145 research outputs found
Systematic child abuse incidents in a childrenâs residential home in Hong Kong: regulatory and criminal law reform proposals
Purpose â The paper aims to recommend legal and regulatory reforms to better prevent child abuse in childcare institutions in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach â A summary of investigation report and news reports are referred to in describing the abuse incidents which occurred in a childrenâs residential home. Routine Activity Theory (RAT) is used as the framework for identifying the causes. Local and overseas legislation, regulations, case law, and policies are analysed to provide recommendations for reforms. Findings â There are systematic failures such as workload issues, inadequate supervision, and the absence of continuing professional development (CPD) that contributed to the incidents. The regulations governing the operation of childcare centres and criminal laws against child abuse are long overdue for an update in Hong Kong. On the institutional side, this paper recommends enacting regulations that mandate CPD, lower the staff-to-child ratio, and strengthen the Social Welfare Departmentâs (SWD) supervisory powers over childcare centres. From the criminal law perspective, it is recommended that âreasonable chastisementâ be abolished as a defence of corporal punishment, and that there be new offences for failure to report suspected child abuse incidents and causing or allowing the death/serious harm of a child. Originality/value â The child abuse incidents, occurring in a childcare institution, have drawn wide public concern. Reform is required to protect vulnerable children and regain public confidence
The uptake of selenium by perennial ryegrass in soils of different organic matter contents receiving sheep excreta
Background and aims
The intake of selenium, an essential element for animals and humans, in ruminants is largely determined by selenium concentration in ingested forages, which take up selenium mainly from soil. Ruminant excreta is a common source of organic fertilizer, which provides both nutrients and organic matter. This study aims to unentangle the unclear effect of applying different types of ruminant excreta in soils of different organic matter contents on selenium uptake by forage.
Methods
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) was grown in soils of different organic matter contents. Urine and/or feces collected from sheep fed with organic or inorganic mineral supplements, including selenium, were applied to the soils. The selenium in the collected samples were analyzed using ICP-MS. The associated biogeochemical reactions were scrutinized by wet chemistry.
Results
The application of urine and/or feces resulted in either the same or lower selenium concentrations in perennial ryegrass. The excreta type did not affect total selenium accumulation in grass grown in low organic matter soil, whereas in high organic matter soil, feces resulted in significantly lower total selenium accumulation than urine, which was attributed to a possible interaction of selenium sorption in soil and microbial reduction of Se.
Conclusion
This one-time excreta application did not increase, but further decrease in some treatments, selenium concentration and accumulation in the perennial ryegrass. Consequently, to increase ruminant selenium intake, supplementing selenium directly to animals is more recommended than applying animal manure to soil, which might drive selenium reduction and decrease selenium uptake by grass
The in-plane paraconductivity in La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4 thin film superconductors at high reduced-temperatures: Independence of the normal-state pseudogap
The in-plane resistivity has been measured in (LSxCO)
superconducting thin films of underdoped (), optimally-doped
() and overdoped () compositions. These films were grown
on (100)SrTiO substrates, and have about 150 nm thickness. The in-plane
conductivity induced by superconducting fluctuations above the superconducting
transition (the so-called in-plane paraconductivity, ) was
extracted from these data in the reduced-temperature range
10^{-2}\lsim\epsilon\equiv\ln(T/\Tc)\lsim1. Such a
was then analyzed in terms of the
mean-field--like Gaussian-Ginzburg-Landau (GGL) approach extended to the
high- region by means of the introduction of a total-energy cutoff,
which takes into account both the kinetic energy and the quantum localization
energy of each fluctuating mode. Our results strongly suggest that at all
temperatures above Tc, including the high reduced-temperature region, the
doping mainly affects in LSxCO thin films the normal-state properties and that
its influence on the superconducting fluctuations is relatively moderate: Even
in the high- region, the in-plane paraconductivity is found to be
independent of the opening of a pseudogap in the normal state of the underdoped
films.Comment: 35 pages including 10 figures and 1 tabl
Anomalous c-axis charge dynamics in copper oxide materials
Within the t-J model, the c-axis charge dynamics of the copper oxide
materials in the underdoped and optimally doped regimes is studied by
considering the incoherent interlayer hopping. It is shown that the c-axis
charge dynamics is mainly governed by the scattering from the in-plane
fluctuation. In the optimally doped regime, the c-axis resistivity is a linear
in temperatures, and shows the metallic-like behavior for all temperatures,
while the c-axis resistivity in the underdoped regime is characterized by a
crossover from the high temperature metallic-like behavior to the low
temperature semiconducting-like behavior, which are consistent with experiments
and numerical simulations.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, Three figures are adde
Charged Higgs Boson Production in Bottom-Gluon Fusion
We compute the complete next-to-leading order SUSY-QCD corrections for the
associated production of a charged Higgs boson with a top quark via
bottom-gluon fusion. We investigate the applicability of the bottom parton
description in detail. The higher order corrections can be split into real and
virtual corrections for a general two Higgs doublet model and into additional
massive supersymmetric loop contributions. We find that the perturbative
behavior is well under control. The supersymmetric contributions consist of the
universal bottom Yukawa coupling corrections and non-factorizable diagrams.
Over most of the relevant supersymmetric parameter space the Yukawa coupling
corrections are sizeable, while the remaining supersymmetric loop contributions
are negligible.Comment: 18 pages, v2: some discussions added, v3: published versio
Genome-wide association and Mendelian randomisation analysis provide insights into the pathogenesis of heart failure
Heart failure (HF) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. A small proportion of HF cases are attributable to monogenic cardiomyopathies and existing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have yielded only limited insights, leaving the observed heritability of HF largely unexplained. We report results from a GWAS meta-analysis of HF comprising 47,309 cases and 930,014 controls. Twelve independent variants at 11 genomic loci are associated with HF, all of which demonstrate one or more associations with coronary artery disease (CAD), atrial fibrillation, or reduced left ventricular function, suggesting shared genetic aetiology. Functional analysis of non-CAD-associated loci implicate genes involved in cardiac development (MYOZ1, SYNPO2L), protein homoeostasis (BAG3), and cellular senescence (CDKN1A). Mendelian randomisation analysis supports causal roles for several HF risk factors, and demonstrates CAD-independent effects for atrial fibrillation, body mass index, and hypertension. These findings extend our knowledge of the pathways underlying HF and may inform new therapeutic strategies
Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b
We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society
Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run
Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society
Search for gravitational-wave transients associated with magnetar bursts in advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo data from the third observing run
Gravitational waves are expected to be produced from neutron star oscillations associated with magnetar giant f lares and short bursts. We present the results of a search for short-duration (milliseconds to seconds) and longduration (âŒ100 s) transient gravitational waves from 13 magnetar short bursts observed during Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRAâs third observation run. These 13 bursts come from two magnetars, SGR1935 +2154 and SwiftJ1818.0â1607. We also include three other electromagnetic burst events detected by FermiGBM which were identified as likely coming from one or more magnetars, but they have no association with a known magnetar. No magnetar giant flares were detected during the analysis period. We find no evidence of gravitational waves associated with any of these 16 bursts. We place upper limits on the rms of the integrated incident gravitational-wave strain that reach 3.6 Ă 10âÂČÂł Hz at 100 Hz for the short-duration search and 1.1 Ă10âÂČÂČ Hz at 450 Hz for the long-duration search. For a ringdown signal at 1590 Hz targeted by the short-duration search the limit is set to 2.3 Ă 10âÂČÂČ Hz. Using the estimated distance to each magnetar, we derive upper limits upper limits on the emitted gravitational-wave energy of 1.5 Ă 1044 erg (1.0 Ă 1044 erg) for SGR 1935+2154 and 9.4 Ă 10^43 erg (1.3 Ă 1044 erg) for Swift J1818.0â1607, for the short-duration (long-duration) search. Assuming isotropic emission of electromagnetic radiation of the burst ïŹuences, we constrain the ratio of gravitational-wave energy to electromagnetic energy for bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with the available ïŹuence information. The lowest of these ratios is 4.5 Ă 103
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