7,596 research outputs found
The association of shift work and coronary heart disease risk factors among male factory workers in Kota Bharu, Kelantan
Shift work is one of the work hour systems in which a relay of employees extends the period of production beyond the conventional 8-hour working day. It has been found to be associated with various health problems and there is concern that shift workers are at higher risk to develop risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD). The study was undertaken to examine relationships between shift work and CHD risk factors, namely hypertension, dyslipidaemia (either hypercholesterolaemia, hyper-low density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia, hypo-high density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia or hypertriglyceridaemia), high body mass index (BMI), hyperglycemia and physical inactivity among male factory workers in a factory in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. METHODS: This study was a contrived cross-sectional study of 76 shift and 72 day workers from one ofthe factories in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Data was collected through a questionnaire on psychosocial and life-style factors, anthropometric and blood pressure measurement, fasting blood sugar and fasting lipid proJiles analyses. RESULTS: The prevalence of hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia and high body mass index (BMO were significantly higher among shift workers compared to day workers. There was no difference in the prevalence of hyperg[ycemia, hypo-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia, hyper-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterolaemia and physical inactivity. When the shiji workers were compared with the day workers, the aajusted odds ratio (OR) for hypertension, high BMI andphysical inactivity were 9.1 (95% CI 1.4-56.8), 2.9 (95% CI 1.3-6.1) and 7.7 (95% CI 2.1-27.5) respectively. There was neither association of shift work with dyslipidaemia, nor with hyperglycemia. CONCLUSIONS: There were positive association between shiji work and hypertension, high BMI andphysical inactivity which denotes a higher risk of CHD risk factors among shift workers compared to day workers
Cyber Buddy is Better than No Buddy: A Test of the Köhler Motivation Effect in Exergames.
Objective: Although exergames are popular, few people take advantage of the potential of group dynamics to
motivate play (and achieve associated health bene?ts). One motivation gain phenomenon has shown promise for
motivating greater effort in partnered exergames: The Koehler effect (working at a task with a more capable partner
where one’s performance is indispensable to the group). This article examines whether a Koehler effect can be
demonstrated in an exergame by exercising with a moderately superior humanoid, software-generated partner.
Materials and Methods: Male and female (n = 120; mean age, 19.41 years) college students completed a series
of plank exercises using ‘‘CyBuddy Exercise,’’ a program developed speci?cally for this study. In a lab in an
academic building, participants completed the exercises individually and, after a rest, were randomly assigned
to complete the same exercises again, but with a ‘‘live’’ human partner (HP) presented virtually, a nearlyhuman-like,
humanoid partner (NHP), a hardly human-like, software-generated partner (HHP), or a no-partner
control condition (IC), with equal numbers in each group (i.e., n = 30). Exercise persistence, perceived exertion,
self-ef?cacy beliefs, enjoyment, and intentions to exercise were recorded and analyzed.
Results: A 4X2 analysis of variance on the (Block 2 – Block 1) difference scores showed that a signi?cant
Koehler motivation gain was observed in all partner conditions (compared with IC), but persistence was signi?cantly
greater with HPs than with either NHP or HHP humanoid partners (P < 0.05). By the conclusion of the
study, there were no signi?cant differences among the partnered conditions in perceived exertion, self-ef?cacy,
enjoyment, or future intentions to exercise.
Conclusions: These results suggest that a software-generated partner can elicit the Koehler motivation gain in
exergames, but not as strongly as a partner who is thought to be human
Relating linguistic competence to culture : how bilingual Spanish-English social workers who speak English as a first language experience and conceptualize culture in their practice with Spanish speaking clients
Cultural experiences and conceptualizations of native English bilingual social workers have not been dominant in the ongoing discussion of bilingualism and cultural competence in social work practice, education, and literature. This exploratory study examined practice based cultural experiences of bilingual Spanish-English social workers native to English who work with Spanish speaking clients. Specifically, the focus of the study was centered on how these social workers conceptualize their experiences through a cultural lens in their Spanish language work. Through eleven qualitative interviews with Master\u27s level social workers who use their non-native Spanish in social work practice, this study looked at how conceptualizations of culture relate to social work practice, how linguistic competence and the role of cultural competence are made meaning of in practicing social work in Spanish when it is not the social worker\u27s first language, the ways in which cultural competence is an ongoing process for trained social workers, and how bilingual Spanish-English social workers who are native to English can be utilized best with Spanish speaking clients in the field of social work. The presentation of this study aims to guide the social work field, both in educational and practice settings, to support and practically train bilingual social workers who are native to English in their work with Spanish speaking clients. The findings of this study showed that culture is conceptualized on a wide spectrum based on the personal and practice-based experiences of bilingual Spanish-English social workers who speak English as a first language; the findings show that self-reflection and bias checking are important factors in understanding culture, both one\u27s own culture and that of a client. The results of this study have various implications for social work practice with Spanish speaking clients and for social work education as it relates to bilingual social workers and culturally adept services and care. Areas for future research are presented in the final chapter
HATS-1b: The First Transiting Planet Discovered by the HATSouth Survey
We report the discovery of HATS-1b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting
the moderately bright V=12.05 G dwarf star GSC 6652-00186, and the first planet
discovered by HATSouth, a global network of autonomous wide-field telescopes.
HATS-1b has a period P~3.4465 d, mass Mp~1.86MJ, and radius Rp~1.30RJ. The host
star has a mass of 0.99Msun, and radius of 1.04Rsun. The discovery light curve
of HATS-1b has near continuous coverage over several multi-day periods,
demonstrating the power of using a global network of telescopes to discover
transiting planets.Comment: Submitted to AJ 10 pages, 5 figures, 6 table
The spin-orbit angle of the transiting hot jupiter CoRoT-1b
We measure the angle between the planetary orbit and the stellar rotation
axis in the transiting planetary system CoRoT-1, with new HIRES/Keck and
FORS/VLT high-accuracy photometry. The data indicate a highly tilted system,
with a projected spin-orbit angle lambda = 77 +- 11 degrees. Systematic
uncertainties in the radial velocity data could cause the actual errors to be
larger by an unknown amount, and this result needs to be confirmed with further
high-accuracy spectroscopic transit measurements.
Spin-orbit alignment has now been measured in a dozen extra-solar planetary
systems, and several show strong misalignment. The first three misaligned
planets were all much more massive than Jupiter and followed eccentric orbits.
CoRoT-1, however, is a jovian-mass close-in planet on a circular orbit. If its
strong misalignment is confirmed, it would break this pattern. The high
occurence of misaligned systems for several types of planets and orbits favours
planet-planet scattering as a mechanism to bring gas giants on very close
orbits.Comment: to appear in in MNRAS letters [5 pages
Interpreting the yield of transit surveys: Are there groups in the known transiting planets population?
Each transiting planet discovered is characterized by 7 measurable
quantities, that may or may not be linked together (planet mass, radius,
orbital period, and star mass, radius, effective temperature, and metallicity).
Correlations between planet mass and period, surface gravity and period, planet
radius and star temperature have been previously observed among the known
transiting giant planets. Two classes of planets have been previously
identified based on their Safronov number. We use the CoRoTlux code to compare
simulated events to the sample of discovered planets and test the statistical
significance of these correlations. We first generate a stellar field with
planetary companions based on radial velocity discoveries and a planetary
evolution model, then apply a detection criterion that includes both
statistical and red noise sources. We compare the yield of our simulated survey
with the ensemble of 31 well-characterized giant transiting planets, using a
multivariate logistic analysis to assess whether the simulated distribution
matches the known transiting planets. Our multivariate analysis shows that our
simulated sample and observations are consistent to 76%. The mass vs. period
correlation for giant planets first observed with radial velocity holds with
transiting planets. Our model naturally explains the correlation between planet
surface gravity and period and the one between planet radius and stellar
effective temperature. Finally, we are also able to reproduce the previously
observed apparent bimodal distribution of Safronov numbers in 10% of our
simulated cases, although our model predicts a continuous distribution. This
shows that the evidence for the existence of two groups of planets with
different intrinsic properties is not statistically significant.Comment: 17 page
The central image of a gravitationally lensed quasar
A galaxy can act as a gravitational lens, producing multiple images of a
background object. Theory predicts there should be an odd number of images but,
paradoxically, almost all observed lenses have 2 or 4 images. The missing image
should be faint and appear near the galaxy's center. These ``central images''
have long been sought as probes of galactic cores too distant to resolve with
ordinary observations. There are five candidates, but in one case the third
image is not necessarily a central image, and in the others, the central
component might be a foreground source rather than a lensed image. Here we
report the most secure identification of a central image, based on radio
observations of PMN J1632-0033, one of the latter candidates. Lens models
incorporating the central image show that the mass of the lens galaxy's central
black hole is less than 2 x 10^8 M_sun, and the galaxy's surface density at the
location of the central image is more than 20,000 M_sun per square parsec, in
agreement with expectations based on observations of galaxies hundreds of times
closer to the Earth.Comment: Nature, in press [7 pp, 2 figs]. Standard media embargo applies
before publicatio
Neutron scattering study of spin ordering and stripe pinning in superconducting LaSrCuO
The relationships among charge order, spin fluctuations, and
superconductivity in underdoped cuprates remain controversial. We use neutron
scattering techniques to study these phenomena in
LaSrCuO, a superconductor with a transition temperature
of ~K. At , we find incommensurate spin fluctuations with a
quasielastic energy spectrum and no sign of a gap within the energy range from
0.2 to 15 meV. A weak elastic magnetic component grows below ~K,
consistent with results from local probes. Regarding the atomic lattice, we
have discovered unexpectedly strong fluctuations of the CuO octahedra about
Cu-O bonds, which are associated with inequivalent O sites within the CuO
planes. Furthermore, we observed a weak elastic superlattice peak
that implies a reduced lattice symmetry. The presence of inequivalent O sites
rationalizes various pieces of evidence for charge stripe order in underdoped
\lsco. The coexistence of superconductivity with quasi-static spin-stripe order
suggests the presence of intertwined orders; however, the rotation of the
stripe orientation away from the Cu-O bonds might be connected with evidence
for a finite gap at the nodal points of the superconducting gap function.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures; accepted versio
Three-point correlations for quantum star graphs
We compute the three point correlation function for the eigenvalues of the
Laplacian on quantum star graphs in the limit where the number of edges tends
to infinity. This extends a work by Berkolaiko and Keating, where they get the
2-point correlation function and show that it follows neither Poisson, nor
random matrix statistics. It makes use of the trace formula and combinatorial
analysis.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Observation of the full 12-hour-long transit of the exoplanet HD80606b. Warm-Spitzer photometry and SOPHIE spectroscopy
We present new observations of a transit of the 111-day-period exoplanet
HD80606b. Using the Spitzer Space Telescope and its IRAC camera on the
post-cryogenic mission, we performed a 19-hour-long photometric observation of
HD80606 that covers the full transit of 13-14 January 2010. We complement this
photometric data by new spectroscopic observations that we simultaneously
performed with SOPHIE at Haute-Provence Observatory. This provides radial
velocity measurements of the first half of the transit that was previously
uncovered with spectroscopy. This new data set allows the parameters of this
singular planetary system to be significantly refined. We obtained a
planet-to-star radius ratio R_p/R_* = 0.1001 +/- 0.0006 that is slightly lower
than the one measured from previous ground observations. We detected a feature
in the Spitzer light curve that could be due to a stellar spot. We also found a
transit timing about 20 minutes earlier than the ephemeris prediction; this
could be caused by actual TTVs due to an additional body in the system or by
underestimated systematic uncertainties. The sky-projected angle between the
spin-axis of HD80606 and the normal to the planetary orbital plane is found to
be lambda = 42 +/- 8 degrees thanks to the fit of the Rossiter-McLaughlin
anomaly. This allows scenarios with aligned spin-orbit to be definitively
rejected. Over the twenty planetary systems with measured spin-orbit angles, a
few of them are misaligned; this is probably the signature of two different
evolution scenarios for misaligned and aligned systems, depending if they
experienced or not gravitational interaction with a third body. As in the case
of HD80606b, most of the planetary systems including a massive planet are
tilted; this could be the signature of a separate evolution scenario for
massive planets in comparison with Jupiter-mass planets.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in A&
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