1,088 research outputs found
Solving the measurement problem: de Broglie-Bohm loses out to Everett
The quantum theory of de Broglie and Bohm solves the measurement problem, but
the hypothetical corpuscles play no role in the argument. The solution finds a
more natural home in the Everett interpretation.Comment: 20 pages; submitted to special issue of Foundations of Physics, in
honour of James T. Cushin
Exploring New Drilling Prospects in the Southwest Pacific
A major International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) workshop covering scientific ocean drilling in the southwest Pacific Ocean was held in Sydney, Australia, in late 2012. The workshop covered all fields of geoscience, and drilling targets in the area from the Equator to Antarctica. High-quality contributions and a positive and cooperative atmosphere ensured its success. The four science themes of the new IODP science plan were addressed. An additional resource-oriented theme considered possible co-investment opportunities involving IODP vessels. As a result of the workshop, existing proposals were revised and new ones written for the April 2013 deadline. Many of the proposals are broad and multidisciplinary in nature, hence broadening the scientific knowledge that can be produced by using the IODP infrastructure. This report briefly outlines the workshop and the related drilling plans
Quantum Physics and Human Language
Human languages employ constructions that tacitly assume specific properties
of the limited range of phenomena they evolved to describe. These assumed
properties are true features of that limited context, but may not be general or
precise properties of all the physical situations allowed by fundamental
physics. In brief, human languages contain `excess baggage' that must be
qualified, discarded, or otherwise reformed to give a clear account in the
context of fundamental physics of even the everyday phenomena that the
languages evolved to describe. The surest route to clarity is to express the
constructions of human languages in the language of fundamental physical
theory, not the other way around. These ideas are illustrated by an analysis of
the verb `to happen' and the word `reality' in special relativity and the
modern quantum mechanics of closed systems.Comment: Contribution to the festschrift for G.C. Ghirardi on his 70th
Birthday, minor correction
Graphene as a quantum surface with curvature-strain preserving dynamics
We discuss how the curvature and the strain density of the atomic lattice
generate the quantization of graphene sheets as well as the dynamics of
geometric quasiparticles propagating along the constant curvature/strain
levels. The internal kinetic momentum of Riemannian oriented surface (a vector
field preserving the Gaussian curvature and the area) is determined.Comment: 13p, minor correction
Exploring new drilling prospects in the southwest Pacific
A major International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) workshop covering scientific ocean drilling in the southwest Pacific Ocean was held in Sydney, Australia, in late 2012. The workshop covered all fields of geoscience, and drilling targets in the area from the Equator to Antarctica. High-quality contributions and a positive and cooperative atmosphere ensured its success. The four science themes of the new IODP science plan were addressed. An additional resource-oriented theme considered possible co-investment opportunities involving IODP vessels. As a result of the workshop, existing proposals were revised and new ones written for the April 2013 deadline. Many of the proposals are broad and multidisciplinary in nature, hence broadening the scientific knowledge that can be produced by using the IODP infrastructure. This report briefly outlines the workshop and the related drilling plans
Protocol for the Foot in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis trial (FiJIA): a randomised controlled trial of an integrated foot care programme for foot problems in JIA
<b>Background</b>:
Foot and ankle problems are a common but relatively neglected manifestation of juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Studies of medical and non-medical interventions have shown that clinical outcome measures can be improved. However existing data has been drawn from small non-randomised clinical studies of single interventions that appear to under-represent the adult population suffering from juvenile idiopathic arthritis. To date, no evidence of combined therapies or integrated care for juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients with foot and ankle problems exists.
<b>Methods/design</b>:
An exploratory phase II non-pharmacological randomised controlled trial where patients including young children, adolescents and adults with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and associated foot/ankle problems will be randomised to receive integrated podiatric care via a new foot care programme, or to receive standard podiatry care. Sixty patients (30 in each arm) including children, adolescents and adults diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis who satisfy the inclusion and exclusion criteria will be recruited from 2 outpatient centres of paediatric and adult rheumatology respectively. Participants will be randomised by process of minimisation using the Minim software package. The primary outcome measure is the foot related impairment measured by the Juvenile Arthritis Disability Index questionnaire's impairment domain at 6 and 12 months, with secondary outcomes including disease activity score, foot deformity score, active/limited foot joint counts, spatio-temporal and plantar-pressure gait parameters, health related quality of life and semi-quantitative ultrasonography score for inflammatory foot lesions. The new foot care programme will comprise rapid assessment and investigation, targeted treatment, with detailed outcome assessment and follow-up at minimum intervals of 3 months. Data will be collected at baseline, 6 months and 12 months from baseline. Intention to treat data analysis will be conducted.
A full health economic evaluation will be conducted alongside the trial and will evaluate the cost effectiveness of the intervention. This will consider the cost per improvement in Juvenile Arthritis Disability Index, and cost per quality adjusted life year gained. In addition, a discrete choice experiment will elicit willingness to pay values and a cost benefit analysis will also be undertaken
Greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in UK-grown short-day strawberry (Fragaria xananassa Duch) crops
Original article can be found at: http://journals.cambridge.org/ Copyright Cambridge University PressReducing greenhouse gas emissions and optimizing energy consumption are important for mitigating climate change and improving resource use efficiency. Strawberry (Fragaria xananassa Duch) crops are a key component of the UK soft fruit sector and potentially resource-intensive crops. This is the first study to undertake a detailed environmental impact assessment of all methods of UK strawberry production. A total of 14 systems with six additional sub-systems grown for between 1 and 3 years were identified. They were defined by the growing of short-day (Junebearer) or everbearer varieties, organic production, covering with polytunnels or grown in the open, soil-grown (with or without fumigation) or container-grown (with peat or coir substrate) and summer or spring planted. Pre-harvest, the global warming potential varied between 1·5 and 10·3 t CO2 equiv/ha/crop or 0·13 and 1·14 t CO2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit. Key factors included the use of tunnels, mulch and irrigation, sterilization of soil with fumigants and the use of peat substrate. Seasonal crops without covers grown where rotation of sufficient length reduced Verticillium (system 4) were the most efficient. System 4a (that did not use mulch) emitted 0·13 t CO2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit. A second or third cropping year in soil-grown systems prolonged the effect of mulch and soil fumigants. Greenhouse gases from system 4 (with mulch) averaged 0·30 t CO2 equiv/t of class 1 fruit after 3 years of cropping compared to 0·63 and 0·36 t CO2 equiv/t after 1 and 2 years, respectively.Peer reviewe
The role of bone sialoprotein in the tendon-bone insertion
© 2016 International Society of Matrix Biology. Tendons/ligaments insert into bone via a transitional structure, the enthesis, which is susceptible to injury and difficult to repair. Fibrocartilaginous entheses contain fibrocartilage in their transitional zone, part of which is mineralized. Mineral-associated proteins within this zone have not been adequately characterized. Members of the Small Integrin Binding Ligand N-linked Glycoprotein (SIBLING) family are acidic phosphoproteins expressed in mineralized tissues. Here we show that two SIBLING proteins, bone sialoprotein (BSP) and osteopontin (OPN), are present in the mouse enthesis. Histological analyses indicate that the calcified zone of the quadriceps tendon enthesis is longer in Bsp-/- mice, however no difference is apparent in the supraspinatus tendon enthesis. In an analysis of mineral content within the calcified zone, micro-CT and Raman spectroscopy reveal that the mineral content in the calcified fibrocartilage of the quadriceps tendon enthesis are similar between wild type and Bsp-/- mice. Mechanical testing of the patellar tendon shows that while the tendons fail under similar loads, the Bsp-/- patellar tendon is 7.5% larger in cross sectional area than wild type tendons, resulting in a 16.5% reduction in failure stress. However, Picrosirius Red staining shows no difference in collagen organization. Data collected here indicate that BSP is present in the calcified fibrocartilage of murine entheses and suggest that BSP plays a regulatory role in this structure, influencing the growth of the calcified fibrocartilage in addition to the weakening of the tendon mechanical properties. Based on the phenotype of the Bsp-/- mouse enthesis, and the known in vitro functional properties of the protein, BSP may be a useful therapeutic molecule in the reattachment of tendons and ligaments to bone
The two rival concepts of devotional leisure: Towards an understanding of Twenty-First Century human creativity and the possibility of freedom
The starting point of this article is that the ultimate objective of sociology so far as the study
of leisure is concerned should be with understanding the ways in which twenty-first century
modern men and women attempt to reconcile the demands of individuality and community
(aka freedom and security) by focusing on what they choose to do when they can do anything
at all. The first introductory part sets up the rest of the article by offering a brief critique of
the sociology of leisure which operates with the somewhat startling assertion that in modern
societies leisure is largely consumerist in orientation and that as a result freedom is a fiction.
Counteracting this assertion with a startling one of its own it is subsequently argued that the
twentieth century interregnum saw modernity radically revise its modernity which led to a
transformation in the power of human agency and emergence of the insistent voice ‘I too am
in individual’. Taking as its starting point Peter Sloterdijk’s reading of Nietzsche’s imperative
to ‘Become who you are’ articulated passionately in his book You must change your life
(2013), the second part of the article argues that in the twenty-first century terms like
authentic leisure and consumerist leisure, work and leisure are not antithetical to one another,
and there is a radical need to rethink how people give meaning and order to their lives though
their leisure pursuits. Here the article explores the relationship between Sloterdijk’s concept
of anthropotechnics, the art of living and leisure. The next part of the article fleshes out the
theory of devotional leisure which is one part of a more embracing project set out in the book
Re-imagining leisure studies (Blackshaw 2017). Here the article explores two contrasting
ways of understanding devotional leisure practice, namely ‘devotional leisure’ and
‘performative leisure’ by drawing respectively on the examples of surfing and car cruising.
The article concludes with an attempt to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory forms
of devotional leisure practice with a discussion of urban exploration, speculating that their
uniqueness to one another is never absolute, and the more you perceive their particularity, the
more you understand their double nature, as simultaneously aspects of a third endeavour
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