Trackly:A Customisable and Pictorial Self-Tracking App to Support Agency in Multiple Sclerosis Self-Care

Self-tracking is an important part of self-care. However, predefined self-tracking approaches can impede people's agency in managing their health. We investigated a customisable and pictorial self-tracking approach in multiple sclerosis self-management by implementing and conducting a field study of Trackly: a prototype app that supports people in defining and colouring pictorial trackers, such as body shapes. We found that participants utilised the elements of Trackly designed to support agentive behaviour: they defined personally meaningful tracking parameters in their own words, and particularly valued being able to flexibly colour in and make sense of their pictorial trackers. Having been able to support their individual self-care intentions with Trackly, participants reported a spectrum of interrelated experiences of agency, including a sense of ownership, identity, self-awareness, mindfulness, and control. Our findings demonstrate the importance of supporting people's individual needs and creative capacities to foster mindful and personally meaningful engagement with health and wellbeing data

Multimessenger astronomy with the Einstein Telescope

Gravitational waves (GWs) are expected to play a crucial role in the development of multimessenger astrophysics. The combination of GW observations with other astrophysical triggers, such as from gamma-ray and X-ray satellites, optical/radio telescopes, and neutrino detectors allows us to decipher science that would otherwise be inaccessible. In this paper, we provide a broad review from the multimessenger perspective of the science reach offered by the third generation interferometric GW detectors and by the Einstein Telescope (ET) in particular. We focus on cosmic transients, and base our estimates on the results obtained by ET's predecessors GEO, LIGO, and Virgo.Comment: 26 pages. 3 figures. Special issue of GRG on the Einstein Telescope. Minor corrections include

School dropout, problem behaviour and poor academic achievement : a longitudinal view of portuguese male offenders

This study examines school drop outs from the perspective of male adults themselves through interviews with offenders currently serving sentences. Participants were 10 Portuguese male inmates, between the ages of 19 and 46 years of age, incarcerated in two prison facilities of the Azores. Qualitative and interpretative methods were carried out using a semi-structured in-depth individual interview that was audiorecorded and conducted on the basis of a list of topics. Interview transcripts and thematic analysis were used in data treatment and analysis. The findings primarily indicate that poor academic achievement and emotional and behavioural difficulties of participants played a particular role in early school drop out. The trajectories these individuals followed within the education system presented problem behaviour, learning disabilities, and/or foster care interventions. While school drop out circumstances were apparently various, analysis showed that they were underpinned by three distinct sets of conditions generally not addressed by the education system. The analysis of the triggering factors and the maintenance dynamics of school drop outs indicated three distinct types: retention/absenteeism, life turning points and positive resolution. Implications for secondary prevention and screening practices are discussed.FCT (SFRH/ BD/ 44245/ 2008)CIEC - unidade de investigação 317 da FC

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society

All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

Search for Tensor, Vector, and Scalar Polarizations in the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

The detection of gravitational waves with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo has enabled novel tests of general relativity, including direct study of the polarization of gravitational waves. While general relativity allows for only two tensor gravitational-wave polarizations, general metric theories can additionally predict two vector and two scalar polarizations. The polarization of gravitational waves is encoded in the spectral shape of the stochastic gravitational-wave background, formed by the superposition of cosmological and individually unresolved astrophysical sources. Using data recorded by Advanced LIGO during its first observing run, we search for a stochastic background of generically polarized gravitational waves. We find no evidence for a background of any polarization, and place the first direct bounds on the contributions of vector and scalar polarizations to the stochastic background. Under log-uniform priors for the energy in each polarization, we limit the energy densities of tensor, vector, and scalar modes at 95% credibility to Ω0T<5.58×10-8, Ω0V<6.35×10-8, and Ω0S<1.08×10-7 at a reference frequency f0=25 Hz. © 2018 American Physical Society