3,255 research outputs found
Good Governance: A Step towards Promoting Positive Attitude and Enhancing Productivity in the Civil Service
This is a research about good governance in the civil service. Five federal organizations served as research population: Ministry for Capacity Building, Ministry of Revenue, Federal Civil Service Agency, Ethiopian Civil Service College, and Ethiopian Management Institute. Fifty-six (56) respondents served as research sample. The research was conducted through the use of a research instrument (opinionnaire). Percentage (%) and Chi square (X2) were used as statistical tools. It was found out that reform program pays equal attention to all citizens; financial regulations are violated in Government expenditure; service delivery is poor in the Civil Service; unethical practices do exist in Civil Service; top management system is poor; and Civil Service (HR) is ineffective. Based on the research findings it was recommended that Civil servants need a lot more of education, training and development. African Research Review Vol. 2 (1) 2008: pp. 19-4
Necessary Conditions for Apparent Horizons and Singularities in Spherically Symmetric Initial Data
We establish necessary conditions for the appearance of both apparent
horizons and singularities in the initial data of spherically symmetric general
relativity when spacetime is foliated extrinsically. When the dominant energy
condition is satisfied these conditions assume a particularly simple form. Let
be the maximum value of the energy density and the radial
measure of its support. If is bounded from above by some
numerical constant, the initial data cannot possess an apparent horizon. This
constant does not depend sensitively on the gauge. An analogous inequality is
obtained for singularities with some larger constant. The derivation exploits
Poincar\'e type inequalities to bound integrals over certain spatial scalars. A
novel approach to the construction of analogous necessary conditions for
general initial data is suggested.Comment: 15 pages, revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Spinor representation of surfaces and complex stresses on membranes and interfaces
Variational principles are developed within the framework of a spinor
representation of the surface geometry to examine the equilibrium properties of
a membrane or interface. This is a far-reaching generalization of the
Weierstrass-Enneper representation for minimal surfaces, introduced by
mathematicians in the nineties, permitting the relaxation of the vanishing mean
curvature constraint. In this representation the surface geometry is described
by a spinor field, satisfying a two-dimensional Dirac equation, coupled through
a potential associated with the mean curvature. As an application, the
mesoscopic model for a fluid membrane as a surface described by the
Canham-Helfrich energy quadratic in the mean curvature is examined. An explicit
construction is provided of the conserved complex-valued stress tensor
characterizing this surface.Comment: 17 page
Modelling the dynamics of global monopoles
A thin wall approximation is exploited to describe a global monopole coupled
to gravity. The core is modelled by de Sitter space; its boundary by a thin
wall with a constant energy density; its exterior by the asymptotic
Schwarzschild solution with negative gravitational mass and solid angle
deficit, , where is the symmetry
breaking scale. The deficit angle equals when . We find that: (1) if , there exists a unique globally
static non-singular solution with a well defined mass, . provides
a lower bound on . If , the solution oscillates. There are no
inflating solutions in this symmetry breaking regime. (2) if ,
non-singular solutions with an inflating core and an asymptotically
cosmological exterior will exist for all . (3) if is not too large,
there exists a finite range of values of where a non-inflating monopole
will also exist. These solutions appear to be metastable towards inflation. If
is positive all solutions are singular. We provide a detailed description
of the configuration space of the model for each point in the space of
parameters, and trace the wall trajectories on both the interior
and the exterior spacetimes. Our results support the proposal that topological
defects can undergo inflation.Comment: 44 pages, REVTeX, 11 PostScript figures, submitted to the Physical
Review D. Abstract's correcte
Utilization of surveillance after polypectomy in the Medicare population
Background: Surveillance in patients with previous polypectomy was underused in the Medicare population in 1994. This study investigates whether expansion of Medicare reimbursement for colonoscopy screening in high-risk individuals has reduced the inappropriate use of surveillance.
Methods: We used Kaplan-Meier analysis to estimate time to surveillance and polyp recurrence rates for Medicare beneficiaries with a colonoscopy with polypectomy between 1998 and 2003 who were followed through 2008 for receipt of surveillance colonoscopy. Generalized Estimating Equations were used to estimate risk factors for: 1) failing to undergo surveillance and 2)
Balancing torques in membrane-mediated interactions: Exact results and numerical illustrations
Torques on interfaces can be described by a divergence-free tensor which is
fully encoded in the geometry. This tensor consists of two terms, one
originating in the couple of the stress, the other capturing an intrinsic
contribution due to curvature. In analogy to the description of forces in terms
of a stress tensor, the torque on a particle can be expressed as a line
integral along any contour surrounding the particle. Interactions between
particles mediated by a fluid membrane are studied within this framework. In
particular, torque balance places a strong constraint on the shape of the
membrane. Symmetric two-particle configurations admit simple analytical
expressions which are valid in the fully nonlinear regime; in particular, the
problem may be solved exactly in the case of two membrane-bound parallel
cylinders. This apparently simple system provides some flavor of the remarkably
subtle nonlinear behavior associated with membrane-mediated interactions.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, REVTeX4 style. The Gaussian curvature term was
included in the membrane Hamiltonian; section II.B was rephrased to smoothen
the flow of presentatio
Guest editorial : from Selected Papers of the 14th International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT 2011)
Interface mediated interactions between particles -- a geometrical approach
Particles bound to an interface interact because they deform its shape. The
stresses that result are fully encoded in the geometry and described by a
divergence-free surface stress tensor. This stress tensor can be used to
express the force on a particle as a line integral along any conveniently
chosen closed contour that surrounds the particle. The resulting expression is
exact (i.e., free of any "smallness" assumptions) and independent of the chosen
surface parametrization. Additional surface degrees of freedom, such as vector
fields describing lipid tilt, are readily included in this formalism. As an
illustration, we derive the exact force for several important surface
Hamiltonians in various symmetric two-particle configurations in terms of the
midplane geometry; its sign is evident in certain interesting limits.
Specializing to the linear regime, where the shape can be analytically
determined, these general expressions yield force-distance relations, several
of which have originally been derived by using an energy based approach.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, REVTeX4 style; final version, as appeared in
Phys. Rev. E. Compared to v2 several minor mistakes, as well as one important
minus sign in Eqn. (18a) have been cured. Compared to v1, this version is
significantly extended: Lipid tilt degrees of freedom for membranes are
included in the stress framework, more technical details are given, estimates
for the magnitude of forces are mad
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