1,269 research outputs found
Darwinism and the Durham Award: the missing link between education, employment and engagement
A quantum Peierls-Nabarro barrier
Kink dynamics in spatially discrete nonlinear Klein-Gordon systems is
considered. For special choices of the substrate potential, such systems
support continuous translation orbits of static kinks with no (classical)
Peierls-Nabarro barrier. It is shown that these kinks experience, nevertheless,
a lattice-periodic confining potential, due to purely quantum effects anaolgous
to the Casimir effect of quantum field theory. The resulting ``quantum
Peierls-Nabarro potential'' may be calculated in the weak coupling
approximation by a simple and computationally cheap numerical algorithm, which
is applied, for purposes of illustration, to a certain two-parameter family of
substrates.Comment: 13 pages LaTeX, 7 figure
Kink Dynamics in a Topological Phi^4 Lattice
It was recently proposed a novel discretization for nonlinear Klein-Gordon
field theories in which the resulting lattice preserves the topological
(Bogomol'nyi) lower bound on the kink energy and, as a consequence, has no
Peierls-Nabarro barrier even for large spatial discretizations (h~1.0). It was
then suggested that these ``topological discrete systems'' are a natural choice
for the numerical study of continuum kink dynamics. Giving particular emphasis
to the phi^4 theory, we numerically investigate kink-antikink scattering and
breather formation in these topological lattices. Our results indicate that,
even though these systems are quite accurate for studying free kinks in coarse
lattices, for legitimate dynamical kink problems the accuracy is rather
restricted to fine lattices (h~0.1). We suggest that this fact is related to
the breaking of the Bogomol'nyi bound during the kink-antikink interaction,
where the field profile loses its static property as required by the
Bogomol'nyi argument. We conclude, therefore, that these lattices are not
suitable for the study of more general kink dynamics, since a standard
discretization is simpler and has effectively the same accuracy for such
resolutions.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 4 figures; Revised version, accepted to Physical
Review E (Brief Reports
The kink Casimir energy in a lattice sine-Gordon model
The Casimir energy of quantum fluctuations about the classical kink
configuration is computed numerically for a recently proposed lattice
sine-Gordon model. This energy depends periodically on the kink position and is
found to be approximately sinusoidal.Comment: 10 pages, 4 postscript figure
Breathers in the weakly coupled topological discrete sine-Gordon system
Existence of breather (spatially localized, time periodic, oscillatory)
solutions of the topological discrete sine-Gordon (TDSG) system, in the regime
of weak coupling, is proved. The novelty of this result is that, unlike the
systems previously considered in studies of discrete breathers, the TDSG system
does not decouple into independent oscillator units in the weak coupling limit.
The results of a systematic numerical study of these breathers are presented,
including breather initial profiles and a portrait of their domain of existence
in the frequency-coupling parameter space. It is found that the breathers are
uniformly qualitatively different from those found in conventional spatially
discrete systems.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures. Section 4 (numerical analysis) completely
rewritte
Incidence of lactic acidosis toxicity among patients on stavudine or zidovudine containing antiretroviral therapy at Lighthouse clinics
Although stavudine and zidovudine remain frequently used in low-income countries in Africa, they are associated with long-term toxicities. Lactic acidosis is one of the most serious toxicities in antiretroviral treatment (ART) and occurs predominantly in regimens containing stavudine (D4T) or zidovudine (AZT). We conducted this study to determine the incidence and risk factors for lactic acidosis among HIV-positive patients that have been on ART for at least 6 months. This study will bridge the gap that exists due to scarcity of data on the extent of toxicities due to long-term use of D4T and AZT. We conducted a retrospective cohort study using routine clinic data from the Lighthouse and Martin Preuss Centre electronic data systems. We used the clinic data collected between 1st January 2004 and 31st December 2011. We included into the analysis all patients that have been on D4T- or AZT-containing ARV drugs for at least 6 months. We analysed the data using Poisson regression of the number of cases of lactic acidosis (LA) on gender, age at ART initiation, baseline BMI, and lipodystrophy in order to determine the incidence and risk factors for lactic acidosis. All statistical analyses were done at 5% significance level. We identified 14,854 patients that have ever been on D4T- or AZT-containing ARV drugs for longer than 5 months. Of these, 43% were male and median age was 34 years. The total number of cases of confirmed LA was 342 with observed mortality rate 40% more than the patients without confirmed LA. There were 23.02 cases of LA for every 1000 patient-years on D4T- or AZT-containing ART regimens. The strongest risk factor identified for developing LA was having a baseline BMI >25 with incidence rate ratio (IRR) 3.11 (95% CI: 2.49, 3.88). The IRR for patients with a diagnosis of lipodystrophy was 1.77 (95% CI: 1.35, 2.32). Patients aged <30 years at ART initiation had 31% reduced risk of developing LA as compared to patients aged>39 years at ART initiation. We were unable to detect any increased risk associated with gender. Clinicians should always have significantly higher index of suspicion of LA in patients with established lipodystrophy, aged more than 30 years at ART initiation and patients with higher baseline BMIs. The number of cases of fatal lactic acidosis that did not present to the clinic is unknown but is likely to be significant
Slow equivariant lump dynamics on the two sphere
The low-energy, rotationally equivariant dynamics of n CP^1 lumps on S^2 is
studied within the approximation of geodesic motion in the moduli space of
static solutions. The volume and curvature properties of this moduli space are
computed. By lifting the geodesic flow to the completion of an n-fold cover of
the moduli space, a good understanding of nearly singular lump dynamics within
this approximation is obtained.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Slow Schroedinger dynamics of gauged vortices
Multivortex dynamics in Manton's Schroedinger--Chern--Simons variant of the
Landau-Ginzburg model of thin superconductors is studied within a moduli space
approximation. It is shown that the reduced flow on M_N, the N vortex moduli
space, is hamiltonian with respect to \omega_{L^2}, the L^2 Kaehler form on
\M_N. A purely hamiltonian discussion of the conserved momenta associated with
the euclidean symmetry of the model is given, and it is shown that the
euclidean action on (M_N,\omega_{L^2}) is not hamiltonian. It is argued that
the N=3 flow is integrable in the sense of Liouville. Asymptotic formulae for
\omega_{L^2} and the reduced Hamiltonian for large intervortex separation are
conjectured. Using these, a qualitative analysis of internal 3-vortex dynamics
is given and a spectral stability analysis of certain rotating vortex polygons
is performed. Comparison is made with the dynamics of classical fluid point
vortices and geostrophic vortices.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure
Kinks in the Hartree approximation
The topological defects of the lambda phi^4 theory, kink and antikink, are
studied in the Hartree approximation. This allows us to discuss quantum effects
on the defects in both stationary and dynamical systems. The kink mass is
calculated for a number of parameters, and compared to classical, one loop and
Monte Carlo results known from the literature. We discuss the thermalization of
the system after a kink antikink collision. A classical result, the existence
of a critical speed, is rederived and shown for the first time in the quantum
theory. We also use kink antikink collisions as a very simple toy model for
heavy ion collisions and discuss the differences and similarities, for example
in the pressure. Finally, using the Hartree Ensemble Approximation allows us to
study kink antikink nucleation starting from a thermal (Bose Einstein)
distribution. In general our results indicate that on a qualitative level there
are few differences with the classical results, but on a quantitative level
there are some import ones.Comment: 20 pages REVTeX 4, 17 Figures. Uses amsmath.sty and subfigure.sty.
Final version, fixed typo in published versio
The role of primary healthcare professionals in oral cancer prevention and detection
AIM: To investigate current knowledge, examination habits and preventive practices of primary healthcare professionals in Scotland, with respect to oral cancer, and to determine any relevant training needs. SETTING: Primary care. METHOD: Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 357 general medical practitioners (GMPs) and 331 dental practitioners throughout Scotland. Additionally, focus group research and interviews were conducted amongst primary healthcare team members. RESULTS: Whilst 58% of dental respondents reported examining regularly for signs of oral cancer, GMPs examined patients' mouths usually in response to a complaint of soreness. The majority of GMPs (85%) and dentists (63%) indicated that they felt less than confident in detecting oral cancer, with over 70% of GMPs identifying lack of training as an important barrier. Many practitioners were unclear concerning the relative importance of the presence of potentially malignant lesions in the oral cavity. A high proportion of the GMPs indicated that they should have a major role to play in oral cancer detection (66%) but many felt strongly that this should be primarily the remit of the dental team. CONCLUSION: The study revealed a need for continuing education programmes for primary care practitioners in oral cancer-related activities. This should aim to improve diagnostic skills and seek to increase practitioners' participation in preventive activities
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