Does perceived organisational support influence career intentions?:The qualitative stories shared by UK early career doctors

Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the interviews. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directorate staff in the Scotland Deanery, NHS Education for Scotland, for sending out the email correspondence to the two regions involved in the interviews. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC) and for funding the open-access fee for this paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Does initial postgraduate career intention and social demographics predict perceived career behaviour?:A national cross-sectional survey of UK postgraduate doctors

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the survey. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directors across the UK for allowing permission to conduct research on this data set. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC). Data sharing statement: The data reported is from the UKFPO dataset, and any data shared would need the permission of the UK Foundation Programme directorsPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Results from the Scottish national HAI prevalence survey

A national point prevalence survey was undertaken over the period of one calendar year in Scotland from October 2005 to October 2006. The prevalence of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) was 9.5% in acute hospitals and 7.3% in non-acute hospitals. The highest prevalence of HAI in acute hospital inpatients was found in the following specialties: care of the elderly (11.9%), surgery (11.2%), medicine (9.6%) and orthopaedics (9.2%). The lowest prevalence was found in obstetrics (0.9%). The most common types of HAI in acute hospital inpatients were: urinary tract infections (17.9% of all HAI), surgical site infections (15.9%) and gastrointestinal infections (15.4%). In non-acute hospitals one in ten inpatients in two specialties (combined) medicine (11.4%) and care of the elderly (7.8%) was found to have HAI, and one in 20 inpatients in psychiatry (5.0%) had HAI. In non-acute hospital patients, urinary tract infections were frequent (28.1% of all HAI) and similarly skin and soft tissue infection (26.8% of all HAI). When combined, these two HAI types affected 4% of all the inpatients in non-acute hospitals. This is the first survey of its kind in Scotland and describes the burden of HAI at a national level

Homodyne detection for measuring internal quantum correlations of optical pulses

A new method is described for determining the quantum correlations at different times in optical pulses by using balanced homodyne detection. The signal pulse and sequences of ultrashort test pulses are superimposed, where for chosen distances between the test pulses their relative phases and intensities are varied from measurement to measurement. The correlation statistics of the signal pulse is obtained from the time-integrated difference photocurrents measured.Comment: 7 pages, A4.sty include

Female educators’ perceptions of employment opportunities in the United Arab Emirates

This article examines the way female educators experience barriers to employment opportunities in the education system of the United Arab Emirates. An exploratory qualitative research design using interviews and focus group sessions was used to collect data from national female educators at different stages of their careers. Manifestations of the category “employment barriers” included social barriers to women and work, education as career choice, “delays and waiting lists”, and opposition to employment in the private education sector. Manifestations of the category “barriers to career progression” included, conflict of roles, “waiting for them to promote me”, lack of networking opportunities, “big sister” mentoring, challenges to academic development and training and gender discrimination. Recommendations relating to strategies that could facilitate national female educator entry into and career progression in the education sector are provided.Educational Leadership and Managemen

The Ising-Kondo lattice with transverse field: an f-moment Hamiltonian for URu2Si2?

We study the phase diagram of the Ising-Kondo lattice with transverse magnetic field as a possible model for the weak-moment heavy-fermion compound URu2Si2, in terms of two low-lying f singlets in which the uranium moment is coupled by on-site exchange to the conduction electron spins. In the mean-field approximation for an extended range of parameters, we show that the conduction electron magnetization responds logarithmically to f-moment formation, that the ordered moment in the antiferromagnetic state is anomalously small, and that the Neel temperature is of the order observed. The model gives a qualitatively correct temperature-dependence, but not magnitude, of the specific heat. The majority of the specific heat jump at the Neel temperature arises from the formation of a spin gap in the conduction electron spectrum. We also discuss the single-impurity version of the model and speculate on ways to increase the specific heat coefficient. In the limits of small bandwidth and of small Ising-Kondo coupling, we find that the model corresponds to anisotropic Heisenberg and Hubbard models respectively.Comment: 20 pages RevTeX including 5 figures (1 in LaTeX, 4 in uuencoded EPS), Received by Phys. Rev. B 19 April 199

New Upper Limits on the Tau Neutrino Mass from Primordial Helium Considerations

In this paper we reconsider recently derived bounds on $MeV$ tau neutrinos, taking into account previously unaccounted for effects. We find that, assuming that the neutrino life-time is longer than $O(100~sec)$, the constraint $N_{eff}<3.6$ rules out $\nu_{\tau}$ masses in the range $0.5~(MeV)<m_{\nu_\tau}<35~(MeV)$ for Majorana neutrinos and $0.74~(MeV)<m_{\nu_\tau}<35~(MeV)$ for Dirac neutrinos. Given that the present laboratory bound is 35 MeV, our results lower the present bound to $0.5$ and $0.74$ for Majorana and Dirac neutrinos respectively.Comment: 9 pages (2 figures available upon request), UM-AC-93-0

Purity of Gaussian states: measurement schemes and time-evolution in noisy channels

We present a systematic study of the purity for Gaussian states of single-mode continuous variable systems. We prove the connection of purity to observable quantities for these states, and show that the joint measurement of two conjugate quadratures is necessary and sufficient to determine the purity at any time. The statistical reliability and the range of applicability of the proposed measurement scheme is tested by means of Monte Carlo simulated experiments. We then consider the dynamics of purity in noisy channels. We derive an evolution equation for the purity of general Gaussian states both in thermal and squeezed thermal baths. We show that purity is maximized at any given time for an initial coherent state evolving in a thermal bath, or for an initial squeezed state evolving in a squeezed thermal bath whose asymptotic squeezing is orthogonal to that of the input state.Comment: 9 Pages, 6 Figures; minor errors correcte

High Purity Pion Beam at TRIUMF

An extension of the TRIUMF M13 low-energy pion channel designed to suppress positrons based on an energy-loss technique is described. A source of beam channel momentum calibration from the decay pi+ --> e+ nu is also described.Comment: 5 page

Conditional generation of sub-Poissonian light from two-mode squeezed vacuum via balanced homodyne detection on idler mode

A simple scheme for conditional generation of nonclassical light with sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics is proposed. The method utilizes entanglement of signal and idler modes in two-mode squeezed vacuum state generated in optical parametric amplifier. A quadrature component of the idler mode is measured in balanced homodyne detector and only those experimental runs where the absolute value of the measured quadrature is higher than certain threshold are accepted. If the threshold is large enough then the conditional output state of signal mode exhibits reduction of photon-number fluctuations below the coherent-state level.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, REVTe