2,517 research outputs found

    OILSEED PROTEINS - PRESENT UTILIZATION PATTERNS

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    Emphasizes the importance of soybeans as a source of protein in the human diet. Provides examples of soy-protein products on the market today and speculates as to their future.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

    Experiences of living with Type I diabetes: psychological distress and clinical implications

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    Living with diabetes can present a number of challenges for individuals concerned. Managing diabetes day to day involves a complex medication and behavioural regime which interrelates with various important psychosocial factors. Previous research suggests that people living with diabetes are as much as two-three times more likely to experience mental health difficulties compared with the general population. However evidence is emerging that many of these difficulties may in fact be a direct result of feeling distressed about living with a complicated and stressful chronic health condition, and not necessarily resultant from co-morbid psychiatric illness. These experiences are known by the term diabetes related distress. To date psychosocial factors related to living with diabetes have mainly been explored quantitatively. However, qualitative approaches have increased in popularity in diabetes research in recent years and can add valuable and rich information to existing data from quantitative research. Extant qualitative research in diabetes has mainly focused on people living with type 2 diabetes or children with type 1 diabetes, leaving adults living with type 1 diabetes as a relatively under researched group. This study aimed to answer the following research questions:Primary: What are the lived experiences of adults with type 1 diabetes? And secondary:What aspects of living with type 1 diabetes are experienced as distressing? ; and What are the potential implications for health services? Eight adults living with type 1 diabetes were interviewed about their experiences. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Six major themes emerged from participants' interviews. These were: Experiences of diagnosis, Physical impact of type 1 diabetes, Psychological impact of type 1 diabetes, Social impact of type 1 diabetes, Influence of healthcare teams and Ways of coping. Example subthemes are; Feeling frustrated and restricted by treatment regimes, psychological and emotional distress, constant awareness and worry, impact on development and sense of self, stigma and lack of understanding from others, support from diabetes team and experiences of a simplistic view of diabetes. Participants reported a wide variety of experiences related to the biological, psychological and social components of type 1 diabetes. Some of these were experienced as highly distressing whilst others were more easily managed. This was often dependent on individual differences and was not necessarily static over time. Further awareness of this in practice and a focus on diabetes and its treatment within the context of people’s unique psychosocial circumstances is highly important in supporting people to reduce diabetes related distress, which can improve glycaemic control, health related quality of life and wellbein

    Concentration and energy fluctuations in a critical polymer mixture

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    A semi-grand-canonical Monte Carlo algorithm is employed in conjunction with the bond fluctuation model to investigate the critical properties of an asymmetric binary (AB) polymer mixture. By applying the equal peak-weight criterion to the concentration distribution, the coexistence curve separating the A-rich and B-rich phases is identified as a function of temperature and chemical potential. To locate the critical point of the model, the cumulant intersection method is used. The accuracy of this approach for determining the critical parameters of fluids is assessed. Attention is then focused on the joint distribution function of the critical concentration and energy, which is analysed using a mixed-field finite-size-scaling theory that takes due account of the lack of symmetry between the coexisting phases. The essential Ising character of the binary polymer critical point is confirmed by mapping the critical scaling operator distributions onto independently known forms appropriate to the 3D Ising universality class. In the process, estimates are obtained for the field mixing parameters of the model which are compared both with those yielded by a previous method, and with the predictions of a mean field calculation.Comment: 17 pages Latex, 9 figures appended as uuencoded .gz tar fil

    Accurate simulation estimates of phase behaviour in ternary mixtures with prescribed composition

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    This paper describes an isobaric semi-grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo scheme for the accurate study of phase behaviour in ternary fluid mixtures under the experimentally relevant conditions of prescribed pressure, temperature and overall composition. It is shown how to tune the relative chemical potentials of the individual components to target some requisite overall composition and how, in regions of phase coexistence, to extract accurate estimates for the compositions and phase fractions of individual coexisting phases. The method is illustrated by tracking a path through the composition space of a model ternary Lennard-Jones mixture.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

    Field-Theoretical Analysis of Critical and Coexistence Singularities at Critical End Points

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    Continuum models with critical end points are considered whose Hamiltonian H[ϕ,ψ]{\mathcal{H}}[\phi,\psi] depends on two densities ϕ\phi and ψ\psi. Field-theoretic methods are used to show the equivalence of the critical behavior on the critical line and at the critical end point and to give a systematic derivation of critical-end-point singularities like the thermal singularity t2α\sim|{t}|^{2-\alpha} of the spectator-phase boundary and the coexistence singularities t1α\sim |{t}|^{1-\alpha} or tβ\sim|{t}|^{\beta} of the secondary density . The appearance of a discontinuity eigenexponent associated with the critical end point is confirmed, and the mechanism by which it arises in field theory is clarified.Comment: Latex2e file using elsart stylefile, no figures. submitted to Proceedings of Statphys Taipei-99, to be published in Physica

    Well-Being and Resilience: A Survey of Physician Needs During COVID-19, Delta, and Omicron

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    Background: Physician moral distress during COVID-19, Delta, and Omicron has resulted in a decrease in self-care and a reduction in empathy for patients. Determining physician well-being and resilience assists clinicians in maintaining pliancy during times of uncertainty. Methods: An IRB quantitative survey aims to illustrate levels of moral distress, self-care tactics, and physician fortitude during the three waves of the pandemic from 2020-2022. The questionnaire elicits responses regarding how physicians have pivoted to remain healthy during the pandemic, what measures physicians have engaged in maintaining empathy and ethics towards patients, and what physicians need in the future to retain self-care. Results: Enrollees are practicing physicians in the Rio Grande Valley. Outcomes aim at policies for decreased stigma in seeking assistance and therapy for mental health, statistically verifiable initiatives toward implementing programs to connect physicians to self-care co-ops, and a physician-led community of care for more excellent psychological and physical functioning. Conclusions: The survey results and data lead to increased access to and participation in re-imagining physician self-and-patient care for empathy. Implementation occurs under an applied business model for best practices in the future care of physicians and patients

    Absence of simulation evidence for critical depletion in slit-pores

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    Recent Monte Carlo simulation studies of a Lennard-Jones fluid confined to a mesoscopic slit-pore have reported evidence for ``critical depletion'' in the pore local number density near the liquid-vapour critical point. In this note we demonstrate that the observed depletion effect is in fact a simulation artifact arising from small systematic errors associated with the use of long range corrections for the potential truncation. Owing to the large near-critical compressibility, these errors lead to significant changes in the pore local number density. We suggest ways of avoiding similar problems in future studies of confined fluids.Comment: 4 pages Revtex. Submitted to J. Chem. Phy

    Metastable liquid-liquid coexistence and density anomalies in a core-softened fluid

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    Linearly-sloped or `ramp' potentials belong to a class of core-softened models which possess a liquid-liquid critical point (LLCP) in addition to the usual liquid-gas critical point. Furthermore they exhibit thermodynamic anomalies in the density and compressibility, the nature of which may be akin to those occurring in water. Previous simulation studies of ramp potentials have focused on just one functional form, for which the LLCP is thermodynamically stable. In this work we construct a series of ramp potentials, which interpolate between this previously studied form and a ramp-based approximation to the Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential. By means of Monte Carlo simulation, we locate the LLCP, the first order high density liquid (HDL)-low density liquid (LDL) coexistence line, and the line of density maxima for a selection of potentials in the series. We observe that as the LJ limit is approached, the LLCP becomes metastable with respect to freezing into a hexagonal close packed crystalline solid. The qualitative nature of the phase behaviour in this regime shows a remarkable resemblance to that seen in simulation studies of accurate water models. Specifically, the density of the liquid phase exceeds that of the solid; the gradient of the metastable LDL-HDL line is negative in the pressure (p)-temperature (T) plane; while the line of density maxima in the p-T plane has a shape similar to that seen in water and extends well into the {\em stable} liquid region of the phase diagram. As such, our results lend weight to the `second critical point' hypothesis as an explanation for the anomalous behaviour of water.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

    Freezing line of the Lennard-Jones fluid: a Phase Switch Monte Carlo study

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    We report a Phase Switch Monte Carlo (PSMC) method study of the freezing line of the Lennard-Jones (LJ) fluid. Our work generalizes to soft potentials the original application of the method to hard sphere freezing, and builds on a previous PSMC study of the LJ system by Errington (J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 120}, 3130 (2004)). The latter work is extended by tracing a large section of the Lennard-Jones freezing curve, the results for which we compare to a previous Gibbs-Duhem integration study. Additionally we provide new background regarding the statistical mechanical basis of the PSMC method and extensive implementation details.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

    Coexistence Curve Singularities at Critical End Points

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    We report an extensive Monte Carlo study of critical end point behaviour in a symmetrical binary fluid mixture. On the basis of general scaling arguments, singular behaviour is predicted in the diameter of the liquid-gas coexistence curve as the critical end point is approached. The simulation results show clear evidence for this singularity, as well as confirming a previously predicted singularity in the coexistence chemical potential. Both singularities should be detectable experimentally.Comment: 9 pages Revtex, 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
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