The first quadrupole excitations in spherical nuclei and nuclear pairing

Excitation energies and transition probabilities of the first 2+ excitations in even lead, tin and nickel isotopes are calculated within the self-consistent Theory of Finite Fermi Systems based on the Energy Density Functional by Fayans et al. A reasonable agreement with available experimental data is obtained. The effect of the density dependence of the effective pairing interaction is analyzed in detail by comparing results obtained with volume and surface pairing. The effect is found to be noticeable, especially for the 2+ energies which are systematically higher at 200-300 keV for the volume paring as compared with the surface pairing case, the latter being in a better agreement with the data.Comment: Presented at International Conference on Nuclear Structure and Related Topics, Dubna, July 2 - 7, 201

Self-consistent calculations of quadrupole moments of the first 2+ states in Sn and Pb isotopes

A method of calculating static moments of excited states and transitions between excited states is formulated for non-magic nuclei within the Green function formalism. For these characteristics, it leads to a noticeable difference from the standard QRPA approach. Quadrupole moments of the first 2+ states in Sn and Pb isotopes are calculated using the self-consistent TFFS based on the Energy Density Functional by Fayans et al. with the set of parameters DF3-a fixed previously. A reasonable agreement with available experimental data is obtained.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Interaction of the single-particle and collective degrees of freedom in non-magic nuclei: the role of phonon tadpole terms

A method of a consistent consideration of the phonon contributions to mass and gap operators in non-magic nuclei is developed in the so-called g^2 approximation, where g is the low-lying phonon creation amplitude. It includes simultaneous accounting for both the usual non-local terms and the phonon tadpole ones. The relations which allow the tadpoles to be calculated without any new parameters are derived. As an application of the results, the role of the phonon tadpoles in the single-particle strength distribution and in the single-particle energies and gap values has been considered. Relation to the problem of the surface nature of pairing is discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure

Separabelized Skyrme Interactions and Quasiparticle RPA

A finite rank separable approximation for the quasiparticle RPA with Skyrme interactions is applied to study the low lying quadrupole and octupole states in some S isotopes and giant resonances in some spherical nuclei. It is shown that characteristics calculated within the suggested approach are in a good agreement with available experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the Seventh School-Seminar on Heavy Ion Physics, Dubna, Russia, May 27-June 1, 2002; to appear in Physics of Atomic Nucle

The under-representation of minority ethnic groups in UK medical research

Objectives. The paper investigates differences in engagement with medical research between White British and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups in the UK, using data from the Wellcome Trust Monitor (WTM). Design. The WTM is nationally representative of the UK population and has collected data over two waves, 2009 and 2012. Data pooled from both waves (n = 2575) were used to examine associations between ethnic group and participation in medical research, and willingness to participate in medical research. Logistic regression analysis used models that controlled for socio-economic and demographic factors, and relevant outlooks and experiences that are, or could reasonably be assumed to be, associated with engagement with medical research. Results. Respondents from the BAME group were less likely to have participated in medical research compared to those from the White British group, but there was only patchy evidence of small ethnic group differences in willingness to participate. Influences on engagement in medical research varied somewhat between the White British and BAME groups, in particular in relation to occupation, education, health, attitudes to medical science and belief. Conclusions. These findings consolidate previously context-specific evidence of BAME group under-representation in the UK, and highlight the heterogeneity that exists with in the broad BAME group. Efforts to address the under-representation of those from BAME groups might benefit from targeted strategies for recruitment and advocacy, although improved datasets are required to fully understand ethnic differences in engagement with medical research

Negative Kaons in Dense Baryonic Matter

Kaon polarization operator in dense baryonic matter of arbitrary isotopic composition is calculated including s- and p-wave kaon-baryon interactions. The regular part of the polarization operator is extracted from the realistic kaon-nucleon interaction based on the chiral and 1/N_c expansion. Contributions of the Lambda(1116), Sigma(1195), Sigma*(1385) resonances are taken explicitly into account in the pole and regular terms with inclusion of mean-field potentials. The baryon-baryon correlations are incorporated and fluctuation contributions are estimated. Results are applied for K- in neutron star matter. Within our model a second-order phase transition to the s-wave K- condensate state occurs at rho_c \gsim 4 \rho_0 once the baryon-baryon correlations are included. We show that the second-order phase transition to the p-wave $K^-$ condensate state may occur at densities $\rho_c \sim 3\div 5 \rho_0$ in dependence on the parameter choice. We demonstrate that a first-order phase transition to a proton-enriched (approximately isospin-symmetric) nucleon matter with a p-wave K- condensate can occur at smaller densities, \rho\lsim 2 \rho_0. The transition is accompanied by the suppression of hyperon concentrations.Comment: 41 pages, 24 figures, revtex4 styl

Materiality, health informatics and the limits of knowledge production

© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014 Contemporary societies increasingly rely on complex and sophisticated information systems for a wide variety of tasks and, ultimately, knowledge about the world in which we live. Those systems are central to the kinds of problems our systems and sub-systems face such as health and medical diagnosis, treatment and care. While health information systems represent a continuously expanding field of knowledge production, we suggest that they carry forward significant limitations, particularly in their claims to represent human beings as living creatures and in their capacity to critically reflect on the social, cultural and political origins of many forms of data ‘representation’. In this paper we take these ideas and explore them in relation to the way we see healthcare information systems currently functioning. We offer some examples from our own experience in healthcare settings to illustrate how unexamined ideas about individuals, groups and social categories of people continue to influence health information systems and practices as well as their resulting knowledge production. We suggest some ideas for better understanding how and why this still happens and look to a future where the reflexivity of healthcare administration, the healthcare professions and the information sciences might better engage with these issues. There is no denying the role of health informatics in contemporary healthcare systems but their capacity to represent people in those datascapes has a long way to go if the categories they use to describe and analyse human beings are to produce meaningful knowledge about the social world and not simply to replicate past ideologies of those same categories

Exploring the relationship between video game expertise and fluid intelligence

Hundreds of millions of people play intellectually-demanding video games every day. What does individual performance on these games tell us about cognition? Here, we describe two studies that examine the potential link between intelligence and performance in one of the most popular video games genres in the world (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas: MOBAs). In the first study, we show that performance in the popular MOBA League of Legends' correlates with fluid intelligence as measured under controlled laboratory conditions. In the second study, we also show that the age profile of performance in the two most widely-played MOBAs (League of Legends and DOTA II) matches that of raw fluid intelligence. We discuss and extend previous videogame literature on intelligence and videogames and suggest that commercial video games can be useful as 'proxy' tests of cognitive performance at a global population level