Fossil Jellyfishes from Kansas Pennsylvanian Rocks and Elsewhere

A new Pennsylvanian genus of jellyfishes, Crucimedusina, tentatively is referred to the order Hydroida. New genera of Scyphomedusae include Duodecimedusina, established for one new Devonian and two new Pennsylvanian species, and Quadrimedusina, for a Jurassic species. A new class of coelenterates, Dipleurozoa, and new order, Dickinsoniida, are established, to include the new family Dickinsoniidae, based on Dickinsonia Sprigg, a new species of which also is described

A Simple Geometrical Model for Solid Friction

We present a simple model for the friction of two solid bodies moving against each other. In a self consistent way we can obtain the dependence of the macroscopic friction force as a function of the driving velocity, the normal force and the ruggedness of the surfaces in contact. Our results are discussed in the context of friction laws used in earthquake models.Comment: 9 pages, plain TeX, preprint HLRZ 24/9

Three Dimensional N=2 Supersymmetry on the Lattice

We show how 3-dimensional, N=2 supersymmetric theories, including super QCD with matter fields, can be put on the lattice with existing techniques, in a way which will recover supersymmetry in the small lattice spacing limit. Residual supersymmetry breaking effects are suppressed in the small lattice spacing limit by at least one power of the lattice spacing a.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, typo corrected, reference adde

Do stronger school smoking policies make a difference? Analysis of the health behaviour in school-aged children survey

Background: Associations of the strength of school smoking policies with cigarette, e-cigarette and cannabis use in Wales were examined. Methods: Nationally representative cross-sectional survey of pupils aged 11–16 years (N=7376) in Wales. Senior management team members from 67 schools completed questionnaires about school smoking policies, substance use education and tobacco cessation initiatives. Multi-level, logistic regression analyses investigated self-reported cigarette, e-cigarette and cannabis use, for all students and those aged 15–16 years. Results: Prevalence of current smoking, e-cigarette use and cannabis use in the past month were 5.3%, 11.5% and 2.9%, respectively. Of schools that provided details about smoking policies (66/67), 39.4% were strong (written policy applied to everyone in all locations), 43.9% were moderate (written policy not applied to everyone in all locations) and 16.7% had no written policy. There was no evidence of an association of school smoking policies with pupils’ tobacco or e-cigarette use. However, students from schools with a moderate policy [OR = 0.47; 95% (confidence interval) CI: 0.26–0.84] were less likely to have used cannabis in the past month compared to schools with no written policy. This trend was stronger for students aged 15–16 years (moderate policy: OR = 0.42; 95% CI: 0.22–0.80; strong policy: OR = 0.45; 95% CI: 0.23–0.87). Conclusions: School smoking policies may exert less influence on young people’s smoking behaviours than they did during times of higher adolescent smoking prevalence. Longitudinal studies are needed to examine the potential influence of school smoking policies on cannabis use and mechanisms explaining this associatio

Community pharmacy interventions for public health priorities: protocol for a systematic review of community pharmacy-delivered smoking, alcohol and weight management interventions

Background: Community pharmacists can deliver health care advice at an opportunistic level, related to prescription or non-prescription medicines and as part of focused services designed to reduce specific risks to health. Obesity, smoking and excessive alcohol intake are three of the most significant modifiable risk factors for morbidity and mortality in the UK, and interventions led by community pharmacists, aimed at these three risk factors, have been identified by the government as public health priorities. In 2008, the Department of Health for England stated that ‘a sound evidence base that demonstrates how pharmacy delivers effective, high quality and value for money services is needed’; this systematic review aims to respond to this requirement. Methods/design: We will search the databases MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Sciences Citation Index, ASSIA, IBSS, Sociological Abstracts, Scopus and NHS Economic Evaluation Database for studies that have evaluated interventions based on community pharmacies that aim to target weight management, smoking cessation and alcohol misuse. We will include all randomised controlled trials (RCTs), non-randomised controlled trials (NRCTs), controlled before-after studies (CBAs) and interrupted time series (ITS) and repeated measures studies. Data from included studies will be extracted by two independent reviewers and will include study details methods, results, intervention implementation/costs and methodological quality. Meta-analysis will be conducted if appropriate; if not, the synthesis will be restricted to a narrative overview of individual studies looking at the same question. Discussion: The review aims to summarise the evidence base on the effectiveness of community pharmacy interventions on health and health behaviours in relation to weight management, smoking cessation and alcohol misuse. It will also explore if, and how, socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity and age moderate the effect of the interventions and will describe how the interventions included in the review have been organised, implemented and delivered, since context is an important factor governing the success of public health interventions. The findings from this review will have an impact on the commissioning of public health services aiming to promote healthy weight, smoking cessation and prevent excessive alcohol consumption. Systematic review registration: The review has been registered with PROSPERO (registration no. CRD42013005943)

Assessment of groundwater discharges into West Neck Bay, New York, via natural tracers

Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Continental Shelf Research 29 (2006): 1971-1983, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2006.07.011.A field experiment to compare methods of assessing submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was held on Shelter Island, NY, in May 2002. We evaluated the use of radon, radium isotopes, and methane to assess SGD rates and dynamics from a glacial aquifer in the coastal zone. Fluxes of radon across the sediment-water interface were calculated from changes in measured surface water inventories following evaluation and correction for tidal effects, atmospheric evasion, and mixing with offshore waters. These fluxes were then converted to SGD rates using the measured radon concentration in the groundwater. We used the short-lived radium isotopes to calculate a horizontal mixing coefficient to assess radon loss by mixing between nearshore and offshore waters. We also made an independent calculation of SGD using the Ra-derived mixing coefficient and the long-lived 226Ra concentration gradient in the bay. Seepage rates were calculated to range between 0 and 34 cm.day-1 using the radon measurements and 15 cm.day-1 as indicated by the radium isotopes. The radiotracer results were consistent and comparable to SGD rates measured directly with vented benthic chambers (seepage meters) deployed during this experiment. These meters indicated rates between 2 and 200 cm.day-1 depending on their location. Both the calculated radon fluxes and rates measured directly by the automated seepage meters revealed a clear reproducible pattern of higher fluxes during low tides. Considering that the two techniques are completely independent, the agreement in the SGD dynamics is significant. Methane concentration in groundwater was very low (~30 nM) and not suitable as SGD tracer at this study site.The SGD intercomparison experiment was partially funded by SCOR, LOICZ, and UNESCO (IOC and IHP). W. C. Burnett acknowledges support from CICEET (Grant# 1368-810-41) and ONR (Grant# 1368-769-27). J. P. Chanton acknowledges support from Seagrant (R\C-E-44). The WHOI researchers acknowledge funding from CICEET (#NA07OR0351, NA17OZ2507)

Heavy Quark Thermalization in Classical Lattice Gauge Theory: Lessons for Strongly-Coupled QCD

Thermalization of a heavy quark near rest is controlled by the correlator of two electric fields along a temporal Wilson line. We address this correlator within real-time, classical lattice Yang-Mills theory, and elaborate on the analogies that exist with the dynamics of hot QCD. In the weak-coupling limit, it can be shown analytically that the dynamics on the two sides are closely related to each other. For intermediate couplings, we carry out non-perturbative simulations within the classical theory, showing that the leading term in the weak-coupling expansion significantly underestimates the heavy quark thermalization rate. Our analytic and numerical results also yield a general understanding concerning the overall shape of the spectral function corresponding to the electric field correlator, which may be helpful in subsequent efforts to reconstruct it from Euclidean lattice Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 22 pages. v2: a reference and clarifications added; published versio

Dressing Up the Kink

Many quantum field theoretical models possess non-trivial solutions which are stable for topological reasons. We construct a self-consistent example for a self-interacting scalar field--the quantum (or dressed) kink--using a two particle irreducible effective action in the Hartree approximation. This new solution includes quantum fluctuations determined self-consistently and nonperturbatively at the 1-loop resummed level and allowed to backreact on the classical mean-field profile. This dressed kink is static under the familiar Hartree equations for the time evolution of quantum fields. Because the quantum fluctuation spectrum is lower lying in the presence of the defect, the quantum kink has a lower rest energy than its classical counterpart. However its energy is higher than well-known strict 1-loop results, where backreaction and fluctuation self-interactions are omitted. We also show that the quantum kink exists at finite temperature and that its profile broadens as temperature is increased until it eventually disappears.Comment: 13 pages, latex, 3 eps figures; revised with yet additional references, minor rewordin

Onset of entanglement

We have developed a theory of polymer entanglement using an extended Cahn-Hilliard functional, with two extra terms. One is a nonlocal attractive term, operating over mesoscales, which is interpreted as giving rise to entanglement, and the other a local repulsive term indicative of excluded volume interactions. We show how such a functional can be derived using notions from gauge theory. We go beyond the Gaussian approximation, to the one-loop level, to show that the system exhibits a crossover to a state of entanglement as the average chain length between points of entanglement decreases. This crossover is marked by critical slowing down, as the effective diffusion constant goes to zero. We have also computed the tensile modulus of the system, and we find a corresponding crossover to a regime of high modulus.Comment: 18 pages, with 4 figure