The effective inflationary potential of constant-torsion emergent gravity

Constant-torsion emergent gravity (CTEG) has a Lagrangian quadratic in curvature and torsion, but without any Einstein--Hilbert term. CTEG is motivated by a unitary, power-counting renormalisable particle spectrum. The timelike axial torsion adopts a vacuum expectation value, and the Friedmann cosmology emerges dynamically on this torsion condensate. We show that this mechanism -- and the whole background cosmology of CTEG -- may be understood through the effective potential of a canonical single scalar field model. The effective potential allows for hilltop inflation in the early Universe. In the late Universe, the Hubble friction overdamps the final quadratic approach to the effective minimum at the condensate, where the value of the potential becomes the cosmological constant. We do not consider particle production through spin-torsion coupling, or running of Lagrangian parameters. The model must be completed if reheating and a separation of inflationary and dark energy scales are to be understood. It is suggested that the divergence of the potential at large values of the scalar is inconsistent with the linearised propagator analysis of CTEG around zero-torsion Minkowski spacetime. This background may therefore be a strongly coupled surface in CTEG.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Specification of an extensible and portable file format for electronic structure and crystallographic data

In order to allow different software applications, in constant evolution, to interact and exchange data, flexible file formats are needed. A file format specification for different types of content has been elaborated to allow communication of data for the software developed within the European Network of Excellence "NANOQUANTA", focusing on first-principles calculations of materials and nanosystems. It might be used by other software as well, and is described here in detail. The format relies on the NetCDF binary input/output library, already used in many different scientific communities, that provides flexibility as well as portability accross languages and platforms. Thanks to NetCDF, the content can be accessed by keywords, ensuring the file format is extensible and backward compatible

Tailoring immunisation programmes: Using behavioural insights to identify barriers and enablers to childhood immunisations in a Jewish community in London, UK.

: Due to regular vaccine preventable disease outbreaks and sub-optimal immunisation uptake in the London borough of Hackney, home to the largest Charedi Orthodox Jewish community in Europe, it was decided, in consultation with the community, to implement the WHO Tailoring Immunization Programmes approach (TIP). : The WHO Tailoring Immunization Programmes (TIP) approach was used. TIP provides a framework based on behavioural insights methodology to identify populations susceptible to vaccine preventable diseases, diagnose supply and demand side barriers and enablers to vaccination and recommend evidence-informed responses to improve vaccination coverage. : The results of the formative research and behavioural analysis challenged the assumption that a cultural or religious anti-vaccination sentiment existed within the community. Critical issues related to access to and convenience of immunisation services. Service providers in the area have challenges due to having to deliver immunisation services to the large numbers of children without additional resource. Where mothers were choosing to delay or refuse vaccinations their reasons were broadly similar to the wider population. The behavioural analysis identified potential categorisation of subgroups within the community enabling a more tailored approach to addressing concerns and meeting parents' needs. : The TIP approach was an effective way of investigating factors linked to sub-optimal immunisation within the Charedi community. The use of behavioural insights enabled the categorisation of subgroups so that more targeted interventions could be developed. The comprehensive stakeholder engagement which is a key pillar of the TIP approach ensured a deeper understanding of the barriers and enablers to vaccination as well as increasing the level of ownership in the community. TIP should be considered as a useful approach to identify main facilitators and barriers to vaccination in communities with suboptimal immunisation uptake.<br/

Importance of Appropriate Medication Administration in Patients with Nasogastric Feeding Tube

Solid dosage forms like modified release and enteric coated formulations are considered inappropriate for nasogastric feeding tube (NGFT) administration due to varying pharmacokinetics which could lead to inadequate therapeutic responses or toxicity. An analysis was conducted to assess the appropriateness of prescribed medicines for NGFT administration in hospital inpatients so that physicians can be sensitized to the importance of this. In this cross-sectional study conducted in a large tertiary care centre, prescription data of in-patients with nasogastric feeding tube (NGFT) were retrieved through electronic pharmacy transactions. Adult patients who were admitted in the hospital for more than one day and were dispensed a NGFT were included. The appropriateness of medicines administered through NGFT was assessed using standard published literature. Details of medicines that were categorized as inappropriate were collated and analysed. In case of inappropriate prescribing, availability of appropriate dosage forms was also determined. A total of 510 patients were found eligible for analyses. Majority of the patients were dispensed at least one inappropriate dosage form. Among the dispensed oral solid dosage forms, 16.38% were found to be inappropriate for NGFT administration. Of these, 21.41% were dispensed on same day as the NGFT, 34.67% were dispensed before the NGFT and were continued throughout the hospital stay and 43.92% were dispensed within or after 24 hours of NGFT dispensation. These findings will improve awareness among healthcare professionals about the need for appropriate administration of oral formulations in patients intubated with NGFT. Keywords: Inappropriate Dosage Forms, Nasogastric Feeding Tube, Appropriate Dosage Forms, Modified Release Formulation

Effects of data quality vetoes on a search for compact binary coalescences in Advanced LIGO\u27s first observing run

The first observing run of Advanced LIGO spanned 4 months, from 12 September 2015 to 19 January 2016, during which gravitational waves were directly detected from two binary black hole systems, namely GW150914 and GW151226. Confident detection of gravitational waves requires an understanding of instrumental transients and artifacts that can reduce the sensitivity of a search. Studies of the quality of the detector data yield insights into the cause of instrumental artifacts and data quality vetoes specific to a search are produced to mitigate the effects of problematic data. In this paper, the systematic removal of noisy data from analysis time is shown to improve the sensitivity of searches for compact binary coalescences. The output of the PyCBC pipeline, which is a python-based code package used to search for gravitational wave signals from compact binary coalescences, is used as a metric for improvement. GW150914 was a loud enough signal that removing noisy data did not improve its significance. However, the removal of data with excess noise decreased the false alarm rate of GW151226 by more than two orders of magnitude, from 1 in 770 yr to less than 1 in 186 000 yr

The basic physics of the binary black hole merger GW150914

The first direct gravitational-wave detection was made by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory on September 14, 2015. The GW150914 signal was strong enough to be apparent, without using any waveform model, in the filtered detector strain data. Here, features of the signal visible in the data are analyzed using concepts from Newtonian physics and general relativity, accessible to anyone with a general physics background. The simple analysis presented here is consistent with the fully general-relativistic analyses published elsewhere, in showing that the signal was produced by the inspiral and subsequent merger of two black holes. The black holes were each of approximately 35M(circle dot), still orbited each other as close as similar to 350 km apart and subsequently merged to form a single black hole. Similar reasoning, directly from the data, is used to roughly estimate how far these black holes were from the Earth, and the energy that they radiated in gravitational waves

Binary Black Hole Mergers in the First Advanced LIGO Observing Run

The first observational run of the Advanced LIGO detectors, from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, saw the first detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers. In this paper, we present full results from a search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to 100M. and detailed implications from our observations of these systems. Our search, based on general-relativistic models of gravitational-wave signals from binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and GW151226, with a significance of greater than 5 sigma over the observing period. It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with substantially lower significance and with an 87% probability of being of astrophysical origin. We provide detailed estimates of the parameters of the observed systems. Both GW150914 and GW151226 provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the large velocity, highly nonlinear regime. We do not observe any deviations from general relativity, and we place improved empirical bounds on several highorder post-Newtonian coefficients. From our observations, we infer stellar-mass binary black hole merger rates lying in the range 9-240 Gpc(-3) yr(-1). These observations are beginning to inform astrophysical predictions of binary black hole formation rates and indicate that future observing runs of the Advanced detector network will yield many more gravitational-wave detections

All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the first Advanced LIGO run

We present the results from an all-sky search for short-duration gravitational waves in the data of the first run of the Advanced LIGO detectors between September 2015 and January 2016. The search algorithms use minimal assumptions on the signal morphology, so they are sensitive to a wide range of sources emitting gravitational waves. The analyses target transient signals with duration ranging from milliseconds to seconds over the frequency band of 32 to 4096 Hz. The first observed gravitational-wave event, GW150914, has been detected with high confidence in this search; the other known gravitational-wave event, GW151226, falls below the search\u27s sensitivity. Besides GW150914, all of the search results are consistent with the expected rate of accidental noise coincidences. Finally, we estimate rate-density limits for a broad range of non-binary-black-hole transient gravitational-wave sources as a function of their gravitational radiation emission energy and their characteristic frequency. These rate-density upper limits are stricter than those previously published by an order of magnitude

SUPPLEMENT: THE RATE OF BINARY BLACK HOLE MERGERS INFERRED FROM ADVANCED LIGO OBSERVATIONS SURROUNDING GW150914 (2016, ApJL, 833, L1)

This article provides supplemental information for a Letter reporting the rate of (BBH) coalescences inferred from 16 days of coincident Advanced LIGO observations surrounding the transient (GW) signal GW150914. In that work we reported various rate estimates whose 90% confidence intervals fell in the range 2-600. Gpc(-3). yr(-1). Here we give details on our method and computations, including information about our search pipelines, a derivation of our likelihood function for the analysis, a description of the astrophysical search trigger distribution expected from merging BBHs, details on our computational methods, a description of the effects and our model for calibration uncertainty, and an analytic method for estimating our detector sensitivity, which is calibrated to our measurements

Exploring the sensitivity of next generation gravitational wave detectors

The second-generation of gravitational-wave detectors are just starting operation, and have already yielding their first detections. Research is now concentrated on how to maximize the scientific potential of gravitational-wave astronomy. To support this effort, we present here design targets for a new generation of detectors, which will be capable of observing compact binary sources with high signal-to-noise ratio throughout the Universe