149 research outputs found
Biomass Resources for Alcohol Fuels
The current shortage in petroleum and the poor outlook for the future indicate that a determined effort should be made at this time to develop, construct, and operate alternate fuel plants.
For the near term, the production of alcohol fuel from biomass represents a fast practical means of adding to the dwindling petroleum supply.
The biomass feedstocks which will feed the alcohol distilleries need to be carefully selected. The food chains should not be drastically interrupted, and agricultural economic balances should not be altered.
This paper will investigate the various alternatives regarding alcohol production within the confines of selected biomass feedstocks, so as to promote a new industry, rather than interrupt normal agricultural activities
Conservation-The First Alternate Fuel
A great amount of attention and funds is being focused on alternate forms of energy. These efforts on a broad front should and must continue, but it is clear that the quickest, cheapest, and most reliable way to make more energy available for our use is through conservation. It can be demonstrated that the potential energy savings are twice the energy we now import from foreign sources
Instabilities of Electroweak Strings
We investigate the instabilities of low winding number electroweak strings
using standard numerical techniques of linear algebra. For strings of unit
winding we are able to confirm and extend existing calculations of the unstable
region in the () plane. For strings of higher winding
number we map the unstable regions for the various decay modes.Comment: Latex, 11 pages, 1 uuencoded figur
International low back pain guidelines: A comparison of two research based models of care for the management of acute low back pain.
Evidence based guidelines for the management of acute low back pain (ALBP) have been formulated by numerous countries. There are discrepancies between guidelines regarding physiotherapy treatment.
The aim of this study was to compare two research based models derived from international LBP guidelines. A single-blind randomised controlled trial was undertaken in a physiotherapy outpatients department. Subjects with ALBP were randomly allocated to an ‘assess/advise/treat’ group (n = 50) or an ‘assess/advise/wait’ group (n = 52). The primary outcome measure was the Roland and Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ). Secondary outcome measures of pain (VAS, usual pain intensity) depressive symptoms (MZSRDS) somatic distress (MSPQ) anxiety (STAIS) quality of life (SF36) and general health (EuroQol) were also obtained.
Outcomes were assessed at 6-weeks, 3-months and 6-months. At 6-weeks subjects in the assess/advise/treat group demonstrated less LBP related disability (p = 0.02) and depressive symptoms (p = 0.01), as well as better general health (p = 0.006, p = 0.05), vitality (p \u3c 0.001), social functioning (p = 0.004) and mental health (p = 0.002). At long-term assessment (3 and 6 months) subjects in the assess/advise/treat group were less distressed (p = 0.004), anxious (p = 0.01) and had fewer depressive symptoms (p = 0.001), as well as reporting better general health (p = 0.009, p = 0.05), emotional role (p = 0.03) and mental health (p = 0.04).
Active physiotherapy produces better short-term outcomes than advice. Delaying treatment has no long-term consequences on pain or disability, but affects the development of psychosocial features
Early intervention for the management of acute low back pain: A single blind randomised controlled trial of biopsychosocial education, manual therapy and exercise
Design: A single blind randomised controlled trial comparing two models of care for patients with simple acute low back pain (ALBP).
Objectives: To compare two research-based models of care for ALBP, and investigate the effect of the timing of physical intervention. Summary of Background Data National guidelines offer conflicting information on the delivery of physical treatment in the management of ALBP. Review of guidelines suggests two different models of care. Direct comparisons between these models are lacking in the literature. The present study aims to compare these two approaches to the management of ALBP.
Method: Among 804 referred patients, 102 subjects met the specific admission criteria and were randomly assigned to an ‘assess/advise/treat’ group or an ‘assess/advise/wait’ group. The intervention consisted of biopsychosocial education, manual therapy and exercise. Assessment of short-term outcome enables comparison to be made between intervention and advice to stay active. Assessment of long-term outcome enables comparison to be made between early and late intervention. Study outcomes of reported pain (VAS), functional disability (RMDQ), mood (MZSRDS, MSPQ, STAIS), general health (Euroqol) and quality of life (SF-36) were assessed at baseline, six weeks, three months and six months.
Results: At six weeks, the ‘assess/advise/treat’ group demonstrated greater improvements in disability, mood, general health and quality of life than patients in the ‘assess/advise/wait’ group (p0.05). However, mood, general health and quality of life remained significantly better in the ‘assess/advise/treat’ group (p\u3c0.05).
Conclusions: At six weeks physiotherapy intervention is more effective than advice on staying active, leading to more rapid improvement in function, mood, quality of life and general health. The timing of intervention affects the progression of psychosocial features. If treatment is provided later, the same psychosocial benefits are not achieved. Therefore an \u27assess/advise/treat\u27 model of care seems to offer better outcomes than an \u27assess/advise/wait\u27 model of care
Examples of Embedded Defects (in Particle Physics and Condensed Matter)
We present a series of examples designed to clarify the formalism of the
companion paper `Embedded Vortices'. After summarising this formalism in a
prescriptive sense, we run through several examples: firstly, deriving the
embedded defect spectrum for Weinberg-Salam theory, then discussing several
examples designed to illustrate facets of the formalism. We then calculate the
embedded defect spectrum for three physical Grand Unified Theories and conclude
with a discussion of vortices formed in the superfluid He-A phase
transition.Comment: final corrections. latex fil
Biconformal supergravity and the AdS/CFT conjecture
Biconformal supergravity models provide a new gauging of the superconformal
group relevant to the Maldacena conjecture. Using the group quotient method to
biconformally gauge SU(2,2|N), we generate a 16-dim superspace. We write the
most general even- and odd-parity actions linear in the curvatures, the bosonic
sector of which is known to descend to general relativity on a 4-dim manifold.Comment: 35 pages, adjusted group nomenclature, 1 reference and
acknowledgements adde
Recommended from our members
Balancing act: exploring the tone of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
This paper provides an analysis of The Life Aquatic in the context of debates around tone, irony, the Smart Film, the New Sincerity and the Quirky. It argues that Anderson is one of a small but significant number of filmmakers to escape from the indiscriminate irony of fin de sie`cle cinema, and finds The Life Aquatic Aquatic a particularly interesting film in which to explore such matters because of its ready artifice, strong elements of pastiche and measuredly preposterous excesses. Offering a critical analysis, the paper balances an engagement with some of the systemic elements of the film’s tone with the detailed organisation of tonal elements in particular sequences
The variances of the distributions of the combinations of the sexes within mammalian litters: Notes to mark the centenary of the problem
A new analysis of scattering from Roy and Steiner type equations
With the aim of generating new constraints on the OZI suppressed couplings of
chiral perturbation theory a set of six equations of the Roy and Steiner type
for the - and -waves of the scattering amplitudes is derived. The
range of validity and the multiplicity of the solutions are discussed. Precise
numerical solutions are obtained in the range E\lapprox 1 GeV which make use
as input, for the first time, of the most accurate experimental data available
at GeV for both and amplitudes.
Our main result is the determination of a narrow allowed region for the two
S-wave scattering lengths. Present experimental data below 1 GeV are found to
be in generally poor agreement with our results. A set of threshold expansion
parameters, as well as sub-threshold parameters are computed. For the latter,
matching with the SU(3) chiral expansion at NLO is performed.Comment: 45 pages, 17 figures. v2: New title, minor correction
- …