Quantum chromodynamics quark benzene

A six-quark state with the benzene-like structure is proposed and studied based on color string model. The calculation with the quadratic confinement show that such structure has the lowest energy among the various hidden color six-quark structures proposed so far. Its possible effect on $NN$ scattering is discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

How should we evaluate research on counselling and the treatment of depression? A case study on how NICE’s draft 2018 guideline considered what counts as best evidence

Background: Health guidelines are developed to improve patient care by ensuring the most recent and “best available evidence” is used to guide treatment recommendations (NICE Guidance, 2017). NICE’s revised guideline development methodology acknowledges that evidence needed to answer one question (treatment efficacy) may be different from evidence needed to answer another (cost effectiveness, treatment acceptability to patients; NICE, 2014/2017). This review uses counselling in the treatment of depression as a case study, and interrogates the constructs of ‘best’ evidence and ‘best’ guideline methodologies. Method: The review comprises six sections: (1) the implications of diverse definitions of counselling in research; (2) research findings from meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials (RCTs); (3) limitations to trials-based evidence; (4) findings from large routine outcome datasets; (5) the inclusion of qualitative research that emphasises service-user voices; and (6) conclusions and recommendations. Results: Research from meta-analyses and RCTs reviewed in the draft 2018 NICE guideline is limited but positive in relation to the effectiveness of counselling in the treatment for depression. The weight of evidence suggests little, if any, advantage to CBT over counselling once bias and researcher allegiance are taken into account. A growing body of evidence from large NHS datasets also evidences that counselling is both effective and cost-effective when delivered in NHS settings. Conclusion: Recommendations in NICE’s own updated procedures suggest that sole reliance on RCTs and meta-analyses as best methodologies is no longer adequate. There is a need to include large standardised collected datasets from routine practice as well as the voice of patients via high-quality qualitative research

Cell sorting by deterministic cell rolling

Authors Manuscript 2013 April 21.This communication presents the concept of “deterministic cell rolling”, which leverages transient cell-surface molecular interactions that mediate cell rolling to sort cells with high purity and efficiency in a single step.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HL-095722)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HL-097172)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER Award 0952493)Deshpande Center for Technological InnovationNational Science Foundation (U.S.). Chemical and Biological Separation

Ralph J. Perk, the “New ethnicity”, and the making of urban ethnic republicans

Historians seeking to explain the late twentieth century rightward shift of urban ethnic whites have tended to ignore the shifting meaning and content of white ethnic identity in this transition, and the utility of these changes to conservative political discourse. This article, focusing on the ethnic strategies of the Republican mayor of Cleveland, Ralph Perk, seeks to illustrate the importance of the “New Ethnicity” of the 1970s, and its reconceptualization of white ethnicity as a series of “values”, in the making of urban ethnic Republicans. In doing so it reorients our understanding of Perk – the “Ethnic Mayor” – and places ethnicity at the heart of the conservative insurgency reshaping urban and national politics during this period

A switchable controlled-NOT gate in a spin-chain NMR quantum computer

A method of switching a controlled-NOT gate in a solid-stae NMR quantum computer is presented. Qubits of I=1/2 nuclear spins are placed periodically along a quantum spin chain (1-D antiferromagnet) having a singlet ground state with a finite spin gap to the lowest excited state caused by some quantum effect. Irradiation of a microwave tuned to the spin gap energy excites a packet of triplet magnons at a specific part of the chain where control and target qubits are involved. The packet switches on the Suhl-Nakamura interaction between the qubits, which serves as a controlled NOT gate. The qubit initialization is achieved by a qubit initializer consisting of semiconducting sheets attached to the spin chain, where spin polarizations created by the optical pumping method in the semiconductors are transferred to the spin chain. The scheme allows us to separate the initialization process from the computation, so that one can optimize the computation part without being restricted by the initialization scheme, which provides us with a wide selection of materials for a quantum computer.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Social comparison processes in organizations

We systematically analyze the role of social comparison processes in organizations. Specifically, we describe how social comparison processes have been used to explain six key areas of organizational inquiry: (1) organizational justice, (2) performance appraisal, (3) virtual work environments, (4) affective behavior in the workplace, (5) stress, and (6) leadership. Additionally, we describe how unique contextual factors in organizations offer new insight into two widely studied sub-processes of social comparison, acquiring social information and thinking about that information. Our analyses underscore the merit of integrating organizational phenomena and social comparison processes in future research and theory

Conversation analysis of the two-chair self-soothing task in emotion-focused therapy

Despite an increasing recognition of the relevance and significance of self-compassion processes, little research has explored interventions that seek to enhance these in therapy. In this study, we used conversation analysis to examine the compassionate self-soothing task of emotion-focused therapy involving two-chair work, with seven clients. The analysis yielded a detailed description of interactional practices and processes involved in the accomplishment of self-soothing, drawing on Goffman’s concept of the participation frame. In this article we show how therapists and clients collaborate to move from the ordinary frame of therapeutic conversation to a self-soothing frame and back again. Furthermore, we show that in this movement between the frames, they make use of a number interactional practices: therapists' instructions to clients, specific ways of sequencing actions in interaction, explanations and justification of the importance of the self-soothing task, pronouns as a way to distinguish among addressees (e.g., clients versus soothing agents), corrections of clients’ talk, and response tokens (hm mm, yeah, good). These practices are used to help clients accomplish self-soothing in the form of self-praise, disclosing caring, and offering of helpful advice