Participants’ perspectives of feasibility of a novel group treatment for people with cognitive communication difficulties following acquired brain injury

Purpose: To determine whether treatment was acceptable to participants and perceived as beneficial by exploring the experiences of people with cognitive communication difficulties following acquired brain injury who participated in a novel, group, communication, project-based treatment. The purpose of the treatment was to improve participants’ communication skills and quality of life, by focusing group activity towards the production of a project and by incorporating individualised communication goals into group sessions. Methods: Twenty-one people with acquired brain injury recruited from community settings participated in project-based treatment, which comprised one individual and nine group sessions (of 2-3 people) over six weeks. Structured interviews were conducted post-treatment as part of a broader assessment battery. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using content analysis to identify codes, categories and themes. Results: Themes identified from the analysis centred around the treatment experience (general experience; group experience; project experience; working on goals) and benefit of treatment (communicative benefit; other benefits; emotional effects; meeting others; something to do). These themes were consistent with the treatment being perceived as acceptable and having initial efficacy for the participant group. Conclusion: The qualitative data presented here provide positive feasibility findings (acceptability and initial efficacy) of project-based treatment for people with acquired brain injury. The results highlight the value of incorporating participants’ views in assessing feasibility in developing novel interventions

Expressive vocabulary predicts non-verbal executive function: a 2-year longitudinal study of deaf and hearing children

Numerous studies suggest an association between language and executive function (EF), but evidence of a developmental relationship remains inconclusive. Data were collected from 75 deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) children and 82 hearing age-matched controls. Children were 6-11 years old at first time of testing, and completed a battery of nonverbal EF tasks and a test of expressive vocabulary. These tasks were completed again two years later. Both groups improved their scores on all tasks over this period. DHH children performed significantly less well than hearing peers on some EF tasks and the vocabulary test at both time points. Cross-lagged panel models showed that vocabulary at Time 1 predicted change in EF scores for both DHH and hearing children but not the reverse

A Census of X-ray gas in NGC 1068: Results from 450ks of Chandra HETG Observation

We present models for the X-ray spectrum of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068. These are fitted to data obtained using the High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) on the Chandra X-ray observatory. The data show line and radiative recombination continuum (RRC) emission from a broad range of ions and elements. The models explore the importance of excitation processes for these lines including photoionization followed by recombination, radiative excitation by absorption of continuum radiation and inner shell fluorescence. The models show that the relative importance of these processes depends on the conditions in the emitting gas, and that no single emitting component can fit the entire spectrum. In particular, the relative importance of radiative excitation and photoionization/recombination differs according to the element and ion stage emitting the line. This in turn implies a diversity of values for the ionization parameter of the various components of gas responsible for the emission, ranging from log(xi)=1 -- 3. Using this, we obtain an estimate for the total amount of gas responsible for the observed emission. The mass flux through the region included in the HETG extraction region is approximately 0.3 Msun/yr assuming ordered flow at the speed characterizing the line widths. This can be compared with what is known about this object from other techniques.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, Ap. J. in pres

The influence of material properties on the wear of abradable materials

In aero-engines it is possible for the blades of the compressor, turbine or fan to incur into their casings. At these interfaces a lining of composite abradable material is used to limit damage to components and thereby sustain the efficiency and longevity of the engine as a whole. These composite materials must have good abradability and erosion resistance. Previously, the wear mechanisms at the contact between the blade and the coating have been characterised using stroboscopic imaging and force measurement on a scaled test-rig platform. This work is focused on the characterisation of the wear mechanism for two different hardnesses of abradable lining. The established stroboscopic imaging technique and contact force measurements are combined with sectioning of the abradable material in order to analyse the material’s response during the tests. A measure of the thermal properties and the resulting temperature of the linings during the test have also been made to further understand the effect of coating hardness. The wear mechanism, material response, contact force and thermal properties of the coating have been used to characterise the different material behaviour with different hardness. At low incursion rates, with a soft coating, the blade tip becomes worn after an initial adhesive transfer from the coating. Post-test sectioning showed blade material and significant compaction present in the coating. The harder coating produced adhesion on the blade tip with solidification observed in the coating. Thermal diffusivity measurements and modelling indicated that thermally driven wear observed was as a consequence of the increased number of boundaries between the metal and hBN phases present interrupting heat flow, leading to a concentration of surface heat. At higher incursion rates, the wear mechanism is more similar between the coatings and a cutting mechanism dominates producing negligible adhesion and blade wear

Regression Depth and Center Points

We show that, for any set of n points in d dimensions, there exists a hyperplane with regression depth at least ceiling(n/(d+1)). as had been conjectured by Rousseeuw and Hubert. Dually, for any arrangement of n hyperplanes in d dimensions there exists a point that cannot escape to infinity without crossing at least ceiling(n/(d+1)) hyperplanes. We also apply our approach to related questions on the existence of partitions of the data into subsets such that a common plane has nonzero regression depth in each subset, and to the computational complexity of regression depth problems.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Local magnetic anisotropy in BaFe2_2As2_2: a polarized inelastic neutron scattering study

The anisotropy of the magnetic excitations in BaFe$_2$As$_2$ was studied by polarized inelastic neutron scattering which allows one to separate the components of the magnetic response. Despite the in-plane orientation of the static ordered moment we find the in-plane polarized magnons to exhibit a larger gap than the out-of-plane polarized ones indicating very strong single-ion anisotropy within the layers. It costs more energy to rotate a spin within the orthorhombic {\it a-b} plane than rotating it perpendicular to the FeAs layers.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

On the monotonicity of scalar curvature in classical and quantum information geometry

We study the statistical monotonicity of the scalar curvature for the alpha-geometries on the simplex of probability vectors. From the results obtained and from numerical data we are led to some conjectures about quantum alpha-geometries and Wigner-Yanase-Dyson information. Finally we show that this last conjecture implies the truth of the Petz conjecture about the monotonicity of the scalar curvature of the Bogoliubov-Kubo-Mori monotone metric.Comment: 20 pages, 2 .eps figures; (v2) section 2 rewritten, typos correcte

Generalized entropic measures of quantum correlations

We propose a general measure of non-classical correlations for bipartite systems based on generalized entropic functions and majorization properties. Defined as the minimum information loss due to a local measurement, in the case of pure states it reduces to the generalized entanglement entropy, i.e., the generalized entropy of the reduced state. However, in the case of mixed states it can be non-zero in separable states, vanishing just for states diagonal in a general product basis, like the Quantum Discord. Simple quadratic measures of quantum correlations arise as a particular case of the present formalism. The minimum information loss due to a joint local measurement is also discussed. The evaluation of these measures in a few simple relevant cases is as well provided, together with comparison with the corresponding entanglement monotones.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Estimates on Green functions of second order differential operators with singular coefficients

We investigate the Green functions G(x,x^{\prime}) of some second order differential operators on R^{d+1} with singular coefficients depending only on one coordinate x_{0}. We express the Green functions by means of the Brownian motion. Applying probabilistic methods we prove that when x=(0,{\bf x}) and x^{\prime}=(0,{\bf x}^{\prime}) (here x_{0}=0) lie on the singular hyperplanes then G(0,{\bf x};0,{\bf x}^{\prime}) is more regular than the Green function of operators with regular coefficients.Comment: 16 page