3,645 research outputs found
The Buddhist Tradition of Prosimetric Oral Narrative in Chinese Literature
AbstractVictor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania) specializes in Chinese literature; among his recent books are Tun-huang Popular Narratives (1983) and T'ang Transformation Texts (1988)
Fast and secure key distribution using mesoscopic coherent states of light
This work shows how two parties A and B can securely share sequences of
random bits at optical speeds. A and B possess true-random physical sources and
exchange random bits by using a random sequence received to cipher the
following one to be sent. A starting shared secret key is used and the method
can be described as an unlimited one-time-pad extender. It is demonstrated that
the minimum probability of error in signal determination by the eavesdropper
can be set arbitrarily close to the pure guessing level. Being based on the
-ry encryption protocol this method also allows for optical amplification
without security degradation, offering practical advantages over the BB84
protocol for key distribution.Comment: 11 pages and 4 figures. This version updates the one published in PRA
68, 052307 (2003). Minor changes were made in the text and one section on
Mutual Information was adde
Personalised electronic messages to improve sun protection in young adults
The incidence of all skin cancers, including melanoma, continues to rise. It is well known that ultraviolet (UV) radiation is the main environmental risk factor for skin cancer, and excessive exposure at a young age increases the risk of developing skin cancer. The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability and feasibility of delivering sun protection messages via electronic media such as short message services (SMS) to people 18-40 years, and explore factors associated with their acceptability. Overall, 80% of participants agreed that they would like to receive some form of sun protection advice; of these, 20% prefer to receive it via SMS and 42% via email. Willingness to receive electronic messages about the UV index was associated with being unsure about whether a suntanned person would look healthy and greater use of sun protection in the past. Careful attention to message framing and timing of message delivery and focus on short-term effects of sun exposure such as sunburn and skin ageing should increase the acceptability of such messages to young people. We conclude that sun protection messages delivered to young adults via electronic media appear feasible and acceptable
Global end-diastolic volume and its correlation to cardiac index inside and outside normal values
Adaptive estimation in circular functional linear models
We consider the problem of estimating the slope parameter in circular
functional linear regression, where scalar responses Y1,...,Yn are modeled in
dependence of 1-periodic, second order stationary random functions X1,...,Xn.
We consider an orthogonal series estimator of the slope function, by replacing
the first m theoretical coefficients of its development in the trigonometric
basis by adequate estimators. Wepropose a model selection procedure for m in a
set of admissible values, by defining a contrast function minimized by our
estimator and a theoretical penalty function; this first step assumes the
degree of ill posedness to be known. Then we generalize the procedure to a
random set of admissible m's and a random penalty function. The resulting
estimator is completely data driven and reaches automatically what is known to
be the optimal minimax rate of convergence, in term of a general weighted
L2-risk. This means that we provide adaptive estimators of both the slope
function and its derivatives
Development and formative evaluation of the e-Health implementation toolkit
<b>Background</b> The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) or e-Health is seen as essential for a modern, cost-effective health service. However, there are well documented problems with implementation of e-Health initiatives, despite the existence of a great deal of research into how best to implement e-Health (an example of the gap between research and practice). This paper reports on the development and formative evaluation of an e-Health Implementation Toolkit (e-HIT) which aims to summarise and synthesise new and existing research on implementation of e-Health initiatives, and present it to senior managers in a user-friendly format.<p></p>
<b>Results</b> The content of the e-HIT was derived by combining data from a systematic review of reviews of barriers and facilitators to implementation of e-Health initiatives with qualitative data derived from interviews of "implementers", that is people who had been charged with implementing an e-Health initiative. These data were summarised, synthesised and combined with the constructs from the Normalisation Process Model. The software for the toolkit was developed by a commercial company (RocketScience). Formative evaluation was undertaken by obtaining user feedback. There are three components to the toolkit - a section on background and instructions for use aimed at novice users; the toolkit itself; and the report generated by completing the toolkit. It is available to download from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pcph/research/ehealth/documents/e-HIT.xls<p></p>
<b>Conclusions</b> The e-HIT shows potential as a tool for enhancing future e-Health implementations. Further work is needed to make it fully web-enabled, and to determine its predictive potential for future implementations
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