Dissecting the Workforce and Workplace for Clinical Endocrinology, and the Work of Endocrinologists Early in Their Careers

[Excerpt] No national mechanism is in place for an informed, penetrating, and systematic assessment of the physician workforce such as that achieved by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the periodic evaluation of the nation’s scientists and engineers. Likewise, knowledge of the workforce for clinical research is enigmatic and fragmentary despite the serial recommendations of “blue-ribbon” panels to establish a protocol for the recurrent assessment of clinical investigators early in their careers. Failure to adopt a national system for producing timely, high-quality data on the professional activities of physicians limits the application of improvement tools for advancing clinical investigation and ultimately improving clinical practice. The present study was designed as a pilot project to test the feasibility of using Web-based surveys to estimate the administrative, clinical, didactic, and research work of subspecialty physicians employed in academic, clinical, federal, and pharmaceutical workplaces. Physician members of The Endocrine Society (TES) were used as surrogate prototypes of a subspecialty workforce because of their manageable number and investigative tradition. The results establish that Web-based surveys provide a tool to assess the activities of a decentralized workforce employed in disparate workplaces and underscore the value of focusing on physician work within the context of particular workplaces within a subspecialty. Our report also provides a new and timely snapshot of the amount and types of research performed by clinically trained endocrinologists and offers an evidenced-based framework for improving the investigative workforce in this medical subspecialty

Heat Kernel for Spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger Field in General Covariant Gauge

The heat kernel for the spin-3/2 Rarita-Schwinger gauge field on an arbitrary Ricci flat space-time ($d>2$) is investigated in a family of covariant gauges with one gauge parameter $\alpha$. The $\alpha$-dependent term of the kernel is expressed by the spin-1/2 heat kernel. It is shown that the axial anomaly and the one-loop divegence of the action are $\alpha$-independent, and that the conformal anomaly has an $\alpha$-dependent total derivative term in $d=2m\geq6$ dimensions.Comment: 11 pages, latex, ITP-SB-94-3

A laser-driven target of high-density nuclear polarized hydrogen gas

We report the best figure-of-merit achieved for an internal nuclear polarized hydrogen gas target and a Monte Carlo simulation of spin-exchange optical pumping. The dimensions of the apparatus were optimized using the simulation and the experimental results were in good agreement with the simulation. The best result achieved for this target was 50.5% polarization with 58.2% degree of dissociation of the sample beam exiting the storage cell at a hydrogen flow rate of $1.1\times 10^{18}$ atoms/s.Comment: Accepted as a Rapid Communication article in Phys. Rev.

Differential Cross Sections For State-selective Electron Capture In 25100-keV Proton-helium Collisions

Cross sections differential in the scattering angle of the projectile are presented for electron capture summed over all states and to the 2s, 2p, 3s, 3p, 4s, and 4p states of hydrogen in 25-, 50-, and 100-keV proton-helium collisions. The classical-trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) technique was employed for these calculations as well as to compute total cross sections as a function of impact energy. The latter are compared with experiment to display the behavior of the integral state-selective cross sections in this energy regime. Detailed comparison is also made between the calculated angular differential cross sections and the experimental measurements of Martin et al. [Phys. Rev. A 23, 285 (1981)] for capture summed over all states and of Seely et al. [Phys. Rev. A 45, R1287 (1992)] for capture to the 2p state. Very good overall agreement is found. Regarding the cross section for capture summed over all states, an improved agreement is demonstrated by using an alternate representation of the initial state in the CTMC method, which improves the electronic radial distribution, but which cannot presently be applied to state-selective determinations. © 1992 The American Physical Society

Kripke Semantics for Martin-L\"of's Extensional Type Theory

It is well-known that simple type theory is complete with respect to non-standard set-valued models. Completeness for standard models only holds with respect to certain extended classes of models, e.g., the class of cartesian closed categories. Similarly, dependent type theory is complete for locally cartesian closed categories. However, it is usually difficult to establish the coherence of interpretations of dependent type theory, i.e., to show that the interpretations of equal expressions are indeed equal. Several classes of models have been used to remedy this problem. We contribute to this investigation by giving a semantics that is standard, coherent, and sufficiently general for completeness while remaining relatively easy to compute with. Our models interpret types of Martin-L\"of's extensional dependent type theory as sets indexed over posets or, equivalently, as fibrations over posets. This semantics can be seen as a generalization to dependent type theory of the interpretation of intuitionistic first-order logic in Kripke models. This yields a simple coherent model theory, with respect to which simple and dependent type theory are sound and complete

P02.123. The anti-diabetic and cholesterol-lowering effects of common and cassia cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum and C. aromaticum): a randomized controlled trial

This paper accompanies a poster presentation on the anti-diabetic and cholesterol-lowering effects of common and cassia cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum and C. aromaticum)

The SASSCAL contribution to climate observation, climate data management and data rescue in Southern Africa

A major task of the newly established "Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management" (SASSCAL; www.sasscal.org) and its partners is to provide science-based environmental information and knowledge which includes the provision of consistent and reliable climate data for Southern Africa. Hence, SASSCAL, in close cooperation with the national weather authorities of Angola, Botswana, Germany and Zambia as well as partner institutions in Namibia and South Africa, supports the extension of the regional meteorological observation network and the improvement of the climate archives at national level. With the ongoing rehabilitation of existing weather stations and the new installation of fully automated weather stations (AWS), altogether 105 AWS currently provide a set of climate variables at 15, 30 and 60 min intervals respectively. These records are made available through the SASSCAL WeatherNet, an online platform providing near-real time data as well as various statistics and graphics, all in open access. This effort is complemented by the harmonization and improvement of climate data management concepts at the national weather authorities, capacity building activities and an extension of the data bases with historical climate data which are still available from different sources. These activities are performed through cooperation between regional and German institutions and will provide important information for climate service related activities