12,899 research outputs found
Electric power for space satellites
The development of electric power systems for satellites is discussed as an evolutionary process requiring the integration of power generation, power storage, and power control and distribution. The growth of space electric power systems is traced. The capabilities and limitations of the various elements (i.e. silicon solar cells) are discussed together with their impact on future technological growth
Eating the elephant whole or in slices: views of participants in a smoking cessation intervention trial on multiple behaviour changes as sequential or concurrent tasks
Background: This paper explores smoking cessation participants’ perceptions of attempting weight management alongside smoking cessation within the context of a health improvement intervention implemented in Glasgow, Scotland.
<p/>Methods: One hundred and thirty-eight participants were recruited from smoking cessation classes in areas of multiple deprivation in Glasgow and randomised to intervention, receiving dietary advice, or to control groups. The primary outcome of the study was to determine the % change in body weight. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 15 intervention and 15 control participants at weeks 6 (during the intervention) and 24 (at the end of the intervention). The current paper, though predominantly qualitative, links perceptions of behaviour modification to % weight change and cessation rates at week 24 thereby enabling a better understanding of the mediators influencing multiple behaviour change.
<p/>Results: Our findings suggest that participants who perceive separate behaviour changes as part of a broader approach to a healthier lifestyle, and hence attempt behaviour changes concurrently, may be at comparative advantage in positively achieving dual outcomes.
<p/>Conclusions: These findings highlight the need to assess participants’ preference for attempting multiple behaviour changes sequentially or simultaneously in addition to assessing their readiness to change. Further testing of this hypothesis is warranted
Development of a contra-rotating tidal current turbine and analysis of performance
A contra-rotating marine current turbine has a number of attractive features: nearzero reactive torque on the support structure, near-zero swirl in the wake, and high relative inter-rotor rotational speeds. Modified blade element modelling theory has been used to design and predict the characteristics of such a turbine, and a model turbine and test rig have been constructed. Tests in a towing tank demonstrated the feasibility of the concept. Power coefficients were high for such a small model and in excellent agreement with predictions, confirming the accuracy of the computational modelling procedures. Highfrequency blade loading data were obtained in the course of the experiments. These show the anticipated dynamic components for a contra-rotating machine. Flow visualization of the wake verified the lack of swirl behind the turbine. A larger machine is presently under construction for sea trials
What is the 'problem' that outreach work seeks to address and how might it be tackled? Seeking theory in a primary health prevention programme
<b>Background</b> Preventive approaches to health are disproportionately accessed by the more affluent and recent health improvement policy advocates the use of targeted preventive primary care to reduce risk factors in poorer individuals and communities. Outreach has become part of the health service response. Outreach has a long history of engaging those who do not otherwise access services. It has, however, been described as eclectic in its purpose, clientele and mode of practice; its effectiveness is unproven. Using a primary prevention programme in the UK as a case, this paper addresses two research questions: what are the perceived problems of non-engagement that outreach aims to address; and, what specific mechanisms of outreach are hypothesised to tackle these.<p></p>
<b>Methods</b> Drawing on a wider programme evaluation, the study undertook qualitative interviews with strategically selected health-care professionals. The analysis was thematically guided by the concept of 'candidacy' which theorises the dynamic process through which services and individuals negotiate appropriate service use.<p></p>
<b>Results</b> The study identified seven types of engagement 'problem' and corresponding solutions. These 'problems' lie on a continuum of complexity in terms of the challenges they present to primary care. Reasons for non-engagement are congruent with the concept of 'candidacy' but point to ways in which it can be expanded.<p></p>
<b>Conclusions</b> The paper draws conclusions about the role of outreach in contributing to the implementation of inequalities focused primary prevention and identifies further research needed in the theoretical development of both outreach as an approach and candidacy as a conceptual framework
Classification of extensions of principal bundles and transitive Lie groupoids with prescribed kernel and cokernel
The equivalence of principal bundles with transitive Lie groupoids due to
Ehresmann is a well known result. A remarkable generalisation of this
equivalence, due to Mackenzie, is the equivalence of principal bundle
extensions with those transitive Lie groupoids over the total space of a
principal bundle, which also admit an action of the structure group by
automorphisms. This paper proves the existence of suitably equivariant
transition functions for such groupoids, generalising consequently the
classification of principal bundles by means of their transition functions, to
extensions of principal bundles by an equivariant form of \v{C}ech cohomology.Comment: 23 page
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Weathering microenvironments on feldspar surfaces: implications for understanding fluid-mineral reactions in soils
The mechanisms by which coatings develop on weathered grain surfaces, and their potential impact on rates of fluid-mineral interaction, have been investigated by examining feldspars from a 1.1 ky old soil in the Glen Feshie chronosequence, Scottish highlands. Using the focused ion beam technique, electron-transparent foils for characterization by transmission electron microscopy were cut from selected parts of grain surfaces. Some parts were bare whereas others had accumulations, a few micrometres thick, of weathering products, often mixed with mineral and microbial debris. Feldspar exposed at bare grain surfaces is crystalline throughout and so there is no evidence for the presence of the amorphous 'leached layers' that typically form in acid-dissolution experiments and have been described from some natural weathering contexts. The weathering products comprise sub-μm thick crystallites of an Fe-K aluminosilicate, probably smectite, that have grown within an amorphous and probably organic-rich matrix. There is also evidence for crystallization of clays having been mediated by fungal hyphae. Coatings formed within Glen Feshie soils after ∼1.1 ky are insufficiently continuous or impermeable to slow rates of fluid-feldspar reactions, but provide valuable insights into the complex weathering microenvironments on debris and microbe-covered mineral surfaces
Coupling Poisson and Jacobi structures on foliated manifolds
Let M be a differentiable manifold endowed with a foliation F. A Poisson
structure P on M is F-coupling if the image of the annihilator of TF by the
sharp-morphism defined by P is a normal bundle of the foliation F. This notion
extends Sternberg's coupling symplectic form of a particle in a Yang-Mills
field. In the present paper we extend Vorobiev's theory of coupling Poisson
structures from fiber bundles to foliations and give simpler proofs of
Vorobiev's existence and equivalence theorems of coupling Poisson structures on
duals of kernels of transitive Lie algebroids over symplectic manifolds. Then
we discuss the extension of the coupling condition to Jacobi structures on
foliated manifolds.Comment: LateX, 38 page
Genetic management strategies for controlling infectious diseases in livestock populations
This paper considers the use of disease resistance genes to control the transmission of infection through an animal population. Transmission is summarised by R0, the basic reproductive ratio of a pathogen. If R0 > 1.0 a major epidemic can occur, thus a disease control strategy should aim to reduce R0 below 1.0, e.g. by mixing resistant with susceptible wild-type animals. Suppose there is a resistance allele, such that transmission of infection through a population homozygous for this allele will be R02 < R01, where R01 describes transmission in the wildtype population. For an otherwise homogeneous population comprising animals of these two groups, R0 is the weighted average of the two sub-populations: R0 = R01ρ + R02 (1 - ρ), where ρ is the proportion of wildtype animals. If R01 > 1 and R02 < 1, the proportions of the two genotypes should be such that R0 ≤ 1, i.e. ρ ≤ (R0 - R02)/(R01 - R02). If R02 = 0, the proportion of resistant animals must be at least 1 - 1/R01. For an n genotype model the requirement is still to have R0 ≤ 1.0. Probabilities of epidemics in genetically mixed populations conditional upon the presence of a single infected animal were derived. The probability of no epidemic is always 1/(R0 + 1). When R0 ≤ 1 the probability of a minor epidemic, which dies out without intervention, is R0/(R0 + 1). When R0 > 1 the probability of a minor and major epidemics are 1/(R0 + 1) and (R0 - 1)/(R0 + 1). Wherever possible a combination of genotypes should be used to minimise the invasion possibilities of pathogens that have mutated to overcome the effects of specific resistance alleles
Heavy-Light Semileptonic Decays in Staggered Chiral Perturbation Theory
We calculate the form factors for the semileptonic decays of heavy-light
pseudoscalar mesons in partially quenched staggered chiral perturbation theory
(\schpt), working to leading order in , where is the heavy quark
mass. We take the light meson in the final state to be a pseudoscalar
corresponding to the exact chiral symmetry of staggered quarks. The treatment
assumes the validity of the standard prescription for representing the
staggered ``fourth root trick'' within \schpt by insertions of factors of 1/4
for each sea quark loop. Our calculation is based on an existing partially
quenched continuum chiral perturbation theory calculation with degenerate sea
quarks by Becirevic, Prelovsek and Zupan, which we generalize to the staggered
(and non-degenerate) case. As a by-product, we obtain the continuum partially
quenched results with non-degenerate sea quarks. We analyze the effects of
non-leading chiral terms, and find a relation among the coefficients governing
the analytic valence mass dependence at this order. Our results are useful in
analyzing lattice computations of form factors and when the
light quarks are simulated with the staggered action.Comment: 53 pages, 8 figures, v2: Minor correction to the section on finite
volume effects, and typos fixed. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.
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