1,072 research outputs found
A population-based survey on tanning bed use in Germany
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The suntanning industry has grown up over the last decade in Europe, mainly because tanned skin is considered socially desirable and attractive. Because of the potential negative impact of artificial tanning on public health, this study was to investigate tanning bed use behaviour, UV related risk perception and beliefs about tanning in the German population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In 2007, a representative telephone survey was carried out among 1501 German residents aged 14 years and older.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>More than one fourth (28%) of the German population have used tanning beds at least once before in their lifetime. High-frequency tanning behaviour, i.e. using tanning beds more than 10 times per year, were recorded for 11%. Men and women aged 18 to 44 years and young women under the age of 18 used tanning beds more frequently (>10 times per year). Tanning bed use was positively related to appearance and lifestyle related beliefs as well as to the perception that tanned skin is healthy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This analysis indicates that tanning bed use is common in Germany. The positive relationships of appearance and health related beliefs with tanning bed use are of great concern. The results indicate underlying misconceptions about the positive effect of artificial UV radiation compared to natural UV radiation particular for high-frequency tanners. The data shows the importance as well as the limitations for risk communication in its current effort to inform effectively about the dangers of artificial UV radiation.</p
Spectrum of a duality-twisted Ising quantum chain
The Ising quantum chain with a peculiar twisted boundary condition is
considered. This boundary condition, first introduced in the framework of the
spin-1/2 XXZ Heisenberg quantum chain, is related to the duality
transformation, which becomes a symmetry of the model at the critical point.
Thus, at the critical point, the Ising quantum chain with the duality-twisted
boundary is translationally invariant, similar as in the case of the usual
periodic or antiperiodic boundary conditions. The complete energy spectrum of
the Ising quantum chain is calculated analytically for finite systems, and the
conformal properties of the scaling limit are investigated. This provides an
explicit example of a conformal twisted boundary condition and a corresponding
generalised twisted partition function.Comment: LaTeX, 7 pages, using IOP style
Dynamics of an exclusion process with creation and annihilation
We examine the dynamical properties of an exclusion process with creation and
annihilation of particles in the framework of a phenomenological domain-wall
theory, by scaling arguments and by numerical simulation. We find that the
length- and time scale are finite in the maximum current phase for finite
creation- and annihilation rates as opposed to the algebraically decaying
correlations of the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP).
Critical exponents of the transition to the TASEP are determined. The case
where bulk creation- and annihilation rates vanish faster than the inverse of
the system size N is also analyzed. We point out that shock localization is
possible even for rates proportional to 1/N^a, 1<a<2.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, typos corrected, references added, section 4
revise
The lifespan method as a tool to study criticality in absorbing-state phase transitions
In a recent work, a new numerical method (the lifespan method) has been
introduced to study the critical properties of epidemic processes on complex
networks [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{111}, 068701 (2013)]. Here, we present a
detailed analysis of the viability of this method for the study of the critical
properties of generic absorbing-state phase transitions in lattices. Focusing
on the well understood case of the contact process, we develop a finite-size
scaling theory to measure the critical point and its associated critical
exponents. We show the validity of the method by studying numerically the
contact process on a one-dimensional lattice and comparing the findings of the
lifespan method with the standard quasi-stationary method. We find that the
lifespan method gives results that are perfectly compatible with those of
quasi-stationary simulations and with analytical results. Our observations
confirm that the lifespan method is a fully legitimate tool for the study of
the critical properties of absorbing phase transitions in regular lattices
Magnetic properties of a metal-organic antiferromagnet on a distorted honeycomb lattice
For temperatures T well above the ordering temperature T*=3.0+-0.2K the
magnetic properties of the metal-organic material Mn[C10H6(OH)(COO)]2x2H20
built from Mn^2+ ions and 3-hydroxy-2-naphthoic anions can be described by a
S=5/2 quantum antiferromagnet on a distorted honeycomb lattice with two
different nearest neighbor exchange couplings J2 \approx 2J1 \approx 1.8K.
Measurements of the magnetization M(H,T) as a function of a uniform external
field H and of the uniform zero field susceptibility \chi(T) are explained
within the framework of a modified spin-wave approach which takes into account
the absence of a spontaneous staggered magnetization at finite temperatures.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures; more thorough discussion of the dependence of
the correlation length on the uniform magnetic field adde
Spectral diffusion and 14N quadrupole splittings in absorption detected magnetic resonance hole burning spectra of photosynthetic reaction centers
Zero field absorption detected magnetic resonance hole burning measurements were performed on photosynthetic reaction centers of the bacteria Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26 and Rhodopseudomonas viridis. Extrapolation to zero microwave power yielded pseudohomogeneous linewidths of 2.0 MHz for Rhodopseudomonas viridis, 1.0 and 0.9 MHz for the protonated forms of Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26 with and without monomer bacteriochlorophyll exchanged, and 0.25 MHz as an upper limit for fully deuterated reaction centers of Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26. The measured linewidths were interpreted as being due to unresolved hyperfine interaction between the nuclear spins and the triplet electron spin, the line shape being determined by spectral diffusion among the nuclei. The difference in linewidths between Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26 and Rhodopseudomonas viridis is then explained by triplet delocalization on the special pair in the former, and localization on one dimer half on the latter. In the fully deuterated sample, four quadrupole satellites were observed in the hole spectra arising from the eight 14N nitrogens in the special pair. The quadrupole parameters seem to be very similar for all nitrogens and were determined to =1.25±0.1 MHz and =0.9±0.1 MHz. The Journal of Chemical Physics is copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics
Phase transitions and correlations in the bosonic pair contact process with diffusion: Exact results
The variance of the local density of the pair contact process with diffusion
(PCPD) is investigated in a bosonic description. At the critical point of the
absorbing phase transition (where the average particle number remains constant)
it is shown that for lattice dimension d>2 the variance exhibits a phase
transition: For high enough diffusion constants, it asymptotically approaches a
finite value, while for low diffusion constants the variance diverges
exponentially in time. This behavior appears also in the density correlation
function, implying that the correlation time is negative. Yet one has dynamical
scaling with a dynamical exponent calculated to be z=2.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Analytic properties of the scattering amplitude and resonances parameters in a meson exchange model
The analytic properties of scattering amplitudes provide important
information. Besides the cuts, the poles and zeros on the different Riemann
sheets determine the global behavior of the amplitude on the physical axis.
Pole positions and residues allow for a parameterization of resonances in a
well-defined way, free of assumptions for the background and energy dependence
of the resonance part. This is a necessary condition to relate resonance
contributions in different reactions. In the present study, we determine the
pole structure of pion-nucleon scattering in an analytic model based on meson
exchange. For this, the sheet structure of the amplitude is determined. To show
the precision of the resonance extraction and discuss phenomena such as
resonance interference, we discuss the S11 amplitude in greater detail.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figure
Discrete stochastic models for traffic flow
We investigate a probabilistic cellular automaton model which has been
introduced recently. This model describes single-lane traffic flow on a ring
and generalizes the asymmetric exclusion process models. We study the
equilibrium properties and calculate the so-called fundamental diagrams (flow
vs.\ density) for parallel dynamics. This is done numerically by computer
simulations of the model and by means of an improved mean-field approximation
which takes into account short-range correlations. For cars with maximum
velocity 1 the simplest non-trivial approximation gives the exact result. For
higher velocities the analytical results, obtained by iterated application of
the approximation scheme, are in excellent agreement with the numerical
simulations.Comment: Revtex, 30 pages, full postscript version (including figures)
available by anonymous ftp from "fileserv1.mi.uni-koeln.de" in the directory
"pub/incoming/" paper accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
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