Numerical nonlinear inelastic analysis of stiffened shells of revolution. Volume 4: Satellite-1P program for STARS-2P digital computer program

A special data debugging package called SAT-1P created for the STARS-2P computer program is described. The program was written exclusively in FORTRAN 4 for the IBM 370-165 computer, and then converted to the UNIVAC 1108

Numerical nonlinear inelastic analysis of stiffened shells of revolution. Volume 3: Engineer's program manual for STARS-2P digital computer program

Engineering programming information is presented for the STARS-2P (shell theory automated for rotational structures-2P (plasticity)) digital computer program, and FORTRAN 4 was used in writing the various subroutines. The execution of this program requires the use of thirteen temporary storage units. The program was initially written and debugged on the IBM 370-165 computer and converted to the UNIVAC 1108 computer, where it utilizes approximately 60,000 words of core. Only basic FORTRAN library routines are required by the program: sine, cosine, absolute value, and square root

Systematic reviews of health effects of social interventions: 1. Finding the evidence: how far should you go?

Study objective: There is little guidance on how to identify useful evidence about the health effects of social interventions. The aim of this study was to assess the value of different ways of finding this type of information. Design: Retrospective analysis of the sources of studies for one systematic review. Setting: Case study of a systematic review of the effectiveness of interventions in promoting a population shift from using cars towards walking and cycling. Main results: Only four of the 69 relevant studies were found in a "first-line" health database such as Medline. About half of all relevant studies were found through the specialist Transport database. Nine relevant studies were found through purposive internet searches and seven relevant studies were found by chance. The unique contribution of experts was not to identify additional studies, but to provide more information about those already found in the literature. Conclusions: Most of the evidence needed for this review was not found in studies indexed in familiar literature databases. Applying a sensitive search strategy across multiple databases and interfaces is very labour intensive. Retrospective analysis suggests that a more efficient method might have been to search a few key resources, then to ask authors and experts directly for the most robust reports of studies identified. However, internet publications and serendipitous discoveries did make a significant contribution to the total set of relevant evidence. Undertaking a comprehensive search may provide unique evidence and insights that would not be obtained using a more focused search

Promoting walking and cycling as an alternative to using cars: systematic review

Objectives: To assess what interventions are effective in promoting a population shift from using cars towards walking and cycling, and to assess the health and distributional effects of such interventions. Data sources: Published and unpublished reports in any language identified from electronic databases, bibliographies, websites and reference lists. Review methods: Systematic search and appraisal to identify experimental or observational studies with a prospective or controlled retrospective design that evaluated any intervention applied to an urban population or area by measuring outcomes in members of the local population. Results: 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. We found some evidence that targeted behaviour change programmes can change the behaviour of motivated subgroups, resulting (in the largest study) in a modal shift of around 5% of all trips at a population level. Single studies of commuter subsidies and a new railwy station have also shown modest effects. The balance of best available evidence about publicity campaigns, engineering measures and other interventions suggests that they have not been effective. Participants in trials of active commuting experienced short-term improvements in certain health and fitness measures, but we found no good evidence about the health effects of any effective population-level intervention. Conclusions: The best available evidence of effectiveness is for targeted behaviour change programmes, but the social distribution of their effects is unclear and some other types of intervention remain to be rigorously evaluated. We need a stronger evidence base for the health impacts of transport policies, preferably based on properly conducted prospective studies

Systematic reviews of health effects of social interventions: 2. Best available evidence: how low should you go?

Study objective: There is little guidance on how to select the best available evidence of health effects of social interventions. The aim of this paper was to assess the implications of setting particular inclusion criteria for evidence synthesis. Design: Analysis of all relevant studies for one systematic review, followed by sensitivity analysis of the effects of selecting studies based on a two dimensional hierarchy of study design and study population. Setting: Case study of a systematic review of the effectiveness of interventions in promoting a population shift from using cars towards walking and cycling. Main results: The distribution of available evidence was skewed. Population level interventions were less likely than individual level interventions to have been studied using the most rigorous study designs; nearly all of the population level evidence would have been missed if only randomised controlled trials had been included. Examining the studies that were excluded did not change the overall conclusions about effectiveness, but did identify additional categories of intervention such as health walks and parking charges that merit further research, and provided evidence to challenge assumptions about the actual effects of progressive urban transport policies. Conclusions: Unthinking adherence to a hierarchy of study design as a means of selecting studies may reduce the value of evidence synthesis and reinforce an "inverse evidence law" whereby the least is known about the effects of interventions most likely to influence whole populations. Producing generalisable estimates of effect sizes is only one possible objective of evidence synthesis. Mapping the available evidence and uncertainty about effects may also be important

Lattice Gauge Fixing as Quenching and the Violation of Spectral Positivity

Lattice Landau gauge and other related lattice gauge fixing schemes are known to violate spectral positivity. The most direct sign of the violation is the rise of the effective mass as a function of distance. The origin of this phenomenon lies in the quenched character of the auxiliary field $g$ used to implement lattice gauge fixing, and is similar to quenched QCD in this respect. This is best studied using the PJLZ formalism, leading to a class of covariant gauges similar to the one-parameter class of covariant gauges commonly used in continuum gauge theories. Soluble models are used to illustrate the origin of the violation of spectral positivity. The phase diagram of the lattice theory, as a function of the gauge coupling $\beta$ and the gauge-fixing parameter $\alpha$, is similar to that of the unquenched theory, a Higgs model of a type first studied by Fradkin and Shenker. The gluon propagator is interpreted as yielding bound states in the confined phase, and a mixture of fundamental particles in the Higgs phase, but lattice simulation shows the two phases are connected. Gauge field propagators from the simulation of an SU(2) lattice gauge theory on a $20^4$ lattice are well described by a quenched mass-mixing model. The mass of the lightest state, which we interpret as the gluon mass, appears to be independent of $\alpha$ for sufficiently large $\alpha$.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures, RevTeX

The structure of the plasma sheet-lobe boundary in the Earth's magnetotail

The structure of the magnetotail plasma sheet-plasma lobe boundary was studied by observing the properties of tailward flowing O+ ion beams, detected by the ISEE 2 plasma experiment inside the boundary during three time periods. The computed value of the north-south electric field component as well as the O+ parameters are shown to change at the boundary. The results are related to other observations made in this region. The O+ parameters and the Ez component behavior are shown to be consistent with that expected from the topology of the electric field lines in the tail as mapped from the ionosphere

Comment on "Are periodic solar wind number density structures formed in the solar corona?" by N. M. Viall et al., 2009, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L23102, doi:10.1029/2009GL041191

Location of formation of periodic solar wind number density structures is discussed. Observation of proton and alpha anticorrelation in these structures [Viall et al., 2009] indicates that taking into account that bulk velocity of aplha-particles is higher than that of proton the place of formation for these structures should be located at distance less 0.002 AU from place of observation.Comment: 6 pages, submitted in GR

Revisiting the Quantum Group Symmetry of Diatomic Molecules

We propose a q-deformed model of the anharmonic vibrations in diatomic molecules. We analyse the applicability of the model to the phenomenological Dunham's expansion by comparing with experimental data. Our methodology involves a global consistency analysis of the parameters that determine the q-deformed system, when compared with fitted vibrational parameters to 161 electronic states in diatomic molecules. We show how to include both the positive and the negative anharmonicities in a simple and systematic fashion.Comment: 15 pages, 3 Table

A Study of the Bulk Phase Transitions of the SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory with Mixed Action

Using the finite size scaling theory, we re-examine the nature of the bulk phase transition in the fundamental-adjoint coupling plane of the SU(2) lattice gauge theory at $\beta_A = 1.25$ where previous finite size scaling investigations of the deconfinement phase transition showed it to be of first order for temporal lattices with four sites. Our simulations on $N^4$ lattices with N=6, 8, 10, 12 and 16 show an absence of a first order bulk phase transition. We find the discontinuity in the average plaquette to decrease approximately linearly with $N$. Correspondingly, the plaquette susceptibility grows a lot slower with the 4-volume of the lattice than expected from a first order bulk phase transition.Comment: LaTeX, 17 Pages; 7 Postscript Figures appende