“It’s about having exposure to this”: investigating the training needs of therapists in relation to the issue of anomalous experiences

Two focus groups, consisting of six participants each, were conducted to explore the training needs of therapists when working with clients reporting anomalous experiences (AEs). AEs are those that “depart from our own familiar personal experiences or from the more usual, ordinary, and expected experiences of a given culture and time” (Braud, 2012, p.107). A thematic analysis revealed four themes: ‘Quite often we get taken by surprise because it’s a subject we don’t talk about’, ‘It’s just having this in our vocabulary’, ‘Demystifying and valuing AEs as normal human experiences’, and ‘To ask or not to ask?’. Most of the participants felt that they were unequipped to work with clients reporting AEs and suggestions were made for overcoming this

Basic Derivatives of Fluorene and Anthracene, and Isomerisation Reactions with Hydrogen Fluoride

Part I. Attempts to prepare the basic esters beta-diethyl-aznino ethyl 1,2,3,4,10,11-hexahydrof luorene-9-carboxylate and beta-diethylaminoethyl 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12-octahydro-anthracene-9-carboxylate for testing as antispasmodic drugs have been made. These compounds have certain structural features which, in similar compounds, have been found to enhance the antispasmodic properties of these compounds. The reduction of fluorene-9-carboxylic acid has been studied with limited success. Hexahydrofluorene-9-carboxylic acid, an intermediate required in the synthesis of the former ester, has been obtained but only in poor yield. A further acid of unknown structure and several neutral by-products have also been isolated. Other synthetic methods failed due to the reluctance of hexahydro-fluorenone to form a cyanhydrin and the ease with which 9-halogene-hexahydrofluorenes decomposed. trans- as-hexahydroanthrone did not form a cyanhydrin so that trans- as- octahydroanthracene-9-carboxylio acid, an intermediate in the synthesis of the latter ester, was not obtained. The basic ethers, beta-diethylaminoethyl fluorenyl-9-ether. beta-diethylsaminoethyl hexahydrofluorenyl-9-ether and beta-diethylaminoethyl trans-as-octahydroanthranyl-9-ether, also required for testing as antispasmodic drugs, were obtained by condensation of the sodio-derivatives of the alcohols 9-fluorenol, hexahydrofluoren-9-ol and 9-hydroxy-traus-as-octahydroanthracene, respectively, with beta-diethylaminoethyl chloride. Summary, Part II. A study of a new type of isomerisation reaction (68, 69) using hydrogen fluoride as catalyst has been extended to durene (1,2,4,5-tetramethylbenzene) and penta-methylbenzene derivatives. It has been confirmed that migration of methyl groups in this reaction occurs only when accompanied by cyclisation. Durene, durylcarboxylic acid and durylacetic acid were unaffected by treatment with hydrogen fluoride at room temperature . Under similar conditions beta-durylpropionic acid was partially converted to a mixture of 4,5,7-trimethyl-indan-l-one and 4,5,6,7-tetramethylindan-l-one. The latter ketone was also obtained from beta-pentamethylphenylpropionio acid under identical conditions. Similarly 1-durylbutyric acid yielded 5,6,7,8-tetramethyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroanphthalen-l-one. l-pentamethylphenylbutyric acid was recovered un- changed on similar treatment. Similarities between this type of reaction and previously described isomerisation reactions have been noted though migration in this new type of isomerisation reaction appears to be much more limited in extent. A possible mechanism for the new type of reaction, based on these similarities, has been evolved. A partial isomerisation in the durene nucleus under the influence of aluminium chloride under mild conditions has been noted and correlated to a similar isomerisation in the s-octahydroanthracene nucleus and to the Jacobsen reaction

Numerical constraints on the model of stochastic excitation of solar-type oscillations

Analyses of a 3D simulation of the upper layers of a solar convective envelope provide constraints on the physical quantities which enter the theoretical formulation of a stochastic excitation model of solar p modes, for instance the convective velocities and the turbulent kinetic energy spectrum. These constraints are then used to compute the acoustic excitation rate for solar p modes, P. The resulting values are found ~5 times larger than the values resulting from a computation in which convective velocities and entropy fluctuations are obtained with a 1D solar envelope model built with the time-dependent, nonlocal Gough (1977) extension of the mixing length formulation for convection (GMLT). This difference is mainly due to the assumed mean anisotropy properties of the velocity field in the excitation region. The 3D simulation suggests much larger horizontal velocities compared to vertical ones than in the 1D GMLT solar model. The values of P obtained with the 3D simulation constraints however are still too small compared with the values inferred from solar observations. Improvements in the description of the turbulent kinetic energy spectrum and its depth dependence yield further increased theoretical values of P which bring them closer to the observations. It is also found that the source of excitation arising from the advection of the turbulent fluctuations of entropy by the turbulent movements contributes ~ 65-75 % to the excitation and therefore remains dominant over the Reynolds stress contribution. The derived theoretical values of P obtained with the 3D simulation constraints remain smaller by a factor ~3 compared with the solar observations. This shows that the stochastic excitation model still needs to be improved.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Vulture Poisoning Incidents and the Status of Vultures in Zambia and Malawi

Asia and Africa have experienced recent catastrophic declines in populations of most species of vultures (Thiollay 2006, Ogada et al. 2011, Virani et al. 2011). While the declines in Asia have been linked to poisoning by the veterinary drug diclofenac (Oaks et al. 2004), the reasons for the declines across Africa remain poorly understood (Ogada et al. 2011), and are likely to have multiple causes, such as poisoning and a decline in food supply

No evidence of a significant role for CTLA-4 in multiple sclerosis

Variation in the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) gene plays a significant role in determining susceptibility to autoimmune thyroid disease and type 1 diabetes. Its role in multiple sclerosis is more controversial. In order to explore this logical candidate more thoroughly, we genotyped 771 multiple sclerosis trio families from the United Kingdom for the 3? untranslated region variable number tandem repeat, the CT60 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and five haplotype-tagging SNPs. No individual marker or common haplotype showed evidence of association with disease. These data suggest that any effect of CTLA-4 on multiple sclerosis susceptibility is likely to be very small

Global asteroseismic properties of solar-like oscillations observed by Kepler : A comparison of complementary analysis methods

We present the asteroseismic analysis of 1948 F-, G- and K-type main-sequence and subgiant stars observed by the NASA {\em Kepler Mission}. We detect and characterise solar-like oscillations in 642 of these stars. This represents the largest cohort of main-sequence and subgiant solar-like oscillators observed to date. The photometric observations are analysed using the methods developed by nine independent research teams. The results are combined to validate the determined global asteroseismic parameters and calculate the relative precision by which the parameters can be obtained. We correlate the relative number of detected solar-like oscillators with stellar parameters from the {\em Kepler Input Catalog} and find a deficiency for stars with effective temperatures in the range $5300 \lesssim T_\mathrm{eff} \lesssim 5700$\,K and a drop-off in detected oscillations in stars approaching the red edge of the classical instability strip. We compare the power-law relationships between the frequency of peak power, $\nu_\mathrm{max}$, the mean large frequency separation, $\Delta\nu$, and the maximum mode amplitude, $A_\mathrm{max}$, and show that there are significant method-dependent differences in the results obtained. This illustrates the need for multiple complementary analysis methods to be used to assess the robustness and reproducibility of results derived from global asteroseismic parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Simulations of Oscillation Modes of the Solar Convection Zone

We use the three-dimensional hydrodynamic code of Stein and Nordlund to realistically simulate the upper layers of the solar convection zone in order to study physical characteristics of solar oscillations. Our first result is that the properties of oscillation modes in the simulation closely match the observed properties. Recent observations from SOHO/MDI and GONG have confirmed the asymmetry of solar oscillation line profiles, initially discovered by Duvall et al. In this paper we compare the line profiles in the power spectra of the Doppler velocity and continuum intensity oscillations from the SOHO/MDI observations with the simulation. We also compare the phase differences between the velocity and intensity data. We have found that the simulated line profiles are asymmetric and have the same asymmetry reversal between velocity and intensity as observed. The phase difference between the velocity and intensity signals is negative at low frequencies and jumps in the vicinity of modes as is also observed. Thus, our numerical model reproduces the basic observed properties of solar oscillations, and allows us to study the physical properties which are not observed.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The CoRoT target HD175726: an active star with weak solar-like oscillations

Context. The CoRoT short runs give us the opportunity to observe a large variety of late-type stars through their solar-like oscillations. We report observations of the star HD175726 that lasted for 27 days during the first short run of the mission. The time series reveals a high-activity signal and the power spectrum presents an excess due to solar-like oscillations with a low signal-to-noise ratio. Aims. Our aim is to identify the most efficient tools to extract as much information as possible from the power density spectrum. Methods. The most productive method appears to be the autocorrelation of the time series, calculated as the spectrum of the filtered spectrum. This method is efficient, very rapid computationally, and will be useful for the analysis of other targets, observed with CoRoT or with forthcoming missions such as Kepler and Plato. Results. The mean large separation has been measured to be 97.2+-0.5 microHz, slightly below the expected value determined from solar scaling laws.We also show strong evidence for variation of the large separation with frequency. The bolometric mode amplitude is only 1.7+-0.25 ppm for radial modes, which is 1.7 times less than expected. Due to the low signal-to-noise ratio, mode identification is not possible for the available data set of HD175726. Conclusions. This study shows the possibility of extracting a seismic signal despite a signal-to-noise ratio of only 0.37. The observation of such a target shows the efficiency of the CoRoT data, and the potential benefit of longer observing runs.Comment: 8 pages. Accepted in A&

The Relation between Physical and Gravitational Geometry

The appearance of two geometries in one and the same gravitational theory is familiar. Usually, as in the Brans-Dicke theory or in string theory, these are conformally related Riemannian geometries. Is this the most general relation between the two geometries allowed by physics ? We study this question by supposing that the physical geometry on which matter dynamics take place could be Finslerian rather than just Riemannian. An appeal to the weak equivalence principle and causality then leads us the conclusion that the Finsler geometry has to reduce to a Riemann geometry whose metric - the physical metric - is related to the gravitational metric by a generalization of the conformal transformation.Comment: 15 pages, Te