atmospheres of these planets naturally
fall into two classes that are somewhat analogous to the M- and L-type dwarfs.
Those that are warm enough to have appreciable opacity due to TiO and VO gases
we term the ``pM Class'' planets, and those that are cooler we term ``pL
Class'' planets. We calculate model atmospheres for these planets, including
pressure-temperature profiles, spectra, and characteristic radiative time
constants. We show that pM Class planets have hot stratospheres 2000 K
and appear ``anomalously'' bright in the mid infrared secondary eclipse, as was
recently found for planets HD 149026b and HD 209458b. This class of planets
absorbs incident flux and emits thermal flux from high in their atmospheres.
Consequently, they will have large day/night temperature contrasts and
negligible phase shifts between orbital phase and thermal emission light
curves, because radiative timescales are much shorter than possible dynamical
timescales. The pL Class planets absorb incident flux deeper in the atmosphere
where atmospheric dynamics will more readily redistribute absorbed energy. This
will lead to cooler day sides, warmer night sides, and larger phase shifts in
thermal emission light curves. Around a Sun-like primary this boundary occurs
at 0.04-0.05 AU. The eccentric transiting planets HD 147506b and HD
17156b alternate between the classes. Thermal emission in the optical from pM
Class planets is significant red-ward of 400 nm, making these planets
attractive targets for optical detection. The difference in the observed
day/night contrast between ups Andromeda b (pM Class) and HD 189733b (pL Class)
is naturally explained in this scenario. (Abridged.)Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journa
Comparative Planetary Atmospheres: Models of TrES-1 and HD209458b
We present new self-consistent atmosphere models for transiting planets
TrES-1 and HD209458b. The planets were recently observed with the Spitzer Space
Telescope in bands centered on 4.5 and 8.0 m, for TrES-1, and 24 m,
for HD209458b. We find that standard solar metallicity models fit the
observations for HD209458b. For TrES-1, which has an T_eff ~300 K cooler, we
find that models with a metallicity 3-5 times enhanced over solar abundances
can match the 1 error bar at 4.5 m and 2 at 8.0m.
Models with solar abundances that included energy deposition into the
stratosphere give fluxes that fall within the 2 error bars in both
bands. The best-fit models for both planets assume that reradiation of absorbed
stellar flux occurs over the entire planet. For all models of both planets we
predict planet/star flux ratios in other Spitzer bandpasses.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters, May 17, 200
Quantum Field Theory and Differential Geometry
We introduce the historical development and physical idea behind topological
Yang-Mills theory and explain how a physical framework describing subatomic
physics can be used as a tool to study differential geometry. Further, we
emphasize that this phenomenon demonstrates that the interrelation between
physics and mathematics have come into a new stage.Comment: 29 pages, enlarged version, some typewritten mistakes have been
corrected, the geometric descrition to BRST symmetry, the chain of descent
equations and its application in TYM as well as an introduction to R-symmetry
have been added, as required by mathematicia
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