752 research outputs found
Teacher Recruitment, Retention and Pedagogical Issues Confronting Indigenous Students and Communities in Northern Saskatchewan Schools
Kinematic self-similar locally rotationally symmetric models
A brief summary of results on kinematic self-similarities in general
relativity is given. Attention is focussed on locally rotationally symmetric
models admitting kinematic self-similar vectors. Coordinate expressions for the
metric and the kinematic self-similar vector are provided.
Einstein's field equations for perfect fluid models are investigated and all
the homothetic perfect fluid solutions admitting a maximal four-parameter group
of isometries are given.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, final version, to appear in Class. Quantum Gra
Primordial Black Holes: sirens of the early Universe
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) are, typically light, black holes which can
form in the early Universe. There are a number of formation mechanisms,
including the collapse of large density perturbations, cosmic string loops and
bubble collisions. The number of PBHs formed is tightly constrained by the
consequences of their evaporation and their lensing and dynamical effects.
Therefore PBHs are a powerful probe of the physics of the early Universe, in
particular models of inflation. They are also a potential cold dark matter
candidate.Comment: 21 pages. To be published in "Quantum Aspects of Black Holes", ed. X.
Calmet (Springer, 2014
Access to interpreting services in England: secondary analysis of national data
Background:
Overcoming language barriers to health care is a global challenge. There is great linguistic diversity in the major cities in the UK with more than 300 languages, excluding dialects, spoken by children in London alone. However, there is dearth of data on the number of non-English speakers for planning effective interpreting services. The aim was to estimate the number of people requiring language support amongst the minority ethnic communities in England.
Methods:
Secondary analysis of national representative sample of subjects recruited to the Health Surveys for England 1999 and 2004.
Results:
298,432 individuals from the four main minority ethnic communities (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese) who may be unable to communicate effectively with a health professional. This represents 2,520,885 general practice consultations per year where interpreting services might be required.
Conclusion:
Effective interpreting services are required to improve access and health outcomes of non-English speakers and thereby facilitate a reduction in health inequalities
Invariant construction of solutions to Einstein's field equations - LRS perfect fluids II
The properties of LRS class II perfect fluid space-times are analyzed using
the description of geometries in terms of the Riemann tensor and a finite
number of its covariant derivatives. In this manner it is straightforward to
obtain the plane and hyperbolic analogues to the spherical symmetric case. For
spherically symmetric static models the set of equations is reduced to the
Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation only. Some new non-stationary and
inhomogeneous solutions with shear, expansion, and acceleration of the fluid
are presented. Among these are a class of temporally self-similar solutions
with equation of state given by , and a class of
solutions characterized by . We give an example of geometry
where the Riemann tensor and the Ricci rotation coefficients are not sufficient
to give a complete description of the geometry. Using an extension of the
method, we find the full metric in terms of curvature quantities.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur
Homothetic perfect fluid space-times
A brief summary of results on homotheties in General Relativity is given,
including general information about space-times admitting an r-parameter group
of homothetic transformations for r>2, as well as some specific results on
perfect fluids. Attention is then focussed on inhomogeneous models, in
particular on those with a homothetic group (acting multiply
transitively) and . A classification of all possible Lie algebra
structures along with (local) coordinate expressions for the metric and
homothetic vectors is then provided (irrespectively of the matter content), and
some new perfect fluid solutions are given and briefly discussed.Comment: 27 pages, Latex file, Submitted to Class. Quantum Gra
The Andante Regime of Scalar Field Dynamics
The andante regime of scalar field dynamics in the chaotic inflationary
Universe is defined as the epoch when the field is rolling moderately slowly
down its interaction potential, but at such a rate that first-order corrections
to the slow-roll approximation become important. These conditions should apply
towards the end of inflation as the field approaches the global minimum of the
potential. Solutions to the Einstein-scalar field equations for the class of
power law potentials are found in this regime in
terms of the inverse error function.Comment: 11 pages of plain Latex, FNAL-Pub-94/226-
The challenges of communicating research evidence in practice: perspectives from UK health visitors and practice nurses
<p>Background: Health practitioners play a pivotal role in providing patients with up-to-date evidence and health information. Evidence-based practice and patient-centred care are transforming the delivery of healthcare in the UK. Health practitioners are increasingly balancing the need to provide evidence-based information against that of facilitating patient choice, which may not always concur with the evidence base. There is limited research exploring how health practitioners working in the UK, and particularly those more autonomous practitioners such as health visitors and practice nurses working in community practice settings, negotiate this challenge. This research provides a descriptive account of how health visitors and practice nurses negotiate the challenges of communicating health information and research evidence in practice.</p>
<p>Methods: A total of eighteen in-depth telephone interviews were conducted in the UK between September 2008 and May 2009. The participants comprised nine health visitors and nine practice nurses, recruited via adverts on a nursing website, posters at a practitioner conference and through recommendation. Thematic analysis, with a focus on constant comparative method, was used to analyse the data.</p>
<p>Results: The data were grouped into three main themes: communicating evidence to the critically-minded patient; confidence in communicating evidence; and maintaining the integrity of the patient-practitioner relationship. These findings highlight some of the daily challenges that health visitors and practice nurses face with regard to the complex and dynamic nature of evidence and the changing attitudes and expectations of patients. The findings also highlight the tensions that exist between differing philosophies of evidence-based practice and patient-centred care, which can make communicating about evidence a daunting task.</p>
<p>Conclusions: If health practitioners are to be effective at communicating research evidence, we suggest that more research and resources need to be focused on contextual factors, such as how research evidence is negotiated, appraised and communicated within the dynamic patient-practitioner relationship.</p>
HIV research in Australia: linking basic research findings with clinical and public health outcomes
Despite a population of only 20 million and sustained low prevalence of HIV infection in Australia, Australian researchers have provided many substantial original findings to the fields of HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention. More recently, Australian clinicians and scientists have turned their attention to assisting other countries in developing effective responses, particularly within the Asia-Pacific region. It is therefore fitting that the 4th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention will be held in Sydney in July 2007. The meeting is expected to attract over 5000 participants and will have a dynamic and innovative programme within the three major themes of HIV basic science, clinical research and biomedical prevention
Reconstructing the Inflaton Potential---in Principle and in Practice
Generalizing the original work by Hodges and Blumenthal, we outline a
formalism which allows one, in principle, to reconstruct the potential of the
inflaton field from knowledge of the tensor gravitational wave spectrum or the
scalar density fluctuation spectrum, with special emphasis on the importance of
the tensor spectrum. We provide some illustrative examples of such
reconstruction. We then discuss in some detail the question of whether one can
use real observations to carry out this procedure. We conclude that in
practice, a full reconstruction of the functional form of the potential will
not be possible within the foreseeable future. However, with a knowledge of the
dark matter components, it should soon be possible to combine
intermediate-scale data with measurements of large-scale cosmic microwave
background anisotropies to yield useful information regarding the potential.Comment: 39 pages plus 2 figures (upon request:[email protected]), LaTeX,
FNAL--PUB--93/029-A; SUSSEX-AST 93/3-
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