Floquet Hofstadter butterfly in trilayer graphene with a twisted top layer

The magnetic field generated Hofstadter butterfly in twisted trilayer graphene (TTLG) is investigated using circularly polarized light (CPL) and longitudinal light emanating from a waveguide. We show that TTLG has two distinct chiral limits in the equilibrium state, and the central branch of the butterfly splits into two precisely degenerate components. The Hofstadter butterfly appears to be more discernible. We also discovered that CPL causes a large gap opening at the central branch of the Hofstadter butterfly energy spectrum and between the Landau levels (LLs), with a clear asymmetry corresponding to energy $E = 0$. We point out that for right-handed CPL, the central band shifts downward, in stark contrast to left-handed CPL, where the central band shifts upward. Finally, we investigated the effect of longitudinally polarized light, which originates from a waveguide. Interestingly, we observed that the chiral symmetries of the Hofstadter butterfly energy spectrum are broken for small driving strengths and get restored at large ones, contrary to what was observed in twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG).Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, two-colum

Occupational Therapy Service redesign for care of the elderly: Measuring up to a joint future?

Partnership working between Health and Social Care is the Scottish Government's strategy to affect major policy and practice level changes within public services in order to meet the fiscal challenges arising from the ageing demographic profile within our society. The Joint Future Group Report, published by the Scottish Government in 2002, specifically identified the profession of occupational therapy as central to the strategy for public service reform and inspired an inter-organisational occupational therapy service redesign within Lanarkshire. The practice and system service redesign transcended Acute, Primary Care and Local Authority care of the elderly occupational therapy services, introducing measures to promote patient continuity of care at an informational, management and relational level. The aim was to promote longitudinal models of patient care that minimised the incidence of patients being transitioned between occupational therapy services. This PhD adopted a critical realism research approach with a mixed method sequential explanatory research design. The aim was to develop a theoretical understanding of the structural and agential influences at the macro meso and micro levels that gave rise to the service redesign outcomes. The results provided illuminating insights as to the agential and structural barriers to partnership working. Service specific patterns emerged that suggested structural and cultural influences on occupational therapy practice resulted in service specific variation in the ability to deliver on the continuity of care service redesign intentions. The agency of the occupational therapists was explored through mechanism based theorising in order to identify morphogenetic influences (facilitators to change) and morphostatic influences (barriers to change) in engaging in the service redesign measures in practice. The results reflect that the occupational therapists within all three service sectors enacted their agency to preserve their respective pre-existing organisational service structures. These results suggest that the learning strategies and associated behaviours of the participating occupational therapists were not conducive to transformational change. The practical insights of the conditioning power of structure vis a vis the discrete reflexive power of agency outlined within this thesis offers the profession of occupational therapy within public services the means of exploring and conceptualising the complex implications of partnership working.sub_iihdsubmitted2622_ethesessubmitte

In vitro Assessment of Two Species of the Genus Pinus Growing in Algeria for their Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activity

A comparative study of the hydrodistilled oils of Pinus pinea L. and Pinus pinaster Aiton by GC and GC-MS was conducted. The combined essential oil of P. pinea was rich in limonene (56.5%), followed by α-pinene (6.5%) and β-phellandrene (6.2%). The major compounds from the combined essential oil of P. pinaster were: α-pinene (36.4%), β-pinene (12.3%) and (E)-β-caryophyllene (7.1%). The results showed that the oils have a great potential as antibiotics against some microorganisms: Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterococcus faecalis and Candida albicans. The maximum zone of inhibition of P. pinea was obtained against Candida albicans (23 mm). Antioxidant capacity was assessed by in vitro testing using 2,2-diphenyl- 1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and significant activity was found for the various oils. These results suggested that essential oils of P. pinea and P. pinaster possess antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, and could, therefore, present potential source of active ingredients for food and pharmaceutical industry

Chemical Analysis of the Essential Oils of Three Cistus Species Growing in North-West of Algeria

The study reports for the first time the chemical composition and the antibacterial activity of the essential oil hydrodistilled from three Cistaceae growing in Algeria: Cistus ladaniferus L., C. albidus L. and C. monspeliensis L. The oils were analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS analyses. The major components of C. ladaniferus were 5-epi-7-epi-α-eudesmol (13.6%) and borneol (12.5%) whereas for C. albidus the main constituents were epi-α-bisabolol (11.4%) and β-bourbonene (8.7%). Epi- 13-manoyl oxide (28.6%), kaur-16-ene (8.1%) and nonanal (5.4%) were the principal ones for C. monspeliensis. In vitro, antimicrobial activity of the oils was investigated against nine microorganisms by disk diffusion and agar dilution assays. The Gram-positive bacteria resulted sensitive to the three oils, especially Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923. The volatiles of C. monspeliensis showed the best activity compared with other oils, comparable to or better than Gentamicin, a conventional antibiotic used as positive control in this study. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of the oil was 0.25µg/L

Level of detail based AI adaptation for agents in video games

This paper suggests multi-agent systems (MASs) for implementing game artificial intelligence (AI) for video games. One of main hindrances against using MASs technology in video games has been the real-time con- straints for frame rendering. In order to deal with the real-time constraints, we introduce an adaptation-oriented approach for maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges. The adaptation approach is inspired from the level of detail (LoD) technique in 3D graphics. We introduce agent organizations for defining different roles of agents in game AI. The computational requirements of agent roles have been prioritized according to their functional roles in a game. In this way, adapting computational requirements of game AI works as a means for maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges. The proposed approach has been evaluated through a pilot experiment by using a proof of concept game. The pilot experiment shows that LoD based adaptation allows maintaining frame rate in acceptable ranges and therefore enhancing the quality of service

SWITCH Partnership (Service Working to Integrate Therapy into Community Health): Baseline Evidence & Service Redesign Planning Report

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Investigation of the effects of thermal annealing on the structural, morphological and optical properties of nanostructured Mn doped ZnO thin films

The control of the optical properties of ZnO nanostructured thin films by using different dopant elements paves the way for the development of potential materials for photonic and optoelectronic applications. In this work manganese (Mn) doped ZnO thin films were fabricated by rapid thermal evaporation method on a glass substrate having the same Mn content level of ~10% and annealed at different temperatures. XRD analysis showed that the annealed layers have hexagonal wurtzite structure, however, the unannealed layers showed only Zn peaks without any preferential direction. The elemental analysis of the films has been investigated by XPS, which revealed the presence of Mn and oxygen atoms for all layers. In addition, it was observed by FIB-SEM that the morphology of thin films changed with the annealing temperature. For an anneal at 500 °C nanoneedles appeared. Raman spectroscopy showed E1 (TO) mode in the sample annealed at 500 °C which was attributed with the formation of nanoneedles structures. The optical transmission of the annealed films was in the range of 75–77% and the optical bandgap varied from 3.97 to 3.72 eV. These variations are related to the structural and morphological changes of the thin films with annealing temperature

Adaptation in serious games for motor rehabilitation

L'accident vasculaire cérébral (AVC) est une des principales causes de handicap et de décès chez les adultes dans le monde. Un nombre important de travaux de recherche ont été émergés afin d'améliorer les stratégies de rééducation en incluant les jeux sérieux dans le processus thérapeutique. L'avantage des jeux sérieux consiste à fournir aux patients un environnement d'entraînement personnalisé et immersive. La thèse se focalise sur une technique d'adaptation qui vise à améliorer les résultats de l'entrainement des patients tout en maintenant leur motivation durant une session thérapeutique. La technique est basée sur l'évaluation des capacités motrices des patients hémiplégiques pour adapter dynamiquement la difficulté de jeu. Elle a été évaluée via des expérimentations avec des joueurs sains, des thérapeutes et des patients atteints d'AVC. Les résultats de l'évaluation montrent que la technique d'adaptation permet d'augmenter le nombre de tâches, le nombre de tâches réussies ainsi que l'amplitude du mouvement. En outre, elle permet également de maintenir la motivation des joueurs en la comparant aux stratégies de contrôle. Cela peut être donc prometteur pour améliorer la récupération de patients qui ont subi un AVC.A stroke is among the major causes of adults' disability and death worldwide. To date, a growing amount of research studies have been devoted to improve rehabilitation strategies by including serious games in the therapeutic process. The benefit of serious games lies in providing patients with a customized and immersive training environment. The thesis focuses on an adaptation technique that seeks to enhance the patients' training outcomes while maintaining their motivation. It is based on the assessment of the patient's motor abilities to dynamically adapt the game difficulty. The technique has been evaluated through experiments with healthy players, therapists and stroke patients. The results of the evaluation show that the adaptive technique has increased the training outcomes in terms of the number of tasks, number of successful tasks as well as the movement amplitude. In addition, it has also maintained the players' motivation compared with the control strategies. This can therefore be promising to enhance stroke patients' recovery

Therapeutic games' difficulty adaptation: An approach based on player's ability and motivation

International audienceTherapeutic games can be considered as a promising rehabilitation tool since they provide personalized rehabilitation sessions in which training intensity and challenges can be adapted to the patient's ability, motivation and performance. In this paper, we discuss post-stroke therapeutic game design challenges and requirements that open-up a variety of adaptation issues. Our objective is to present a generic difficulty adaptation technique for a family of post-stroke upper-limb rehabilitation games. The proposed technique aims to increase rehabilitation volume by maintaining patients' motivation and engagement

A gameplay loops formal language

In this paper we present an approach of procedural game content generation that focuses on a gameplay loops formal language (GLFL). In fact, during an iterative game design process, game designers suggest modifications that often require high development costs. The proposed language and its operational semantic allow reducing the gap between game designers' requirement and game developers' needs, enhancing therefore video games productivity. Using gameplay loops concept for game content generation offers a low cost solution to adjust game challenges, objectives and rewards in video games. A pilot experiment have been conducted to study the impact of this approach on game development