1,749 research outputs found
Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History
Citation: McCrea, H. L. (2016). Medicine and Public Health in Latin America: A History. Isis, 107(3), 614-616. doi:10.1086/688465Over the past three to four decades historical works focused on health and medicine in Latin America and the Caribbean have burgeoned into a rich body of scholarship. Scholars delve into a myriad of subjects using medicine and health as lenses through which structural, material, and human experiences with inequality can be analyzed across race, ethnic, gender, and economic lines. To date, much of the historical inquiry on medicine and public health in Latin America and the Caribbean has concentrated on uncovering the powerful relationships forged between medical elites, scientists, statesmen, and laypersons. In this vein, the history of Latin America and the Caribbean is situated within an interconnected globe where germs know no boundaries and disease vectors shape and reshape military campaigns and occupations, hygiene and sanitation trends, and household customs. Within this world, historical narratives and actors assume a more complex and nuanced form through scholarship that probes into the dark recesses of human suffering and the valiant (and sometimes not so altruistic) efforts of medical professionals and statesmen to launch public health campaigns to curb disease and contain contagion. Pioneering works by David Nobel Cook (1998), Alfred W. Crosby (1972), Elinor G. K. Melville (1997), and Nancy Leys Stepan (1996) laid the methodological groundwork for understanding the mechanisms that created human differences. Others have sought to tell a story about war, revolution, and social upheaval by focusing on a particular disease epidemic or public health campaign
Monte Carlo transition probabilities. II
The macroscopic quantizations of matter into macro-atoms and radiant and
thermal energies into r- and k-energy packets initiated in Paper I is completed
with the definition of transition probabilities governing energy flows to and
from the thermal pool. The resulting Monte Carlo method is then applied to the
problem of computing the hydrogen spectrum of a Type II supernova. This test
problem is used to demonstrate the scheme's consistency as the number of energy
packets N -> infinity, to investigate the accuracy of Monte Carlo estimators of
radiative rates, and to illustrate the convergence characteristics of the
geometry-independent, constrained Lambda-iteration method employed to obtain
the NLTE stratifications of temperature and level populations. In addition, the
method's potential, when combined with analytic ionization and excitation
formulae, for obtaining useful approximate NLTE solutions is emphasized.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
A Snapshot of J. L. Synge
A brief description is given of the life and influence on relativity theory
of Professor J. L. Synge accompanied by some technical examples to illustrate
his style of work
New Path Equations in Absolute Parallelism Geometry
The Bazanski approach, for deriving the geodesic equations in Riemannian
geometry, is generalized in the absolute parallelism geometry. As a consequence
of this generalization three path equations are obtained. A striking feature in
the derived equations is the appearance of a torsion term with a numerical
coefficients that jumps by a step of one half from equation to another. This is
tempting to speculate that the paths in absolute parallelism geometry might
admit a quantum feature.Comment: 4 pages Latex file Journal Reference: Astrophysics and space science
228, 273, (1995
The Einstein 3-form G_a and its equivalent 1-form L_a in Riemann-Cartan space
The definition of the Einstein 3-form G_a is motivated by means of the
contracted 2nd Bianchi identity. This definition involves at first the complete
curvature 2-form. The 1-form L_a is defined via G_a = L^b \wedge #(o_b \wedge
o_a). Here # denotes the Hodge-star, o_a the coframe, and \wedge the exterior
product. The L_a is equivalent to the Einstein 3-form and represents a certain
contraction of the curvature 2-form. A variational formula of Salgado on
quadratic invariants of the L_a 1-form is discussed, generalized, and put into
proper perspective.Comment: LaTeX, 13 Pages. To appear in Gen. Rel. Gra
Dielectric resonances of ordered passive arrays
The electrical and optical properties of ordered passive arrays, constituted
of inductive and capacitive components, are usually deduced from Kirchhoff's
rules. Under the assumption of periodic boundary conditions, comparable results
may be obtained via an approach employing transfer matrices. In particular,
resonances in the dielectric spectrum are demonstrated to occur if all
eigenvalues of the transfer matrix of the entire array are unity. The latter
condition, which is shown to be equivalent to the habitual definition of a
resonance in impedance for an array between electrodes, allows for a convenient
and accurate determination of the resonance frequencies, and may thus be used
as a tool for the design of materials with a specific dielectric response. For
the opposite case of linear arrays in a large network, where periodic boundary
condition do not apply, several asymptotic properties are derived. Throughout
the article, the derived analytic results are compared to numerical models,
based on either Exact Numerical Renormalisation or the spectral method.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
Evidence for Blue Straggler Stars Rejuvenating the Integrated Spectra of Globular Clusters
Integrated spectroscopy is the method of choice for deriving the ages of
unresolved stellar systems. However, hot stellar evolutionary stages, such as
hot horizontal branch stars and blue straggler stars (BSSs), can affect the
integrated ages measured using Balmer lines. Such hot, "non-canonical" stars
may lead to overestimations of the temperature of the main sequence turn-off,
and therefore underestimations of the integrated age of a stellar population.
Using an optimized Hbeta index in conjunction with HST/WFPC2 color-magnitude
diagrams (CMDs), we show that Galactic globular clusters exhibit a large
scatter in their apparent "spectroscopic" ages, which does not correspond to
that in their CMD-derived ages. We find for the first time that the specific
frequency of BSSs, defined within the same aperture as the integrated spectra,
shows a clear correspondence with Hbeta in the sense that, at fixed
metallicity, higher BSS ratios lead to younger "apparent" spectroscopic ages.
Thus, the specific frequency of BSSs in globular clusters sets a fundamental
limit on the accuracy for which spectroscopic ages can be determined for
globular clusters, and maybe for other stellar systems like galaxies. The
observational implications of this result are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Numerical Simulations of Globular Cluster Formation
We examine various physical processes associated with the formation of
globular clusters by using the three-dimensional Smoothed Particle
Hydrodynamics (SPH) code. Our code includes radiative cooling of gases, star
formation, energy feedback from stars including stellar winds and supernovae,
and chemical enrichment by stars. We assume that, in the collapsing galaxy,
isothermal cold clouds form through thermal condensations and become
proto-globular clouds. We calculate the size of proto-globular clouds by
solving the linearized equations for perturbation. We compute the evolution of
the inner region of the proto-cloud with our SPH code for various initial
radius and initial composition of gases. When the initial gases contain no
heavy elements, the evolution of proto-clouds sensitively depends on the
initial radius. For a smaller initial radius, the initial star burst is so
intense that the subsequent star formation occurs in the central regions to
form a dense star cluster as massive as the globular cluster. When the initial
gases contain some heavy elements, the metallicity of gases affects the
evolution and the final stellar mass. If the initial radius of the
proto-globular clouds was relatively large, the formation of a star cluster as
massive as the globular clusters requires the initial metallicity as high as
[Fe/H] . The self-enrichment of heavy elements in the star cluster
does not occur in all cases.Comment: Accpeted for publication in the ApJ. Correctiong errors in Table
An Einstein-Hilbert Action for Axi-Dilaton Gravity in 4-Dimensions
We examine the axi-dilatonic sector of low energy string theory and
demonstrate how the gravitational interactions involving the axion and dilaton
fields may be derived from a geometrical action principle involving the
curvature scalar associated with a non-Riemannian connection. In this geometry
the antisymmetric tensor 3-form field determines the torsion of the connection
on the frame bundle while the gradient of the metric is determined by the
dilaton field. By expressing the theory in terms of the Levi-Civita connection
associated with the metric in the ``Einstein frame'' we confirm that the field
equations derived from the non-Riemannian Einstein-Hilbert action coincide with
the axi-dilaton sector of the low energy effective action derived from string
theory.Comment: 6 pages Plain Tex (No Figures), Letter to Editor Classical and
Quantum Gravit
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