1,170 research outputs found
Lightning current detector
An apparatus for measuring the intensity of current produced in an elongated electrical conductive member by a lightning strike for determining the intensity of the lightning strike is presented. The apparatus includes an elongated strip of magnetic material that is carried within an elongated tubular housing. A predetermined electrical signal is recorded along the length of said elongated strip of magnetic material. One end of the magnetic material is positioned closely adjacent to the electrically conductive member so that the magnetic field produced by current flowing through said electrically conductive member disturbs a portion of the recorded electrical signal directly proportional to the intensity of the lightning strike
Being on the Juvenile Dermatomyositis Rollercoaster: a qualitative study
Objectives: Juvenile Dermatomyositis is a rare, potentially life-threatening condition with no known cure. There is no published literature capturinghow children and young people feel about their condition, from their perspective. This study was therefore unique in that it asked children and young people what is it like to live with Juvenile Dermatomyositis.
Methods: Data wereobtained from fifteen young people with Juvenile Dermatomyositis, between eightand nineteen years of age from one Paediatric Rheumatology department using audio-recordedinterpretive phenomenology interviews. Data were analyzed phenomenologically, using a process that derives narratives from transcripts resulting in a collective composite of participants shared experiences, called aâphenomenonâ.
Results:The overarching metaphor of a rollercoaster captures the phenomenon of living withJuvenile Dermatomyositisas a young person, with the ups and downs at different time points clearly described by those interviewed. The five themes plotted on the rollercoaster, began with confusion; followed by feeling different, being sick, steroidal and scared from the medications; uncertainty; and then ended with acceptance of the disease over time.
Conclusion: Young people were able to talk about their experiences about having Juvenile Dermatomyositis. Our findings will aid clinicians in their practice by gaining a deeper understanding of what daily life is like and highlighting ways to enhance psychosocial functioning. Hopefully, this study and any further resulting studies,will raise understanding of Juvenile Dermatomyositis worldwide and will encourage health care professionals to better assess psychosocial needs in the future
Mapping the current psychology provision for children and young people with juvenile dermatomyositis
Objectives: Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM) is a rare, chronic autoimmune condition of childhood, with known psychosocial implications. In this study, we sought to establish current psychological support for children and young people across the UK with rheumatic conditions, with a specific focus on those with JDM. Methods: Electronic surveys were distributed to the 15 centres that belong to the JDM Research Group in the UK, collecting responses from health-care professionals in the fields of medicine, nursing and psychology. Results: One hundred per cent of professionals from medicine and nursing replied from all 15 centres. Of these, 7 (47%) did not have a named psychologist as part of their rheumatology team, despite the majority [13 (87%)] having >200 paediatric rheumatology patients. Of the remaining centres, hospital psychology provision varied considerably. When rating their service, only 3 (8%) of 40 professionals scored their service as five (where one is poor and five is excellent); there were wide discrepancies in these scores. Many challenges were discussed, including limited psychology provision, lack of time and difficulties in offering support across large geographical areas. Conclusion: Many of the challenges discussed are applicable to other centres worldwide. Suggestions have been proposed that might help to improve the situation for children and young people with rheumatic conditions, including JDM. Based on these findings, we suggest that rheumatology teams maximize use of these data to advocate and work toward more comprehensive psychology provision and support in their individual centres
Kinematic dynamo action in a sphere: Effects of periodic time-dependent flows on solutions with axial dipole symmetry
Choosing a simple class of flows, with characteristics that may be present in
the Earth's core, we study the ability to generate a magnetic field when the
flow is permitted to oscillate periodically in time. The flow characteristics
are parameterised by D, representing a differential rotation, M, a meridional
circulation, and C, a component characterising convective rolls. Dynamo action
is sensitive to these flow parameters and fails spectacularly for much of the
parameter space where magnetic flux is concentrated into small regions.
Oscillations of the flow are introduced by varying the flow parameters in
time, defining a closed orbit in the space (D,M). Time-dependence appears to
smooth out flux concentrations, often enhancing dynamo action. Dynamo action
can be impaired, however, when flux concentrations of opposite signs occur
close together as smoothing destroys the flux by cancellation.
It is possible to produce geomagnetic-type reversals by making the orbit
stray into a region where the steady flows generate oscillatory fields. In this
case, however, dynamo action was not found to be enhanced by the
time-dependence.
A novel approach is taken to solving the time-dependent eigenvalue problem,
where by combining Floquet theory with a matrix-free Krylov-subspace method we
avoid large memory requirements for storing the matrix required by the standard
approach.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures. Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dynam., as accepted
(2004
Full sphere hydrodynamic and dynamo benchmarks
Convection in planetary cores can generate fluid flow and magnetic fields, and a number of sophisticated codes exist to simulate the dynamic behaviour of such systems. We report on the first community activity to compare numerical results of computer codes designed to calculate fluid flow within a whole sphere. The flows are incompressible and rapidly rotating and the forcing of the flow is either due to thermal convection or due to moving boundaries. All problems defined have solutions that allow easy comparison, since they are either steady, slowly drifting or perfectly periodic. The first two benchmarks are defined based on uniform internal heating within the sphere under the Boussinesq approximation with boundary conditions that are uniform in temperature and stress-free for the flow. Benchmark 1 is purely hydrodynamic, and has a drifting solution. Benchmark 2 is a magnetohydrodynamic benchmark that can generate oscillatory, purely periodic, flows and magnetic fields. In contrast, Benchmark 3 is a hydrodynamic rotating bubble benchmark using no slip boundary conditions that has a stationary solution. Results from a variety of types of code are reported, including codes that are fully spectral (based on spherical harmonic expansions in angular coordinates and polynomial expansions in radius), mixed spectral and finite difference, finite volume, finite element and also a mixed Fourierâfinite element code. There is good agreement between codes. It is found that in Benchmarks 1 and 2, the approximation of a whole sphere problem by a domain that is a spherical shell (a sphere possessing an inner core) does not represent an adequate approximation to the system, since the results differ from whole sphere results
Dephasing Effect in Photon-Assisted Resonant Tunneling through Quantum Dots
We analyze dephasing in single and double quantum dot systems. The
decoherence is introduced by the B\"{u}ttiker model with current conserving
fictitious voltage leads connected to the dots. By using the non-equilibrium
Green function method, we investigate the dephasing effect on the tunneling
current. It is shown that a finite dephasing rate leads to observable effects.
The result can be used to measure dephasing rates in quantum dots.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Rapid Communications of Phys.
Rev.
Tunneling through a multigrain system: deducing the sample topology from the nonlinear conductance
We study a current transport through a system of a few grains connected with
tunneling links. The exact solution is given for an arbitrarily connected
double-grain system with a shared gate in the framework of the orthodox model.
The obtained result is generalized for multigrain systems with strongly
different tunneling resistances. We analyse the large-scale nonlinear
conductance and demonstrate how the sample topology can be unambiguously
deduced from the spectroscopy pattern (differential conductance versus
gate-bias plot). We present experimental data for a multigrain sample and
reconstruct the sample topology. A simple selection rule is formulated to
distinguish samples with spectral patterns free from spurious disturbance
caused by recharging of some grains nearby. As an example, we demonstrate
experimental data with additional peaks in the spectroscopy pattern, which can
not be attributed to coupling to additional grains. The described approach can
be used to judge the sample topology when it is not guaranteed by fabrication
and direct imaging is not possible.Comment: 13 pages (including 8 figures
Quantum Computation with Quantum Dots
We propose a new implementation of a universal set of one- and two-qubit
gates for quantum computation using the spin states of coupled single-electron
quantum dots. Desired operations are effected by the gating of the tunneling
barrier between neighboring dots. Several measures of the gate quality are
computed within a newly derived spin master equation incorporating decoherence
caused by a prototypical magnetic environment. Dot-array experiments which
would provide an initial demonstration of the desired non-equilibrium spin
dynamics are proposed.Comment: 12 pages, Latex, 2 ps figures. v2: 20 pages (very minor corrections,
substantial expansion), submitted to Phys. Rev.
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