21,857 research outputs found
Being a non-drinking student: an interpretative phenomenological analysis
Recent research suggests that safer student alcohol consumption might be assisted by understanding how social occasions are managed by non-drinkers. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with five 19-22 year old non-drinking English undergraduates were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). We present five inter-linked themes: ‘living with challenges to non drinking’; ‘seeing what goes on in drinking environments’; ‘dealing with conversations about non-drinking (‘making excuses vs. coming out’)’; ‘knowing which
friends care about you’; and ‘the importance of withholding “legroom” for peer pressure’. Participants felt under persistent peer scrutiny (as a form of peer pressure) and could feel alienated in drinking environments. Talking about non-drinking was characterised by whether to ‘come out’ (as a non-drinker) or ‘fake it’ (e.g., ‘I’m on antibiotics’). Loyal friendships were reported as particularly important in this context. The decision not to drink was experienced as providing a successful buffer to peer pressure for former drinkers. Our findings unsettle
traditional health promotion campaigns which advocate moderate drinking among students without always suggesting how it might be most successfully accomplished, and offer
tentative guidance on how non-drinking during specific social occasions might be managed more successfully. Findings are discussed in relation to extant literature and future research directions are suggested
Toward a dynamic perspective on exploative and exploitative innovation activities: a longitudianl study of innovation in the wind blade industry
Innovation requires a combination of explorative and exploitative innovation\ud
activities. Previous studies have provided valuable insights in the antecedents of investing in explorative and exploitative activities, the structural governance of exploration and exploitation and the performance implications of engaging in exploration and exploitation. These studies are dominated by cross-sectional research, largely ignoring the evolution of exploration and exploitation over time. Several scholars, however, provide first indications that the allocation of time and resources across exploration and exploitation might change over time. In order to examine the dynamics of explorative and exploitative innovation activities, we conducted an indepth case study in one particular company in the wind blade industry, applying a novel approach to measure the evolution of the amount of R&D resources allocated to explorative and exploitative activities over a 5 year time period. Our results show that the relative amount of resources and time invested in exploration versus exploitation is not static, but changes over time. The pattern of the evolution of exploration and exploitation at our case company shows phases in which exploration and exploitation activities are well balanced, and phases where one type of innovation dominates innovation activities. Based on additional qualitative data we found first indications of antecedents of the dynamics of exploration and exploitation. Together, our findings provide an interesting starting point for future research on the antecedents, structural governance and performance implications of the evolution of exploration and exploitation over time
An analytical decomposition protocol for optimal implementation of two-qubit entangling gates
This paper addresses the question how to implement a desired two-qubit gate U
using a given tunable two-qubit entangling interaction H_int. We present a
general method which is based on the K_1 A K_2 decomposition of unitary
matrices in SU(4) to calculate analytically the smallest number of two-qubit
gates U_int [based on H_int] and single-qubit rotations, and the explicit
sequence of these operations that are required to implement U. We illustrate
our protocol by calculating the implementation of (1) the transformation from
standard basis to Bell basis, (2) the CNOT gate, and (3) the quantum Fourier
transform for two kinds of interaction - Heisenberg exchange interaction and
quantum inductive coupling - and discuss the relevance of our results for
solid-state qubits.Comment: 16 pages, published versio
Muon localization site in U(Pt,Pd)3
The angular and temperature (10-250 K) variation of the Knight shift of
single-crystalline U(Pt0.95Pd0.05)3 has been measured in transverse field
(B=0.6 T) mSR experiments. By analysing the temperature variation of the Knight
shift with a modified Curie-Weiss expression the muon localization site in this
hexagonal material is determined at (0,0,0).Comment: 12 pages (including 4 figures); postscript file; Proc. 8th Int. Conf.
on Muon Spin Rotation, Relaxation and Resonance (Aug.30-Sept.3, Les
Diablerets); 2nd version with minor correction
Systemic inflammation: Cancer's long-distance reach to maximize metastasis
While major improvements have been made in targeting primary tumor growth, metastasis and combating cancer spread remain an enigma. We recently identified a systemic inflammatory cascade involving IL17-producing γδ T cells and neutrophils that advance breast cancer metastasis. These data provide insights into how immune cells promote cancer spread
Exploring the effect of sex on empirical fitness landscapes
The nature of epistasis has important consequences for the evolutionary significance of sex and recombination. Recent efforts to find negative epistasis as a source of negative linkage disequilibrium and associated long-term advantage to sex have yielded little support. Sign epistasis, where the sign of the fitness effects of alleles varies across genetic backgrounds, is responsible for the ruggedness of the fitness landscape, with several unexplored implications for the evolution of sex. Here, we describe fitness landscapes for two sets of strains of the asexual fungus Aspergillus niger involving all combinations of five mutations. We find that 30% of the single-mutation fitness effects are positive despite their negative effect in the wild-type strain and that several local fitness maxima and minima are present. We then compare adaptation of sexual and asexual populations on these empirical fitness landscapes by using simulations. The results show a general disadvantage of sex on these rugged landscapes, caused by the breakdown by recombination of genotypes on fitness peaks. Sex facilitates movement to the global peak only for some parameter values on one landscape, indicating its dependence on the landscape’s topography. We discuss possible reasons for the discrepancy between our results and the reports of faster adaptation of sexual population
Key institutional issues and possible scenarios for the review of the EC electronic communications framework
Hawking's chronology protection conjecture: singularity structure of the quantum stress--energy tensor
The recent renaissance of wormhole physics has led to a very disturbing
observation: If traversable wormholes exist then it appears to be rather easy
to to transform such wormholes into time machines. This extremely disturbing
state of affairs has lead Hawking to promulgate his chronology protection
conjecture. This paper continues a program begun in an earlier paper [Physical
Review {\bf D47}, 554--565 (1993), hepth@xxx/9202090]. An explicit calculation
of the vacuum expectation value of the renormalized stress--energy tensor in
wormhole spacetimes is presented. Point--splitting techniques are utilized.
Particular attention is paid to computation of the Green function [in its
Hadamard form], and the structural form of the stress-energy tensor near short
closed spacelike geodesics. Detailed comparisons with previous calculations are
presented, leading to a pleasingly unified overview of the situation.Comment: plain LaTeX, 13 page
Revving up dendritic cells while braking PD-L1 to jump-start the cancer-immunity cycle motor
Although it is successful for some, most melanoma patients are refractory to T cell checkpoint inhibition. In this issue of Immunity, Merad and colleagues (2016) describe a dendritic-cell-based strategy to heighten the efficacy of therapeutic anti-PD-L1 and BRAF inhibitors in mouse melanoma models
- …