Method of making a cermet Patent

Cermet for nuclear fuel constructed by pressing metal coated ceramic particles in die at temperature to cause bonding of metal coatings, and tested for thermal stabilit

The Impact of Radio AGN Bubble Composition on the Dynamics and Thermal Balance of the Intracluster Medium

Feeding and feedback of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are critical for understanding the dynamics and thermodynamics of the intracluster medium (ICM) within the cores of galaxy clusters. While radio bubbles inflated by AGN jets could be dynamically supported by cosmic rays (CRs), the impact of CR-dominated jets are not well understood. In this work, we perform three-dimensional simulations of CR-jet feedback in an isolated cluster atmosphere; we find that CR jets impact the multiphase gas differently than jets dominated by kinetic energy. In particular, CR bubbles can more efficiently uplift the cluster gas and cause an outward expansion of the hot ICM. Due to adiabatic cooling from the expansion and less efficient heating from CR bubbles by direct mixing, the ICM is more prone to local thermal instabilities, which will later enhance chaotic cold accretion onto the AGN. The amount of cold gas formed during the bubble formation and its late-time evolution sensitively depend on whether CR transport processes are included or not. We also find that low-level, subsonic driving of turbulence by AGN jets holds for both kinetic and CR jets; nevertheless, the kinematics is consistent with the Hitomi measurements. Finally, we carefully discuss the key observable signatures of each bubble model, focusing on gamma-ray emission (and related comparison with Fermi), as well as thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich constraints.Comment: accepted to Ap

Designing multilingual information access to Tate Online

The Tate is Britain's premier national art gallery and includes content from internationally-renowned artists such as Constable and Turner. Like most cultural heritage institutions, the Tate provides online access to a large amount of digitized material. Given the international importance of content provided by the Tate Gallery, multilingual access would seem an ideal way in which to increase accessibility to the collections, and thereby increase traffic to the website. In this short paper we propose using the Tate as a case study for cross-language research and evaluation, determining the gallery’s requirements and the multilingual needs of their end-users

Exploring the nature of counterfactual thinking and their perceived consequences in an elite sporting context: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

This study explored the characteristics, contextual factors and consequences of counterfactual thoughts in seven elite athletes using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Counterfactuals were experienced regularly with self-directed and upward counterfactuals (cognitions about how things could be better) being most frequent. These upward counterfactuals typically occurred following performance that was below participants’ goals and expectations These thoughts were perceived by participants to have a negative affect initially, and that they then led to facilitative behavioral consequences around learning and development. Some elements of counterfactual thinking could be used as a useful reflective tool to encourage elite athletes to problem solve and motivate cognitive, emotional and behavioral change to enhance future performance

Assembling thefacebook: Using heterogeneity to understand online social network assembly

Online social networks represent a popular and diverse class of social media systems. Despite this variety, each of these systems undergoes a general process of online social network assembly, which represents the complicated and heterogeneous changes that transform newly born systems into mature platforms. However, little is known about this process. For example, how much of a network's assembly is driven by simple growth? How does a network's structure change as it matures? How does network structure vary with adoption rates and user heterogeneity, and do these properties play different roles at different points in the assembly? We investigate these and other questions using a unique dataset of online connections among the roughly one million users at the first 100 colleges admitted to Facebook, captured just 20 months after its launch. We first show that different vintages and adoption rates across this population of networks reveal temporal dynamics of the assembly process, and that assembly is only loosely related to network growth. We then exploit natural experiments embedded in this dataset and complementary data obtained via Internet archaeology to show that different subnetworks matured at different rates toward similar end states. These results shed light on the processes and patterns of online social network assembly, and may facilitate more effective design for online social systems.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Web Science Conference (WebSci), 201

Motor and executive function at 6 years of age after extremely preterm birth

BACKGROUND. Studies of very preterm infants have demonstrated impairments in multiple neurocognitive domains. We hypothesized that neuromotor and executive- function deficits may independently contribute to school failure. METHODS.We studied children who were born at 25 completed weeks’ gestation in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1995 at early school age. Children underwent standardized cognitive and neuromotor assessments, including the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children and NEPSY, and a teacher-based assessment of academic achievement. RESULTS. Of 308 surviving children, 241 (78%) were assessed at a median age of 6 years 4 months. Compared with 160 term classmates, 180 extremely preterm children without cerebral palsy and attending mainstream school performed less well on 3 simple motor tasks: posting coins, heel walking, and 1-leg standing. They more frequently had non–right-hand preferences (28% vs 10%) and more associated/ overflow movements during motor tasks. Standardized scores for visuospatial and sensorimotor function performance differed from classmates by 1.6 and 1.1 SDs of the classmates’ scores, respectively. These differences attenuated but remained significant after controlling for overall cognitive scores. Cognitive, visuospatial scores, and motor scores explained 54% of the variance in teachers’ ratings of performance in the whole set; in the extremely preterm group, additional variance was explained by attention-executive tasks and gender. CONCLUSIONS. Impairment of motor, visuospatial, and sensorimotor function, including planning, self-regulation, inhibition, and motor persistence, contributes excess morbidity over cognitive impairment in extremely preterm children and contributes independently to poor classroom performance at 6 years of age

The EPICure study : growth and blood pressure at 6 years of age following extremely preterm birth

Background: Preterm children are at risk for reduced growth in early childhood, which may predispose them to later changes in blood pressure. We studied growth and blood pressure (BP) in extremely preterm (EP) children at age 6 years. Methods: We evaluated children who were born at 25 completed weeks of gestation or less in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1995 when they reached early school age. Children underwent standardized assessments, including auxology and sitting blood pressure. Results: Of 308 surviving children, 241 (78 percent) were assessed at a median age of 6 years 4 months; 160 full term classmates acted as a comparison group. Compared to classmates, EP children were 1.2 standard deviations (SD) lighter, 0.97SD shorter, BMI was 0.95SD lower and head circumference 1.3SD lower. Compared to 2.5 years of age, EP children showed catch up in terms of weight by 0.37SD, height by 0.42SD and head circumference by 0.13SD. Systolic and diastolic BP were lower by 2.3mmHg and 2.4mmHg respectively in EP children but these differences were accounted for by differences in height and BMI. Maternal smoking in pregnancy was associated with lower BP, children born before 24 weeks had higher systolic and children given postnatal steroids higher diastolic pressures. Conclusions: Poor postnatal growth seen after birth and at in the third year persists into school age. Catch up growth reduces some of the early deficit but is least for head growth. Despite serious postnatal growth restriction blood pressure appears similar in both EP and term classmates

Polarization anisotropy in light propagation inside opal-based photonic crystals

Photonic crystals is expected to be the backbone of future optical integrated circuits. To realize this goal, light propagation and interaction with matters must be understood and controlled. In this work, we investigate the propagation of light inside opal-based photonic crystals along certain paths at the edge of its Brillouin Zone. Opal films made of polystyrene particles were prepared using self-assembly approach, the capillary deposition method. The structures and the optical properties of the resulting opals were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and polarization-resolved spectroscopy, respectively. The opal films have a face-centered cubic structure consisting of two domains showing preferential orientations. Domains in the form of ABC and ACB-type fcc crystals are oriented along the growth direction of the opal films. Light with frequencies near optical band gap shows a strong anisotropy. Light propagation inside opals depends on the polarization of the incident light. The intensity and the width of the extinction peaks for p-polarized incident light differ significantly from those of s-polarized light. The anisotropy disappears at frequencies above the optical band gap. The anisotropic light propagation is related to the strong anisotropy in equifrequency surface of band structure around the band gap. The shift of the extinction peaks and the variation of intensity of the extinction peaks will be discussed using the combination of kinematic and simplified dynamical diffraction theory

A Bayesian Analogue of Gleason's Theorem

We introduce a novel notion of probability within quantum history theories and give a Gleasonesque proof for these assignments. This involves introducing a tentative novel axiom of probability. We also discuss how we are to interpret these generalised probabilities as partially ordered notions of preference and we introduce a tentative generalised notion of Shannon entropy. A Bayesian approach to probability theory is adopted throughout, thus the axioms we use will be minimal criteria of rationality rather than ad hoc mathematical axioms.Comment: 14 pages, v2: minor stylistic changes, v3: changes made in-line with to-be-published versio

Polarization anisotropy in light propagation inside opal-based photonic crystals

Photonic crystals is expected to be the backbone of future optical integrated circuits. To realize this goal, light propagation and interaction with matters must be understood and controlled. In this work, we investigate the propagation of light inside opal-based photonic crystals along certain paths at the edge of its Brillouin Zone. Opal films made of polystyrene particles were prepared using self-assembly approach, the capillary deposition method. The structures and the optical properties of the resulting opals were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and polarization-resolved spectroscopy, respectively. The opal films have a face-centered cubic structure consisting of two domains showing preferential orientations. Domains in the form of ABC and ACB-type fcc crystals are oriented along the growth direction of the opal films. Light with frequencies near optical band gap shows a strong anisotropy. Light propagation inside opals depends on the polarization of the incident light. The intensity and the width of the extinction peaks for p-polarized incident light differ significantly from those of s-polarized light. The anisotropy disappears at frequencies above the optical band gap. The anisotropic light propagation is related to the strong anisotropy in equifrequency surface of band structure around the band gap. The shift of the extinction peaks and the variation of intensity of the extinction peaks will be discussed using the combination of kinematic and simplified dynamical diffraction theory