Diagnosis special issue - Introduction: Moving beyond diagnosis: Practising what we preach

John Cromby, Dave Harper and Paula Reavey introduce the special issue

Effects of Electron Correlations on Hofstadter Spectrum

By allowing interactions between electrons, a new Harper's equation is derived to examine the effects of electron correlations on the Hofstadter energy spectra. It is shown that the structure of the Hofstadter butterfly ofr the system of correlated electrons is modified only in the band gaps and the band widths, but not in the characteristics of self-similarity and the Cantor set.Comment: 13 pages, 5 Postscript figure

Inductive Reasoning Games as Influenza Vaccination Models: Mean Field Analysis

We define and analyze an inductive reasoning game of voluntary yearly vaccination in order to establish whether or not a population of individuals acting in their own self-interest would be able to prevent influenza epidemics. We find that epidemics are rarely prevented. We also find that severe epidemics may occur without the introduction of pandemic strains. We further address the situation where market incentives are introduced to help ameliorating epidemics. Surprisingly, we find that vaccinating families exacerbates epidemics. However, a public health program requesting prepayment of vaccinations may significantly ameliorate influenza epidemics.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Low-profile landing-gear assembly

Assembly of cylinders, links, actuators, and gears permits landing-gear unit to be retracted into shadow of main engine intake ducts of supersonic transport aircraft. This is accomplished without adding to frontal area of aircraft or appreciably increasing total aircraft drag

Dependent Types for Pragmatics

This paper proposes the use of dependent types for pragmatic phenomena such as pronoun binding and presupposition resolution as a type-theoretic alternative to formalisms such as Discourse Representation Theory and Dynamic Semantics.Comment: This version updates the paper for publication in LEU

Magnetic Field Effect on the Pseudogap Temperature within Precursor Superconductivity

We determine the magnetic field dependence of the pseudogap closing temperature T* within a precursor superconductivity scenario. Detailed calculations with an anisotropic attractive Hubbard model account for a recently determined experimental relation in BSCCO between the pseudogap closing field and the pseudogap temperature at zero field, as well as for the weak initial dependence of T* at low fields. Our results indicate that the available experimental data are fully compatible with a superconducting origin of the pseudogap in cuprate superconductors.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Diagnosis special issue - Part 6: Don’t jump ship! New approaches in teaching mental health to undergraduates

Dave Harper, John Cromby, Paula Reavey, Anne Cooke and Jill Anderson with some pointers

Strategies to improve local beef cattle industry supply chains during the pandemic of Covid-19

Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of the local fresh-food supply chains especially with respect to food that cannot be stored or where access to overseas sources is closed. Meat is one fresh-food commodity greatly affected. Beef production is one of the most effective commodities for alleviating poverty for smallholders and if they can more directly participate in the supply chain, they can reap good financial rewards. Farmers usually formulate cattle feed rations on cheapest cost inputs, rather than on a least cost basis which still meets metabolisable energy (ME), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) requirements. The ACIAR project, Profitable feeding strategies for smallholder cattle in Indonesia, has investigated rations that promote high live weight gain and low feed conversion (FCE, kg feed/kg gain) and determined that high ME rations are required at high intakes if low FCE and high income over food costs (IOFC) are to be achieved. The prices and availability of ration ingredients vary markedly across Indonesia and so a flexible system of ration formulation is required to take advantage of local price fluctuations. A Least Cost Ration (LCR) formulator and a least cost App (Beefupp) have been developed which can be used by entrepreneurial farmers, co-operatives and small commercial feed companies to formulate and alter rations quickly as circumstances change. The application of these principles has led to two-fold increases in IOFC for farmers. Government support for farmer led initiatives in the grinding, formulating, mixing and/or pelleting will support effective local co-operatives, farmer groups or small commercial feed companies

Cradle-To-Gate Life Cycle Assessment of Switchgrass Fuel Pellets Manufactured in the Southeastern United States

Developing renewable energy sources with low environmental impacts is becoming increasinglyimportant as concerns about consuming fossil fuel sources grow. Cultivating, harvesting, drying,and densifying raw biomass feedstocks into pellets for easy handling and transport is one step forward in this endeavor. However, the corresponding environmental performances must be quantified. This study presents cradle-to-gate life cycle inventory and impact assessment data for switchgrass fuel pellets potentially manufactured in the US Southeast. Because there are no current manufacturers of switchgrass pellets, inventory data were based on field trials of cultivation and harvest of switchgrass combined with a separate study of wood pelletization. Energy inputs for cultivation and harvest of switchgrass were collected by survey from farmers in Tennessee and represent the years 2008, 2009, and 2010. Data for pelletization were taken from a report on wood pellet manufacturing in the US Southeast. To produce 1.0 Mg of pellets that contain 18.0 GJ of potential bioenergy, 4.1 GJ of fossil energy inputs were required. Switchgrass crops require relatively little energy and inputs for the cultivation and harvest processes. The majority ofthe environmental burdens are associated with drying and pelletizing the raw material

NGC 2024: Far-infrared and radio molecular observations

Far infrared continuum and millimeter wave molecular observations are presented for the infrared and radio source NGC 2024. The measurements are obtained at relatively high angular resolution, enabling a description of the source energetics and mass distribution in greater detail than previously reported. The object appears to be dominated by a dense ridge of material, extended in the north/south direction and centered on the dark lane that is seen in visual photographs. Maps of the source using the high density molecules CS and HCN confirm this picture and allow a description of the core structure and molecular abundances. The radio molecular and infrared observations support the idea that an important exciting star in NGC 2024 has yet to be identified and is centered on the dense ridge about 1' south of the bright mid infrared source IRS 2. The data presented here allows a presentation of a model for the source