1,553 research outputs found
Effect of high oxygen pressure annealing on superconducting Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4 thin films by pulsed laser deposition from Cu-enriched targets
We show that the quality of Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4 films grown by pulsed laser
deposition can be enhanced by using a non-stoichiometric target with extra
copper added to suppress the formation of a parasitic (Nd, Ce)2O3 phase. The
properties of these films are less dependent on the exact annealing procedure
after deposition as compared to films grown from a stoichiometric target. Film
growth can be followed by a 1 bar oxygen annealing, after an initial vacuum
annealing, while retaining the superconducting properties and quality. This
enables the integration of electron-doped cuprates with their hole-doped
counterparts on a single chip, to create, for example, superconducting
pn-junctions.Comment: This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article
accepted for publication in Superconductor Science and Technology. The
publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of
the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is
available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0953-2048/27/4/04401
The effect of exercise on innate mucosal immunity
METHODS The authors conducted a prospective observational study comparing salivary lactoferrin and lysozyme concentration over 5 months (chronic changes) in elite rowers (n=17, mean age 24.3+/-4.0 years) with sedentary individuals (controls) (n=18, mean age=27.2+/-7.1 years) and a graded exercise test to exhaustion (acute changes) with a cohort of elite rowers (n=11, mean age 24.7+/-4.1). RESULTS Magnitudes of differences and changes were interpreted as a standardised (Cohen's) effect size (ES). Lactoferrin concentration in the observational study was approximately 60% lower in rowers than control subjects at baseline (7.9+/-1.2 microg/ml mean+/-SEM, 19.4+/-5.6 microg/ml, p=0.05, ES=0.68, 'moderate') and at the midpoint of the season (6.4+/-1.4 microg/ml mean +/- SEM, 21.5+/-4.2 microg/ml, p=0.001, ES=0.89, 'moderate'). The concentration of lactoferrin at the end of the study was not statistically significant (p=0.1) between the groups. There was no significant difference between rowers and control subjects in lysozyme concentration during the study. There was a 50% increase in the concentration of lactoferrin (p=0.05, ES=1.04, 'moderate') and a 55% increase in lysozyme (p=0.01, ES=3.0, 'very large') from pre-exercise to exhaustion in the graded exercise session. CONCLUSION Lower concentrations of these proteins may be indicative of an impairment of innate protection of the upper respiratory tract. Increased salivary lactoferrin and lysozyme concentration following exhaustive exercise may be due to a transient activation response that increases protection in the immediate postexercise period
Evaluation of advanced lift concepts and fuel conservative short-haul aircraft, volume 2
For abstract, see N75-20291
Evaluation of advanced lift concepts and fuel conservative short-haul aircraft, volume 1
The performance and economics of a twin-engine augmentor wing airplane were evaluated in two phases. Design aspects of the over-the-wing/internally blown flap hybrid, augmentor wing, and mechanical flap aircraft were investigated for 910 m. field length with parametric extension to other field lengths. Fuel savings achievable by application of advanced lift concepts to short-haul aircraft were evaluated and the effect of different field lengths, cruise requirements, and noise levels on fuel consumption and airplane economics at higher fuel prices were determined. Conclusions and recommendations are presented
Evaluation of South West Resettlement Consortium for Young People
The development of the South West Resettlement Consortium began in September 2009 –
with appointment of a part-time project manager post. At this point, the initial focus for the
consortium was to bring together stakeholders involved in the resettlement of young
people from across six local authorities. However, there was limited previous collaborative
tradition among the six local authorities, and so developing effective ways of working and
seeking to institute change across this regional geography was a substantial challenge.
Moreover, due to strategic wariness of committing to a new scheme with unknown
potential to produce sustainable positive outcomes, getting meaningful engagement from
sufficiently senior representatives of such a wide group of services was a demanding task.
In particular, it took quite some time to persuade the YOTs of the value of the consortium
approach. As a result, a substantial amount of time was spent on establishing an agreed
terms of reference and service level agreements so that regular board meetings could
commence working together in an effective way. The original project manager left post in
Spring 2010, and a new manager took over in July 2010, largely reforming the partnership.
The terms of reference for the Board were signed in October 2010, although the
partnership between agencies was considered effectively operational by end of Summer
2010
Implementing the Five-A Model of technical refinement: Key roles of the sport psychologist
There is increasing evidence for the significant contribution provided by sport psychologists within applied coaching environments. However, this rarely considers their skills/knowledge being applied when refining athletes’ already learned and well-established motor skills. Therefore, this paper focuses on how a sport psychologist might assist a coach and athlete to implement long-term permanent and pressure proof refinements. It highlights key contributions at each stage of the Five-A Model—designed to deliver these important outcomes—providing both psychomotor and psychosocial input to the support delivery. By employing these recommendations, sport psychologists can make multiple positive contributions to completion of this challenging task
Amplified biochemical oscillations in cellular systems
We describe a mechanism for pronounced biochemical oscillations, relevant to
microscopic systems, such as the intracellular environment. This mechanism
operates for reaction schemes which, when modeled using deterministic rate
equations, fail to exhibit oscillations for any values of rate constants. The
mechanism relies on amplification of the underlying stochasticity of reaction
kinetics within a narrow window of frequencies. This amplification allows
fluctuations to beat the central limit theorem, having a dominant effect even
though the number of molecules in the system is relatively large. The mechanism
is quantitatively studied within simple models of self-regulatory gene
expression, and glycolytic oscillations.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figure
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Computational framework for longevity risk management
Longevity risk threatens the financial stability of private and government sponsored defined benefit pension systems as well as social security schemes, in an environment already characterized by persistent low interest rates and heightened financial uncertainty. The mortality experience of countries in the industrialized world would suggest a substantial age-time interaction, with the two dominant trends affecting different age groups at different times. From a statistical point of view, this indicates a dependence structure. It is observed that mortality improvements are similar for individuals of contiguous ages (Wills and Sherris, Integrating financial and demographic longevity risk models: an Australian model for financial applications, Discussion Paper PI-0817, 2008). Moreover, considering the dataset by single ages, the correlations between the residuals for adjacent age groups tend to be high (as noted in Denton et al., J Population Econ 18:203-227, 2005). This suggests that there is value in exploring the dependence structure, also across time, in other words the inter-period correlation. In this research, we focus on the projections of mortality rates, contravening the most commonly encountered dependence property which is the "lack of dependence" (Denuit et al., Actuarial theory for dependent risks: measures. Orders and models, Wiley, New York, 2005). By taking into account the presence of dependence across age and time which leads to systematic over-estimation or under-estimation of uncertainty in the estimates (Liu and Braun, J Probability Stat, 813583:15, 2010), the paper analyzes a tailor-made bootstrap methodology for capturing the spatial dependence in deriving confidence intervals for mortality projection rates. We propose a method which leads to a prudent measure of longevity risk, avoiding the structural incompleteness of the ordinary simulation bootstrap methodology which involves the assumption of independence
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