5,852 research outputs found
Exploring the role of voluntary disease schemes on UK farmer bio-security behaviours: Findings from the Norfolk-Suffolk Bovine Viral Diarrhoea control scheme
The article describes the influence of a disease control scheme (the Norfolk-Suffolk Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Disease (BVD) Eradication scheme) on farmers' bio-security attitudes and behaviours. In 2010, a survey of 100 cattle farmers (53 scheme members vs. 47 out of scheme farmers) was undertaken among cattle farmers residing in Norfolk and Suffolk counties in the UK. A cross-sectional independent measures design was employed. The main analytical tool was content analysis. The following variables at the farmer-level were explored: the specific BVD control measures adopted, livestock disease priorities, motivation for scheme membership, wider knowledge acquisition, biosecurity behaviours employed and training course attendance. The findings suggest that participation in the BVD scheme improved farmers' perception of the scheme benefits and participation in training courses. However, no association was found between the taking part in the BVD scheme and livestock disease priorities or motivation for scheme participation, or knowledge about BVD bio-security measures employed. Equally importantly, scheme membership did appear to influence the importance accorded specific bio-security measures. Yet such ranking did not appear to reflect the actual behaviours undertaken. As such, disease control efforts alone while necessary, are insufficient. Rather, to enhance farmer bio-security behaviours significant effort must be made to address underlying attitudes to the specific disease threat involved
Color-Induced Displacement double stars in SDSS
We report the first successful application of the astrometric color-induced
displacement technique (CID, the displacement of the photocenter between
different bandpasses due to a varying contribution of differently colored
components to the total light), originally proposed by Wielen (1996) for
discovering unresolved binary stars. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
Data Release 1 with 2.5 million stars brighter than 21m in the u and g bands,
we select 419 candidate binary stars with CID greater than 0.5 arcsec. The SDSS
colors of the majority of these candidates are consistent with binary systems
including a white dwarf and any main sequence star with spectral type later
than ~K7. The astrometric CID method discussed here is complementary to the
photometric selection of binary stars in SDSS discussed by Smolcic et al.
(2004), but there is considerable overlap (15%) between the two samples of
selected candidates. This overlap testifies both to the physical soundness of
both methods, as well as to the astrometric and photometric quality of SDSS
data.Comment: submitted to A&A, 13 pages, 6 figure
Magnetoswitching of current oscillations in diluted magnetic semiconductor nanostructures
Strongly nonlinear transport through Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor
multiquantum wells occurs due to the interplay between confinement, Coulomb and
exchange interaction. Nonlinear effects include the appearance of spin
polarized stationary states and self-sustained current oscillations as possible
stable states of the nanostructure, depending on its configuration and control
parameters such as voltage bias and level splitting due to an external magnetic
field. Oscillatory regions grow in size with well number and level splitting. A
systematic analysis of the charge and spin response to voltage and magnetic
field switching of II-VI Diluted Magnetic Semiconductor multiquantum wells is
carried out. The description of stationary and time-periodic spin polarized
states, the transitions between them and the responses to voltage or magnetic
field switching have great importance due to the potential implementation of
spintronic devices based on these nanostructures.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, Revtex, to appear in PR
Deep ROSAT Surveys & the contribution of AGNs to the soft X-ray background
The ROSAT Deep Surveys in the Lockman Hole have revealed that AGNs are the main contributors (~75%) to the soft X-ray background in the 1–2 keV band. Using new optical/infrared and radio observations we have obtained a nearly complete identification (93%) of the 91 X-ray sources down to a limiting flux of 1.2·10^(–15) erg cm^(–2) s^(–1) in the 0.5–2.0 keV band. We present the optical colors and the emission line properties of our AGNs in comparison with other X-ray selected AGN samples. Furthermore we discuss the fraction of red AGNs found in the ROSAT Deep Surveys. From the ROSAT Deep Surveys we see no evidence for a new class of X-ray bright galaxies, which significantly contributes to the soft X-ray background
Anomalous hydrodynamics and "normal" fluids in rapidly rotating BECs
In rapidly rotating bose systems we show that there is a region of anomalous
hydrodynamics whilst the system is still condensed, which coincides with the
mean field quantum Hall regime. An immediate consequence is the absence of a
normal fluid in any conventional sense. However, even the superfluid
hydrodynamics is not described by conventional Bernoulli and continuity
equations. We show there are kinematic constraints which connect spatial
variations of density and phase, that the positions of vortices are not the
simplest description of the dynamics of such a fluid (despite their utility in
describing the instantaneous state of the condensate) and that the most compact
description allows solution of some illuminating examples of motion. We
demonstrate, inter alia, a very simple relation between vortices and surface
waves. We show the surface waves can form a "normal fluid" which absorbs energy
and angular momentum from vortex motion in the trap. The time scale of this
process is sensitive to the initial configuration of the vortices, which can
lead to long-lived vortex patches - perhaps related to those observed at JILA.Comment: 4 pages; 1 sentence and references modifie
Cross-Correlation Studies between CMB Temperature Anisotropies and 21 cm Fluctuations
During the transition from a neutral to a fully reionized universe,
scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons via free-electrons
leads to a new anisotropy contribution to the temperature distribution. If the
reionization process is inhomogeneous and patchy, the era of reionization is
also visible via brightness temperature fluctuations in the redshifted 21 cm
line emission from neutral Hydrogen. Since regions containing electrons and
neutral Hydrogen are expected to trace the same underlying density field, the
two are (anti) correlated and this is expected to be reflected in the
anisotropy maps via a correlation between arcminute-scale CMB temperature and
the 21 cm background. In terms of the angular cross-power spectrum,
unfortunately, this correlation is insignificant due to a geometric
cancellation associated with second order CMB anisotropies. The same
cross-correlation between ionized and neutral regions, however, can be studied
using a bispectrum involving large scale velocity field of ionized regions from
the Doppler effect, arcminute scale CMB anisotropies during reionization, and
the 21 cm background. While the geometric cancellation is partly avoided, the
signal-to-noise ratio related to this bispectrum is reduced due to the large
cosmic variance related to velocity fluctuations traced by the Doppler effect.
Unless the velocity field during reionization can be independently established,
it is unlikely that the correlation information related to the relative
distribution of ionized electrons and regions containing neutral Hydrogen can
be obtained with a combined study involving CMB and 21 cm fluctuations.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Towards a Continuous Record of the Sky
It is currently feasible to start a continuous digital record of the entire
sky sensitive to any visual magnitude brighter than 15 each night. Such a
record could be created with a modest array of small telescopes, which
collectively generate no more than a few Gigabytes of data daily.
Alternatively, a few small telescopes could continually re-point to scan and
reco rd the entire sky down to any visual magnitude brighter than 15 with a
recurrence epoch of at most a few weeks, again always generating less than one
Gigabyte of data each night. These estimates derive from CCD ability and
budgets typical of university research projects. As a prototype, we have
developed and are utilizing an inexpensive single-telescope system that obtains
optical data from about 1500 square degrees. We discuss the general case of
creating and storing data from a both an epochal survey, where a small number
of telescopes continually scan the sky, and a continuous survey, composed of a
constellation of telescopes dedicated each continually inspect a designated
section of the sky. We compute specific limitations of canonical surveys in
visible light, and estimate that all-sky continuous visual light surveys could
be sensitive to magnitude 20 in a single night by about 2010. Possible
scientific returns of continuous and epochal sky surveys include continued
monitoring of most known variable stars, establishing case histories for
variables of future interest, uncovering new forms of stellar variability,
discovering the brightest cases of microlensing, discovering new novae and
supernovae, discovering new counterparts to gamma-ray bursts, monitoring known
Solar System objects, discovering new Solar System objects, and discovering
objects that might strike the Earth.Comment: 38 pages, 9 postscript figures, 2 gif images. Revised and new section
added. Accepted to PASP. Source code submitted to ASCL.ne
Constraining Large Scale Structure Theories with the Cosmic Background Radiation
We review the relevant 10+ parameters associated with inflation and matter
content; the relation between LSS and primary and secondary CMB anisotropy
probes; COBE constraints on energy injection; current anisotropy band-powers
which strongly support the gravitational instability theory and suggest the
universe could not have reionized too early. We use Bayesian analysis methods
to determine what current CMB and CMB+LSS data imply for inflation-based
Gaussian fluctuations in tilted CDM, hCDM and oCDM model
sequences with age 11-15 Gyr, consisting of mixtures of baryons, cold (and
possibly hot) dark matter, vacuum energy, and curvature energy in open
cosmologies. For example, we find the slope of the initial spectrum is within
about 5% of the (preferred) scale invariant form when just the CMB data is
used, and for CDM when LSS data is combined with CMB; with both, a
nonzero value of is strongly preferred ( for a 13
Gyr sequence, similar to the value from SNIa). The CDM sequence prefers
, but is overall much less likely than the flat
sequence with CMB+LSS. We also review the rosy forecasts
of angular power spectra and parameter estimates from future balloon and
satellite experiments when foreground and systematic effects are ignored.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures, 2 tables, uses rspublic.sty To appear in
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, 1998.
"Discussion Meeting on Large Scale Structure in the Universe," Royal Society,
London, March 1998. Text and colour figures also available at
ftp://ftp.cita.utoronto.ca/bond/roysoc9
Combined Reconstruction and Registration of Digital Breast Tomosynthesis
Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) has the potential to en-
hance breast cancer detection by reducing the confounding e ect of su-
perimposed tissue associated with conventional mammography. In addi-
tion the increased volumetric information should enable temporal datasets
to be more accurately compared, a task that radiologists routinely apply
to conventional mammograms to detect the changes associated with ma-
lignancy. In this paper we address the problem of comparing DBT data
by combining reconstruction of a pair of temporal volumes with their reg-
istration. Using a simple test object, and DBT simulations from in vivo
breast compressions imaged using MRI, we demonstrate that this com-
bined reconstruction and registration approach produces improvements
in both the reconstructed volumes and the estimated transformation pa-
rameters when compared to performing the tasks sequentially
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