Drink wise, age well; reducing alcohol related harm among people over 50: a study protocol

Background: Evidence suggests that the use of alcohol among older adults (defined as those aged 50+) has increased in recent years, with people aged 55-64 now more likely to exceed the recommended weekly guidelines than any other age group. Methods/ design: This is a quasi-experimental study with a before-after design. A postal questionnaire will be sent to 76,000 people aged 50 and over registered with a general practice in five different 'demonstration' (intervention) and control areas in the UK. Multiple interventions will then be delivered in demonstration areas across the UK. At the end of the programme, a postal questionnaire will be sent to the same individuals who completed it pre-programme to establish if there has been a reduction in alcohol use, at-risk drinking and alcohol related problems. Qualitative interviews with clients and staff will explore how the interventions were experienced; how they may work to bring about change and to identify areas for practice improvements. Discussion: This study protocol describes a multi-level, multi-intervention prevention-to-treatment programme which aims to reduce alcohol-related harm in people aged 50 and over

Positronium oscillations to Mirror World revisited

We present a calculation of the branching ratio of orthopositronium decay into an invisible mode, which is done in the context of Mirror World models, where ordinary positronium can disappear from our world due to oscillation into its mirror twin. In this revision we clarify some formulas and approximations used previously, correct them at some places, add new effects relevant for a feasible experiment and finally perform a combined analysis. We include into consideration various effects due to external magnetic and electric fields, collisions with cavity walls and scattering off gas atoms in the cavity. Oscillations of the Rydberg positroniums are also considered. To perform a numerical estimates in a realistic case we wrote computer code, which can be adopted in any experimental setup. Its work is illustrated with an example of a planned positronium experiment within the AEgIS project.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, typos corrected, references added, published versio

Phase Coexistence Near a Morphotropic Phase Boundary in Sm-doped BiFeO3 Films

We have investigated heteroepitaxial films of Sm-doped BiFeO3 with a Sm-concentration near a morphotropic phase boundary. Our high-resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction, carried out in a temperature range of 25C to 700C, reveals substantial phase coexistence as one changes temperature to crossover from a low-temperature PbZrO3-like phase to a high-temperature orthorhombic phase. We also examine changes due to strain for films greater or less than the critical thickness for misfit dislocation formation. Particularly, we note that thicker films exhibit a substantial volume collapse associated with the structural transition that is suppressed in strained thin films

Evidence of sympathetic cooling of Na+ ions by a Na MOT in a hybrid trap

A hybrid ion-neutral trap provides an ideal system to study collisional dynamics between ions and neutrals. This system provides a general cooling method that can be applied to optically inaccessible species and can also potentially cool internal degrees of freedom. The long range polarization potentials ($V\propto-\alpha/r^4$) between ions and neutrals result in large scattering cross sections at cold temperatures, making the hybrid trap a favorable system for efficient sympathetic cooling of ions by collisions with neutral atoms. We present experimental evidence of sympathetic cooling in a hybrid trap of \ce{Na+} ions, which are closed shell and therefore do not have a laser induced atomic transition, by equal mass cold Na atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT).Comment: 7 figure

Quantifying the financial impact of climate change on Australian local government roads

Published: 11 January 2017Australia’s 560 Councils are responsible for assets worth approximately $270 billion, many of which have a life span >50 years and so will be affected by climate change. Maintenance and replacement of Council infrastructure is guided by principles, models and tools in the International Infrastructure Management Manual that currently do not allow for climate change impacts or the likely flow-on effects to asset and financial management. This paper describes a financial simulation model developed to calculate the financial impacts of climate change on three major asset classes of importance to Australian Councils: hotmix sealed, spray sealed and unsealed roads. The research goes beyond previous studies of climate change impacts on roads in that it provides a location specific toolkit that is designed to assist councils in their asset management and planned maintenance programmes. Two categories of inputs are required for the model: climate inputs, relating specifically to baseline temperature and rainfall distributions and climate change parameters for temperature and rainfall; and engineering inputs, relating specifically to the three road types and the key parameters of their performance and useful lives over the scenario period. The baseline distributions are then shifted mathematically within the model by the mean change as projected by a selected Global Climate Model (GCM) scenario. Outputs of the model are the historical baseline climate variable distributions and the climate change (CC) impacts on road performance are in the form of changes to the useful life of the asset and associated changes in asset resurfacing and rehabilitation costs. Ten case study local councils in southern Australia are examined. Using IPCC AR4 scenarios, the results suggest that the incremental impact of climate change on all three types of road infrastructure modelled will be generally low. There are small cost reductions over the period for all road types as a result of the expected drying and warming trends in the climate.Jacqueline Balston, Steven Li, Ivan Iankov, Jon Kellett and Geoff Well

Movement correction in DCE-MRI through windowed and reconstruction dynamic mode decomposition

Images of the kidneys using dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance renography (DCE-MRR) contains unwanted complex organ motion due to respiration. This gives rise to motion artefacts that hinder the clinical assessment of kidney function. However, due to the rapid change in contrast agent within the DCE-MR image sequence, commonly used intensity-based image registration techniques are likely to fail. While semi-automated approaches involving human experts are a possible alternative, they pose significant drawbacks including inter-observer variability, and the bottleneck introduced through manual inspection of the multiplicity of images produced during a DCE-MRR study. To address this issue, we present a novel automated, registration-free movement correction approach based on windowed and reconstruction variants of dynamic mode decomposition (WR-DMD). Our proposed method is validated on ten different healthy volunteers’ kidney DCEMRI data sets. The results, using block-matching-block evaluation on the image sequence produced by WR-DMD, show the elimination of 99% of mean motion magnitude when compared to the original data sets, thereby demonstrating the viability of automatic movement correction using WR-DMD

Ion-neutral sympathetic cooling in a hybrid linear rf Paul and magneto-optical trap

Long range polarization forces between ions and neutral atoms result in large elastic scattering cross sections, e.g., 10^6 a.u. for Na+ on Na or Ca+ on Na at cold and ultracold temperatures. This suggests that a hybrid ion-neutral trap should offer a general means for significant sympathetic cooling of atomic or molecular ions. We present SIMION 7.0 simulation results concerning the advantages and limitations of sympathetic cooling within a hybrid trap apparatus, consisting of a linear rf Paul trap concentric with a Na magneto-optical trap (MOT). This paper explores the impact of various heating mechanisms on the hybrid system and how parameters related to the MOT, Paul trap, number of ions, and ion species affect the efficiency of the sympathetic cooling