Battling Breast Cancer (Review of: The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America by Barron H. Lerner)

This article reviews the book The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America by Barron H. Lerner

Terahertz Waveguiding in Silicon-Core Fibers

We propose the use of a silicon-core optical fiber for terahertz (THz) waveguide applications. Finite-difference time-domain simulations have been performed based on a cylindrical waveguide with a silicon core and silica cladding. High-resistivity silicon has a flat dispersion over a 0.1 - 3 THz range, making it viable for propagation of tunable narrowband CW THz and possibly broadband picosecond pules of THz radiation. Simulations show the propagation dynamics and the integrated intensity, from which transverse mode profiles and absorption lengths are extraced. It is found that for 140 - 250 micron core diameters the mode is primarily confined to the core, such that the overall absorbance is only slightly less than in bulk polycrystalline silicon.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, journal submissio

Signatures of four-particle correlations associated with exciton-carrier interactions in coherent spectroscopy on bulk GaAs

Transient four-wave mixing studies of bulk GaAs under conditions of broad bandwidth excitation of primarily interband transitions have enabled four-particle correlations tied to degenerate (exciton-exciton) and nondegenerate (exciton-carrier) interactions to be studied. Real two-dimensional Fourier-transform spectroscopy (2DFTS) spectra reveal a complex response at the heavy-hole exciton emission energy that varies with the absorption energy, ranging from dispersive on the diagonal, through absorptive for low-energy interband transitions to dispersive with the opposite sign for interband transitions high above band gap. Simulations using a multilevel model augmented by many-body effects provide excellent agreement with the 2DFTS experiments and indicate that excitation-induced dephasing (EID) and excitation-induced shift (EIS) affect degenerate and nondegenerate interactions equivalently, with stronger exciton-carrier coupling relative to exciton-exciton coupling by approximately an order of magnitude. These simulations also indicate that EID effects are three times stronger than EIS in contributing to the coherent response of the semiconductor

The rural mother's experience of caring for a child with a chronic health condition: An integrative review

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aims and objectives: To identify and review the literature on rural mothers’ experiences in caring for a child with a chronic health condition. Background: Families living with a child who has a chronic health condition experience many challenges; these are often amplified for families living in rural areas, where issues such as the distance from services add further challenges the family must manage. Like many children, rural children with chronic health conditions are primarily cared for by their mothers. The additional strain of geography creates its own unique experiences for mothers who need to access the high-quality care that their child requires. Design: Integrative literature review using the Equator PRISMA guidelines. Methods: A search of databases; Cochrane, CINAHL, Ovid, PubMed, ProQuest Health and Medicine, Informit and Scopus for studies published between 2005–2016 using an integrative review approach. A total of 1,484 studies were identified with an additional six studies found through snowballing. The search resulted in seven studies being meeting the inclusion criteria after using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. Results: Data from the seven articles were analysed, and the mothers’ experiences were synthesised into five themes: “struggling for resources,” “barriers in accessing services,” “strain of decision-making,” “mother's physical and emotional breakdown” and “the daily management of family activities”. These five themes formed the basis of this article. Conclusions: The findings indicate that mothers from rural areas face additional barriers related to their rurality, including transportation difficulties, socioeconomic status and social isolation, and are challenged by limited access to specialty medical services, educators and allied health professionals. The literature review outcome will assist in informing nursing practice through identifying and allocating resources to reduce these barriers; rural mother experience will assist in enabling the child to reach their full developmental potential. Relevance to clinical practice: There is a need for health professionals to understand the challenges and barriers rural mothers face in accessing services. Nurses can assist rural mothers to navigate and access the appropriate services in order to reduce health inequity, increase accessibility to services and reduce rural disadvantage for their child. Nurses and health professionals are in an ideal position to develop future models of care that optimise health outcomes and enable equity and access to services for rural children with chronic conditions similar to those experienced by their urban counterparts

Conquering the great divide: Rural mothers of children with chronic health conditions accessing specialist medical care for their children

© 2019 Australian College of Nursing Ltd Background: Globally, the number of children with chronic health conditions (CHCs) is increasing and mothers are mostly responsible for their care. Aim: Few studies have focused on rural mothers and their experiences of sourcing health care for their children who have CHCs. The purpose of this study was to explore these experiences. Method: Using a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted in early 2018. The Consolidated criteria for Reporting Qualitative research (COREQ) guidelines were followed. Sixteen rural mothers were interviewed regarding their experiences of accessing health care to provide optimal management of their children's CHC. Findings: Thematic analysis of resulting data revealed the overarching theme ‘Conquering the great divide’. From this overarching theme, four themes emerged. This paper focuses on the first theme, ‘Heading to the big smoke: access’. Discussion: Rural mothers felt challenged accessing health care for their children in the major cities whilst also maintaining routine family life back home. Conclusion: Understanding these rural women's experiences could assist health care professionals to develop strategies to facilitate rural mothers accessing services for their children with a CHC

Coherent control of injection currents in high-quality films of Bi2Se3

Films of the topological insulator Bi2Se3 are grown by molecular beam epitaxy with in-situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction. The films are shown to be high-quality by X-ray reflectivity and diffraction and atomic-force microscopy. Quantum interference control of photocurrents is observed by excitation with harmonically related pulses and detected by terahertz radiation. The injection current obeys the expected excitation irradiance dependence, showing linear dependence on the fundamental pulse irradiance and square-root irradiance dependence of the frequency-doubled optical pulses. The injection current also follows a sinusoidal relative-phase dependence between the two excitation pulses. These results confirm the third-order nonlinear optical origins of the coherently controlled injection current. Experiments are compared to a tight-binding band structure to illustrate the possible optical transitions that occur in creating the injection current.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure, journal articl

Design of a Linear Time-Varying Cross-Coupled Iterative Learning Controller

In many manufacturing applications contour tracking is more important than individual axis tracking. Many control techniques, including iterative learning control (ILC), target individual axis error. Because individual axis error only indirectly relates to contour error, these approaches may not be very effective for contouring applications. Cross-coupled ILC (CCILC) is a variation on traditional ILC that targets the contour tracking directly. In contour trajectories with rapid changes, high frequency control is necessary in order to meet tracking requirements. This paper presents an improved CCILC that uses a linear time-varying (LTV) filter to provide high frequency control for short durations. The improved CCILC is designed for raster-scan tracking on a Cartesian robotic test platform. Analysis and experimental results are presented

Success in Challenging Times: Generating Social Capital [Summary Report]

Prompted by findings from the 2012 Kingston Smith funded national survey, Success in challenging times: Key lessons for UK SMEs, this new study focuses on the ways in which SMEs use and benefit from social capital is created through both offline activities such as networking events, and online activities including social media use. Offline and online networking activities are not mutually exclusive alternatives for SMEs. Successful SMEs network with a number of different communities, integrating a combination of both offline and online methods. SMEs’ websites are crucial and need to be optimised to improve search engine positioning. Social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn are used widely to both showcase the business and build relationships with customers, but are not considered a substitute for face-to-face networking. The most popular reason for SMEs using social media is to develop their business image or to market products. The fast, easy and low cost access to people and businesses provided by Web 2.0 and social media helps them do this better. Online networking can enable SMEs to overcome the drawbacks of traditional face-to-face contact, such as limited numbers and diversity, and the associated high costs. SMEs that proactively engage with social media can systematically raise their profiles to successfully compete with larger organisations. Few SMEs claim to be experts in social media use. IT and social media are regarded as necessary evils and SMEs consider that there is no choice other than to engage very proactively in these areas. However, there is a need to manage this engagement strategically, along with traditional networking, to avoid a disproportionate amount of resource being dedicated to this area. Face-to-face (offline) networking events remain the most important form of all types of SME networking with roughly two thirds of SMEs devoting one to six hours per week to this activity. In general, locally oriented SMEs without a scalable business offering prefer face-to-face networking events, whereas globally oriented non-scalable SMEs put significant effort into social media. Networks included customers, associates and former employees who had moved on to become independent contractors. Networking is about making contacts, outside the SME, who can offer feedback or advice or be used to outsource work. These networks are regarded as a ‘community of people’ who might join in with a new business proposal or be used to provide external expertise. The methods SMEs use to increase social capital, must be fit for purpose and appropriate to their business model. Social media are complementary to, rather than a substitute for, traditional networking and events. The challenge facing SMEs is how best to integrate their online and offline activities to complement their business and generate social capital

International meta-analysis of stated preference studies of transportation noise nuisance

This paper reports the first meta-analysis and most extensive review of stated preference studies of transportation noise nuisance. The meta-analysis is based on a newly compiled data set of 258 values from 49 studies and 23 countries and spanning more than 40 years. Contrast this with the most extensive meta-analysis of the more conventional hedonic pricing approach which includes 53 noise valuations. Moreover, the sample compares favourably with the 444 observations from the very first meta-analysis of the value of travel time savings which is by far the most widely examined parameter in transport planning. A particularly significant finding of the study is that the intertemporal income elasticity is close to one, somewhat larger than the cross-sectional income elasticity typically obtained from individual studies. This demonstrates the importance of distinguishing the effects of 2 income variations that occur over time, which tend to drive policy, from variations across individuals at one point in time, and such findings are typical of those observed in other markets. Importantly, the values derived are transferable across countries and may be used to benchmark existing evidence and provide values in contexts where none exist. Other key results are that values for aircraft noise exceed those for other modes, whilst those exposed to higher noise levels and those who are highly annoyed also have higher values in line with expectations. A wide range of design effects were tested but few were significant and these included the consumer surplus measure, the representation of noise and the context

Automated Polarization-dependent Multidimensional Coherent Spectroscopy Phased Using Transient Absorption

: An experimental apparatus is described for multidimensional optical spectroscopy with fully automated polarization control, based on liquid crystal variable retarders. Polarization dependence of rephasing two-dimensional coherent spectra are measured in a single scan, with absolute phasing performed for all polarization configurations through a single automated auxiliary measurement at the beginning of the scan. A factor of three improvement in acquisition time is demonstrated, compared to the apparatus without automated polarization control. Results are presented for a GaAs quantum well sample and an InGaAs quantum well embedded in a microcavit