4,099 research outputs found
Experiences of psychosocial and programme-related barriers to recovery in lifestyle interventions for noncommunicable diseases
Background: The majority of global deaths are due to noncommunicable diseases, largely preventable and treatable utilising behavioural interventions.Objectives: The study investigated patientsâ experiences of a lifestyle intervention programme for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and the influence that psychosocial and programme-related barriers had on patientsâ ability to improve their well-being.Methods: Fourteen patients with NCDs were interviewed before and on completion of a 12-week lifestyle intervention programme at a sports and exercise medicine clinic. Thematic analysis techniques were used to analyse interview data.Results: Patients described their experiences of NCDs diagnosis as traumatic, and their own relationship with their bodies and with the disorder(s) to be vulnerable and significantly challenging. Professional incompetence and unethical treatment were included as barriers to recovery. Barriers specifically relating to the programme included scheduling, as well as the online assessment component. Those reporting more premorbid psychosocial barriers were more likely to experience current complications, whether disease- or treatment-related, often emphasising the negative influence of programme and professional-related problems.Conclusion: Qualitative methodologies enabled the study to yield clinically relevant insights with respect to patients with NCDs. Accounting for the trauma and vulnerability experienced by this cohort may assist in the development of more patient-centred interventions and sustainable secondary prevention of NCDs.Keywords: chronic diseases of lifestyle; intervention evaluation; psychological risk factors; social support; professional conduc
L1551NE - Discovery of a Binary Companion
L1551NE is a very young (class 0 or I) low-mass protostar located close to
the well-studied L1551 IRS5. We present here evidence, from 1.3mm continuum
interferometric observations at ~1'' resolution, for a binary companion to
L1551NE. The companion, whose 1.3mm flux density is ~1/3 that of the primary
component, is located 1.43'' (~230 A.U. at 160pc) to the southeast. The
millimeterwave emission from the primary component may have been just barely
resolved, with deconvolved size ~0.82"x0.70" (~131x112 A.U.). The companion
emission was unresolved (<100 A.U.). The pair is embedded within a flattened
circum-binary envelope of size ~5.4'' x 2.3'' (~860 x 370 A.U.). The masses of
the three components (i.e. from the cicumstellar material of the primary star
and its companion, and the envelope) are approximately 0.044, 0.014 and 0.023
Mo respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
A Spitzer Space Telescope Study of SN 2003gd: Still No Direct Evidence that Core-Collapse Supernovae are Major Dust Factories
We present a new, detailed analysis of late-time mid-infrared (IR)
observations of the Type II-P supernova (SN) 2003gd. At about 16 months after
the explosion, the mid-IR flux is consistent with emission from 4 x 10^(-5)
M(solar) of newly condensed dust in the ejecta. At 22 months emission from
point-like sources close to the SN position was detected at 8 microns and 24
microns. By 42 months the 24 micron flux had faded. Considerations of
luminosity and source size rule out the ejecta of SN 2003gd as the main origin
of the emission at 22 months. A possible alternative explanation for the
emission at this later epoch is an IR echo from pre-existing circumstellar or
interstellar dust. We conclude that, contrary to the claim of Sugerman et al.
(2006, Science, 313, 196), the mid-IR emission from SN 2003gd does not support
the presence of 0.02 M(solar) of newly formed dust in the ejecta. There is, as
yet, no direct evidence that core-collapse supernovae are major dust factories.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in
Astrophysical Journa
Effects of imperfections for Shor's factorization algorithm
We study effects of imperfections induced by residual couplings between
qubits on the accuracy of Shor's algorithm using numerical simulations of
realistic quantum computations with up to 30 qubits. The factoring of numbers
up to N=943 show that the width of peaks, which frequencies allow to determine
the factors, grow exponentially with the number of qubits. However, the
algorithm remains operational up to a critical coupling strength
which drops only polynomially with . The numerical dependence of
on is explained by analytical estimates that allows to
obtain the scaling for functionality of Shor's algorithm on realistic quantum
computers with a large number of qubits.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Added references and new data. Erratum
added as appendix. 1 Figure and 1 Table added. Research is available at
http://www.quantware.ups-tlse.fr
Frugivory and Seed Dispersal by Carnivorans
Seed dispersal is critical to the ecological performance of sexually reproducing plant species and the communities that they form. The Mammalian order Carnivora provide valuable and effective seed dispersal services but tend to be overlooked in much of the seed dispersal literature. Here we review the literature on the role of Carnivorans in seed dispersal, with a literature search in the Scopus reference database. Overall, we found that Carnivorans are prolific seed dispersers. Carnivoransâ diverse and plastic diets allow them to consume large volumes of over a hundred families of fruit and disperse large quantities of seeds across landscapes. Gut passage by these taxa generally has a neutral effect on seed viability. While the overall effect of Carnivorans on seed dispersal quality is complex, Carnivorans likely increase long-distance dispersal services that may aid the ability of some plant species to persist in the face of climate change
Observational Constraints on the Catastrophic Disruption Rate of Small Main Belt Asteroids
We have calculated 90% confidence limits on the steady-state rate of
catastrophic disruptions of main belt asteroids in terms of the absolute
magnitude at which one catastrophic disruption occurs per year (HCL) as a
function of the post-disruption increase in brightness (delta m) and subsequent
brightness decay rate (tau). The confidence limits were calculated using the
brightest unknown main belt asteroid (V = 18.5) detected with the Pan-STARRS1
(Pan-STARRS1) telescope. We measured the Pan-STARRS1's catastrophic disruption
detection efficiency over a 453-day interval using the Pan-STARRS moving object
processing system (MOPS) and a simple model for the catastrophic disruption
event's photometric behavior in a small aperture centered on the catastrophic
disruption event. Our simplistic catastrophic disruption model suggests that
delta m = 20 mag and 0.01 mag d-1 < tau < 0.1 mag d-1 which would imply that H0
= 28 -- strongly inconsistent with H0,B2005 = 23.26 +/- 0.02 predicted by
Bottke et al. (2005) using purely collisional models. We postulate that the
solution to the discrepancy is that > 99% of main belt catastrophic disruptions
in the size range to which this study was sensitive (100 m) are not
impact-generated, but are instead due to fainter rotational breakups, of which
the recent discoveries of disrupted asteroids P/2013 P5 and P/2013 R3 are
probable examples. We estimate that current and upcoming asteroid surveys may
discover up to 10 catastrophic disruptions/year brighter than V = 18.5.Comment: 61 Pages, 10 Figures, 3 Table
Simulating chemistry efficiently on fault-tolerant quantum computers
Quantum computers can in principle simulate quantum physics exponentially
faster than their classical counterparts, but some technical hurdles remain.
Here we consider methods to make proposed chemical simulation algorithms
computationally fast on fault-tolerant quantum computers in the circuit model.
Fault tolerance constrains the choice of available gates, so that arbitrary
gates required for a simulation algorithm must be constructed from sequences of
fundamental operations. We examine techniques for constructing arbitrary gates
which perform substantially faster than circuits based on the conventional
Solovay-Kitaev algorithm [C.M. Dawson and M.A. Nielsen, \emph{Quantum Inf.
Comput.}, \textbf{6}:81, 2006]. For a given approximation error ,
arbitrary single-qubit gates can be produced fault-tolerantly and using a
limited set of gates in time which is or ; with sufficient parallel preparation of ancillas, constant average
depth is possible using a method we call programmable ancilla rotations.
Moreover, we construct and analyze efficient implementations of first- and
second-quantized simulation algorithms using the fault-tolerant arbitrary gates
and other techniques, such as implementing various subroutines in constant
time. A specific example we analyze is the ground-state energy calculation for
Lithium hydride.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figure
Cosmological Constraints from Measurements of Type Ia Supernovae discovered during the first 1.5 years of the Pan-STARRS1 Survey
We present griz light curves of 146 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia
Supernovae () discovered during the first 1.5 years of the
Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey. The Pan-STARRS1 natural photometric system is
determined by a combination of on-site measurements of the instrument response
function and observations of spectrophotometric standard stars. We find that
the systematic uncertainties in the photometric system are currently 1.2\%
without accounting for the uncertainty in the HST Calspec definition of the AB
system. A Hubble diagram is constructed with a subset of 113 out of 146 SNe Ia
that pass our light curve quality cuts. The cosmological fit to 310 SNe Ia (113
PS1 SNe Ia + 222 light curves from 197 low-z SNe Ia), using only SNe and
assuming a constant dark energy equation of state and flatness, yields
.
When combined with BAO+CMB(Planck)+, the analysis yields and including all
identified systematics (see also Scolnic et al. 2014). The value of is
inconsistent with the cosmological constant value of at the 2.3
level. Tension endures after removing either the BAO or the constraint,
though it is strongest when including the constraint. If we include WMAP9
CMB constraints instead of those from Planck, we find
, which diminishes the discord to . We
cannot conclude whether the tension with flat CDM is a feature of dark
energy, new physics, or a combination of chance and systematic errors. The full
Pan-STARRS1 supernova sample with 3 times as many SNe should provide
more conclusive results.Comment: 38 pages, 16 figures, 14 tables, ApJ in pres
Systematic Uncertainties Associated with the Cosmological Analysis of the First Pan-STARRS1 Type Ia Supernova Sample
We probe the systematic uncertainties from 113 Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) in
the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) sample along with 197 SN Ia from a combination of
low-redshift surveys. The companion paper by Rest et al. (2013) describes the
photometric measurements and cosmological inferences from the PS1 sample. The
largest systematic uncertainty stems from the photometric calibration of the
PS1 and low-z samples. We increase the sample of observed Calspec standards
from 7 to 10 used to define the PS1 calibration system. The PS1 and SDSS-II
calibration systems are compared and discrepancies up to ~0.02 mag are
recovered. We find uncertainties in the proper way to treat intrinsic colors
and reddening produce differences in the recovered value of w up to 3%. We
estimate masses of host galaxies of PS1 supernovae and detect an insignificant
difference in distance residuals of the full sample of 0.037\pm0.031 mag for
host galaxies with high and low masses. Assuming flatness in our analysis of
only SNe measurements, we find . With additional constraints from BAO,
CMB(Planck) and H0 measurements, we find and
(statistical and systematic errors added in
quadrature). Significance of the inconsistency with depends on whether
we use Planck or WMAP measurements of the CMB:
.Comment: 24 pages, 20 figures. Accepted by Ap
- âŠ