1,137 research outputs found
Late Amazonian Ice Survival in Kasei Valles, Mars
High obliquity excursions on Mars are hypothesised to have redistributed water from the poles to nourish mid-latitude glaciers. Evidence of this process is provided by different types of viscous flow features (ice-rich deposits buried beneath sediment mantle) located there today, including lobate debris aprons (LDAs). During high obliquity extremes, ice may have persisted even nearer the equator, as indicated by numerous enigmatic depressions bounded on one side by either isolated mesas or scarps, and on the other by a lava unit. These depressions demarcate the past interaction between flowing lava and ghost LDAs (GLDAs), which have long since disappeared. We term these features GLDA depressions, about which little is known besides their spatial extent. This collection of depressions implies tropical ice loss over an area âŒ100,000 km2. To constrain their history in Kasei Valles we derive model ages for GLDA depressions, mesas and the lava flow from crater counts. We use a 2D model of glacial ice constrained by the topography of GLDA depressions to approximate the surface and volume of former glacial ice deposits. The model reconstructs former ice surfaces along multiple flowlines orientated normal to GLDA depression boundaries. This reconstruction indicates that 1,400â3,500 km3 of iceâsimilar to that present in Iceland on Earthâexisted at âŒ1.3 Ga when the lava was emplaced. Dating shows that GLDAs survived for up to âŒ1 billion years following lava emplacement, before their final demise
A different appetite for sovereignty? Independence movements in subnational island jurisdictions
Local autonomy in a subnational jurisdiction is more likely to be gained, secured or enhanced where there are palpable movements or political parties agitating for independence in these smaller territories. A closer look at the fortunes, operations and dynamics of independence parties from subnational island jurisdictions can offer some interesting insights on the appetite for sovereignty and independence, but also the lack
thereof, in the twenty-first century.peer-reviewe
Chain walking of allylrhodium species towards esters during rhodium-catalyzed nucleophilic allylations of imines
Allylrhodium species derived from ÎŽ-trifluoroboryl ÎČ,Îł-unsaturated esters undergo chain walking towards the ester moiety.The resulting allylrhodium species react with imines to give products containing two new stereocenters and a Z-alkene. By using a chiral diene ligand, products can be obtained with high enantioselectivities, where a pronounced matched/mismatched effect with the chirality of the allyltrifluoroborate is evident
A Qualitative Study of an Integrated Maternity, Drugs and Social Care Service for Drug-using Women
Background: The care of drug-using pregnant women is a growing health and social care concern in many countries. A specialist clinic was established offering multidisciplinary care and advice to pregnant drug users in and around Aberdeen (UK) in 1997. The majority of women stabilise and reduce their drug use. By determining the needs and views of the women more appropriate
services and prevention strategies may be developed. There has been little research conducted in this area and none in Scotland.
Methods: This is a qualitative study that aimed to gain an understanding of the experiences of women drug users, seeking and receiving prenatal care and drug services from a specialist clinic. Twelve women participated in semi-structured one-to-one interviews.
Results: The women preferred the multidisciplinary clinic (one-stop shop) to traditional prenatal care centred within General Practice. The relationships of the clients to the range of Clinic professionals and in hospital were explored as well as attitudes to Clinic care. The study
participants attributed success in reducing their drug use to the combination of different aspects of care of the multi-agency clinic, especially the high level prenatal support. It is this arrangement of all aspects of care together that seem to produce better outcomes for mother and child than single care elements delivered separately. Some women reported that their pregnancy encouraged them
to rapidly detoxify due to the guilt experienced. The most important aspects of the Clinic care were found to be non-judgemental attitude of staff, consistent staff, high level of support, reliable information and multi-agency integrated care.
Conclusion: There is an impetus for women drug users to change lifestyle during pregnancy. The study highlighted a need for women to have access to reliable information on the effects of drugs on the baby.
Further research is required to determine whether positive outcomes related to clinic attendance in the prenatal period are sustained in the postnatal period. Early referral to a specialist clinic is of benefit to the women, as they reported to receive more appropriate care, especially in relation to their drug use. A greater awareness of needs of the pregnant drug user could help the design of more effective prevention strategies
Reference recalibration repairs: adjusting the precision of formulations for the task at hand
This report examines what is involved when a speaker overtly selects one formulation over
another by employing a repair operation that reformulates a reference in a way that adjusts or
recalibrates it, rather than abandons the original reference altogether. Focusing primarily on
references to persons, we show that beyond the narrowing of a reference â increasing its
precision â that results in an improved fit between a person reference and other components of a
turn-at-talk, these reference recalibration repairs can be used to do such things as meeting the
requirements of a storyâs telling, upgrading the credibility of an information source, and
justifying a rejection. This ties speakersâ overt concern with calibrating a categorical reference to
the formation of action in their turn-at-talk. By contrast, we then show how broadening a
reference â decreasing its precision â can be used as a method for displaying uncertainty and
thereby recalibrating a reference to fit the manifest knowledge state of the speaker (or a
recipient)
Polyphase midâlatitude glaciation on Mars:Chronology of the formation of superposed glacierâlike forms from craterâcount dating
Reconstructing Mars's glacial history informs understanding of its physical environment and past climate. The known distribution of viscous flow features (VFFs) containing water ice suggests that its midâlatitudes were glaciated during the Late Amazonian period (the last several hundred million years). The identification of a subgroup of VFFsâcalled superposed glacier like forms (SGLFs)âflowing onto other VFFs, indicates multiple glacial phases may have occurred during this time. To explore the history and spatial extent of these glaciations, we record the distribution of SGLFs globally and use impactâcrater counting to date the SGLFs and the VFFs onto which they flow. Our inventory expands the handful of SGLFs reported in earlier literature to include 320 located throughout the midâlatitudes. Our dating reveals these SGLFs to be much younger than their underlying VFFs, which implies a spatiallyâasynchronous glaciation. SGLFs have been forming since âŒ65 Ma, and their ages are clustered in two distinct groups around 2â20 and 45â65 Ma, whereas the ages of their underlying VFFs span the last âŒ300 Ma diffusely. We discuss these results in the light of wellâknown uncertainties with the craterâdating method and infer that while ice sheets decayed over the Late Amazonian period, alpine glaciers waxed and waned in at least two major cycles before their final demise approximately two million years ago
Strong-field effects in Rabi oscillations between a single state and a superposition of states
Rabi oscillations of quantum population are known to occur in two-level
systems driven by spectrally narrow laser fields. In this work we study Rabi
oscillations induced by shaped broadband femtosecond laser pulses. Due to the
broad spectral width of the driving field, the oscillations are initiated
between a ground state and a coherent superposition of excited states, or a
"wavepacket", rather than a single excited state. Our experiments reveal an
intricate dependence of the wavepacket phase on the intensity of laser field.
We confirm numerically that the effect is associated with the strong-field
nature of the interaction, and provide a qualitative picture by invoking a
simple theoretical model.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Quantum resonances in selective rotational excitation of molecules with a sequence of ultrashort laser pulses
We investigate experimentally the effect of quantum resonance in the
rotational excitation of the simplest quantum rotor - a diatomic molecule. By
using the techniques of high-resolution femtosecond pulse shaping and
rotational state-resolved detection, we measure directly the amount of energy
absorbed by molecules interacting with a periodic train of laser pulses, and
study its dependence on the train period. We show that the energy transfer is
significantly enhanced at quantum resonance, and use this effect for
demonstrating selective rotational excitation of two nitrogen isotopologues, and . Moreover, by tuning the period of the pulse train in
the vicinity of a fractional quantum resonance, we achieve spin-selective
rotational excitation of para- and ortho-isomers of .Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
- âŠ