3,523 research outputs found
Boosting clinical performance: The impact of enhanced final year placements.
BACKGROUND: This study follows on from a study that investigated how to develop effective final year medical student assistantship placements, using multidisciplinary clinical teams in planning and delivery. AIMS: This study assessed the effects on objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) performance of the in-course enhanced "super-assistantship" placement introduced to a randomly selected sample of 2013-14 final year medical students at Leeds medical school. METHODS: Quantitative data analysis was used to compare the global grades of OSCE stations between students who undertook this placement against those who did not. RESULTS: There was a small overall improvement in the "super-assistantship" student scores across the whole assessment (effect size = 0.085). "Pre-op Capacity", "Admissions Prescribing" and "Hip Pain" stations had small-medium effect sizes (0.226, 0.215, and 0.214) in favor of the intervention group. Other stations had small effect sizes (0.107-0.191), mostly in favor of the intervention group. CONCLUSIONS: The "super-assistantship" experience characterized by increasing student responsibility on placement can help to improve competence and confidence in clinical decision-making "in a simulated environment". The clinical environment and multidisciplinary team must be ready and supported to provide these opportunities effectively. Further in-course opportunities for increasing final year student responsibility should be developed
Gravitational Radiation From Globular Clusters
Space-based gravitational wave detectors will have the ability to observe
continuous low frequency gravitational radiation from binary star systems. They
can determine the direction to continuous sources with an angular resolution
approaching tens of arcminutes. This resolution should be sufficient to
identify binary sources as members of some nearby globular clusters. Thus,
gravitational radiation can be used to determine the population of hard
binaries in globular clusters. For particularly hard binaries, the orbital
period may change as a result of gravitational wave emission. If one of these
binaries can be identified with a globular cluster, then the distance to that
cluster can be determined. Thus, gravitational radiation may provide
reddening-independent distance measurements to globular clusters.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, uses aasms4.sty, submitted to Ap.
X-Ray Spectroscopy of the Low-Mass X-ray Binaries 2S 0918-549 and 4U1543-624: Evidence for Neon-Rich Degenerate Donors
We present high-resolution spectroscopy of the neutron-star/low-mass X-ray
binaries 2S 0918-549 and 4U 1543-624 with the High Energy Transmission Grating
Spectrometer onboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Reflection Grating
Spectrometer onboard XMM-Newton. Previous low-resolution spectra of both
sources showed a broad line-like feature at 0.7 keV that was originally
attributed to unresolved line emission. We recently showed that this feature
could also be due to excess neutral Ne absorption, and this is confirmed by the
new high-resolution Chandra spectra. The Chandra spectra are each well fit by
an absorbed power-law + blackbody model with a modified Ne/O number ratio of
0.52+/-0.12 for 2S 0918-549 and 1.5+/-0.3 for 4U 1543-624, compared to the
interstellar-medium value of 0.18. The XMM spectrum of 2S 0918-549 is best fit
by an absorbed power-law model with a Ne/O number ratio of 0.46+/-0.03,
consistent with the Chandra result. On the other hand, the XMM spectrum of 4U
1543-624 is softer and less luminous than the Chandra spectrum and has a
best-fit Ne/O number ratio of 0.54+/-0.03. The difference between the measured
abundances and the expected interstellar ratio, as well as the variation of the
column densities of O and Ne in 4U 1543-624, supports the suggestion that there
is absorption local to these binaries. We propose that the variations in the O
and Ne column densities of 4U 1543-624 are caused by changes in the ionization
structure of the local absorbing material. It is important to understand the
effect of ionization on the measured absorption columns before the abundance of
the local material can be determined. This work supports our earlier suggestion
that 2S 0918-549 and 4U 1543-624 are ultracompact binaries with Ne-rich
companions.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, major revisions including addition of XMM
spectral analysis, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal,
vol. 59
Modeling near-field radiative heat transfer from sharp objects using a general 3d numerical scattering technique
We examine the non-equilibrium radiative heat transfer between a plate and
finite cylinders and cones, making the first accurate theoretical predictions
for the total heat transfer and the spatial heat flux profile for
three-dimensional compact objects including corners or tips. We find
qualitatively different scaling laws for conical shapes at small separations,
and in contrast to a flat/slightly-curved object, a sharp cone exhibits a local
\emph{minimum} in the spatially resolved heat flux directly below the tip. The
method we develop, in which a scattering-theory formulation of thermal transfer
is combined with a boundary-element method for computing scattering matrices,
can be applied to three-dimensional objects of arbitrary shape.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Corrected background information in the
introduction, results and discussion unchange
Ultracompact X-ray Binaries in Globular Clusters: Variability of the Optical Counterpart of X1832-330 in NGC 6652
Evidence is emerging that the luminous X-ray sources in the cores of globular
clusters may often consist of, or perhaps even as a class be dominated by,
ultracompact (P < 1 hr) binary stars. To the two such systems already known, in
NGC 6624 and NGC 6712, we now add evidence for two more. We detect large
amplitude variability in the candidate optical counterpart for the X-ray source
in the core of NGC 6652. Although the available observations are relatively
brief, the existing Hubble Space Telescope data indicate a strong 43.6 min
periodic modulation of the visible flux of semi-amplitude 30%. Further,
although the orbital period of the source in NGC 1851 is not yet explicitly
measured, we demonstrate that previous correlations of optical luminosity with
X-ray luminosity and accretion disk size, strengthened by recent data, strongly
imply that the period of that system is also less than 1 hr. Thus currently
there is evidence that 4 of the 7 globular cluster X-ray sources with
constrained periods are ultracompact, a fraction far greater than that found in
X-ray binaries the field.Comment: 10 pages including 2 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in
The Astrophysical Journal Letter
Time-Resolved Ultraviolet Observations of the Globular Cluster X-ray Source in NGC 6624: The Shortest Known Period Binary System
Using the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope,
we have obtained the first time-resolved spectra of the King et al.
ultraviolet-bright counterpart to the 11-minute binary X-ray source in the core
of the globular cluster NGC 6624. This object cannot be readily observed in the
visible, even from HST, due to a much brighter star superposed <0.1'' distant.
Our FOS data show a highly statistically significant UV flux modulation with a
period of 11.46+-0.04 min, very similar to the 685 sec period of the known
X-ray modulation, definitively confirming the association between the King et
al. UV counterpart and the intense X-ray source. The UV amplitude is very large
compared with the observed X-ray oscillations: X-ray variations are generally
reported as 2-3% peak-to-peak, whereas our data show an amplitude of about 16%
in the 126-251 nm range. A model for the system by Arons & King predicts
periodic UV fluctuations in this shortest-known period binary system, due to
the cyclically changing aspect of the X-ray heated face of the secondary star
(perhaps a very low mass helium degenerate). However, prior to our
observations, this predicted modulation has not been detected. Employing the
Arons & King formalism, which invokes a number of different physical
assumptions, we infer a system orbital inclination 35deg<i<50 deg. Amongst the
three best-studied UV/optical counterparts to the intense globular cluster
X-ray sources, two are now thought to consist of exotic double-degenerate
ultrashort period binary systems.Comment: 10 pages including 2 figures in Latex (AASTeX 4.0). Accepted for
publication in vol. 482 (1997 June 10 issue) of The Astrophysical Journal
(Letters
The ABC Effect in Double-Pionic Nuclear Fusion and a pn Resonance as its Possible Origin
The ABC effect -- a long-standing puzzle in double-pionic fusion -- has been
reexamined by the first exclusive and kinematically complete measurements of
solid statistics for the fusion reactions , He and He using the WASA detector, first at
CELSIUS and recently at COSY -- the latter with a statistics increased by
another two orders of magnitude. In all cases we observe a huge low-mass
enhancement in the -invariant mass accompanied by a pronounced
excitation. For the most basic fusion reaction, the reaction, we observe in addition a very pronounced resonance-like
energy dependence in the total cross section with a maximum 90 MeV below the
mass and a width of only 50 MeV, which is five times smaller
than expected from a conventional -channel excitation. This
reveals the ABC effect to be the consequence of a s-channel resonance with the
formfactor of this dibaryonic state being reflected in the low-mass enhancement
of the -invariant mass. From the fusion reactions to He and He
we learn that this resonance is robust enough to survive even in nuclei.Comment: conference proceedings PANIC 0
Adaptive NLMS Partial Crosstalk Cancellation in Digital Subscriber Lines
Crosstalk is a major limitation to achieving high data-rates in next generation VDSL systems. Whilst crosstalk cancellation can be applied to completely remove crosstalk, it is often too complex for application in typical VDSL binders, which can contain up to hundreds of lines. A practical alternative, known as partial cancellation limits the cancellation to crosstalkers that cause severe interference to the other lines within the binder. In real VDSL systems, the crosstalk environment changes rapidly as new lines come online; old lines go offline, and the crosstalk channels change with fluctuations in ambient temperature. Therefore, adaptive crosstalk cancellers are often required. In this paper, we propose a new detection guided adaptive NLMS method for Adaptive Partial Crosstalk Cancellation that detects significant crosstalkers and tracks variations in their crosstalk channels. This exploits the sparse and column-wise diagonal dominant properties of the crosstalk channel matrix and leads to fast convergence, accurate crosstalk channel tracking, with a lower update complexity. The end result is an adaptive Partial Crosstalk Cancellation algorithm that has lower run-time complexity than prior state-of-the-art whilst yielding comparatively high data-rates and reliable service
Regression of murine lung tumors by the let-7 microRNA.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have recently emerged as an important new class of cellular regulators that control various cellular processes and are implicated in human diseases, including cancer. Here, we show that loss of let-7 function enhances lung tumor formation in vivo, strongly supporting the hypothesis that let-7 is a tumor suppressor. Moreover, we report that exogenous delivery of let-7 to established tumors in mouse models of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) significantly reduces the tumor burden. These results demonstrate the therapeutic potential of let-7 in NSCLC and point to miRNA replacement therapy as a promising approach in cancer treatment
Detection of Carbon Monoxide Using Polymer-Carbon Composite Films
A carbon monoxide (CO) sensor was developed that can be incorporated into an existing sensing array architecture. The CO sensor is a low-power chemiresistor that operates at room temperature, and the sensor fabrication techniques are compatible with ceramic substrates. Sensors made from four different polymers were tested: poly (4-vinylpryridine), ethylene-propylene-diene-terpolymer, polyepichlorohydrin, and polyethylene oxide (PEO). The carbon black used for the composite films was Black Pearls 2000, a furnace black made by the Cabot Corporation. Polymers and carbon black were used as received. In fact, only two of these sensors showed a good response to CO. The poly (4-vinylpryridine) sensor is noisy, but it does respond to the CO above 200 ppm. The polyepichlorohydrin sensor is less noisy and shows good response down to 100 ppm
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