Lateral Shift Makes a Ground-Plane Cloak Detectable

We examine the effectiveness of the ground-plane invisibility cloak generated from quasiconformal mapping of electromagnetic space. This cloak without anisotropy will generally lead to a lateral shift of the scattered wave, whose value is comparable to the height of the cloaked object, making the object detectable. This can be explained by the fact that the corresponding virtual space is thinner and wider than it should be. Ray tracing on a concrete model shows that for a bump with a maximum height of 0.2 units to be hidden, the lateral shift of a ray with 45 degree incidence is around 0.15 units

Bio-Somatic-Power

Biopower is a prominent force in mental health, with psychiatry having a strong influential grasp across the areas of definition of mental disorders, diagnosis, care, treatment, and legislation. One area that impacts upon the everyday lives of community mental health service users is treatment, largely dominated by medication. This paper will explore biopower in relation to the practices and management of mental health service users’ medication regimens. Michel Foucault’s insistence in his later work that power is the product of bodily forces will be drawn upon in highlighting the importance of undertaking analysis of medication regimens. Taking examples from a project focused on service user experience, the concept of ‘somatic enactment’ is suggested as a means through which to open up biopower to the localised concerns of service users with regard to the issue of managing one’s body on a day to day basis, as affected by medication. In doing so, the author seeks to move towards a notion of biopower that does not only work on a ‘top down’ manner, and in which processes of embodied subjectification can be illuminated, without recourse to a straightforward power-resistance framework

"This is for Life": A Discursive Analysis of the Dilemmas of Constructing Diagnostic Identities

Este artículo incluye una aproximación de análisis discursivo a la construcción de identidades a partir de la recepción de un diagnóstico psiquiátrico (me referiré globalmente a todas ellas como "las identidades de diagnóstico") dilemático, y las subsiguientes negociaciones de las identidades a la luz de ese dilema. Más concretamente, el interés se centra en el diagnóstico de la esquizofrenia, y en cómo construyen sus identidades las personas que reciben el diagnóstico. Una característica fundamental del recibir un diagnóstico de esquizofrenia, es la posibilidad de ver amenazada la propia identidad por las muchas ideas negativas y estereotipadas que persisten con relación a la esquizofrenia. Basándose en la literatura reciente en el campo de la investigación sobre usuarios de servicios de salud mental, el trabajo intenta ir más allá de los límites de una perspectiva psiquiátrica biomédica del diagnóstico, con el fin de aclarar cómo tales clasificaciones impactan en los que las reciben. En este artículo, el re-funcionamiento discursivo de las identidades de diagnóstico individual incluye estrategias de resistencia al diagnóstico, intentos de distanciarse del diagnóstico, diagnósticos existencialistas, y el reconocimiento aunque reticente a las sugerencias que consideran un "riesgo" social a las personas con diagnóstico de esquizofrenia. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0903240In diesem Beitrag nutze ich einen diskursanalytischen Ansatz zum Verständnis von Identitäten, die durch den Erhalt psychiatrischer Diagnosen als Dilemmata konstruiert werden (ich werde diese im Weiteren als "diagnostische Identitäten" bezeichnen), und zum Nachvollzug der folgenden Aushandlungen von Identität im Lichte dieser Dilemmata. Konkreter interessiert mich die Diagnose Schizophrenie und wie Menschen, die als schizophren diagnostiziert wurden, ihre Identitäten konstruieren. Ein wesentlicher Aspekt der Schizophrenie-Diagnose ist, dass die eigene Identität möglicherweise als bedroht (und bedrohlich) erlebt wird mit Blick auf die zahlreichen negativen und ganz überwiegend stereotypisierten Vorstellungen, die über Schizophrenie existieren. Indem ich auf Literatur aus dem Bereich der Gesundheitsversorgungsforschung zurückgreife, versuche ich über die Begrenzungen einer psychiatrisch-biomedizinischen Perspektive hinauszukommen um verstehen zu können, welchen Einfluss derartige Klassifikationen und Zuschreibungen auf diejenigen haben, die sie erfahren. Ich zeige auch die diskursiven Überarbeitungen individueller diagnostischer Identitäten und deren Strategien wie z.B. Widerstand gegen die Diagnose, Versuche, sich von der Diagnose zu distanzieren, eine Existenzialisierung der Diagnose oder deren Anerkennung, ohne zugleich zu akzeptieren, als schizophren diagnostizierte Person ein "soziales Risiko" zu sein. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0903240This paper takes a discourse analytic approach to the construction of identities formed through reception of a psychiatric diagnosis (I will refer to these as "diagnostic identities" throughout) as dilemmatic, and the subsequent negotiations of identities in light of that dilemma. More specifically, it is the diagnosis schizophrenia that is of interest, and how people who receive that diagnosis construct their identities. A key feature of receiving a schizophrenic diagnosis is the potential to see one's identity as under threat from the many negative, and predominantly stereotypical ideas, that persist regarding schizophrenia. Drawing on literature emerging from the field of service user research in mental health, the paper attempts to go beyond the boundaries of a psychiatric biomedical perspective of diagnosis, in order to illuminate how such classifications impact upon those who receive them. In this paper the discursive re-workings of individual diagnostic identities included strategies of resisting diagnosis, attempts to distance oneself from diagnosis, existentialising diagnosis, and recognising but resisting suggestions that people with diagnoses of schizophrenia are a social "risk". URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090324

Predicting the Drug Release Kinetics of Matrix Tablets

In this paper we develop two mathematical models to predict the release kinetics of a water soluble drug from a polymer/excipient matrix tablet. The first of our models consists of a random walk on a weighted graph, where the vertices of the graph represent particles of drug, excipient and polymer, respectively. The graph itself is the contact graph of a multidisperse random sphere packing. The second model describes the dissolution and the subsequent diffusion of the active drug out of a porous matrix using a system of partial differential equations. The predictions of both models show good qualitative agreement with experimental release curves. The models will provide tools for designing better controlled release devices.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures; Elaborated at the first Workshop on the Application of Mathematics to Problems in Biomedicine, December 17-19, 2007 at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealan

Structure and correlates of cognitive aging in a narrow age cohort

Aging-related changes occur for multiple domains of cognitive functioning. An accumulating body of research indicates that, rather than representing statistically independent phenomena, aging-related cognitive changes are moderately to strongly correlated across domains. However, previous studies have typically been conducted in age-heterogeneous samples over longitudinal time lags of 6 or more years, and have failed to consider whether results are robust to a comprehensive set of controls. Capitalizing on 3-year longitudinal data from the Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936, we took a longitudinal narrow age cohort approach to examine cross-domain cognitive change interrelations from ages 70 to 73 years. We fit multivariate latent difference score models to factors representing visuospatial ability, processing speed, memory, and crystallized ability. Changes were moderately interrelated, with a general factor of change accounting for 47% of the variance in changes across domains. Change interrelations persisted at close to full strength after controlling for a comprehensive set of demographic, physical, and medical factors including educational attainment, childhood intelligence, physical function, APOE genotype, smoking status, diagnosis of hypertension, diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and diagnosis of diabetes. Thus, the positive manifold of aging-related cognitive changes is highly robust in that it can be detected in a narrow age cohort followed over a relatively brief longitudinal period, and persists even after controlling for many potential confounders

Deterritorialising mental health : unfolding service user experience

Mental health has a long history of proving to be a tough concept to define. Multiple forms of knowledge and representation seek to inform as to the nature of mental health, all contributing to the production of immense complexity as to the experience of living with mental health difficulties. This thesis sets out to explore this, by getting as close as possible to mental health service users' actual experiences. A range of forms of knowledge that pertain to inform as to service users' experiences are explored, prior to analysing a corpus of interviews with service users. These are analysed through the development of a Deleuzian Discourse Analysis. Service users' experiences are analysed in terms of the relation between discursive and non-discursive factors, which include forms of mainstream psychiatric discursive practice, such as the application of diagnostic criteria and administration of treatments, along with how such practices are experienced in non-discursive dimensions of service user embodiment and space. The challenges facing service users are seen to operate around identity and control in relation to forms of psychiatric knowledge, along with presenting particular problems with regard to how user embodiment is felt, primarily in relation to psychiatric medication, and how these are driven into the production of service user spaces, i.e. day centres. Finally, a politics of affectivity is offered, as a way to unfold the complexity of service user experience, and to emphasise the existence and potential for change that can be gained through deterritorialising mental health.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A METHOD TO QUANITIFY MOVEMENT VARIABILITY OF HIGHLY SKILLED GOLFERS PERFORMING DRIVER SWINGS

Variability has been described as inherent in the golf swing (Bradshaw et al., 2009), yet its impact on outcome is not understood. It is necessary to quantify the levels of movement variability before this relationship can be examined effectively. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a method to quantify movement variability of golfers performing driver swings. 16 highly skilled golfers each performed 10 swings wearing retro reflective markers which were tracked by a 3D motion analysis system operating at 400Hz. Movement variability was calculated for each marker using scalene ellipsoid volume methods; a score representative of the 3D variability over 10 trials was then calculated. The variability levels calculated using this method showed increasing variability from the closed end of the chain (malleoli) to the open end of the chain (wrists)

THE EFFECT OF THE APPLICATION OF DIFFERENT LEVELS OF MOVEMENT VARIABILITY ON MOVEMENT OUTCOME

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the application of a previously validated golfer computer model on different levels of movement variability relative to a shot outcome measure: club head velocity. Movement variability was applied to the computer model on six measures sequentially throughout the body of the computer model. Four different levels of variability, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% variability, were applied to x, y and z positional data of the aforementioned measures. Simulations were then performed with ADAMS/LifeMOD software for each level of movement variability applied to the measures in question. Club head velocity was measured during the simulation. The results suggest that movement variability application at these landmarks does not have an effect on outcome. These results potentially have implications for the coaching of the participant

THE CREATION AND VALIDATION OF A LARGE-SCALE COMPUTER MODEL OF THE GOLF SWING

The aim of this study was to create and validate a full-body musculoskeletal model of a golfer performing a swing with their driver club. An elite female participant performed ten shots with her driver while wearing retro-reflective markers. An optical 3-D 6-camera system captured the kinematics of the markers at 400 Hz on the participant for each trial. A launch monitor device recorded the ball and club head conditions at impact. The kinematic data from one representative trial was selected to drive inverse and forward dynamics simulations of the created model. The validation results showed a very high level of agreement between experimental and simulated trajectories for selected markers (mean r = 0.966