13,826 research outputs found
Self-reported pain severity is associated with a history of coronary heart disease
This study was funded by Arthritis Research UK (grant number: 17292).Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The development of a new measure of quality of life for children with congenital cardiac disease
The purpose of the study was to develop a questionnaire measuring health-related R1 quality of life for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease, the ConQol, that would have both clinical and research applications. We describe here the process of construction of a questionnaire, the piloting and the development of a weighted scoring system, and data on the psychometric performance of the measure in a sample of 640 children and young people recruited via 6 regional centres for paediatric cardiology from across the United Kingdom. The ConQol has two versions, one designed for children aged from 8 to 11 years, and the other for young people aged from 12 to 16 years. Initial findings suggest that it is a valid and reliable instrument, is acceptable to respondents, and is simple to administer in both a research and clinical context
The H.E.S.S. II GRB Program
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are some of the most energetic and exotic events in
the Universe, however their behaviour at the highest energies (>10 GeV) is
largely unknown. Although the Fermi-LAT space telescope has detected several
GRBs in this energy range, it is limited by the relatively small collection
area of the instrument. The H.E.S.S. experiment has now entered its second
phase by adding a fifth telescope of 600 m mirror area to the centre of
the array. This new telescope increases the energy range of the array, allowing
it to probe the sub-100 GeV range while maintaining the large collection area
of ground based gamma-ray observatories, essential to probing short-term
variability at these energies. We will present a description of the GRB
observation scheme used by the H.E.S.S. experiment, summarising the behaviour
and performance of the rapid GRB repointing system, the conditions under which
potential GRB repointings are made and the data analysis scheme used for these
observations.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland
Analysis of Dialogical Argumentation via Finite State Machines
Dialogical argumentation is an important cognitive activity by which agents
exchange arguments and counterarguments as part of some process such as
discussion, debate, persuasion and negotiation. Whilst numerous formal systems
have been proposed, there is a lack of frameworks for implementing and
evaluating these proposals. First-order executable logic has been proposed as a
general framework for specifying and analysing dialogical argumentation. In
this paper, we investigate how we can implement systems for dialogical
argumentation using propositional executable logic. Our approach is to present
and evaluate an algorithm that generates a finite state machine that reflects a
propositional executable logic specification for a dialogical argumentation
together with an initial state. We also consider how the finite state machines
can be analysed, with the minimax strategy being used as an illustration of the
kinds of empirical analysis that can be undertaken.Comment: 10 page
Measuring the Initial-Final Mass-Relation using wide double white dwarf binaries from Gaia DR3
The Initial-Final Mass-Relation (IFMR) maps the masses of main sequence stars
to their white dwarf descendants. The most common approach to measure the IFMR
has been to use white dwarfs in clusters. However, it has been shown that wide
double white dwarfs can also be used to measure the IFMR using a Bayesian
approach. We have observed a large sample of 90 Gaia double white dwarfs using
FORS2 on the VLT. Considering 52 DA+DA, DA+DC, and DC+DC pairs, we applied our
extended Bayesian framework to probe the IFMR in exquisite detail. Our
monotonic IFMR is well constrained by our observations for initial masses of
1-5 Msun, with the range 1-4 Msun mostly constrained to a precision of 0.03
Msun or better. We add an important extension to the framework, using a
Bayesian mixture-model to determine the IFMR robustly in the presence of
systems departing from single star evolution. We find a large but uncertain
outlier fraction of 5921 percent, with outlier systems requiring an
additional Gyr uncertainty in their cooling age
differences. However, we find that this fraction is dominated by a few systems
with massive components near 0.9 Msun, where we are most sensitive to outliers,
but are also able to establish four systems as merger candidatesComment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
Tunable dipolar magnetism in high-spin molecular clusters
We report on the Fe17 high-spin molecular cluster and show that this system
is an exemplification of nanostructured dipolar magnetism. Each Fe17 molecule,
with spin S=35/2 and axial anisotropy as small as D=-0.02K, is the magnetic
unit that can be chemically arranged in different packing crystals whilst
preserving both spin ground-state and anisotropy. For every configuration,
molecular spins are correlated only by dipolar interactions. The ensuing
interplay between dipolar energy and anisotropy gives rise to macroscopic
behaviors ranging from superparamagnetism to long-range magnetic order at
temperatures below 1K.Comment: Replaced with version accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Nonlinear Dynamics of Capacitive Charging and Desalination by Porous Electrodes
The rapid and efficient exchange of ions between porous electrodes and
aqueous solutions is important in many applications, such as electrical energy
storage by super-capacitors, water desalination and purification by capacitive
deionization (or desalination), and capacitive extraction of renewable energy
from a salinity difference. Here, we present a unified mean-field theory for
capacitive charging and desalination by ideally polarizable porous electrodes
(without Faradaic reactions or specific adsorption of ions) in the limit of
thin double layers (compared to typical pore dimensions). We illustrate the
theory in the case of a dilute, symmetric, binary electrolyte using the
Gouy-Chapman-Stern (GCS) model of the double layer, for which simple formulae
are available for salt adsorption and capacitive charging of the diffuse part
of the double layer. We solve the full GCS mean-field theory numerically for
realistic parameters in capacitive deionization, and we derive reduced models
for two limiting regimes with different time scales: (i) In the
"super-capacitor regime" of small voltages and/or early times where the porous
electrode acts like a transmission line, governed by a linear diffusion
equation for the electrostatic potential, scaled to the RC time of a single
pore. (ii) In the "desalination regime" of large voltages and long times, the
porous electrode slowly adsorbs neutral salt, governed by coupled, nonlinear
diffusion equations for the pore-averaged potential and salt concentration
Comment on the calculation of the pdf of the output of a two-branch switch and stay diversity system
A magnetic white dwarf in a detached eclipsing binary
SDSS J030308.35+005444.1 is a close, detached, eclipsing white dwarf plus M dwarf binary which shows a large infrared excess which has been interpreted in terms of a circumbinary dust disc. In this paper, we present optical and near-infrared photometric and spectroscopic data for this system. At optical wavelengths, we observe heated pole caps from the white dwarf caused by accretion of wind material from the main-sequence star on to the white dwarf. At near-infrared wavelengths, we see the eclipse of two poles on the surface of the white dwarf by the main-sequence star indicating that the white dwarf is magnetic. Our spectroscopic observations reveal Zeeman-split emission lines in the hydrogen Balmer series, which we use to measure the magnetic field strength as 8âMG. This measurement indicates that the cyclotron lines are located in the infrared, naturally explaining the infrared excess without the need for a circumbinary dust disc. We also detect magnetically confined material located roughly midway between the two stars. Using measurements of the radial velocity amplitude and rotational broadening of the M star, we constrain the physical parameters of the system, a first for a magnetic white dwarf, and the location of the poles on the surface of the white dwarf. SDSS J030308.35+005444.1 is a pre-cataclysmic variable that will likely evolve into an intermediate polar in âź1âGyr
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