Social Causes of Obesity

Two thirds of our country is overweight and a third is obese. Meanwhile, medical costs continue to rise, largely as a consequence of treating those with chronic disease. And our current medical sys-tem seems more focused on treating symptoms of diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease rather than their root causes. This paper examines the origins of these problems and at-tempts to determine the role of physicians in reversing these trends

QCD at Finite temperature and density with staggered and Wilson quarks

One of the most challenging issues in particle physics is to study QCD in extreme conditions. Precise determination of the QCD phase diagram on temperature $T$ and chemical potential $\mu$ plane will provide valuable information for quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and neutron star physics. We present results for phase structure on the $(\mu, T)$ plane for lattice QCD with Wilson fermions from strong coupling Hamiltonian analysis and Kogut-Susskind Fermions from Lagrangian Monte Carlo simulations at intermediate coupling.Comment: Lattice 2004 (nonzero

Scaling study for 2 HEX smeared fermions: hadron and quark masses

The goal of this study is to investigate the scaling behaviour of our 2 HEX action. For this purpose, we compute the $N_f=3$ spectrum and compare the results to our 6 EXP action. We find a large scaling window up to $\sim 0.15\,\mathrm{fm}$ along with small scaling corrections at the 2%-level and full compatibility with our previous study. As a second important observable to be tested for scaling, we chose the non-perturbatively renormalized quenched strange quark mass. Here we find a fairly flat scaling with a broad scaling range up to $\simeq 0.15\,\mathrm{fm}$ and perfect agreement with the literature.Comment: PoS for the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Lattice2010, 7 pages, 4 figure

A Simulation Study of Path and Speed Through Double-Lane Roundabouts

This study assessed the effects of geometric curvature and lane demarcation on drivers’ selection of path and speed in double-lane roundabouts. By means of a PC-based simulator, path and speed data were collected as subjects drove twice through six roundabouts. The six roundabouts varied in terms of pavement markings and geometric curvature on the entry and exit. Seventy-five participants were tested using a fixed-base driving simulator. The results showed that drivers maintained lane position better when the roundabouts had lane demarcation than when the roundabouts had no lane demarcation. Furthermore, lane-tracking behavior for participants exposed to roundabouts with pavement markings was similar to lane-tracking behavior observed in a recent field study. Observations of speed indicated that drivers drove faster though roundabouts with a large central island radius as opposed to a roundabout with a smaller central island radiu

A Simulation Study of Path and Speed Through Double-Lane Roundabouts

This study assessed the effects of geometric curvature and lane demarcation on drivers’ selection of path and speed in double-lane roundabouts. By means of a PC-based simulator, path and speed data were collected as subjects drove twice through six roundabouts. The six roundabouts varied in terms of pavement markings and geometric curvature on the entry and exit. Seventy-five participants were tested using a fixed-base driving simulator. The results showed that drivers maintained lane position better when the roundabouts had lane demarcation than when the roundabouts had no lane demarcation. Furthermore, lane-tracking behavior for participants exposed to roundabouts with pavement markings was similar to lane-tracking behavior observed in a recent field study. Observations of speed indicated that drivers drove faster though roundabouts with a large central island radius as opposed to a roundabout with a smaller central island radiu

Cookie Monsters: Seeing Young People’s Hacking as Creative Practice

This paper examines the benefits and obstacles to young people’s open-ended and unrestricted access to technological environments. While children and youth are frequently seen as threatened or threatening in this realm, their playful engagements suggest that they are self-possessed social actors, able to negotiate most of its challenges effectively. Whether it is proprietary software, the business practices of some technology providers, or the separation of play, work, and learning in most classrooms, the spatial-temporality of young people’s access to and use of technology is often configured to restrict their freedom of choice and behavior. We focus on these issues through the lens of technological interactions known as “hacking,” wherein people playfully engage computer technologies for the intrinsic pleasure of seeing what they can do. We argue for an approach to technology that welcomes rather than constrains young people’s explorations, suggesting that it will not only help them to better understand and manage their technological environments, but also foster their critical capacities and creativity

Detection of a redshift 3.04 filament

The filamentary structure of the early universe has until now only been seen in numerical simulations. Despite this lack of direct observational evidence, the prediction of early filamentary structure formation in a Cold Dark Matter dominated universe has become a paradigm for our understanding of galaxy assembly at high redshifts. Clearly observational confirmation is required. Lyman Break galaxies are too rare to be used as tracers of filaments and we argue that to map out filaments in the high z universe, one will need to identify classes of objects fainter than those currently accessible via the Lyman Break technique. Objects selected via their Ly-alpha emission, and/or as DLA absorbers, populate the faintest accessible part of the high redshift galaxy luminosity function, and as such make up good candidates for objects which will map out high redshift filaments. Here we present the first direct detection of a filament (at z=3.04) mapped by those classes of objects. The observations are the deepest yet to have been done in Ly-alpha imaging at high redshift, and they reveal a single string of proto-galaxies spanning about 5 Mpc (20 Mpc comoving). Expanding the cosmological test proposed by Alcock & Paczynski (1979), we outline how observations of this type can be used to determine Omega_Lambda at z=3.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, 3 PostScript figures; Accepted for publication in A&A-Letter

A new method to study lattice QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential

Due to the sign problem, it is exponentially difficult to study QCD on the lattice at finite chemical potential. We propose a method --an overlap improving multi-parameter reweighting technique-- to alleviate this problem. We apply this method and give the phase diagram of four-flavor QCD obtained on lattices 4^4 and 4\cdot6^3. Our results are based on {\cal{O}}(10^3-10^4) configurations.Comment: minor changes, version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Transitioning ECP Software Technology into a Foundation for Sustainable Research Software

Research software plays a crucial role in advancing scientific knowledge, but ensuring its sustainability, maintainability, and long-term viability is an ongoing challenge. The Sustainable Research Software Institute (SRSI) Model has been designed to address the concerns, and presents a comprehensive framework designed to promote sustainable practices in the research software community. However the SRSI Model does not address the transitional requirements for the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) Software Technology (ECP-ST) focus area specifically. This white paper provides an overview and detailed description of how ECP-ST will transition into the SRSI in a compressed time frame that a) meets the needs of the ECP end-of-technical-activities deadline; and b) ensures the continuity of the sustainability efforts that are already underway.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur