805 research outputs found

    Nonintegrability of the two-body problem in constant curvature spaces

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    We consider the reduced two-body problem with the Newton and the oscillator potentials on the sphere S2{\bf S}^{2} and the hyperbolic plane H2{\bf H}^{2}. For both types of interaction we prove the nonexistence of an additional meromorphic integral for the complexified dynamic systems.Comment: 20 pages, typos correcte

    Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

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    Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants

    The harmonic oscillator on Riemannian and Lorentzian configuration spaces of constant curvature

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    The harmonic oscillator as a distinguished dynamical system can be defined not only on the Euclidean plane but also on the sphere and on the hyperbolic plane, and more generally on any configuration space with constant curvature and with a metric of any signature, either Riemannian (definite positive) or Lorentzian (indefinite). In this paper we study the main properties of these `curved' harmonic oscillators simultaneously on any such configuration space, using a Cayley-Klein (CK) type approach, with two free parameters \ki, \kii which altogether correspond to the possible values for curvature and signature type: the generic Riemannian and Lorentzian spaces of constant curvature (sphere S2{\bf S}^2, hyperbolic plane H2{\bf H}^2, AntiDeSitter sphere {\bf AdS}^{\unomasuno} and DeSitter sphere {\bf dS}^{\unomasuno}) appear in this family, with the Euclidean and Minkowski spaces as flat limits. We solve the equations of motion for the `curved' harmonic oscillator and obtain explicit expressions for the orbits by using three different methods: first by direct integration, second by obtaining the general CK version of the Binet's equation and third, as a consequence of its superintegrable character. The orbits are conics with centre at the potential origin in any CK space, thereby extending this well known Euclidean property to any constant curvature configuration space. The final part of the article, that has a more geometric character, presents those results of the theory of conics on spaces of constant curvature which are pertinent.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure

    Large igneous provinces track fluctuations in subaerial exposure of continents across the Archean–Proterozoic transition

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    Geological observations and numerical models imply that Archean continents were mostly submarine. In contrast, approximately one third of modern earth's surface area consists of subaerial continental crust. To temporally constrain changes in the subaerial exposure of continents, we evaluate the eruptive environment (submarine vs subaerial) of 3.4–2.0 Ga continental large igneous provinces (LIPs). Our results indicate that up until 2.4 Ga LIPs predominantly erupted onto submerged continents. This period of low freeboard was punctuated by local subaerial eruptions at 2.8–2.7 Ga and 2.5 Ga. From 2.4 Ga–2.2 Ga, extensive subaerial continental volcanism is recorded in six different cratons, supporting widespread subaerial continents at this time. An increase in exposed continental crust significantly impacts atmospheric and oceanic geochemical cycles and the supply of nutrients for marine bioproductivity. Thus, the 2.4–2.2 Ga high-freeboard conditions may have triggered the earliest global glaciation event and the first significant rise of atmospheric oxygen

    Do people perceive benefits in the use of social prescribing to address loneliness and/or social isolation? A qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature

    Get PDF
    Social prescribing is a means by which clinical services can link individuals who have psychological, social and/or practical needs with non-clinical services within their local community. There is a lack of empirical evidence investigating whether social prescribing helps such individuals and which interventions are the most effective and accepted by them to address their loneliness. This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesise findings from qualitative studies exploring experiences of people (of any age) who participated in any social prescribing intervention aimed at loneliness and/or social isolation to ascertain whether they felt it helped address loneliness/isolation and the potential mechanisms by which this might occur. We conducted a systematic search of 5 electronic databases and 4 other databases that would yield grey literature in April 2021 to identify qualitative articles on this topic written in English or French. We assessed the quality of the included studies using recognised tools, and synthesised findings using the approach of thematic analysis. We identified 19 records analysed (e.g. journal articles) from 18 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified three themes: (1) increased sense of wellbeing (with six subthemes), (2) factors that engendered an ongoing desire to connect with others, and (3) perceived drawbacks of social prescribing. These themes illustrate the benefits and difficulties people perceive in social prescribing programmes addressing loneliness and social isolation, with an overall balance of more benefits than drawbacks in social prescribing participation. However, given the unhelpful aspects of social prescribing identified by some participants, greater thought should be given to potential harms. Moreover, further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand mechanisms and effectiveness, and how different components of social prescribing might be best matched to individual participants

    Continuous interpolation between the fully frustrated Ising and quantum dimer models

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    We propose a new quantum model interpolating between the fully frustrated spin-1/2 Ising model in a transverse field and a dimer model. This model contains a resonating-valence-bond phase, including a line with an exactly solvable ground state of the Rokhsar-Kivelson type. We discuss the phase diagrams of this model on the square and triangular (in terms of the dimer representation) lattices.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

    Accelerating Cardiac Bidomain Simulations Using Graphics Processing Units

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    Anatomically realistic and biophysically detailed multiscale computer models of the heart are playing an increasingly important role in advancing our understanding of integrated cardiac function in health and disease. Such detailed simulations, however, are computationally vastly demanding, which is a limiting factor for a wider adoption of in-silico modeling. While current trends in high-performance computing (HPC) hardware promise to alleviate this problem, exploiting the potential of such architectures remains challenging since strongly scalable algorithms are necessitated to reduce execution times. Alternatively, acceleration technologies such as graphics processing units (GPUs) are being considered. While the potential of GPUs has been demonstrated in various applications, benefits in the context of bidomain simulations where large sparse linear systems have to be solved in parallel with advanced numerical techniques are less clear. In this study, the feasibility of multi-GPU bidomain simulations is demonstrated by running strong scalability benchmarks using a state-of-the-art model of rabbit ventricles. The model is spatially discretized using the finite element methods (FEM) on fully unstructured grids. The GPU code is directly derived from a large pre-existing code, the Cardiac Arrhythmia Research Package (CARP), with very minor perturbation of the code base. Overall, bidomain simulations were sped up by a factor of 11.8 to 16.3 in benchmarks running on 6-20 GPUs compared to the same number of CPU cores. To match the fastest GPU simulation which engaged 20 GPUs, 476 CPU cores were required on a national supercomputing facility
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