Towards Laser Driven Hadron Cancer Radiotherapy: A Review of Progress

It has been known for about sixty years that proton and heavy ion therapy is a very powerful radiation procedure for treating tumours. It has an innate ability to irradiate tumours with greater doses and spatial selectivity compared with electron and photon therapy and hence is a tissue sparing procedure. For more than twenty years powerful lasers have generated high energy beams of protons and heavy ions and hence it has been frequently speculated that lasers could be used as an alternative to RF accelerators to produce the particle beams necessary for cancer therapy. The present paper reviews the progress made towards laser driven hadron cancer therapy and what has still to be accomplished to realise its inherent enormous potential.Comment: 40 pages, 24 figure

The Sloan Lens ACS Survey. IX. Colors, Lensing and Stellar Masses of Early-type Galaxies

We present the current photometric dataset for the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey, including HST photometry from ACS, WFPC2, and NICMOS. These data have enabled the confirmation of an additional 15 grade `A' (certain) lens systems, bringing the number of SLACS grade `A' lenses to 85; including 13 grade `B' (likely) systems, SLACS has identified nearly 100 lenses and lens candidates. Approximately 80% of the grade `A' systems have elliptical morphologies while ~10% show spiral structure; the remaining lenses have lenticular morphologies. Spectroscopic redshifts for the lens and source are available for every system, making SLACS the largest homogeneous dataset of galaxy-scale lenses to date. We have developed a novel Bayesian stellar population analysis code to determine robust stellar masses with accurate error estimates. We apply this code to deep, high-resolution HST imaging and determine stellar masses with typical statistical errors of 0.1 dex; we find that these stellar masses are unbiased compared to estimates obtained using SDSS photometry, provided that informative priors are used. The stellar masses range from 10^10.5 to 10^11.8 M$_\odot$ and the typical stellar mass fraction within the Einstein radius is 0.4, assuming a Chabrier IMF. The ensemble properties of the SLACS lens galaxies, e.g. stellar masses and projected ellipticities, appear to be indistinguishable from other SDSS galaxies with similar stellar velocity dispersions. This further supports that SLACS lenses are representative of the overall population of massive early-type galaxies with M* >~ 10^11 M$_\odot$, and are therefore an ideal dataset to investigate the kpc-scale distribution of luminous and dark matter in galaxies out to z ~ 0.5.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables, published in Ap

Potential application of liquid dye penetrants for serial number restoration on firearms

© 2018, © 2018 Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences. Chemical reagents for serial number restoration are designed to exploit the plastic deformation zone below the obliterated serial number. Most techniques in operational use are variants of Fry’s Reagent. This technique uses toxic, corrosive chemicals and requires a skilful operator in the laboratory. Fry’s Reagent can also be destructive of the firearm due to rusting. In an attempt to find a non-toxic, non-destructive alternative to Fry’s Reagent, this project tested the use of liquid dye penetrants (LDPs), a non-destructive examination technique to detect cracks and imperfections used in the welding industry, for the restoration of obliterated serial numbers. Steel plates bearing an obliterated serial number with a range of obliteration depths were subjected to LDP treatment under various treatment conditions. The results using LDPs were negative for all obliteration depths and all test conditions attempted. Some of the serial numbers were subsequently restored successfully with Fry’s reagent, proving that the plastic deformation zone was present on the steel plates below the obliteration. Further work to develop a non-toxic, non-destructive serial number restoration process will be undertaken

Survival of low-birth-weight infants at Baragwanath Hospital - 1950 - 1996

Objectives. To examine changes in survival rates among lowbirth- weight (LBW) infants between the years 1950 and 1996:Methods. Survival figures were analysed for LBW infants managed at Baragwanath Hospital, a tertiary care centre in Soweto, Johannesburg, over four periods spanning five decades.Results. The overall mortality rates of LBW infants decreased markedly between the early 1950s and the period 1995/96. By the mid-1990s approximately four times the number of infants with birth weight less than 1 500 g were surviving compared with the early 1950s. The reduction in mortality rates occurred in all LBW groups during the first three decades. However, since 1981 infants who weighed less than 1 500 g at birth were the major contributors to the overall reduction in mortality. Between the years 1981/82 and 1995/96, survival increased significantly from 64% to 79% for infants with birth weight 1 000 - 1 499 g, and from 14% to 32% for those with birth weight less than 1 000 g. Since infants in the latter group were seldom offered mechanical ventilation or artificial surfactant, a large part of these increases in survival can be attributed. to improvement in the general level of care.Conclusion. There have been dramatic improvements in the survival of LBW infants over this time period at Baragwanath Hospital. Although newer interventions such as mechanical ventilation and artificial surfactant have played a significant role, improvement in care at primary and secondary levels has been of major importance

Multilevel blocking approach to the fermion sign problem in path-integral Monte Carlo simulations

A general algorithm toward the solution of the fermion sign problem in finite-temperature quantum Monte Carlo simulations has been formulated for discretized fermion path integrals with nearest-neighbor interactions in the Trotter direction. This multilevel approach systematically implements a simple blocking strategy in a recursive manner to synthesize the sign cancellations among different fermionic paths throughout the whole configuration space. The practical usefulness of the method is demonstrated for interacting electrons in a quantum dot.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, incl. two figure

Closing in on the picture : analyzing interactions in video recordings

This paper provides a detailed account of the processing and analysing of data, obtained through video recording during reflective practitioner research. It sets out five stages in the analysis of video recordings of classroom interactions during a series of educational drama lessons: from decisions relating to the selection of data for close analysis, to the seeking of themes, and finally to the presentation of conclusions. The researcher adapted and synthesised several processes derived from discourse analysis (Wells, 2001; Spiers, 2004; Gee, 2005) to produce a range of instruments for use in transcription and analysis of verbal and non-verbal discourse. These include: a simple transcription key; classifications for verbal and non-verbal discourse; and a template for a transcription and analysis matrix

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) blended spectra catalogue: strong galaxy-galaxy lens and occulting galaxy pair candidates

We present the catalogue of blended galaxy spectra from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. These are cases where light from two galaxies are significantly detected in a single GAMA fibre. Galaxy pairs identified from their blended spectrum fall into two principal classes: they are either strong lenses, a passive galaxy lensing an emission-line galaxy; or occulting galaxies, serendipitous overlaps of two galaxies, of any type. Blended spectra can thus be used to reliably identify strong lenses for follow-up observations (high-resolution imaging) and occulting pairs, especially those that are a late-type partly obscuring an early-type galaxy which are of interest for the study of dust content of spiral and irregular galaxies. The GAMA survey setup and its AUTOZ automated redshift determination were used to identify candidate blended galaxy spectra from the cross-correlation peaks. We identify 280 blended spectra with a minimum velocity separation of 600 km s−1, of which 104 are lens pair candidates, 71 emission-line-passive pairs, 78 are pairs of emission-line galaxies and 27 are pairs of galaxies with passive spectra. We have visually inspected the candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS) images. Many blended objects are ellipticals with blue fuzz (Ef in our classification). These latter ‘Ef’ classifications are candidates for possible strong lenses, massive ellipticals with an emission-line galaxy in one or more lensed images. The GAMA lens and occulting galaxy candidate samples are similar in size to those identified in the entire SDSS. This blended spectrum sample stands as a testament of the power of this highly complete, second-largest spectroscopic survey in existence and offers the possibility to expand e.g. strong gravitational lens surveys

Using Stories in Coach Education

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how storied representations of research can be used as an effective pedagogical tool in coach education. During a series of continuing professional development seminars for professional golf coaches, we presented our research in the form of stories and poems which were created in an effort to evoke and communicate the lived experiences of elite professional golfers. Following these presentations, we obtained written responses to the stories from 53 experienced coaches who attended the seminars. Analysis of this data revealed three ways in which coaches responded to the stories: (i) questioning; (ii) summarising; and (iii) incorporating. We conclude that these responses illustrate the potential of storied forms of representation to enhance professional development through stimulating reflective practice and increasing understanding of holistic, person-centred approaches to coaching athletes in high-performance sport

PKS B1400-33: an unusual radio relic in a poor cluster

We present new arcminute resolution radio images of the low surface brightness radio source PKS B1400-33 that is located in the poor cluster Abell S753. The observations consist of 330 MHz VLA, 843 MHz MOST and 1398 and 2378 MHz ATCA data. These new images, with higher surface brightness sensitivity than previous observations, reveal that the large scale structure consists of extended filamentary emission bounded by edge-brightened rims. The source is offset on one side of symmetrically distributed X-ray emission that is centered on the dominant cluster galaxy NGC 5419. PKS B1400-33 is a rare example of a relic in a poor cluster with radio properties unlike those of most relics and halos observed in cluster environments. The diffuse source appears to have had an unusual origin and we discuss possible mechanisms. We examine whether the source could be re-energized relic radio plasma or a buoyant synchrotron bubble that is a relic of activity in NGC 5419. The more exciting prospect is that the source is relic plasma preserved in the cluster gaseous environment following the chance injection of a radio lobe into the ICM as a result of activity in a galaxy at the periphery of the cluster.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa