Network destabilization and transition in depression : new methods for studying the dynamics of therapeutic change

The science of dynamic systems is the study of pattern formation and system change. Dynamic systems theory can provide a useful framework for understanding the chronicity of depression and its treatment. We propose a working model of therapeutic change with potential to organize findings from psychopathology and treatment research, suggest new ways to study change, facilitate comparisons across studies, and stimulate treatment innovation. We describe a treatment for depression that we developed to apply principles from dynamic systems theory and then present a program of research to examine the utility of this application. Recent methodological and technological developments are also discussed to further advance the search for mechanisms of therapeutic change

Perspectives of applied collaborative sport science research within professional team sports

The purpose of the study was to examine the perspectives of both academics and practitioners in relation to forming applied collaborative sports science research within team sports. Ninety-three participants who had previously engaged in collaborative research partnerships within team sports completed an online survey which focused on motivations and barriers for forming collaborations using blinded sliding scale (0-100) and rank order list. Research collaborations were mainly formed to improve team performance (Academic: 73.6 ± 23.3; Practitioner: 84.3 ± 16.0; ES = 0.54, small). Academics ranked journal articles importance significantly higher than practitioners (Academic: Mrank = 53.9; Practitioner 36.0; z = -3.18, p = .001, p < q). However, practitioners rated one-to-one communication as more preferential (Academic: Mrank = 41.3; Practitioner 56.1; z = -2.62, p = .009, p < q). Some potential barriers were found in terms of staff buy in (Academic: 70.0 ± 25.5; Practitioner 56.8 ± 27.3; ES = 0.50, small) and funding (Academic: 68.0 ± 24.9; Practitioner: 67.5 ± 28.0; ES = 0.02, Trivial). Both groups revealed low motivation for invasive mechanistic research (Academic: 36.3 ± 24.2; Practitioner: 36.4 ± 27.5; ES = 0.01, trivial), with practitioners have a preference towards ‘fast’ type research. There was a general agreement between academics and practitioners for forming research collaborations. Some potential barriers still exist (e.g. staff buy in and funding), with practitioners preferring ‘fast’ informal research dissemination compared to the ‘slow’ quality control approach of academics

Development of a Coherent Doppler Lidar for Precision Maneuvering and Landing of Space Vehicles

A coherent Doppler lidar has been developed to address NASAs need for a high-performance, compact, and cost-effective velocity and altitude sensor onboard its landing vehicles. Future robotic and manned missions to planetary bodies require precise ground-relative velocity vector and altitude data to execute complex descent maneuvers and safe, soft landing at a pre-designated site. This lidar sensor, referred to as a Navigation Doppler Lidar, meets the required performance of landing missions while complying with vehicle size, mass, and power constraints. Operating from over five kilometers altitude, the lidar obtains velocity and range precision measurements with 2 cm/sec and 2 meters, respectively, dominated by the vehicle motion. After a series of flight tests onboard helicopters and rocket-powered free-flyer vehicles, the Navigation Doppler Lidar is now being ruggedized for future missions to various destinations in the solar system

Progress with air quality management in the 60 years since the UK clean air act, 1956. Lessons, failures, challenges and opportunities

© 2016 WIT Press, www.witpress.com. This paper explores the challenges, opportunities and progress made with managing air quality since the United Kingdom parliament passed the Clean Air Act, 1956. It seeks to identify the factors contributing to successful management of air quality and the factors that have acted, or continue to do so, as barriers to progress. The public health catastrophe of the 1952 London Smog created the political momentum for the 1956 Act to be passed. The nature of the contemporary air pollution challenge is reviewed in terms of the public health burden, the economic cost and the governmental response. The contemporary response is considered inadequate for the scale and intensity of the problem

The Roles of Tidal Evolution and Evaporative Mass Loss in the Origin of CoRoT-7 b

CoRoT-7 b is the first confirmed rocky exoplanet, but, with an orbital semi-major axis of 0.0172 AU, its origins may be unlike any rocky planet in our solar system. In this study, we consider the roles of tidal evolution and evaporative mass loss in CoRoT-7 b's history, which together have modified the planet's mass and orbit. If CoRoT-7 b has always been a rocky body, evaporation may have driven off almost half its original mass, but the mass loss may depend sensitively on the extent of tidal decay of its orbit. As tides caused CoRoT-7 b's orbit to decay, they brought the planet closer to its host star, thereby enhancing the mass loss rate. Such a large mass loss also suggests the possibility that CoRoT-7 b began as a gas giant planet and had its original atmosphere completely evaporated. In this case, we find that CoRoT-7 b's original mass probably didn't exceed 200 Earth masses (about 2/3 of a Jupiter mass). Tides raised on the host star by the planet may have significantly reduced the orbital semi-major axis, perhaps causing the planet to migrate through mean-motion resonances with the other planet in the system, CoRoT-7 c. The coupling between tidal evolution and mass loss may be important not only for CoRoT-7 b but also for other close-in exoplanets, and future studies of mass loss and orbital evolution may provide insight into the origin and fate of close-in planets, both rocky and gaseous.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS on 2010 May

The extremes of disturbance reduce functional redundancy: Functional trait assessment of the shallow Antarctic benthos

Climate-driven changes in disturbance are a major threat to ecosystem Functional diversity. The selective mechanisms underlying ecosystem response to disturbance are far from universal and remain the subject of scientific debate. Ice scouring of the shallow Antarctic benthos is one of the largest disturbance gradients in the natural environment and thus provides an opportunity to investigate how disturbance gradients influence functional structure of a biological assemblage. The Western Antarctic Peninsula, in particular, is a hotspot of climate-driven environmental change. Addressing how this system might respond to species loss is critical. Previous surveys across the shallowest 100 m of the seabed, detected unimodal changes in diversity and a shift in assemblage composition in response to disturbance gradients. This study investigated how functional traits and associated functional diversity change across the depth gradient. Our results revealed that selective mechanisms, such as disturbance filtering and inter-species competition, reduce functional redundancy at the extremes of the disturbance gradient. Our study highlights areas of potential vulnerability to future environmental change due to low functional redundancy. Threatening the important negative (mitigating) feedbacks on climate change, through blue carbon, currently provided by Antarctic continental shelf benthic assemblages

D-Theory: Field Theory via Dimensional Reduction of Discrete Variables

A new non-perturbative approach to quantum field theory --- D-theory --- is proposed, in which continuous classical fields are replaced by discrete quantized variables which undergo dimensional reduction. The 2-d classical O(3) model emerges from the (2+1)-d quantum Heisenberg model formulated in terms of quantum spins. Dimensional reduction is demonstrated explicitly by simulating correlation lengths up to 350,000 lattice spacings using a loop cluster algorithm. In the framework of D-theory, gauge theories are formulated in terms of quantum links --- the gauge analogs of quantum spins. Quantum links are parallel transporter matrices whose elements are non-commuting operators. They can be expressed as bilinears of anticommuting fermion constituents. In quantum link models dimensional reduction to four dimensions occurs, due to the presence of a 5-d Coulomb phase, whose existence is confirmed by detailed simulations using standard lattice gauge theory. Using Shamir's variant of Kaplan's fermion proposal, in quantum link QCD quarks appear as edge states of a 5-d slab. This naturally protects their chiral symmetries without fine-tuning. The first efficient cluster algorithm for a gauge theory with a continuous gauge group is formulated for the U(1) quantum link model. Improved estimators for Wilson loops are constructed, and dimensional reduction to ordinary lattice QED is verified numerically.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, including 9 encapsulated postscript figures. Contribution to Lattice 97 by 5 authors, to appear in Nuclear Physics B (Proceeding Supplements). Requires psfig.tex and espcrc2.st

Single-photon tunneling

Strong evidence of a single-photon tunneling effect, a direct analog of single-electron tunneling, has been obtained in the measurements of light tunneling through individual subwavelength pinholes in a thick gold film covered with a layer of polydiacetylene. The transmission of some pinholes reached saturation because of the optical nonlinearity of polydiacetylene at a very low light intensity of a few thousands photons per second. This result is explained theoretically in terms of "photon blockade", similar to the Coulomb blockade phenomenon observed in single-electron tunneling experiments. The single-photon tunneling effect may find many applications in the emerging fields of quantum communication and information processing.Comment: 4 pages, 4figure

Sixteen years of social and ecological dynamics reveal challenges and opportunities for adaptive management in sustaining the commons

Efforts to confront the challenges of environmental change and uncertainty include attempts to adaptively manage social–ecological systems. However, critical questions remain about whether adaptive management can lead to sustainable outcomes for both ecosystems and society. Here, we make a contribution to these efforts by presenting a 16-y analysis of ecological outcomes and perceived livelihood impacts from adaptive coral reef management in Papua New Guinea. The adaptive management system we studied was a customary rotational fisheries closure system (akin to fallow agriculture), which helped to increase the biomass of reef fish and make fish less wary (more catchable) relative to openly fished areas. However, over time the amount of fish in openly fished reefs slowly declined. We found that, overall, resource users tended to have positive perceptions about this system, but there were negative perceptions when fishing was being prohibited. We also highlight some of the key traits of this adaptive management system, including 1) strong social cohesion, whereby leaders played a critical role in knowledge exchange; 2) high levels of compliance, which was facilitated via a “carrot-and-stick” approach that publicly rewarded good behavior and punished deviant behavior; and 3) high levels of participation by community actors

The masses and decay widths of heavy hybrid mesons

We first derive the mass sum rules for the heavy hybrid mesons to obtain the binding energy and decay constants in the leading order of HQET. The pionic couplings between the lightest $1^{-+}$ hybrid $(Q\bar q g)$ and the lowest three heavy meson doublets are calculated with the light cone QCD sum rules. With $SU_f (3)$ flavor symmetry we calculate the widths for all the possible two-body decay processes with a Goldstone boson in the final state. The total width of the $1^{-+}$ hybrid is estimated to be 300 MeV. We find the dominant decay mode of the $1^{-+}$ hybrid is $1^{-+}\to \pi + 1^+$ where the $1^+$ heavy meson belongs to the $(1^+,2^+)$ doublet. Its branching ratio is about 80% so this mode can be used for the experimental search of the lowest heavy hybrid meson.Comment: 20 pages + 12 PS figures, introduction revised, Fig 7 updated, to appear in Phys. Rev.