How to keep the noise down without using the ‘Shush’ word!

In autumn 2005 Leeds Metropolitan University’s Civic Quarter Library began a pilot to ‘zone’ study space to meet the differing demands of students. Requests asking for increased group study areas as more assignments require collaborative work had to be balanced by silent areas to support more traditional use of the library. Previously staff had often found themselves in an unpleasant situation trying to keep noise levels down on the floors: we hoped that by offering students somewhere else to go within the library it would be less stressful for all concerned

Quantum Spin Hall and Quantum Anomalous Hall States Realized in Junction Quantum Wells

Both quantum spin Hall and quantum anomalous Hall states are novel states of quantum matter with promising applications. We propose junction quantum wells comprising II-VI, III-V or IV semiconductors as a large class of new materials realizing the quantum spin Hall state. Especially, we find that the bulk band gap for the quantum spin Hall state can be as large as 0.1 eV. Further more, magnetic doping would induce the ferromagnetism in these junction quantum wells due to band edge singularities in the band-inversion regime and to realize the quantum anomalous Hall state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Doctors' attitudes and practices regarding smoking cessation during pregnancy

Objective. To investigate the current smoking cessation practices and attitudes of doctors working in  the public antenatal services, as well as their perceived barriers to addressing the issue in the context of routine care.Study design. The study was qualitative, consisting of 14 semistructured, one-to-one interviews with doctors purposefully sampled from 5 public sector hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa.Results. The doctors in this study regarded HIV, poor nutrition, alcohol abuse and psychosocial stress as equal or higher risks to pregnant women than smoking. They tended to underestimate the magnitude of the risk of smoking during pregnancy. Doctors were unaware of the guidelines offering clinicians brief,  structured approaches to smoking cessation counselling and were generally pessimistic that they could influence the smoking behaviour of pregnant women, especially poor, disadvantaged women who face multiple barriers to achieving health-enhancing behaviour. However, most doctors were concerned about improving their communication with pregnant women about smoking and open to adopting new  approaches or tools that could assist them. Perceived barriers to providing smoking cessation interventions included a lack of counselling skills and educational resources, other pressing priorities, too little time, and the levels of stress currently experienced by doctors and midwives working in public sector hospitals as a result of dramatic staff and budget cuts.Conclusion. The study suggests that doctors working in the public sector antenatal services are not  routinely addressing the issue of smoking during pregnancy or using effective methods to assist women to give up smoking. Doctors need convincing that smoking cessation interventions can be effective. The promotion and provision of evidence-based guidelines such as the Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence (Fiore, 2000), with minimal training, is a possible strategy for integrating smoking cessation interventions into routine antenatal care in South Africa

New Terms for the Compact Form of Electroweak Chiral Lagrangian

The compact form of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian is a reformulation of its original form and is expressed in terms of chiral rotated electroweak gauge fields, which is crucial for relating the information of underlying theories to the coefficients of the low-energy effective Lagrangian. However the compact form obtained in previous works is not complete. In this letter we add several new chiral invariant terms to it and discuss the contributions of these terms to the original electroweak chiral Lagrangian.Comment: 3 pages, references adde

Innovation and the co-creation of value in construction

Construction businesses balance market and project risks in resourcing innovation and value creation. Technical, technological and management innovation are considered using the marketing lens of the service-dominant logic. The co-creation of value is a primary concept, which is largely unexplored in construction, especially related to innovation. Co-created by main contractors and clients is defined as value generated in context and use. The paper is part of a programme of work, applying an interpretative qualitative approach. The method for data collection was semi-structured interviews, derived from six major international main contractors. Thirty-nine interviews were conducted with a range of senior management, functional heads and project managers responsible for identifying innovation and value creation opportunities. The overall findings fall into three main areas. First, management perceived construction to be suppliers of technical expertise. Second, projects are perceived in terms of expert inputs. Third, associated tasks are conducted to meet programme schedules and requirements. Opportunities to co-create value are largely pursued reactively and opportunities to innovate through top down or project induced capabilities are largely overlooked. Where innovation occurred it was largely initiated through a combination of co-creation drivers supported by management pull factors rather than innovation drivers and a technology push

Diagonally-reinforced beam–column joints reinforced under cyclic loading

The beam-column joints in a reinforced concrete frame are vulnerable to damage caused by seismic events. The conventional detailing using transverse hoops usually results in serious joint congestion, which creates contruction problems. This paper introduces a new detail especially developed for low to medium seismicity, which involves the use of additional diagonal bars in the joint. Six half-scale interior beam-column assemblies with different joint details, namely 'empty', nominal transverse reinforcement and diagonal bars, tested under reversed cyclic loading are reported. The empty joint is not suitable even under moderate seismicity. The test results show that the joints containing the newly proposed detail, with or without axial compressive load present in the column, exhibit better behaviour at the lower range of ductility factors in terms of higher load-carrying capacity, greater stiffness and less strength degradation. Therefore, the newly proposed joint detail is suitable for beam-column joints of reinforced concrete buildings located in regions of low to medium seismic risk.published_or_final_versio

GLOBAL SOLUTIONS OF NONLINEAR TRANSPORT EQUATIONS FOR CHEMOSENSITIVE MOVEMENT

A widespread phenomenon in moving microorganisms and cells is their ability to reorient themselves depending on changes of concentrations of certain chemical signals. In this paper we discuss kinetic models for chemosensitive movement, which also takes into account evaluations of gradient fields of chemical stimuli which subsequently influence the motion of the respective microbiological species. The basic type of model was discussed by Alt [J. Math. Biol., 9 (1980), pp. 147-177], [J. Reine Angew. Math., 322 (1981), pp. 15-41] and by Othmer, Dunbar, and Alt [J. Math. Biol., 26 (1988), pp. 263-298]. Chalub et al. rigorously proved that, in three dimensions, these kinds of kinetic models lead to the classical Keller-Segel model as its drift-diffusion limit when the equation for the chemo-attractant is of elliptic type [Monatsh. Math., 142 (2004), pp. 123-141], [On the Derivation of Drift-Diffusion Model for Chemotaxis from Kinetic Equations, ANUM preprint 14/02, Vienna Technical University, 2002]. In [H. Hwang, K. Kang, and A. Stevens, Drift-diffusion limits of kinetic models for chemotaxis: A generalization, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. B., to appear] it was proved that the macroscopic diffusion limit exists in both two and three dimensions also when the equation of the chemo-attractant is of parabolic type. So far in the rigorous derivations, only the density of the chemo-attractant was supposed to influence the motion of the chemosensitive species. Here we show that in the macroscopic limit some types of evaluations of gradient fields of the chemical stimulus result in a change of the classical parabolic Keller-Segel model for chemotaxis. Under suitable structure conditions, global solutions for the kinetic models can be shown.open1128Nsciescopu

Theory of Photon Blockade by an Optical Cavity with One Trapped Atom

In our recent paper [1], we reported observations of photon blockade by one atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity. In support of these measurements, here we provide an expanded discussion of the general phenomenology of photon blockade as well as of the theoretical model and results that were presented in Ref. [1]. We describe the general condition for photon blockade in terms of the transmission coefficients for photon number states. For the atom-cavity system of Ref. [1], we present the model Hamiltonian and examine the relationship of the eigenvalues to the predicted intensity correlation function. We explore the effect of different driving mechanisms on the photon statistics. We also present additional corrections to the model to describe cavity birefringence and ac-Stark shifts. [1] K. M. Birnbaum, A. Boca, R. Miller, A. D. Boozer, T. E. Northup, and H. J. Kimble, Nature 436, 87 (2005).Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

The Model of Public Economic Autonomy As One of Empowerment Concepts for the Women of the Human Trafficking Victims

Recently, the criminal activities of human trafficking have been defined in rule of law. It has clear umbrella of law, so the process of law enforcement can be optimal. In general, the human trafficking frequently occurs in human exploitation. In this case, the victims are forced to work hard in bad situations and improper salary. The types of the exploitation cover woman sexual industry, servitude, taking inside human organ. As a whole, it can be called as slavery. The problem is how far the role of the government policy in preventing the victims of human trafficking in Cianjur regency and what concept model applied to create the public economic autonomy as one of empowerment concepts for women of human trafficking victims in Cianjur regency. This study applied juridical normative approach especially the descriptive analysis. In this case, it employed the primer and secondary data of law and then the data were analyzed without using numbers statistically. The findings show that Cianjur regency has implemented an alternative model concept in preventing the victims of human trafficking by applying the regulation and policy of the local government. It has been carried out through empowerment of public economy by giving some helps either in strengthening the finance or conducting some skill trainings to the victims. The program of the strengthening was carried out by the government of Cianjur and the stakeholders, through provision of estimates covering the estimates of income and budget in local, province, and central.     Keywords: human trafficking, victims, government policy, economic empowerment