8,741 research outputs found
Initial behavioural and attitudinal responses to influenza A, H1N1 ('swine flu')
Copyright © 2010 by the BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. All rights reserved.This study was sponsored by Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), and
supported by the Community Coalition Concerned about SARS and other community organisations in the great Toronto area
Modelling psychological responses to the great East Japan earthquake and nuclear incident
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 - Copyright @ 2012 Goodwin et al.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The Great East Japan (TĆhoku/Kanto) earthquake of March 2011was followed by a major tsunami and nuclear incident. Several previous studies have suggested a number of psychological responses to such disasters. However, few previous studies have modelled individual differences in the risk perceptions of major events, or the implications of these perceptions for relevant behaviours. We conducted a survey specifically examining responses to the Great Japan earthquake and nuclear incident, with data collected 11-13 weeks following these events. 844 young respondents completed a questionnaire in three regions of Japan; Miyagi (close to the earthquake and leaking nuclear plants), Tokyo/Chiba (approximately 220 km from the nuclear plants), and Western Japan (Yamaguchi and Nagasaki, some 1000 km from the plants). Results indicated significant regional differences in risk perception, with greater concern over earthquake risks in Tokyo than in Miyagi or Western Japan. Structural equation analyses showed that shared normative concerns about earthquake and nuclear risks, conservation values, lack of trust in governmental advice about the nuclear hazard, and poor personal control over the nuclear incident were positively correlated with perceived earthquake and nuclear risks. These risk perceptions further predicted specific outcomes (e.g. modifying homes, avoiding going outside, contemplating leaving Japan). The strength and significance of these pathways varied by region. Mental health and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the light of the continuing uncertainties in Japan following the March 2011 events
Simulating star formation in molecular cloud cores IV. The role of turbulence and thermodynamics
We perform SPH simulations of the collapse and fragmentation of low-mass
cores having different initial levels of turbulence
(alpha_turb=0.05,0.10,0.25). We use a new treatment of the energy equation
which captures the transport of cooling radiation against opacity due to both
dust and gas (including the effects of dust sublimation, molecules, and H^-
ions). We also perform comparison simulations using a standard barotropic
equation of state. We find that -- when compared with the barotropic equation
of state -- our more realistic treatment of the energy equation results in more
protostellar objects being formed, and a higher proportion of brown dwarfs; the
multiplicity frequency is essentially unchanged, but the multiple systems tend
to have shorter periods (by a factor ~3), higher eccentricities, and higher
mass ratios. The reason for this is that small fragments are able to cool more
effectively with the new treatment, as compared with the barotropic equation of
state. We find that the process of fragmentation is often bimodal. The first
protostar to form is usually, at the end, the most massive, i.e. the primary.
However, frequently a disc-like structure subsequently forms round this
primary, and then, once it has accumulated sufficient mass, quickly fragments
to produce several secondaries. We believe that this delayed fragmentation of a
disc-like structure is likely to be an important source of very low-mass
hydrogen-burning stars and brown dwarfs.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication by A&
Surviving infant mortality in the hierarchical merging scenario
We examine the effects of gas expulsion on initially sub-structured and
out-of-equilibrium star clusters. We perform -body simulations of the
evolution of star clusters in a static background potential before removing
that potential to model gas expulsion. We find that the initial star formation
efficiency is not a good measure of the survivability of star clusters. This is
because the stellar distribution can change significantly, causing a large
change in the relative importance of the stellar and gas potentials. We find
that the initial stellar distribution and velocity dispersion are far more
important parameters than the initial star formation efficiency, and that
clusters with very low star formation efficiencies can survive gas expulsion.
We suggest that it is variations in cluster initial conditions rather than in
their star formation efficiencies that cause some clusters to be destroyed
while a few survive.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl
Real-Time Data Processing in the Muon System of the D0 Detector
This paper presents a real-time application of the 16-bit fixed point Digital
Signal Processors (DSPs), in the Muon System of the D0 detector located at the
Fermilab Tevatron, presently the world's highest-energy hadron collider. As
part of the Upgrade for a run beginning in the year 2000, the system is
required to process data at an input event rate of 10 KHz without incurring
significant deadtime in readout. The ADSP21csp01 processor has high I/O
bandwidth, single cycle instruction execution and fast task switching support
to provide efficient multisignal processing. The processor's internal memory
consists of 4K words of Program Memory and 4K words of Data Memory. In addition
there is an external memory of 32K words for general event buffering and 16K
words of Dual Port Memory for input data queuing. This DSP fulfills the
requirement of the Muon subdetector systems for data readout. All error
handling, buffering, formatting and transferring of the data to the various
trigger levels of the data acquisition system is done in software. The
algorithms developed for the system complete these tasks in about 20
microseconds per event.Comment: 4 pages, Presented and published at the 11th IEEE NPSS Real Time
Conference, held at Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, from June 14-18, 199
Calculation of the longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics of wing-flap configurations with externally blown flaps
A theoretical investigation was carried out to extend and improve an existing method for predicting the longitudinal characteristics of wing flap configurations with externally blown flaps (EBF). Two potential flow models were incorporated into the prediction method: a wing and flap lifting-surface model and a turbofan engine wake model. The wing-flap model uses a vortex-lattice approach to represent the wing and flaps. The jet wake model consists of a series of closely spaced vortex rings normal to a centerline which may have vertical and lateral curvature to conform to the local flow field beneath the wing and flaps. Comparisons of measured and predicted pressure distributions, span load distributions on each lifting surface, and total lift and pitching moment coefficients on swept and unswept EBF configurations are included. A wide range of thrust coefficients and flap deflection angles is considered at angles of attack up to the onset of stall. Results indicate that overall lift and pitching-moment coefficients are predicted reasonably well over the entire range. The predicted detailed load distributions are qualitatively correct and show the peaked loads at the jet impingement points, but the widths and heights of the load peaks are not consistently predicted
The Effects of Radiation Feedback on Early Fragmentation and Multiplicity
Forming stars emit a significant amount of radiation into their natal
environment. While the importance of radiation feedback from high-mass stars is
widely accepted, radiation has generally been ignored in simulations of
low-mass star formation. I use ORION, an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR)
three-dimensional gravito-radiation-hydrodynamics code, to model low-mass star
formation in a turbulent molecular cloud. I demonstrate that including
radiation feedback has a profound effect on fragmentation and protostellar
multiplicity. Although heating is mainly confined within the core envelope, it
is sufficient to suppress disk fragmentation that would otherwise result in
low-mass companions or brown dwarfs. As a consequence, turbulent fragmentation,
not disk fragmentation, is likely the origin of low-mass binaries.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of IAU Symposium
270: Computational Star Formatio
Tracking and data systems support for the Helios project. Volume 2: DSN support of Project Helios April 1975 - May 1976
Deep Space Network activities in the development of the Helios B mission from planning through entry of Helios 2 into first superior conjunction (end of Mission Phase II) are summarized. Network operational support activities for Helios 1 from first superior conjunction through entry into third superior conjunction are included
- âŠ