1,579 research outputs found
Life satisfaction questionnaire (Lisat-9): reliability and validity for patients with acquired brain injury
The aim of this study was to determine the reliability and discriminant validity of the Dutch version of the life satisfaction questionnaire (Lisat-9 DV) to assess patients with an acquired brain injury. The reliability study used a test-retest design, and the validity study used a cross-sectional design. The setting was the general rehabilitation centre. There were 159 patients over 18 years of age, with an acquired brain injury, in the chronic phase. The main outcome measures were weighted kappa of test and retest data on the nine questions of the Lisat-9 DV and significance levels of differences between subgroups of patients who are expected to differ in terms of Lisat-9 scores, on the basis of other instruments. The results were as follows: the reliability was moderate, with the weighted kappa ranging from 0.41 to 0.64. In terms of validity, subgroups of patients who were expected to differ in terms of the Lisat-9 domains did indeed differ significantly, except for the difference in the Lisat score for 'contact with friends and acquaintances' between subgroups defined by higher or lower scores on the corresponding domain of the Frenchay Activities Index. As there was a plausible explanation for not finding a significant difference between subgroups defined by one of the Frenchay Activities Index domains and significant differences were found between the subgroups defined by other instruments corresponding to the same domain, we conclude that the discriminant validity is good. The reliability was not clearly affected by cognitive disorder or aphasia. The conclusions were that the reliability of the Lisat-9 DV for patients with an acquired brain injury was moderate; the discriminant validity was good
Complaynt of Scotland : a critical edition
This is the first attempt at a major revaluation of the entire Complaynt of Scotland for a century.
This important, unique, neglected mid sixteenth-century Scottish
prose work is placed in its historical context , The Complayner
is revealed as a biblical and classical scholar, a patriot with
humane European perspectives, focussing on the crucial problems
confronting Scots in the aftermath of the English 'Rough Wooing'.
He wrestles with the philosophical yet practical dilemma of such
alternatives as freewill or fatalistic apathy, collaboration or
non-collaboration, submission or resistance. It is an appeal
for concord and resistance. The Complayner reveals implicit views
of history as a providential pattern.and time as a continuous present
in which linear chronology and causation are less important than
meaning and perennially universally valid constants.
The Complayner is identified as Robert Wedderburn, and new
evidence of possible places and dates of writing and printing are
given .
Hitherto undetected sources and influences are indicated,
including large-scale borrowing from Pliny and Guevara. The
Complayner adopted from Chartier the framework of the dialogue,
with its key features including the use of allegory, the dream vision
framework, conscious display of humanism, erudition and
moralistic eloquent sententiousness in Ciceronian periodic
sentence structure and antithetical Senecan argumentation.
Introduction, notes and an appendix, give a detailed parallel
analysis of Chartier and the Complaynt
Action-gradient-minimizing pseudo-orbits and almost-invariant tori
Transport in near-integrable, but partially chaotic,
degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian systems is blocked by invariant tori and is
reduced at \emph{almost}-invariant tori, both associated with the invariant
tori of a neighboring integrable system. "Almost invariant" tori with rational
rotation number can be defined using continuous families of periodic
\emph{pseudo-orbits} to foliate the surfaces, while irrational-rotation-number
tori can be defined by nesting with sequences of such rational tori. Three
definitions of "pseudo-orbit," \emph{action-gradient--minimizing} (AGMin),
\emph{quadratic-flux-minimizing} (QFMin) and \emph{ghost} orbits, based on
variants of Hamilton's Principle, use different strategies to extremize the
action as closely as possible. Equivalent Lagrangian (configuration-space
action) and Hamiltonian (phase-space action) formulations, and a new approach
to visualizing action-minimizing and minimax orbits based on AGMin
pseudo-orbits, are presented.Comment: Accepted for publication in a special issue of Communications in
Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation (CNSNS) entitled "The mathematical
structure of fluids and plasmas : a volume dedicated to the 60th birthday of
Phil Morrison
Temperature dependence of the spin and orbital magnetization density in around the spin-orbital compensation point
Non-resonant ferromagnetic x-ray diffraction has been used to separate the
spin and orbital contribution to the magnetization density of the proposed
zero-moment ferromagnet . The alignment of the
spin and orbital moments relative to the net magnetization shows a sign
reversal at 84K, the compensation temperature. Below this temperature the
orbital moment is larger than the spin moment, and vice versa above it. This
result implies that the compensation mechanism is driven by the different
temperature dependencies of the spin and orbital moments. Specific heat
data indicate that the system remains ferromagnetically ordered throughout
Electromagnetic field angular momentum in condensed matter systems
Various electromagnetic systems can carry an angular momentum in their {\bf
E} and {\bf B} fields. The electromagnetic field angular momentum (EMAM) of
these systems can combine with the spin angular momentum to give composite
fermions or composite bosons. In this paper we examine the possiblity that an
EMAM could provide an explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE)
which is complimentary to the Chern-Simons explanation. We also examine a toy
model of a non-BCS superconductor (e.g. high superconductors) in terms of
an EMAM. The models presented give a common, simple picture of these two
systems in terms of an EMAM. The presence of an EMAM in these systems might be
tested through the observation of the decay modes of a charged, spin zero
unstable particle inside one of these systems.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Further results on non-diagonal Bianchi type III vacuum metrics
We present the derivation, for these vacuum metrics, of the Painlev\'e VI
equation first obtained by Christodoulakis and Terzis, from the field equations
for both minkowskian and euclidean signatures. This allows a complete
discussion and the precise connection with some old results due to Kinnersley.
The hyperk\"ahler metrics are shown to belong to the Multi-Centre class and for
the cases exhibiting an integrable geodesic flow the relevant Killing tensors
are given. We conclude by the proof that for the Bianchi B family, excluding
type III, there are no hyperk\"ahler metrics.Comment: 21 pages, no figure
Statistics of Coulomb blockade peak spacings for a partially open dot
We show that randomness of the electron wave functions in a quantum dot
contributes to the fluctuations of the positions of the conductance peaks. This
contribution grows with the conductance of the junctions connecting the dot to
the leads. It becomes comparable with the fluctuations coming from the
randomness of the single particle spectrum in the dot while the Coulomb
blockade peaks are still well-defined. In addition, the fluctuations of the
peak spacings are correlated with the fluctuations of the conductance peak
heights.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur
First report of a complete genome sequence for a begomovirus infecting Jatropha gossypifolia in the Americas
Jatropha gossypifolia is a weed that is commonly found with yellow mosaic symptoms growing along the roadside and in close proximity to cultivated crops in many farming communities in Jamaica. For the first time, the complete genome sequence of a new begomovirus, designated jatropha mosaic virus-[Jamaica:Spanish Town:2004] (JMV-[JM:ST:04]), was determined from field-infected J. gossypifolia in the western hemisphere. DNA-A nucleotide sequence comparisons showed closest identity (84 %) to two tobacco-infecting viruses from Cuba, tobacco mottle leaf curl virus-[Cuba:Sancti Spiritus:03] (TbMoLCV-[CU:SS:03]) and tobacco leaf curl Cuba virus-[Cuba:Taguasco:2005] (TbLCuCUV-[CU:Tag:05]), and two weed-infecting viruses from Cuba and Jamaica, Rhynchosia rugose golden mosaic virus-[Cuba:Camaguey:171:2009] (RhRGMV- [CU:Cam:171:09]) and Wissadula golden mosaic St. Thomas virus-[Jamaica:Albion:2005] (WGMSTV-[JM:Alb:05]). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that JMV-[JM:ST:04] is most closely related to tobacco and tomato viruses from Cuba and WGMSTV-[JM:Alb:05], a common malvaceous-weed-infecting virus from eastern Jamaica, and that it is distinct from begomoviruses infecting Jatropha species in India and Nigeria.The School of Graduate
Studies and Research and the Principal’s New Initiative Fund,
University of the West Indies, Mona.http://link.springer.com/journal/7052015-10--01hj201
Stochastic Vehicle Routing with Recourse
We study the classic Vehicle Routing Problem in the setting of stochastic
optimization with recourse. StochVRP is a two-stage optimization problem, where
demand is satisfied using two routes: fixed and recourse. The fixed route is
computed using only a demand distribution. Then after observing the demand
instantiations, a recourse route is computed -- but costs here become more
expensive by a factor lambda.
We present an O(log^2 n log(n lambda))-approximation algorithm for this
stochastic routing problem, under arbitrary distributions. The main idea in
this result is relating StochVRP to a special case of submodular orienteering,
called knapsack rank-function orienteering. We also give a better approximation
ratio for knapsack rank-function orienteering than what follows from prior
work. Finally, we provide a Unique Games Conjecture based omega(1) hardness of
approximation for StochVRP, even on star-like metrics on which our algorithm
achieves a logarithmic approximation.Comment: 20 Pages, 1 figure Revision corrects the statement and proof of
Theorem 1.
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