2,082 research outputs found
Eating disorder services for young people in Ireland: perspectives of service providers, service users and the general adolescent population
Objectives: This paper illuminates how national eating disorder (ED) policy translates into day-to-day practice by exploring how ED services are experienced by those who deliver and use them. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used, which combined qualitative and quantitative techniques. The paper collates data from three studies: (i) an interview study exploring the lived experiences of young people with EDs (n =8), their parents (n =5) and their healthcare professionals (n =3); (ii) a national survey of health professionals’ perspectives on existing ED services (n =171); (iii) a nationwide survey of secondary-school students’ eating concerns and patterns of help - seeking (n=290). Results: The qualitative interviews with young people and their parents revealed feelings of isolation and helplessness. Young people expressed interest in patient support groups, while parents desired greater support for the family unit. Parents were highly critical of available services, particularly in relation to access. These criticisms were echoed in the survey of healthcare professionals, who reported many barriers to delivering effective care. Clinicians were almost unanimous in calling for care pathways to be clarified via a standardised treatment protocol. The survey of adolescents indicated widespread reluctance to seek help regarding eating concerns: over one-third expressed concern about their own eating habits, but half of these had not divulged their concerns to anyone. Participants’ preferred pathways of help-seeking revolved around family and friends, and adolescents were unsure about routes of access to professional support. 3 Conclusions: The research demonstrates that many aspects of national ED policy have not been implemented in practice. The paper highlights specific gaps and suggests ways they can be redressed
Measurement of the Zero Crossing in a Feshbach Resonance of Fermionic 6-Li
We measure a zero crossing in the scattering length of a mixture of the two
lowest hyperfine states of 6-Li. To locate the zero crossing, we monitor the
decrease in temperature and atom number arising from evaporation in a CO2 laser
trap as a function of magnetic field B. The temperature decrease and atom loss
are minimized for B=528(4) G, consistent with no evaporation. We also present
preliminary calculations using potentials that have been constrained by the
measured zero crossing and locate a broad Feshbach resonance at approximately
860 G, in agreement with previous theoretical predictions. In addition, our
theoretical model predicts a second and much narrower Feshbach resonance near
550 G.Comment: Five pages, four figure
Cooling dynamics of ultracold two-species Fermi-Bose mixtures
We compare strategies for evaporative and sympathetic cooling of two-species
Fermi-Bose mixtures in single-color and two-color optical dipole traps. We show
that in the latter case a large heat capacity of the bosonic species can be
maintained during the entire cooling process. This could allow to efficiently
achieve a deep Fermi degeneracy regime having at the same time a significant
thermal fraction for the Bose gas, crucial for a precise thermometry of the
mixture. Two possible signatures of a superfluid phase transition for the Fermi
species are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Efficient and robust initialization of a qubit register with fermionic atoms
We show that fermionic atoms have crucial advantages over bosonic atoms in
terms of loading in optical lattices for use as a possible quantum computation
device. After analyzing the change in the level structure of a non-uniform
confining potential as a periodic potential is superimposed to it, we show how
this structure combined with the Pauli principle and fermion degeneracy can be
exploited to create unit occupancy of the lattice sites with very high
efficiency.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Complex Physics in Cluster Cores: Showstopper for the Use of Clusters for Cosmology?
The influence of cool galaxy cluster cores on the X-ray
luminosity--gravitational mass relation is studied with Chandra observations of
64 clusters in the HIFLUGCS sample. As preliminary results we find (i) a
significant offset of cool core (CC) clusters to the high luminosity (or low
mass) side compared to non-cool core (NCC) clusters, (ii) a smaller scatter of
CC clusters compared to NCC clusters, (iii) a decreasing fraction of CC
clusters with increasing cluster mass, (iv) a reduced scatter in the
luminosity--mass relation for the entire sample if the luminosity is scaled
properly with the central entropy. The implications of these results on the
intrinsic scatter are discussed.Comment: 6 pages; to appear in the proceedings of the conference Heating vs.
Cooling in Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies, edited by H. Boehringer, P.
Schuecker, G.W. Pratt, and A. Finoguenov. Dedicated to the memory of Peter
Schuecke
Improving Annotations in Digital Documents
Περιέχει το πλήρες κείμενοAnnotation plays a major role in a user’s reading of a document: from
elementary school students making notes on text books to professors marking up
their latest research papers. A common place for annotations to appear is in the
margin of a document. Surprisingly, there is little systematic knowledge of how,
why and when annotations are written in margins or over the main text. This paper
investigates how margin size impacts the ease with which documents can be
annotated, and user annotation behavior. The research comprises of a two part
investigation: first, a paper study that examines margins and their use in physical
documents; secondly, we evaluate document reader software that supports an extended
margin for annotation in digital documents
Improving Educational Opportunity and Equity through School District Consolidation in Maine
In 2007 Maine passed sweeping school district consolidation legislation mandating a reduction in the number of Maine school districts from 290 to approximately 80. The primary goals of the policy were to improve the educational opportunities for all students in the state; and to reduce costs through increased efficiency in the delivery of education programs and services. Based primarily on interviews with district leaders, this article describes the impacts of Maine’s school district consolidation policy on educational opportunities and equity within 24 regional school districts, one year after their mergers. Findings illustrate the different choices districts made when consolidating their educational programs, the outcomes of these efforts, and the strategies and structures districts used to implement change
Numerical simulation of exciton dynamics in Cu2O at ultra low temperatures within a potential trap
We have studied theoretically the relaxation behaviour of excitons in cuprous
oxide (Cu2O) at ultra low temperatures when excitons are confined within a
potential trap by solving numerically the Boltzmann equation. As relaxation
processes, we have included in this paper deformation potential phonon
scattering, radiative and non-radiative decay and Auger decay. The relaxation
kinetics has been analysed for temperatures in the range between 0.3K and 5K.
Under the action of deformation potential phonon scattering only, we find for
temperatures above 0.5K that the excitons reach local equilibrium with the
lattice i.e. that the effective local temperature is coming down to bath
temperature, while below 0.5K a non-thermal energy distribution remains.
Interestingly, for all temperatures the global spatial distribution of excitons
does not reach the equilibrium distribution, but stays at a much higher
effective temperature. If we include further a finite lifetime of the excitons
and the two-particle Auger decay, we find that both the local and the global
effective temperature are not coming down to bath temperature. In the first
case we find a Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) to occur for all temperatures
in the investigated range. Comparing our results with the thermal equilibrium
case, we find that BEC occurs for a significantly higher number of excitons in
the trap. This effect could be related to the higher global temperature, which
requires an increased number of excitons within the trap to observe the BEC. In
case of Auger decay, we do not find at any temperature a BEC due to the heating
of the exciton gas
Pure Gas of Optically Trapped Molecules Created from Fermionic Atoms
We report on the production of a pure sample of up to 3x10^5 optically
trapped molecules from a Fermi gas of 6Li atoms. The dimers are formed by
three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance. For purification a
Stern-Gerlach selection technique is used that efficiently removes all trapped
atoms from the atom-molecule mixture. The behavior of the purified molecular
sample shows a striking dependence on the applied magnetic field. For very
weakly bound molecules near the Feshbach resonance, the gas exhibits a
remarkable stability with respect to collisional decay.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Function Allocation for Humans and Automation in the Context of Team Dynamics
AbstractWithin Human Factors Engineering, a decision-making process called function allocation (FA) is used during the design life cycle of complex systems to distribute the system functions, typically identified through a functional requirements analysis, to all human and automated machine agents (or teammates) involved in controlling the system. Most FA methods make allocation decisions primarily by comparing the capabilities of humans and automation, and then by considering secondary factors such as cost, regulations, and the health and safety of workers. The primary analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of humans and machines, however, is almost always considered in terms of individual human or machine capabilities. Yet, FA is fundamentally about teamwork in that the goal of the FA decision-making process is to determine the optimal allocations of functions among agents. Given this framing of FA, and the increasing use of and sophistication of automation, there are two related social psychological issues that current FA methods need to address more thoroughly. First, many principles for effective human teamwork are not considered as central decision points or in the iterative hypothesis and testing phase in most FA methods, despite the fact that social factors have numerous positive and negative effects on individual and team capabilities. Second, social psychological factors affecting team performance can be difficult to translate to automated agents, and most FA methods currently do not account for this effect. The implications for these issues are discussed
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