5,643 research outputs found
Structural Optimisation: Biomechanics of the Femur
A preliminary iterative 3D meso-scale structural model of the femur was
developed, in which bar and shell elements were used to represent trabecular
and cortical bone respectively. The cross-sectional areas of the bar elements
and the thickness values of the shell elements were adjusted over successive
iterations of the model based on a target strain stimulus, resulting in an
optimised construct. The predicted trabecular architecture, and cortical
thickness distribution showed good agreement with clinical observations, based
on the application of a single leg stance load case during gait. The benefit of
using a meso-scale structural approach in comparison to micro or macro-scale
continuum approaches to predictive bone modelling was achievement of the
symbiotic goals of computational efficiency and structural description of the
femur.Comment: Accepted by Engineering and Computational Mechanics (Proceedings of
the ICE
High-rate, high-fidelity entanglement of qubits across an elementary quantum network
We demonstrate remote entanglement of trapped-ion qubits via a
quantum-optical fiber link with fidelity and rate approaching those of local
operations. Two Sr qubits are entangled via the polarization
degree of freedom of two photons which are coupled by high-numerical-aperture
lenses into single-mode optical fibers and interfere on a beamsplitter. A novel
geometry allows high-efficiency photon collection while maintaining unit
fidelity for ion-photon entanglement. We generate remote Bell pairs with
fidelity at an average rate (success
probability ).Comment: v2 updated to include responses to reviewers, as published in PR
Effective Field Theory of the Zero-Temperature Triangular-Lattice Antiferromagnet: A Monte Carlo Study
Using a Monte Carlo coarse-graining technique introduced by Binder et al., we
have explicitly constructed the continuum field theory for the zero-temperature
triangular Ising antiferromagnet. We verify the conjecture that this is a
gaussian theory of the height variable in the interface representation of the
spin model. We also measure the height-height correlation function and deduce
the stiffness constant. In addition, we investigate the nature of defect-defect
interactions at finite temperatures, and find that the two-dimensional Coulomb
gas scenario applies at low temperatures.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figure
Frustrated quantum Heisenberg ferrimagnetic chains
We study the ground-state properties of weakly frustrated Heisenberg
ferrimagnetic chains with nearest and next-nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic
exchange interactions and two types of alternating sublattice spins S_1 > S_2,
using 1/S spin-wave expansions, density-matrix renormalization group, and
exact- diagonalization techniques. It is argued that the zero-point spin
fluctuations completely destroy the classical commensurate- incommensurate
continuous transition. Instead, the long-range ferrimagnetic state disappears
through a discontinuous transition to a singlet state at a larger value of the
frustration parameter. In the ferrimagnetic phase we find a disorder point
marking the onset of incommensurate real-space short-range spin-spin
correlations.Comment: 16 pages (LaTex 2.09), 6 eps figure
Determining Training Needs for Cloud Infrastructure Investigations using I-STRIDE
As more businesses and users adopt cloud computing services, security
vulnerabilities will be increasingly found and exploited. There are many
technological and political challenges where investigation of potentially
criminal incidents in the cloud are concerned. Security experts, however, must
still be able to acquire and analyze data in a methodical, rigorous and
forensically sound manner. This work applies the STRIDE asset-based risk
assessment method to cloud computing infrastructure for the purpose of
identifying and assessing an organization's ability to respond to and
investigate breaches in cloud computing environments. An extension to the
STRIDE risk assessment model is proposed to help organizations quickly respond
to incidents while ensuring acquisition and integrity of the largest amount of
digital evidence possible. Further, the proposed model allows organizations to
assess the needs and capacity of their incident responders before an incident
occurs.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, 5th International Conference on
Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime; Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, pp.
223-236, 201
How do women prepare for pregnancy? Preconception experiences of women attending antenatal services and views of health professionals
Copyright: © 2014 Stephenson et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Main objective - To determine the extent to which women plan and prepare for pregnancy.
Methods - Cross-sectional questionnaire survey of pregnant women attending three maternity services in London about knowledge and uptake of preconception care; including a robust measure of pregnancy planning, and phone interviews with a range of health care professionals.
Main results - We recruited 1173/1288 (90%) women, median age of 32 years. 73% had clearly planned their pregnancy, 24% were ambivalent and only 3% of pregnancies were unplanned. 51% of all women and 63% of those with a planned pregnancy took folic acid before pregnancy. 21% of all women reported smoking and 61% reported drinking alcohol in the 3 months before pregnancy; 48% of smokers and 41% of drinkers reduced or stopped before pregnancy. The 51% of all women who reported advice from a health professional before becoming pregnant were more likely to adopt healthier behaviours before pregnancy [adjusted odds ratios for greatest health professional input compared with none were 2.34 (95% confidence interval 1.54–3.54) for taking folic acid and 2.18 (95% CI 1.42–3.36) for adopting a healthier diet before pregnancy]. Interviews with 20 health professionals indicated low awareness of preconception health issues, missed opportunities and confusion about responsibility for delivery of preconception care.
Significance of the findings - Despite a high level of pregnancy planning, awareness of preconception health among women and health professionals is low, and responsibility for providing preconception care is unclear. However, many women are motivated to adopt healthier behaviours in the preconception period, as indicated by halving of reported smoking rates in this study. The link between health professional input and healthy behaviour change before pregnancy is a new finding that should invigorate strategies to improve awareness and uptake of pre-pregnancy health care, and bring wider benefits for public health.Department of Healt
Systematic Theoretical Search for Dibaryons in a Relativistic Model
A relativistic quark potential model is used to do a systematic search for
quasi-stable dibaryon states in the , , and three flavor world.
Flavor symmetry breaking and channel coupling effects are included and an
adiabatic method and fractional parentage expansion technique are used in the
calculations. The relativistic model predicts dibaryon candidates completely
consistent with the nonrelativistic model.Comment: 12 pages, latex, no figure
Evidence of a Curved Synchrotron Spectrum in the Supernova Remnant SN 1006
A joint spectral analysis of some Chandra ACIS X-ray data and Molonglo
Observatory Synthesis Telescope radio data was performed for 13 small regions
along the bright northeastern rim of the supernova remnant SN 1006. These data
were fitted with a synchrotron radiation model. The nonthermal electron
spectrum used to compute the photon emission spectra is the traditional
exponentially cut off power law, with one notable difference: The power-law
index is not a constant. It is a linear function of the logarithm of the
momentum. This functional form enables us to show, for the first time, that the
synchrotron spectrum of SN 1006 seems to flatten with increasing energy. The
effective power-law index of the electron spectrum is 2.2 at 1 GeV (i.e., radio
synchrotron-emitting momenta) and 2.0 at about 10 TeV (i.e., X-ray
synchrotron-emitting momenta). This amount of change in the index is
qualitatively consistent with theoretical models of the amount of curvature in
the proton spectrum of the remnant. The evidence of spectral curvature implies
that cosmic rays are dynamically important instead of being "test" particles.
The spectral analysis also provides a means of determining the critical
frequency of the synchrotron spectrum associated with the highest-energy
electrons. The critical frequency seems to vary along the northeastern rim,
with a maximum value of 1.1e17 (0.6e17 - 2.1e17) Hz. This value implies that
the electron diffusion coefficient can be no larger than a factor of ~4.5-21
times the Bohm diffusion coefficient if the velocity of the forward shock is in
the range 2300-5000 km/s. Since the coefficient is close to the Bohm limit,
electrons are accelerated nearly as fast as possible in the regions where the
critical frequency is about 1.0e17 Hz.Comment: 41 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Ap
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