1,580 research outputs found
Inter-species variation in colour perception
Inter-species variation in colour perception poses a serious problem for the view that colours are mind-independent properties. Given that colour perception varies so drastically across species, which species perceives colours as they really are? In this paper, I argue that all do. Specifically, I argue that members of different species perceive properties that are determinates of different, mutually compatible, determinables. This is an instance of a general selectionist strategy for dealing with cases of perceptual variation. According to selectionist views, objects simultaneously instantiate a plurality of colours, all of them genuinely mind-independent, and subjects select from amongst this plurality which colours they perceive. I contrast selectionist views with relationalist views that deny the mind-independence of colour, and consider some general objections to this strategy
Optimization of care for patients with hereditary angioedema living in rural areas
BACKGROUND: People living in rural areas of the United States experience greater health inequality than individuals residing in urban or suburban locations and encounter several barriers to obtaining optimal health care. Health disparities are compounded for patients with rare diseases such as hereditary angioedema (HAE), an autosomal dominant genetic disorder characterized by recurrent, severe abdominal pain and life-threatening oropharyngeal or laryngeal swelling.
OBJECTIVE: To explore the challenges of managing patients with HAE in rural areas and suggest possible improvements for optimizing care.
DATA SOURCES: PubMed was searched for articles on patient care management, treatment challenges, rural health, and HAE.
STUDY SELECTIONS: Relevant articles were selected and reviewed.
RESULTS: Challenges in managing HAE in the rural setting were identified, including obtaining a diagnosis of HAE, easy access to a physician with expertise in HAE, continuity of care, availability of telemedicine services, access to approved HAE therapies, patient education, and economic barriers to treatment. Ways to improve HAE patient care in rural areas include health care provider recognition of the patient with undiagnosed HAE, development of individualized management plans, expansion of telemedicine, effective care at the local level, appropriate access to HAE medication, and increased awareness of patient support and advocacy groups.
CONCLUSION: For patients with HAE living in rural areas, optimal care is complicated by health disparities. Given the scarcity with which these topics have been covered in the literature to date, it is intended that this article will serve as the impetus for a range of further initiatives focused on improving access to care
Generalized Spectral Signatures of Electron Fractionalization in Quasi-One and -Two Dimensional Molybdenum Bronzes and Superconducting Cuprates
We establish the quasi-one-dimensional Li purple bronze as a photoemission
paradigm of Luttinger liquid behavior. We also show that generalized signatures
of electron fractionalization are present in the angle resolved photoemission
spectra for quasi-two-dimensional purple bronzes and certain cuprates. An
important component of our analysis for the quasi-two-dimensional systems is
the proposal of a ``melted holon'' scenario for the k-independent background
that accompanies but does not interact with the peaks that disperse to define
the Fermi surface.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
'Working outâ identity: distance runners and the management of disrupted identity
This article contributes fresh perspectives to the empirical literature on the sociology of the body, and of leisure and identity, by analysing the impact of long-term injury on the identities of two amateur but serious middle/long-distance runners. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework,and utilising data derived from a collaborative autoethnographic project, it explores the role
of âidentity workâ in providing continuity of identity during the liminality of long-term injury and
rehabilitation, which poses a fundamental challenge to athletic identity. Specifically, the analysis
applies Snow and Andersonâs (1995) and Perinbanayagamâs (2000) theoretical conceptualisations
in order to examine the various forms of identity work undertaken by the injured participants, along
the dimensions of materialistic, associative and vocabularic identifications. Such identity work was
found to be crucial in sustaining a credible sporting identity in the face of disruption to the running
self, and in generating momentum towards the goal of restitution to full running fitness and reengagement
with a cherished form of leisure.
KEYWORDS: identity work, symbolic interactionism, distance running, disrupted identit
High-mass star formation at high luminosities: W31 at >10^6 L_sun
Context: High-mass star formation has been a very active field over the last
decade, however, most studies targeted regions of luminosities between 10^4 and
10^5 L_sun. Methods: We selected the W31 star-forming complex with a total
luminosity of ~6x10^6 L_sun for a multi-wavelength spectral line and continuum
study covering wavelengths from the near- and mid-infrared via (sub)mm
wavelength observations to radio data in the cm regime. Results: While the
overall structure of the multi-wavelength continuum data resembles each other
well, there are several intriguing differences. The 24mum emission stemming
largely from small dust grains follows tightly the spatial structure of the cm
emission tracing the ionized free-free emission. Hence warm dust resides in
regions that are spatially associated with the ionized hot gas (~10^4 K) of the
HII regions. Furthermore, we find several evolutionary stages within the same
complexes, ranging from infrared-observable clusters, via deeply embedded
regions associated with active star formation traced by 24\,m and cm
emission, to at least one high-mass gas clump devoid of any such signature. The
13CO(2-1) and C18O(2-1) spectral line observations reveal a large kinematic
breadth in the entire region with a total velocity range of approximately 90
km/s. While the average virial mass ratio for W31 is close to unity, the line
width analysis indicates large-scale evolutionary differences between the
southern and northern sub-regions (G10.2-0.3 and G10.3-0.1) of the whole W31
complex. The clump mass function - tracing cluster scales and not scales of
individual stars - derived from the 875mum continuum data has a slope of
1.5+-0.3, consistent with previous cloud mass functions.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for Astronomy and Astrophysics,
high-resolution version of paper at
http://www.mpia.de/homes/beuther/papers.htm
Finite-temperature dynamical magnetic susceptibility of quasi-one-dimensional frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets
We study the dynamical response of frustrated, quasi-one-dimensional spin-1/2
Heisenberg antiferromagnets at finite temperatures. We allow for the presence
of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We concentrate on a model of weakly
coupled planes of anisotropic triangular lattices. Combining exact results for
the dynamical response of one dimensional Heisenberg chains with a Random Phase
Approximation (RPA) in the frustrated interchain couplings, we calculate the
dynamical susceptibility in the disordered phase. We investigate the
instability of the disordered phase to the formation of collective modes. We
find a very weak instability to the formation of incommensurate magnetic order
and determine the ordering temperature and wave vector. We also determine the
effects of uniform magnetic fields on the ordering transition.Comment: 17 pages, 17 Postscript figure
The ethics of biobanking: key issues and controversies
The ethics of biobanking is one of the most controversial issues in current bioethics and public health debates. For some, biobanks offer the possibility of unprecedented advances which will revolutionise research and improve the health of future generations. For others they are worrying repositories of personal information and tissue which will be used without sufficient respect for those from whom they came. Wherever one stands on this spectrum, from an ethics perspective biobanks are revolutionary. Traditional ethical safeguards of informed consent and confidentiality, for example, simply donât work for the governance of biobanks and as a result new ethical structures are required. Thus it is not too great a claim to say that biobanks require a rethinking of our ethical assumptions and frameworks which we have applied generally to other issues in ethics. This paper maps the key challenges and controversies of biobanking ethics; it considers; informed consent (its problems in biobanking and possibilities of participantsâ withdrawal), broad consent, the problems of confidentiality, ownership, property and comercialisation issues, feedback to participants and the ethics of re-contact
A 3D view of the outflow in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC-1)
The fast outflow emerging from a region associated with massive star
formation in the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC-1), located behind the Orion
Nebula, appears to have been set in motion by an explosive event. Here we study
the structure and dynamics of outflows in OMC-1. We combine radial velocity and
proper motion data for near-IR emission of molecular hydrogen to obtain the
first 3-dimensional (3D) structure of the OMC-1 outflow. Our work illustrates a
new diagnostic tool for studies of star formation that will be exploited in the
near future with the advent of high spatial resolution spectro-imaging in
particular with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). We use
published radial and proper motion velocities obtained from the shock-excited
vibrational emission in the H2 v=1-0 S(1) line at 2.122 m obtained with
the GriF instrument on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the Apache Point
Observatory, the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the Subaru Telescope. These
data give the 3D velocity of ejecta yielding a 3D reconstruction of the
outflows. This allows one to view the material from different vantage points in
space giving considerable insight into the geometry. Our analysis indicates
that the ejection occurred <720 years ago from a distorted ring-like structure
of ~15" (6000 AU) in diameter centered on the proposed point of close encounter
of the stars BN, source I and maybe also source n. We propose a simple model
involving curvature of shock trajectories in magnetic fields through which the
origin of the explosion and the centre defined by extrapolated proper motions
of BN, I and n may be brought into spatial coincidence.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A), 12
pages, 9 figure
A new search for distant radio galaxies in the Southern hemisphere -- III. Optical spectroscopy and analysis of the MRCR--SUMSS sample
We have compiled a sample of 234 ultra-steep-spectrum(USS)-selected radio
sources in order to find high-redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs). The sample is in
the southern sky at -40 deg < DEC < -30 deg which is the overlap region of the
408-MHz Revised Molonglo Reference Catalogue, 843-MHz Sydney University
Molonglo Sky Survey (the MRCR--SUMSS sample) and the 1400-MHz NRAO VLA Sky
Survey. This is the third in a series of papers on the MRCR--SUMSS sample. Here
we present optical spectra from the ANU 2.3-m telescope, ESO New Technology
Telescope and ESO Very Large Telescope for 52 of the identifications from
Bryant et al. (2009, Paper II), yielding redshifts for 36 galaxies, 13 of which
have z>2. We analyse the K-z distribution and compare 4-arcsec-aperture
magnitudes with 64-kpc aperture magnitudes in several surveys from the
literature; the MRCR--SUMSS sample is found to be consistent with models for
10^{11}-10^{12} solar mass galaxies. Dispersions about the fits in the K-z plot
support passive evolution of radio galaxy hosts since z>3. By comparing
USS-selected samples in the literature, we find that the resultant median
redshift of the samples shown is not dependent on the flux density distribution
or selection frequency of each sample. In addition, our finding that the
majority of the radio spectral energy distributions remain straight over a wide
frequency range suggests that a k-correction is not responsible for the success
of USS-selection in identifying high redshift radio galaxies and therefore the
steep radio spectra may be intrinsic to the source or a product of the
environment. Two galaxies have been found to have both compact radio structures
and strong self-absorption in the Ly-alpha line, suggesting they are surrounded
by a dense medium...abridged.Comment: Accepted for MNRAS. 25 page
INNOVATE: A prospective cohort study combining serum and urinary biomarkers with novel diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging for the prediction and characterization of prostate cancer
BACKGROUND: Whilst multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (mp-MRI) has been a significant advance in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, scanning all patients with elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels is considered too costly for widespread National Health Service (NHS) use, as the predictive value of PSA levels for significant disease is poor. Despite the fact that novel blood and urine tests are available which may predict aggressive disease better than PSA, they are not routinely employed due to a lack of clinical validity studies. Furthermore approximately 40% of mp-MRI studies are reported as indeterminate, which can lead to repeat examinations or unnecessary biopsy with associated patient anxiety, discomfort, risk and additional costs.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We aim to clinically validate a panel of minimally invasive promising blood and urine biomarkers, to better select patients that will benefit from a multiparametric prostate MRI. We will then test whether the performance of the mp-MRI can be improved by the addition of an advanced diffusion-weighted MRI technique, which uses a biophysical model to characterise tissue microstructure called VERDICT; Vascular and Extracellular Restricted Diffusion for Cytometry in Tumours. INNOVATE is a prospective single centre cohort study in 365 patients. mpMRI will act as the reference standard for the biomarker panel. A clinical outcome based reference standard based on biopsy, mp-MRI and follow-up will be used for VERDICT MRI. We expect the combined effect of biomarkers and VERDICT MRI will improve care
by better detecting aggressive prostate cancer early and make mp-MRI before biopsy economically viable for universal NHS adoption.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: INNOVATE received UK Research Ethics Committee approval on 23rd December 2015 by the NRES Committee LondonâSurrey Borders with REC reference
15/LO/0692.
REGISTRATION DETAILS: INNOVATE is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, with reference NCT0268927
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