25,105 research outputs found
Leadership conversations: the impact on patient environments
Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine 15 NHS acute trusts in England that achieved high scores at all their hospitals in the first four national Patient Environment audits. No common external explanations were discernible. This paper seeks to examine whether the facilities managers responsible for the Patient Environment displayed a consistent leadership style.
Design/methodology/approach – Overall, six of the 15 trusts gave permission for the research to take place and a series of unstructured interviews and observations were arranged with 22 facilities managers in these trusts. Responses were transcribed and categorised through multiple iteration.
Findings – The research found common leadership and managerial behaviours, many of which could be identified from other literature. The research also identified managers deliberately devoting energy and time to creating networks of conversations. This creation of networks through managing conversation is behaviour less evident in mainstream leadership literature or in the current
Department of Health and NHS leadership models.
Practical implications – The findings of this study offer managers (particularly those in FM and managers across NHS) a unique insight into the potential impact of leaders giving an opportunity to re-model thinking on management and leadership and the related managerial development opportunities. It provides the leverage to move facilities management from the role of a commodity or support service, to a position as a true enabler of business.
Originality/value – Original research is presented in a previously under-examined area. The paper illuminates how facilities management within trusts achieving high Patient Environment Action Team (PEAT) scores is led.</p
Faraday Conversion in Turbulent Blazar Jets
Low () levels of circular polarization (CP) detected at radio
frequencies in the relativistic jets of some blazars can provide insight into
the underlying nature of the jet plasma. CP can be produced through linear
birefringence, in which initially linearly polarized emission produced in one
region of the jet is altered by Faraday rotation as it propagates through other
regions of the jet with varying magnetic field orientation. Marscher has begun
a study of jets with such magnetic geometries using the Turbulent Extreme
Multi-Zone (TEMZ) model, in which turbulent plasma crossing a standing shock in
the jet is represented by a collection of thousands of individual plasma cells,
each with distinct magnetic field orientations. Here we develop a radiative
transfer scheme that allows the numerical TEMZ code to produce simulated images
of the time-dependent linearly and circularly polarized intensity at different
radio frequencies. In this initial study, we produce synthetic polarized
emission maps that highlight the linear and circular polarization expected
within the model.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Developments in the tools and methodologies of synthetic biology.
Synthetic biology is principally concerned with the rational design and engineering of biologically based parts, devices, or systems. However, biological systems are generally complex and unpredictable, and are therefore, intrinsically difficult to engineer. In order to address these fundamental challenges, synthetic biology is aiming to unify a body of knowledge from several foundational scientific fields, within the context of a set of engineering principles. This shift in perspective is enabling synthetic biologists to address complexity, such that robust biological systems can be designed, assembled, and tested as part of a biological design cycle. The design cycle takes a forward-design approach in which a biological system is specified, modeled, analyzed, assembled, and its functionality tested. At each stage of the design cycle, an expanding repertoire of tools is being developed. In this review, we highlight several of these tools in terms of their applications and benefits to the synthetic biology community
"Orphan" -ray Flares and Stationary Sheaths of Blazar Jets
Blazars exhibit flares across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Many
-ray flares are highly correlated with flares detected at longer
wavelengths; however, a small subset appears to occur in isolation, with little
or no correlated variability at longer wavelengths. These "orphan" -ray
flares challenge current models of blazar variability, most of which are unable
to reproduce this type of behavior. Macdonald et al. have developed the Ring of
Fire model to explain the origin of orphan -ray flares from within
blazar jets. In this model, electrons contained within a blob of plasma moving
relativistically along the spine of the jet inverse-Compton scatter synchrotron
photons emanating off of a ring of shocked sheath plasma that enshrouds the jet
spine. As the blob propagates through the ring, the scattering of the ring
photons by the blob electrons creates an orphan -ray flare. This model
was successfully applied to modeling a prominent orphan -ray flare
observed in the blazar PKS 1510089. To further support the plausibility of
this model, Macdonald et al. presented a stacked radio map of PKS 1510089
containing the polarimetric signature of a sheath of plasma surrounding the
spine of the jet. In this paper, we extend our modeling and stacking techniques
to a larger sample of blazars: 3C 273, 4C 7101, 3C 279, 1055018, CTA 102,
and 3C 345, the majority of which have exhibited orphan -ray flares. We
find that the model can successfully reproduce these flares, while our stacked
maps reveal the existence of jet sheaths within these blazars.Comment: 19 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. arXiv admin
note: text overlap with arXiv:1505.0123
Charge and momentum transfer in supercooled melts: Why should their relaxation times differ?
The steady state values of the viscosity and the intrinsic ionic-conductivity
of quenched melts are computed, in terms of independently measurable
quantities. The frequency dependence of the ac dielectric response is
estimated. The discrepancy between the corresponding characteristic relaxation
times is only apparent; it does not imply distinct mechanisms, but stems from
the intrinsic barrier distribution for -relaxation in supercooled
fluids and glasses. This type of intrinsic ``decoupling'' is argued not to
exceed four orders in magnitude, for known glassformers. We explain the origin
of the discrepancy between the stretching exponent , as extracted from
and the dielectric modulus data. The actual width of the
barrier distribution always grows with lowering the temperature. The contrary
is an artifact of the large contribution of the dc-conductivity component to
the modulus data. The methodology allows one to single out other contributions
to the conductivity, as in ``superionic'' liquids or when charge carriers are
delocalized, implying that in those systems, charge transfer does not require
structural reconfiguration.Comment: submitted to J Chem Phy
Neonatal weight loss in breast and formula-fed infants
We have observed an increase in the number of breast fed babies presenting with dehydration and/or failure to thrive because of lactation failure and non-recognition of feeding problems. Recent reports1,2 support this experience and recommend monitoring of the weight of infants through the neonatal period. However, these reports acknowledge uncertainty as to what actually constitutes normal neonatal weight loss. Maisels and colleagues published two studies which have been quoted as giving guidance on normal loss. Both studies were designed primarily to study factors that influence breast milk jaundice. The first3 reported a mean weight loss of about 6% in 100 unselected well babies during the first 3 days. The subsequent study4 reported a mean weight loss of 6.86% in 186 infants. The timescale over which babies were weighed was not clearly indicated, although it may have only been 2-3 days. The sample was neither population based nor randomly selected, being largely preselected because of the presence of more pronounced jaundice. The distribution of data points for early neonatal weight loss are likely to be skewed, yet both studies reported the results as mean (SD). Owing to the design and method of data presentation, these studies cannot reliably inform the debate as to what constitutes the norm. Marchini and colleagues published reports also designed primarily to study other issues. One5 indicated a mean early weight loss of 5.7%. Measurements were recorded over a three day period, and no indication is given of the skewness of the data. Another study6 reported a median weight loss of about 6% recorded over a four day period. At least one baby lost > 15% of his/her birth weight during this time, but there is no clear information as to the frequency with which more extreme degrees of weight loss are observed
Area products for stationary black hole horizons
Area products for multi-horizon stationary black holes often have intriguing
properties, and are often (though not always) independent of the mass of the
black hole itself (depending only on various charges, angular momenta, and
moduli). Such products are often formulated in terms of the areas of inner
(Cauchy) horizons and outer (event) horizons, and sometimes include the effects
of unphysical "virtual" horizons. But the conjectured mass-independence
sometimes fails. Specifically, for the Schwarzschild-de Sitter [Kottler] black
hole in (3+1) dimensions it is shown by explicit exact calculation that the
product of event horizon area and cosmological horizon area is not mass
independent. (Including the effect of the third "virtual" horizon does not
improve the situation.) Similarly, in the Reissner-Nordstrom-anti-de Sitter
black hole in (3+1) dimensions the product of inner (Cauchy) horizon area and
event horizon area is calculated (perturbatively), and is shown to be not mass
independent. That is, the mass-independence of the product of physical horizon
areas is not generic. In spherical symmetry, whenever the quasi-local mass m(r)
is a Laurent polynomial in aerial radius, r=sqrt{A/4\pi}, there are
significantly more complicated mass-independent quantities, the elementary
symmetric polynomials built up from the complete set of horizon radii (physical
and virtual). Sometimes it is possible to eliminate the unphysical virtual
horizons, constructing combinations of physical horizon areas that are mass
independent, but they tend to be considerably more complicated than the simple
products and related constructions currently being mooted in the literature.Comment: V1: 16 pages; V2: 9 pages (now formatted in PRD style). Minor change
in title. Extra introduction, background, discussion. Several additional
references; other references updated. Minor typos fixed. This version
accepted for publication in PRD; V3: Minor typos fixed. Published versio
Trapping of magnetic flux by the plunge region of a black hole accretion disk
The existence of the radius of marginal stability means that accretion flows
around black holes invariably undergo a transition from a MHD turbulent
disk-like flow to an inward plunging flow. We argue that the plunging inflow
can greatly enhance the trapping of large scale magnetic field on the black
hole, and therefore may increase the importance of the Blandford-Znajek (BZ)
effect relative to previous estimates that ignore the plunge region. We support
this hypothesis by constructing and analyzing a toy-model of the dragging and
trapping of a large scale field by a black hole disk, revealing a strong
dependence of this effect on the effective magnetic Prandtl number of the MHD
turbulent disk. Furthermore, we show that the enhancement of the BZ effect
depends on the geometric thickness of the accretion disk. This may be, at least
in part, the physical underpinnings of the empirical relation between the
inferred geometric thickness of a black hole disk and the presence of a radio
jet.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal. See
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~chris/publications/movies/flux_trapping.html for
animation
Nanoscale Torsional Optomechanics
Optomechanical transduction is demonstrated for nanoscale torsional
resonators evanescently coupled to optical microdisk whispering gallery mode
resonators. The on-chip, integrated devices are measured using a fully
fiber-based system, including a tapered and dimpled optical fiber probe. With a
thermomechanically calibrated optomechanical noise floor down to 7 fm/sqrt(Hz),
these devices open the door for a wide range of physical measurements involving
extremely small torques, as little as 4x10^-20 N*m.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures - Accepted to APL Oct 22nd, 2012. To appear in
February 4th issue - as cover articl
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