Designing a visible city for visually impaired users

This paper reports on an ongoing doctoral research project which aims to identify the main barriers to access within the built environment for persons with a visual impairment. The research seeks to investigate whether these barriers are common for all types of visual impairment and degree of vision loss and if so, what inclusive design solutions can accommodate the needs of the majority of visually impaired users. An access audit has been conducted within Glasgow city centre which sought to quantify the number and type of hazards present within a typical built environment. This was followed up by a questionnaire which asked participants to rate factors which may prevent them from making independent visits to their nearest city centre including psychological factors, physical features and obstructions resulting from the presence of street furniture. Participants also indicated the colours and contrasts which they find easiest to detect within the built environment. These findings will be used to inform the creation of a new set of design guidelines to assist designers, architects and urban planners as to how they can provide more accessible and inclusive environments for the visually impaired population

Effects of short days on stem elongation in some indeterminate dry bean cultivars adapted to the tropics

The effect of 2 daylength treatments (11 and 15 h) on stem elongation was determined in 5 indeterminate bean cv. (G 17650, G 2997, DOR 44, G 5475, and JU 80-11) under growth chamber conditions. Under the short day length, G 17650, a viny indeterminate var. showed the longest stem under all conditions. G 2997 and DOR 44, currently used in Central America in relay cropping, showed the highest degree of stem elongation, under short days compared with long days. This fact suggests that this trait is beneficial for relay cropping. (CIAT

What is the prevalence, and what are the clinical correlates, of insulin resistance in young people presenting for mental health care? A cross-sectional study

Objectives: To report the distribution and predictors of insulin resistance (IR) in young people presenting to primary care-based mental health services. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Headspace-linked clinics operated by the Brain and Mind Centre of the University of Sydney. Participants: 768 young people (66% female, mean age 19.7±3.5, range 12–30 years). Main outcome measures: IR was estimated using the updated homeostatic model assessment (HOMA2-IR). Height and weight were collected from direct measurement or self-report for body mass index (BMI). Results: For BMI, 20.6% of the cohort were overweight and 10.2% were obese. However,6.9 mmol/L). By contrast, 9.9% had a HOMA2-IR score \u3e2.0 (suggesting development of IR) and 11.7% (n=90) had a score between 1.5 and 2. Further, there was a positive correlation between BMI and HOMA2-IR (r=0.44, p Conclusions: Emerging IR is evident in a significant subgroup of young people presenting to primary care based mental health services. While the major modifiable risk factor is BMI, a large proportion of the variance is not accounted for by other demographic, clinical or treatment factors. Given the early emergence of IR, secondary prevention interventions may need to commence prior to the development of full-threshold or major mood or psychotic disorders

Thermodynamic and thermoelectric properties of high-temperature cuprate superconductors in the stripe phase

We examine the thermodynamic and thermoelectric properties in the stripe phase of high-Tc cuprates, by using the finite-temperature Lanczos technique for the t-J model with a potential that stabilizes vertical charge stripes. When the stripe potential is turned on, the entropy is suppressed as a consequence of the formation of one-dimensional charge stripes accompanied by an enhancement of antiferromagnetic spin correlation in the spin domains. The stripe formation leads also to weak temperature dependence of the chemical potential, leading to the suppression of the thermoelectric power. The suppression of the entropy and thermoelectric power is consistent with experimental data in the stripe phase of La_{1.6-x}Nd_{0.4}Sr_xCuO_4.Comment: REVTeX4, 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys.Rev.B Rapid Comm

Fixing the conformal window in QCD

A physical characterization of Landau singularities is emphasized, which should trace the lower boundary N_f^* of the conformal window in QCD and supersymmetric QCD. A natural way to disentangle ``perturbative'' from ``non-perturbative'' contributions to amplitudes below N_f^* is suggested. Assuming an infrared fixed point persists in the perturbative part of the QCD coupling even below N_f^* leads to the condition \gamma(N_f^*)=1, where \gamma is the critical exponent. Using the Banks-Zaks expansion, one gets 4<N_f^*<6. This result is incompatible with the existence of an analogue of Seiberg duality in QCD. The presence of a negative ultraviolet fixed point is required both in QCD and in supersymmetric QCD to preserve causality within the conformal window. Evidence for the existence of such a fixed point in QCD is provided.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, extended version of a talk given at the QCDNET2000 meeting, Paris, September 11-14 2000; main new material added is evidence for negative ultraviolet fixed point in QC

Cooling flow bulk motion corrections to the Sunyaev Zel'dovich effect

We study the influence of converging cooling flow bulk motions on the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. To that purpose we derive a modified Kompaneets equation which takes into account the contribution of the accelerated electron media of the cooling flow inside the cluster frame. The additional term is different from the usual kinematic SZ-effect, which depends linearly on the velocity, whereas the contribution described here is quadratic in the macroscopic electron fluid velocity, as measured in the cluster frame. For clusters with a large cooling flow mass deposition rate and/or a small central electron density, it turns out that this effect becomes relevant.Comment: accepted for publication in New Astronom

Image resonance in the many-body density of states at a metal surface

The electronic properties of a semi-infinite metal surface without a bulk gap are studied by a formalism that is able to account for the continuous spectrum of the system. The density of states at the surface is calculated within the GW approximation of many-body perturbation theory. We demonstrate the presence of an unoccupied surface resonance peaked at the position of the first image state. The resonance encompasses the whole Rydberg series of image states and cannot be resolved into individual peaks. Its origin is the shift in spectral weight when many-body correlation effects are taken into account