15,759 research outputs found
Gambling in Great Britain:a response to Rogers
A recent issue of Practice: Social Work in Action featured a paper by Rogers that examined whether the issue of problem gambling was a suitable case for social work. Rogers’ overview was (in various places) out of date, highly selective, contradictory, presented unsupported claims and somewhat misleading. Rogers’ paper is to be commended for putting the issue of problem gambling on the social work agenda. However, social workers need up-to-date information and contextually situated information if they are to make informed decisions in helping problem gamblers
Asymptotic solutions of glass temperature profiles during steady optical fibre drawing
In this paper we derive realistic simplified models for the high-speed drawing of glass optical fibres via the downdraw method, that capture the fluid dynamics and heat transport in the fibre via conduction, convection and radiative heating. We exploit the small aspect ratio of the fibre and the relative orders of magnitude of the dimensionless parameters that characterize the heat transfer to reduce the problem to one- or two-dimensional systems via asymptotic analysis. The resulting equations may be readily solved numerically and in many cases admit exact analytic solutions. The systematic asymptotic breakdown presented is used to elucidate the relative importance of furnace temperature profile, convection, surface radiation and conduction in each portion of the furnace and the role of each in controlling the glass temperature.\ud
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The models derived predict many of the qualitative features observed in the real industrial process, such as the glass temperature profile within the furnace and the sharp transition in fibre thickness. The models thus offer a desirable route to quick scenario testing, providing valuable practical information into the dependencies of the solution on the parameters and the dominant heat-transport mechanism
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Structure variation and evolution in microphase-separated grafted diblock copolymer films
The phase behavior of grafted d-polystyrene-block-poly(methyl methacrylate) diblock copolymer films is examined, with particular focus on the effect of solvent and annealing time. It was observed that the films undergo a two-step transformation from an initially disordered state, through an ordered metastable state, to the final equilibrium configuration. It was also found that altering the solvent used to wash the films, or complete removal of the solvent prior to thermal annealing using supercritical CO2, could influence the structure of the films in the metastable state, though the final equilibrium state was unaffected. To aid in the understanding to these experimental results, a series of self-consistent field theory calculations were done on a model diblock copolymer brush containing solvent. Of the different models examined, those which contained a solvent selective for the grafted polymer block most accurately matched the observed experimental behavior. We hypothesize that the structure of the films in the metastable state results from solvent enrichment of the film near the film/substrate interface in the case of films washed with solvent or faster relaxation of the nongrafted block for supercritical CO2 treated (solvent free) films. The persistence of the metastable structures was attributed to the slow reorganization of the polymer chains in the absence of solvent
Channel kets, entangled states, and the location of quantum information
The well-known duality relating entangled states and noisy quantum channels
is expressed in terms of a channel ket, a pure state on a suitable tripartite
system, which functions as a pre-probability allowing the calculation of
statistical correlations between, for example, the entrance and exit of a
channel, once a framework has been chosen so as to allow a consistent set of
probabilities. In each framework the standard notions of ordinary (classical)
information theory apply, and it makes sense to ask whether information of a
particular sort about one system is or is not present in another system.
Quantum effects arise when a single pre-probability is used to compute
statistical correlations in different incompatible frameworks, and various
constraints on the presence and absence of different kinds of information are
expressed in a set of all-or-nothing theorems which generalize or give a
precise meaning to the concept of ``no-cloning.'' These theorems are used to
discuss: the location of information in quantum channels modeled using a
mixed-state environment; the (classical-quantum) channels introduced by
Holevo; and the location of information in the physical carriers of a quantum
code. It is proposed that both channel and entanglement problems be classified
in terms of pure states (functioning as pre-probabilities) on systems of parts, with mixed bipartite entanglement and simple noisy channels belonging
to the category , a five-qubit code to the category , etc.; then by
the dimensions of the Hilbert spaces of the component parts, along with other
criteria yet to be determined.Comment: Latex 32 pages, 4 figures in text using PSTricks. Version 3: Minor
typographical errors correcte
Constraints on the distance to SGR 1806-20 from HI absorption
The giant flare detected from the magnetar SGR 1806-20 on 2004 December 27
had a fluence more than 100 times higher than the only two other SGR flares
ever recorded. Whereas the fluence is independent of distance, an estimate for
the luminosity of the burst depends on the source's distance, which has
previously been argued to be ~15 kpc. The burst produced a bright radio
afterglow, against which Cameron et al. (2005) have measured an HI absorption
spectrum. This has been used to propose a revised distance to SGR 1806-20 of
between 6.4 and 9.8 kpc. Here we analyze this absorption spectrum, and compare
it both to HI emission data from the Southern Galactic Plane Survey and to
archival 12-CO survey data. We confirm ~6 kpc, as a likely lower limit on the
distance to SGR 1806-20, but argue that it is difficult to place an upper limit
on the distance to SGR 1806-20 from the HI data currently available. The
previous value of ~15 kpc thus remains the best estimate of the distance to the
source.Comment: 3 pages, 1 embedded EPS figure. Added sentences to end of Abstract
and Conclusion, clarifying that most likely distance is 15 kpc. ApJ Letters,
in pres
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Buddhist-Derived Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation for the Treatment of Psychopathology: a Systematic Review
Although clinical interest has predominantly focused on mindfulness meditation, interest into the clinical utility of Buddhist-derived loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) is also growing. This paper follows the PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis) guidelines and provides an evaluative systematic review of LKM and CM intervention studies. Five electronic academic databases were systematically searched to identify all intervention studies assessing changes in the symptom severity of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (text revision fourth edition) Axis I disorders in clinical samples and/or known concomitants thereof in sub-clinical/healthy samples. The comprehensive database search yielded 342 papers and 20 studies (comprising a total of 1,312 participants) were eligible for inclusion. The Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies was then used to assess study quality. Participants demonstrated significant improvements across five psychopathology-relevant outcome domains: (i) positive and negative affect, (ii) psychological distress, (iii) positive thinking, (iv) interpersonal relations, and (v) empathic accuracy. It is concluded that LKM and CM interventions may have utility for treating a variety of psychopathologies. However, to overcome obstacles to clinical integration, a lessons-learned approach is recommended whereby issues encountered during the (ongoing) operationalization of mindfulness interventions are duly considered. In particular, there is a need to establish accurate working definitions for LKM and CM
Fitting Together the HI Absorption and Emission in the SGPS
In this paper we study 21-cm absorption spectra and the corresponding
emission spectra toward bright continuum sources in the test region (326deg< l
< 333 deg) of the Southern Galactic Plane Survey. This survey combines the high
resolution of the Australia Telescope Compact Array with the full brightness
temperature information of the Parkes single dish telescope. In particular, we
focus on the abundance and temperature of the cool atomic clouds in the inner
galaxy. The resulting mean opacity of the HI, , is measured as a
function of Galactic radius; it increases going in from the solar circle, to a
peak in the molecular ring of about four times its local value. This suggests
that the cool phase is more abundant there, and colder, than it is locally.
The distribution of cool phase temperatures is derived in three different
ways. The naive, ``spin temperature'' technique overestimates the cloud
temperatures, as expected. Using two alternative approaches we get good
agreement on a histogram of the cloud temperatures, T(cool), corrected for
blending with warm phase gas. The median temperature is about 65 K, but there
is a long tail reaching down to temperatures below 20 K. Clouds with
temperatures below 40 K are common, though not as common as warmer clouds (40
to 100 K).
Using these results we discuss two related quantities, the peak brightness
temperature seen in emission surveys, and the incidence of clouds seen in HI
self-absorption. Both phenomena match what would be expected based on our
measurements of and T(cool).Comment: 50 pages, 20 figure
Cylindrically and toroidally symmetric solutions with a cosmological constant
Cylindrical-like coordinates for constant-curvature 3-spaces are introduced
and discussed. This helps to clarify the geometrical properties, the coordinate
ranges and the meaning of free parameters in the static vacuum solution of
Linet and Tian. In particular, when the cosmological constant is positive, the
spacetimes have toroidal symmetry. One of the two curvature singularities can
be removed by matching the Linet-Tian vacuum solution across a toroidal surface
to a corresponding region of the dust-filled Einstein static universe. Some
other properties and limiting cases of these space-times are also described,
together with their generalisation to higher dimensions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of The Spanish
Relativity Meeting (ERE2010), Journal of Physics: Conference Serie
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