Are you a researcher as well as a medical illustrator?

When we list the areas of practice for medical illustrators we always include research, but how involved in research are we? The aim of this activity is to encourage your professional development not just as a medical illustrator but your involvement with research whether that is undertaking your own research, undertaking evidence based practice (1) , working as part of a research team, advising researchers on the value of medical illustration or supporting a student undertaking a research project for their degree or post-graduate qualification

Aerosol studies in mid-latitude coastal environments in Australia

The results of the evaluation of several inversion procedures that were used to select one which provides the most accurate atmospheric extinction profiles for small aerosol extinction coefficients (that often predominate in the maritime airmass) are presented. Height profiles of atmospheric extinction calculated by a two component atmospheric solution to the LIDAR equation will be compared with corresponding in-situ extinction profiles based on the size distribution profiles obtained in Western Australia. Values of the aerosol backscatter to extinction ratio obtained from multi-angle LIDAR measurements will be used in this solution

The Molecular Gas Distribution and Schmidt Law in M33

The relationship between the star formation rate and surface density of neutral gas within the disk of M33 is examined with new imaging observations of CO J=1-0 emission gathered with the FCRAO 14m telescope and IRAS HiRes images of the 60 micron and 100 micron emission. The Schmidt law, Sigma_SFR ~ Sigma_gas^n, is constructed using radial profiles of the HI 21cm, CO, and far infrared emission. A strong correlation is identified between the star formation rate and molecular gas surface density. This suggests that the condensation of giant molecular clouds is the limiting step to star formation within the M33 disk. The corresponding molecular Schmidt index, n_{mol}, is 1.36 +/- 0.08. The star formation rate has a steep dependence on total mass gas surface density, (Sigma_{HI}+Sigma_{H_2}), owing to the shallow radial profile of the atomic gas which dominates the total gas surface density for most radii. The disk pressure of the gas is shown to play a prominent role in regulating the molecular gas fraction in M33.Comment: 19 pages + 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Open and Closed Loop Stability of Hingeless Rotor Helicopter Air and Ground Resonance

The air and ground resonance instabilities of hingeless rotor helicopters are examined on a relatively broad parametric basis including the effects of blade tuning, virtual hinge locations, and blade hysteresis damping, as well as size and scale effects in the gross weight range from 5,000 to 48,000 pounds. A special case of a 72,000 pound helicopter air resonance instability is also included. The study shows that nominal to moderate and readily achieved levels of blade inertial hysteresis damping in conjunction with a variety of tuning and/or feedback conditions are highly effective in dealing with these instabilities. Tip weights and reductions in pre-coning angles are also shown to be effective means for improving the air resonance instability

Devroye Inequality for a Class of Non-Uniformly Hyperbolic Dynamical Systems

In this paper, we prove an inequality, which we call "Devroye inequality", for a large class of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems (M,f). This class, introduced by L.-S. Young, includes families of piece-wise hyperbolic maps (Lozi-like maps), scattering billiards (e.g., planar Lorentz gas), unimodal and H{\'e}non-like maps. Devroye inequality provides an upper bound for the variance of observables of the form K(x,f(x),...,f^{n-1}(x)), where K is any separately Holder continuous function of n variables. In particular, we can deal with observables which are not Birkhoff averages. We will show in \cite{CCS} some applications of Devroye inequality to statistical properties of this class of dynamical systems.Comment: Corrected version; To appear in Nonlinearit

See also Young 1971: Marshall McLuhan, moral panics and moral indignation

Despite the fact that he introduced the concept into the sociology of deviance, Jock Young never claimed ownership of ‘moral panic’. There is little to no evidence suggest that he felt the need to keep up with the burgeoning literature on ‘moral panics studies’; rather, in much of this literature, his name is all but invisible, reduced to ‘See also Young, 1971’. This essay begins with a review of Jock Young’s original use of ‘moral panic’ before discussing how he subsequently rejected the term, and then reflecting on why and how he re-engaged with it. My position is that Jock Young was ambivalent about how the term was subsequently developed and transformed into what he viewed as: an incredulous ‘left idealist’ reaction to morally challenging issues; a mechanical sociological model used to decide on whether something was or was not a ‘boil-in-the-bag’ moral panic; and finally a dismissive journalistic judgement. In all these ‘moral panic for dummies’ usages, for Young, the volatile energizing moral dynamics of ‘action + reaction’ have been lost as has his nuanced appreciation of the shifting cultural significance of moral panic. Perhaps most significantly, the core dynamic of ‘moral indignation’ and its channelling—concerns that are present in all of Jock Young’s work—have likewise been lost in common usage of moral panic

Do arsenic levels in rice pose a health risk to the UK population?

Consumption of rice and rice products can be a significant exposure pathway to inorganic arsenic (iAs), which is a group 1 carcinogen to humans. The UK follows the current European Commission regulations so that iAs concentrations must be  0.1 mg kg-1 were selected for As speciation using HPLC-ICP-MS. Based on the average concentration of iAs of our samples, we calculated values for the Lifetime Cancer Risk (LCR), Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) and Margin of Exposure (MoE). We found a statistically significant difference between organically and non-organically grown rice. We also found that brown rice contained a significantly higher concentration of iAs compared to white or wild rice. Notably, 28 rice samples exceeded the iAs maximum limit stipulated by the EU (0.1 mg kg-1) with an average iAs concentration of 0.13 mg kg-1; therefore consumption of these rice types could be riskier for infants than adults. Based on the MoE, it was found that infants up to 1 year must be restricted to a maximum of 20 g per day for the 28 rice types to avoid carcinogenic risks. We believe that consumers could be better informed whether the marketed product is fit for infants and young children, via appropriate product labelling containing information about iAs concentration

Basins of attraction for cascading maps

We study a finite uni-directional array of "cascading" or "threshold coupled" chaotic maps. Such systems have been proposed for use in nonlinear computing and have been applied to classification problems in bioinformatics. We describe some of the attractors for such systems and prove general results about their basins of attraction. In particular, we show that the basins of attraction have infinitely many path components. We show that these components always accumulate at the corners of the domain of the system. For all threshold parameters above a certain value, we show that they accumulate at a Cantor set in the interior of the domain. For certain ranges of the threshold, we prove that the system has many attractors.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. To appear in International Journal of Bifurcations and Chao

Laser-Doppler gas-velocity instrument

Three-D instrument using a laser light source measures both turbulence and mean velocity of subsonic and supersonic gas flows. This instrument is based on the measurement of the Doppler frequency shift of light waves scattered by moving particles in the gas stream