2,260 research outputs found
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon for the Detection of Nonpolar Analytes under Counteracting Humidity Conditions
Stoics against stoics in Cudworth's "A Treatise of Freewill"
In his 'A Treatise of Freewill', Ralph Cudworth argues against Stoic determinism by drawing on what he takes to be other concepts found in Stoicism, notably the claim that some things are âup to usâ and that these things are the product of our choice. These concepts are central to the late Stoic Epictetus and it appears at first glance as if Cudworth is opposing late Stoic voluntarism against early Stoic determinism. This paper argues that in fact, despite his claim to be drawing on Stoic doctrine, Cudworth uses these terms with a meaning first articulated only later, by the Peripatetic commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias
Evaluating the impact of titanium or equivalent carbon on the hot ductility of medium carbon steels
Humour as social dreaming:Stand-up comedy as therapeutic performance
Stand-up comedy binds dramatic cultural spectacle to ritualised, intimate exposure. Examining âcaseâ examples from live comic performance, this paper describes stand-up as a kind of social dreaming. The article proposes a theoretical frame drawing on Thomas Ogdenâs notion of âtalking as dreamingâ and psychoanalytic accounts connecting humour and melancholia. Locating the stand-up comedianâs propensity for humour in a specialist capacity to hone, display and process traumata, the paper characterises stand-up as a performative oscillation evoking paranoid-schizoid and depressive anxieties. A psychosocial gloss places stand-up as a cultural resource in the service of the popular-as-therapeutic. The paper articulates complementarities between Henri Bergsonâs formulations on the function of laughter and an emergent object relations account in order to help to recognise âcontainingâ and âcultural-restorativeâ aspects of much stand-up, understood as contemporary psychosocial ritual
Strangeness in Astrophysics and Cosmology
Some recent developments concerning the role of strange quark matter for
astrophysical systems and the QCD phase transition in the early universe are
addressed. Causality constraints of the soft nuclear equation of state as
extracted from subthreshold kaon production in heavy-ion collisions are used to
derive an upper mass limit for compact stars. The interplay between the
viscosity of strange quark matter and the gravitational wave emission from
rotation-powered pulsars are outlined. The flux of strange quark matter nuggets
in cosmic rays is put in perspective with a detailed numerical investigation of
the merger of two strange stars. Finally, we discuss a novel scenario for the
QCD phase transition in the early universe, which allows for a small
inflationary period due to a pronounced first order phase transition at large
baryochemical potential.Comment: 8 pages, invited talk given at the International Conference on
Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2009), Buzios, Brasil, September 28 - October
2, 200
Constraining the Size of the Circumgalactic Medium Using the Transverse Autocorrelation Function of C IV Absorbers in Paired Quasar Spectra
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) plays a vital role in the formation and
evolution of galaxies, acting as a lifeline between galaxies and the
surrounding intergalactic medium (IGM). In this study we leverage a unique
sample of quasar pairs to investigate the properties of the CGM with absorption
line tomography. We present a new sample of medium resolution Keck/ESI,
Magellan/MagE, and VLT/XSHOOTER spectra of 29 quasar pairs at redshift . We supplement the sample with additional spectra of 32 pairs from the
literature, creating a catalog of 61 quasar pairs with angular separations
between 1.7" and 132.9" and projected physical separations () between
14 kpc and 887 kpc. We construct a catalog of 906 metal-line absorption
doublets of C IV () with equivalent widths ranging
from 6 m{\AA} m{\AA}. The best fit linear model to
the log-space equivalent width frequency distribution () of the sample yields coefficients of and
. To constrain the projected extent of C IV, we calculate the
transverse autocorrelation function. The flattening of the autocorrelation
function at low provides a lower limit for the coherence length of
the metal enriched CGM - on the order of 200 comoving kpc. This
physical size constraint allows us to refine our understanding of the metals in
the CGM, where the extent of C IV in the CGM depends on gas flows, feedback,
timescale of metal injection and mixing, and the mass of the host galaxies.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication by The
Astronomical Journa
Random graphs with arbitrary degree distributions and their applications
Recent work on the structure of social networks and the internet has focussed
attention on graphs with distributions of vertex degree that are significantly
different from the Poisson degree distributions that have been widely studied
in the past. In this paper we develop in detail the theory of random graphs
with arbitrary degree distributions. In addition to simple undirected,
unipartite graphs, we examine the properties of directed and bipartite graphs.
Among other results, we derive exact expressions for the position of the phase
transition at which a giant component first forms, the mean component size, the
size of the giant component if there is one, the mean number of vertices a
certain distance away from a randomly chosen vertex, and the average
vertex-vertex distance within a graph. We apply our theory to some real-world
graphs, including the world-wide web and collaboration graphs of scientists and
Fortune 1000 company directors. We demonstrate that in some cases random graphs
with appropriate distributions of vertex degree predict with surprising
accuracy the behavior of the real world, while in others there is a measurable
discrepancy between theory and reality, perhaps indicating the presence of
additional social structure in the network that is not captured by the random
graph.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, some new material added in this version along
with minor updates and correction
Accuracy of magnetic resonance studies in the detection of chondral and labral lesions in femoroacetabular impingement : systematic review and meta-analysis
Background: Several types of Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are commonly used in imaging of femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), however till now there are no clear protocols and recommendations for each type. The aim of this meta-analysis is to detect the accuracy of conventional magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI), direct magnetic resonance arthrography (dMRA) and indirect magnetic resonance arthrography (iMRA) in the diagnosis of chondral and labral lesions in femoroacetabular impingement (FAI).
Methods: A literature search was finalized on the 17th of May 2016 to collect all studies identifying the accuracy of cMRI, dMRA and iMRA in diagnosing chondral and labral lesions associated with FAI using surgical results (arthroscopic or open) as a reference test. Pooled sensitivity and specificity with 95% confidence intervals using a random-effects meta-analysis for MRI, dMRA and iMRA were calculated also area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was retrieved whenever possible where AUC is equivocal to diagnostic accuracy.
Results: The search yielded 192 publications which were reviewed according inclusion and exclusion criteria then 21 studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria for the qualitative analysis with a total number of 828 cases, lastly 12 studies were included in the quantitative meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that as regard labral lesions the pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC for cMRI were 0.864, 0.833 and 0.88 and for dMRA were 0.91, 0.58 and 0.92. While in chondral lesions the pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC for cMRI were 0.76, 0.72 and 0.75 and for dMRA were 0.75, 0.79 and 0.83, while for iMRA were sensitivity of 0.722 and specificity of 0.917.
Conclusions: The present meta-analysis showed that the diagnostic test accuracy was superior for dMRA when compared with cMRI for detection of labral and chondral lesions. The diagnostic test accuracy was superior for labral lesions when compared with chondral lesions in both cMRI and dMRA. Promising results are obtained concerning iMRA but further studies still needed to fully assess its diagnostic accuracy
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