58,068 research outputs found
Fire and rescue service community safety initiatives: measuring impact
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss methods of capturing the impact of fire and rescue service (FRS) community safety work which directly aims to reduce the occurrence of specific incidents. Design/methodology/approach - The impact assessment method described focuses on addressing one of the major problems with regards to attributing outcomes to FRS community safety work; the influence of external factors. This paper looked to assess the incident trends within a case study UK FRS within the context of the following external data sets: first, incident trends within other UK FRSs; second, demographic trends; and third, incident data from other public services. Findings - There were instances, either across the whole region served by the case study FRS, or within specific districts, where evidence suggested a strong likelihood of the community safety work of the case study FRS contributing towards an observed reduction in incidents. These findings were established through filtering the impact of widespread external factors, which could impact upon incident figures. Research limitations/implications - The utility of this impact assessment relies upon FRS consistently recording the specific aims and focus of individual community safety activity, so that any positive outcomes can be attributed to a particular group of community safety initiatives. Originality/value - This paper discusses how an evaluation process, to deter mine the likelihood of community safety impacting upon incident numbers, can be practically applied to a FRS
Z -> b\bar{b} Versus Dynamical Electroweak Symmetry Breaking involving the Top Quark
In models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking which sensitively
involve the third generation, such as top quark condensation, the effects of
the new dynamics can show up experimentally in Z->b\bar{b}. We compare the
sensitivity of Z->b\bar{b} and top quark production at the Tevatron to models
of the new physics. Z->b\bar{b} is a relatively more sensitive probe to new
strongly coupled U(1) gauge bosons, while it is generally less sensitive a
probe to new physics involving color octet gauge bosons as is top quark
production itself. Nonetheless, to accomodate a significant excess in
Z->b\bar{b} requires choosing model parameters that may be ruled out within run
I(b) at the Tevatron.Comment: LaTex file, 19 pages + 2 Figs., Fermilab-Pub-94/231-
Equation of state for hard sphere fluids with and without Kac tails
In this note, we propose a simple derivation of the one dimensional hard rod
equation of state, with and without a Kac tail (appended long range and weak
potential). The case of hard spheres in higher dimension is also addressed and
it is shown there that our arguments --which avoid any mathematical
complication-- allow to recover the virial form of the equation of state in a
direct way.Comment: pedagogical pape
Longitudinal multivariate tensor- and searchlight-based morphometry using permutation testing
Tensor based morphometry [1] was used to detect
statistically significant regions of neuroanatomical
change over time in a comparison between 36 probable
Alzheimer's Disease patients and 20 age- and sexmatched
controls. Baseline and twelve-month repeat
Magnetic Resonance images underwent tied spatial
normalisation [10] and longitudinal high-dimensional
warps were then estimated. Analyses involved univariate
and multivariate data derived from the longitudinal
deformation fields. The most prominent findings were
expansion of the fluid spaces, and contraction of the
hippocampus and temporal region. Multivariate measures
were notably more powerful, and have the potential to
identify patterns of morphometric difference that would
be overlooked by conventional mass-univariate analysis
Kinetics of natural aging in Al-Mg-Si alloys studied by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy
The process of natural aging in pure ternary Al-Mg-Si alloys was studied by
positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy in real time in order to clarify
the sequence and kinetics of clustering and precipitation. It was found that
natural aging takes place in at least five stages in these alloys, four of
which were directly observed. This is interpreted as the result of complex
interactions between vacancies and solute atoms or clusters. One of the early
stages of positron lifetime evolution coincides with a clustering process
observed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and involves the formation
of a positron trap with \sim 0.200 ns lifetime. In later stages, a positron
trap with a higher lifetime develops in coincidence with the DSC signal of a
second clustering reaction. Mg governs both the kinetics and the lifetime
change in this stage. Within the first 10 min after quenching, a period of
nearly constant positron lifetime was found for those Mg-rich alloys that later
show an insufficient hardness response to artificial aging, the so-called
"negative effect." The various processes observed could be described by two
effective activation energies that were found by varying the aging temperature
from 10 to 37\degree C.Comment: arXiv admin note: same as v2, to correct mistaken v
A Search for Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant
A method offering an order of magnitude sensitivity gain is described for
using quasar spectra to investigate possible time or space variation in the
fine structure constant, alpha. Applying the technique to a sample of 30
absorption systems, spanning redshifts 0.5 < z< 1.6, obtained with the Keck I
telescope, we derive limits on variations in alpha over a wide range of epochs.
For the whole sample Delta(alpha)/alpha = -1.1 +/- 0.4 x 10^{-5}. This
deviation is dominated by measurements at z > 1, where Delta(alpha)/alpha =
-1.9 +/- 0.5 x 10^{-5}. For z < 1, Delta(alpha)/alpha = -0.2 +/- 0.4 x 10^{-5},
consistent with other known constraints. Whilst these results are consistent
with a time-varying alpha, further work is required to explore possible
systematic errors in the data, although careful searches have so far not
revealed any.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Statistics of leading digits leads to unification of quantum correlations
We show that the frequency distribution of the first significant digits of
the numbers in the data sets generated from a large class of measures of
quantum correlations, which are either entanglement measures, or belong to the
information-theoretic paradigm, exhibit a universal behaviour. In particular,
for Haar uniformly simulated arbitrary two-qubit states, we find that the
first-digit distribution corresponding to a collection of chosen computable
quantum correlation quantifiers tend to follow the first-digit law, known as
the Benford's law, when the rank of the states increases. Considering a
two-qubit state which is obtained from a system governed by paradigmatic spin
Hamiltonians, namely, the XY model in a transverse field, and the XXZ model, we
show that entanglement as well as information theoretic measures violate the
Benford's law. We quantitatively discuss the violation of the Benford's law by
using a violation parameter, and demonstrate that the violation parameter can
signal quantum phase transitions occurring in these models. We also comment on
the universality of the statistics of first significant digits corresponding to
appropriate measures of quantum correlations in the case of multipartite
systems as well as systems in higher dimensions.Comment: v1: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables; v2: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables,
new results added, extended version of the published pape
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