11,932 research outputs found
Effects of the space environment on the health and safety of space workers
Large numbers of individuals are required to work in space to assemble and operate a Solar Power Satellite. The physiological and behavioral consequences for large groups of men and women who perform complex tasks in the vehicular or extravehicular environments over long periods of orbital stay time were considered. The most disturbing consequences of exposure to the null gravity environment found relate to: (1) a generalized cardiovascular deconditioning along with loss of a significant amount of body fluid volume; (2) loss of bone minerals and muscle mass; and (3) degraded performance of neutral mechanisms which govern equilibrium and spatial orientation
Dual redundant core memory systems
Electronic memory system consisting of series redundant drive switch circuits, triple redundant majority voted memory timing functions, and two data registers to provide functional dual redundancy is described. Signal flow through the circuits is illustrated and equence of events which occur within the memory system is explained
Darwinism and Organizational Ecology: A Reply to Reydon and Scholz
In an earlier article published in this journal I challenge Reydon and Scholz's (2009) claim that Organizational Ecology is a non-Darwinian program. In this replay to Reydon and Scholz's subsequent response, I clarify the difference between our two approaches denoted by an emphasis her on the careful application of core Darwinian principles and an insistence by Reydon and Scholz on direct biological analogies. On a substantive issue, they identify as being the principle problem for Organizational Ecology, namely, the inability to identify replicators and interactors "of the right sort" in the business domain; this is also shown to be easily addressed with reference to empirical studies of business populations.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio
Experiences of early motherhood following successful reproductive procedures
Background:
The current research aimed to explore how women, who have conceived via assisted reproductive procedures after experiencing infertility, describe their experiences of the first year of motherhood, as well as, what psychosocial and contextual factors impacted on their experiences.
Methods:
A qualitative methodology was employed, with Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2021a, 2021b, 2022) as the chosen method of data analysis. Data was collected by interviewing 12 women who had become parents after successful reproductive procedures.
Results:
Four key themes were derived from the data analysis process, representing women’s account of how their prior infertility and IVF journeys impacted on their experiences of early motherhood: 1) “It is a big adjustment”: Feeling unprepared for the realities of motherhood; 2) “We’ve got what we wanted”: Navigating early motherhood with a highly sought after and longed for child; 3) “You’ve gone through this physically and mentally draining thing”: Experiencing exhaustion and painful emotions associated with the difficult journey to motherhood; and 4) “That sense of support and sense of community, was really helpful”: The importance of community, connections, normalisation and support. Implications and conclusions: For many women, the psychological impact of infertility and infertility treatment influenced their experiences of early motherhood. To minimise difficult feelings experienced by women post-natally, healthcare professionals should normalise different experiences of early motherhood after infertility, as well as, giving women the chance to reflect on and process the “trauma” of infertility and infertility treatment during and after pregnancy. What is more, protective factors, such as greater partner support and self-compassion, could be increased through policy changes or therapeutic support
Conformal topological Yang-Mills theory and de Sitter holography
A new topological conformal field theory in four Euclidean dimensions is
constructed from N=4 super Yang-Mills theory by twisting the whole of the
conformal group with the whole of the R-symmetry group, resulting in a theory
that is conformally invariant and has two conformally invariant BRST operators.
A curved space generalisation is found on any Riemannian 4-fold. This
formulation has local Weyl invariance and two Weyl-invariant BRST symmetries,
with an action and energy-momentum tensor that are BRST-exact. This theory is
expected to have a holographic dual in 5-dimensional de Sitter space.Comment: 34 pages, AMSTex, Reference adde
New Gauged N=8, D=4 Supergravities
New gaugings of four dimensional N=8 supergravity are constructed, including
one which has a Minkowski space vacuum that preserves N=2 supersymmetry and in
which the gauge group is broken to . Previous gaugings used the
form of the ungauged action which is invariant under a rigid symmetry
and promoted a 28-dimensional subgroup ( or the
non-semi-simple contraction ) to a local gauge group. Here, a
dual form of the ungauged action is used which is invariant under
instead of and new theories are obtained by gauging 28-dimensional
subgroups of . The gauge groups are non-semi-simple and are different
real forms of the groups, denoted , and the new
theories have a rigid SU(2) symmetry. The five dimensional gauged N=8
supergravities are dimensionally reduced to D=4. The gauge
theories reduce, after a duality transformation, to the
gauging while the gauge theory reduces to the gauge
theory. The new theories are related to the old ones via an analytic
continuation. The non-semi-simple gaugings can be dualised to forms with
different gauge groups.Comment: 33 pages. Reference adde
Duality Twists on a Group Manifold
We study duality-twisted dimensional reductions on a group manifold G, where
the twist is in a group \tilde{G} and examine the conditions for consistency.
We find that if the duality twist is introduced through a group element
\tilde{g} in \tilde{G}, then the flat \tilde{G}-connection A =\tilde{g}^{-1}
d\tilde{g} must have constant components M_n with respect to the basis 1-forms
on G, so that the dependence on the internal coordinates cancels out in the
lower dimensional theory. This condition can be satisfied if and only if M_n
forms a representation of the Lie algebra of G, which then ensures that the
lower dimensional gauge algebra closes. We find the form of this gauge algebra
and compare it to that arising from flux compactifications on twisted tori. As
an example of our construction, we find a new five dimensional gauged, massive
supergravity theory by dimensionally reducing the eight dimensional Type II
supergravity on a three dimensional unimodular, non-semi-simple, non-abelian
group manifold with an SL(3,R) twist.Comment: 22 page
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Comparison of glistenings formation and their effect on forward light scatter between the Acrysof SN60WF and Eternity Natural Uni NW-60 intraocular lenses
Aims: To compare the characteristics of glistenings and forward light scatter between the Alcon Acrysof SN60WF and Santen Eternity Natural Uni NW-60 intraocular lenses (IOLs).
Methods: Five Acrysof SN60WF and five Eternity Natural Uni NW-60 IOLs were studied. All IOLs were single piece blue blockers with the same dioptric power (20D) and optic diameter (6.0 mm). Glistenings were induced by a thermal accelerated ageing process. Glistenings were objectively quantified using bespoke image processing software. The angular distribution of forward light scatter was measured using an optical bench system and the straylight parameter calculated from the light scatter function.
Results: The median increase in the number of glistenings was 15 and 525 for the Eternity and Acrysof IOLs, respectively, which was statistically significantly different (p=0.012). Median glistenings diameter was 23.8 μm (Acrysof) and 32.8 μm (Eternity). Four (80%) of the Acrysof lenses had straylight values higher than a 20-year-old CIE standard glare observer and in two cases the straylight exceeded that of the 70-year-old CIE standard glare observer. None of the Eternity lenses had straylight values that exceeded the value for the 20-year-old CIE standard glare observer.
Conclusions: The Eternity Natural Uni NW-60 IOLs resisted the induction of glistenings more than the Acrysof SN60WF IOLs. Although the Acrysof IOLs developed smaller glistenings than the Eternity IOLs, there were sufficient numbers to produce a higher straylight parameter
A Geometry for Non-Geometric String Backgrounds
A geometric string solution has background fields in overlapping coordinate
patches related by diffeomorphisms and gauge transformations, while for a
non-geometric background this is generalised to allow transition functions
involving duality transformations. Non-geometric string backgrounds arise from
T-duals and mirrors of flux compactifications, from reductions with duality
twists and from asymmetric orbifolds. Strings in ` T-fold' backgrounds with a
local -torus fibration and T-duality transition functions in are
formulated in an enlarged space with a fibration which is geometric,
with spacetime emerging locally from a choice of a submanifold of each
fibre, so that it is a subspace or brane embedded in the enlarged
space. T-duality acts by changing to a different subspace of .
For a geometric background, the local choices of fit together to give a
spacetime which is a bundle, while for non-geometric string backgrounds
they do not fit together to form a manifold. In such cases spacetime geometry
only makes sense locally, and the global structure involves the doubled
geometry. For open strings, generalised D-branes wrap a subspace of each
fibre and the physical D-brane is the part of the part of the physical
space lying in the generalised D-brane subspace.Comment: 28 Pages. Minor change
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Intelligent techniques in condition monitoring based on forecasting of vibrational signals
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