A hierarchy of models for superconducting thin films

A hierarchy of models for type-II superconducting thin films is presented. Through appropriate asymptotic limits this hierarchy passes from the mesoscopic Ginzburg--Landau model to the London model with isolated vortices as $\delta$-function singularities to vortex-density models and finally to macroscopic critical-state models. At each stage it is found that a key nondimensional parameter is $\Lambda = \lambda^2/d L$, where $\lambda$ is the penetration depth of the magnetic field, a material parameter, and d and L are a typical thickness and lateral dimension of the film,respectively. The models simplify greatly if this parameter is large or small

The timing of maternal depressive symptoms and child cognitive development: a longitudinal study.

Background: Maternal depression is known to be associated with impairments in child cognitive development, although the effect of timing of exposure to maternal depression is unclear. Methods: Data collected for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a longitudinal study beginning in pregnancy, included self-report measures of maternal depression the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, completed on 6 occasions up to 3 years of age, and IQ of the index child (WISC) measured at aged 8 years. We used these data to assign women to 8 groups according to whether depression occurred in the antenatal, postnatal, preschool period, any combination of these times, or not at all. We compared a model comprising all patterns of depression (saturated model) with models nested within this to test whether there is a relationship between depression and child cognitive development and, if so, whether there is a sensitive period. We then investigated the relationship with child IQ for each model, following adjustment for confounders. Results: Six thousand seven hundred and thirty-five of 13,615 children from singleton births (49.5%, of eligible core sample) attended a research clinic at 8 years and completed a WISC with a score ≥ 70. A total of 5,029 mothers of these children had completed mood assessments over the 3 time periods. In unadjusted analyses, all three sensitive period models were as good as the saturated model, as was an accumulation model. Of the sensitive period models, only that for antenatal exposure was a consistently better fit than the accumulation model. After multiple imputation for missing data (to n = 6,735), there was no effect of postnatal depression on child IQ independent of depression at other times [-0.19 IQ points, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.5 to 1.1 points]. There was an effect of antenatal depression (-3.19 IQ points, 95% CI: -4.33 to -2.06) which attenuated following adjustment (-0.64 IQ points, 95% CI: -1.68 to 0.40). Conclusions: The postnatal period is not a sensitive one for the effect of maternal depression on child cognitive development. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

The motion of superconducting vortices in thin films of varying thickness

The interaction of superconducting vortices with superconductor/vacuum interfaces is considered. A vortex is first shown to intersect such an interface normally. Various thin-film models are then formulated, corresponding to different parameter regimes. A local analysis of a vortex is performed, and a law of motion for each vortex deduced. This law of motion implies that the vortex will move to the locally thinnest part of the film, and is consistent with the vortex moving under the curvature induced by being forced to intersect the boundaries of the film normall

Deformation driven by deep and distant structures : Influence of a mantle lithosphere suture in the Ouachita orogeny, southeastern United States

Heron is grateful for funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement 749664 and a DIFeREns2 COFUND Junior Research Fellowship. We thank the editor, D. Harry, E. Hopper, R. Keller, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Pysklywec acknowledges support from a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant and and SciNet HPC Consortium (Loken et al., 2010). We thank the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics which is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation under awards EAR-0949446 and EAR-1550901 for supporting the development of ASPECT. Figure 1A was generated using Generic Mapping Tools (Wessel et al., 2013).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The longitudinal heterogeneity of autistic traits: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Previous reviews have characterised the mean stability of autistic traits (ATs) across samples on a single measure. However, no review has yet assessed mean change across a range of measures, or described the longitudinal heterogeneity of ATs, i.e. variation in direction and degree of change. METHOD: A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed, PsycINFO and EMBASE up to May 31 2020. Forty-four studies meeting inclusion criteria were identified. RESULTS: Retrieved studies ranged from N = 20 to N = 9,744. Ages spanned one to 15 years at baseline and two to 23 years at follow-up. The proportion of female participants per study ranged from 0 to 51%. There is some evidence that overall ATs tend to reduce over time for autistic children, reflecting decreases in social communication difficulties but not restricted behaviours. This effect was strongest in clinical samples and using parent-report measures. However, there was good evidence that statistics of mean change obscure between-person differences in within-person change. Decreasing ATs appear linked to higher verbal and non-verbal IQ and female gender in autistic participants. Four patterns of change: increasing, decreasing and stable high and low best characterised the data. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals experience diverse patterns of change over time. More general population studies are needed to reduce male bias. More work is needed to characterise the relationship between trajectories and well-being, functioning and quality of life outcomes. This will help to understand factors that promote resilience and reduce risk, and therefore to improve the timing and targets of intervention

Meeple Centred Design: A Heuristic Toolkit for Evaluating the Accessibility of Tabletop Games

Evaluation of accessibility within a tabletop context is much more complicated than it is within a video game environment. There is a considerable amount of variation in game systems, game mechanisms, and interaction regimes. Games may be entirely verbal, or completely non-verbal. They might be real-time or turn based, or based on simultaneous actions. They can be competitive or co-operative, or shift from one to the other during a single game session. They might involve visual pattern recognition or force players to memorise game state without visual cues. They may involve touch, or smell. They might involve social deduction or betrayal. They can encompass all sensory faculties, in differing degrees. Almost all games have accessibility considerations that should be taken into account, but there is currently no comprehensive tool by which this can be done that encompasses the rich variety of tabletop gaming interaction metaphors. In this paper, the authors discuss the heuristic lens that is used by the Meeple Centred Design tabletop accessibility project. This is a tool that has been applied to one hundred and sixteen games to date, and the full results of these have been published for analysis and consideration within the wider tabletop gaming community

A global simulation for laser driven MeV electrons in 50μm50\mu m-diameter fast ignition targets

The results from 2.5-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations for the interaction of a picosecond-long ignition laser pulse with a plasma pellet of 50-$\mu m$ diameter and 40 critical density are presented. The high density pellet is surrounded by an underdense corona and is isolated by a vacuum region from the simulation box boundary. The laser pulse is shown to filament and create density channels on the laser-plasma interface. The density channels increase the laser absorption efficiency and help generate an energetic electron distribution with a large angular spread. The combined distribution of the forward-going energetic electrons and the induced return electrons is marginally unstable to the current filament instability. The ions play an important role in neutralizing the space charges induced by the the temperature disparity between different electron groups. No global coalescing of the current filaments resulted from the instability is observed, consistent with the observed large angular spread of the energetic electrons.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physics of Plasmas (May 2006

ADAPTr Exhibition

The book is one of the outcomes of the grant (funded by the EU seventh framework Programme grant number 317325. Period of grant 01.01.2013 to 31.12.20160. It describes the exhibition held in Ambika P3. It includes a double page statement from each of the seven partners and from each of the 42 research fellows employed under the scheme. There are four new essays (Prof Richard Blythe, Prof Kester Rattenbury, Prof Leon van Schaik, Dr Fleur Watson) a preface by Prof John Verbeke, and introduction by Prof Katharine Heron. It is included on the ADAPTr website and submitted to the EU as one of the deliverable outputs