Reformulating the Schrodinger equation as a Shabat-Zakharov system

We reformulate the second-order Schrodinger equation as a set of two coupled first order differential equations, a so-called "Shabat-Zakharov system", (sometimes called a "Zakharov-Shabat" system). There is considerable flexibility in this approach, and we emphasise the utility of introducing an "auxiliary condition" or "gauge condition" that is used to cut down the degrees of freedom. Using this formalism, we derive the explicit (but formal) general solution to the Schrodinger equation. The general solution depends on three arbitrarily chosen functions, and a path-ordered exponential matrix. If one considers path ordering to be an "elementary" process, then this represents complete quadrature, albeit formal, of the second-order linear ODE.Comment: 18 pages, plain LaTe

Emotional Intelligence as an Attribute of Fire Service Leadership

Emotional intelligence is a critical attribute of successful leaders. Kastros (2014) and Hustoles (2017) present an argument that there is a lack of leadership within the modern Fire Service. Research to date has demonstrated a direct link between emotional intelligence and successful leadership. This principle applies to hierarchical organizations at large. The present study was designed as a qualitative evaluation of the extent to which emotional intelligence is found within the leadership of the United States Fire Service. The instrument used to conduct this research was a set of questions that were asked during personal interviews. On average, each interview lasted 50 minutes. The population sample was ten career firefighters from ten different career departments. The primary finding revealed a paucity of emotional intelligence within the leadership of the firehouses sampled. In addition, participants preferred authoritarian leadership in emergency operations, but a democratic style in the firehouse. Each participant expressed the desire to work for a leader who clearly practices emotional intelligence. This was true in the context of emergencies and routine work within the firehouse. In conclusion, the present work further characterizes the problem within Fire Service leadership that can be changed for the greater good

A latent trait approach to measuring HIV/AIDS related stigma in healthcare professionals: application of mokken scaling technique

The attitudes of healthcare professionals towards HIV positive patients and high risk groups are central to the quality of care and therefore to the management of HIV/AIDS related stigma in health settings. Extant HIV/AIDS stigma scales that measure stigmatising attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS have been developed using scaling techniques such as principal component analysis. This approach has resulted in instruments that are often long. Mokken scale analysis is a nonparametric hierarchical scaling technique that can be used to develop unidimensional cumulative scales. This technique is advantageous over the other approaches; as the scales are usually shorter, while retaining acceptable psychometric properties. Moreover, Mokken scales also make no distributional assumptions about the underlying data, other than that the data are capable of being ordered by item and by person. In this study we aimed at developing a precise and concise measure of HIV/AIDS related stigma among health care professionals, using Mokken scale analysis

Accuracy of Semiclassical Methods for Shape Invariant Potentials

We study the accuracy of several alternative semiclassical methods by computing analytically the energy levels for many large classes of exactly solvable shape invariant potentials. For these potentials, the ground state energies computed via the WKB method typically deviate from the exact results by about 10%, a recently suggested modification using nonintegral Maslov indices is substantially better, and the supersymmetric WKB quantization method gives exact answers for all energy levels.Comment: 7 pages, Latex, and two tables in postscrip

Evaluation of Stepped Care for Chronic Pain (ESCAPE) in Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts A Randomized Clinical Trial

IMPORTANCE: Despite the prevalence and the functional, psychological, and economic impact of chronic pain, few intervention studies of treatment of chronic pain in veterans have been performed. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a stepped-care intervention is more effective than usual care, as hypothesized, in reducing pain-related disability, pain interference, and pain severity. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We performed a randomized clinical trial comparing stepped care with usual care for chronic pain. We enrolled 241 veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn with chronic (>3 months) and disabling (Roland Morris Disability Scale score, ≥7) musculoskeletal pain of the cervical or lumbar spine or extremities (shoulders, knees, and hips) in the Evaluation of Stepped Care for Chronic Pain (ESCAPE) trial from December 20, 2007, through June 30, 2011. The 9-month follow-up was completed by April 2012. Patients received treatment at a postdeployment clinic and 5 general medicine clinics at a Veterans Affairs medical center. INTERVENTIONS: Step 1 included 12 weeks of analgesic treatment and optimization according to an algorithm coupled with pain self-management strategies; step 2, 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy. All intervention aspects were delivered by nurse care managers. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Pain-related disability (Roland Morris Disability Scale), pain interference (Brief Pain Inventory), and pain severity (Graded Chronic Pain Scale). RESULTS: The primary analysis included 121 patients receiving the stepped-care intervention and 120 patients receiving usual care. At 9 months, the mean decrease from baseline in the Roland Morris Disability Scale score was 1.7 (95% CI, -2.6 to -0.9) points in the usual care group and 3.7 (95% CI, -4.5 to -2.8) points in the intervention group (between-group difference, -1.9 [95% CI, -3.2 to -0.7] points; P=.002). The mean decrease from baseline in the Pain Interference subscale score of the Brief Pain Inventory was 0.9 points in the usual care group and 1.7 points in the intervention group (between-group difference, -0.8 [95% CI, -1.3 to -0.3] points; P=.003). The Graded Chronic Pain Scale severity score was reduced by 4.5 points in the usual care group and 11.1 points in the intervention group (between-group difference, -6.6 [95% CI, -10.5 to -2.7] points; P=.001). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: A stepped-care intervention that combined analgesics, self-management strategies, and brief cognitive behavioral therapy resulted in statistically significant reductions in pain-related disability, pain interference, and pain severity in veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain

Sperm design and variation in the New World blackbirds (Icteridae)

Post-copulatory sexual selection (PCSS) is thought to be one of the evolutionary forces responsible for the rapid and divergent evolution of sperm design. However, whereas in some taxa particular sperm traits are positively associated with PCSS, in other taxa, these relationships are negative, and the causes of these different patterns across taxa are poorly understood. In a comparative study using New World blackbirds (Icteridae), we tested whether sperm design was influenced by the level of PCSS and found significant positive associations with the level of PCSS for all sperm components but head length. Additionally, whereas the absolute length of sperm components increased, their variation declined with the intensity of PCSS, indicating stabilizing selection around an optimal sperm design. Given the diversity of, and strong selection on, sperm design, it seems likely that sperm phenotype may influence sperm velocity within species. However, in contrast to other recent studies of passerine birds, but consistent with several other studies, we found no significant link between sperm design and velocity, using four different species that vary both in sperm design and PCSS. Potential reasons for this discrepancy between studies are discussed

Competences for democratic culture: An empirical study of an intercultural citizenship project in language pedagogy

This article reports on a pedagogical intervention in foreign language teaching in higher education. It analizes the competences developed by Argentinian and UK-based students as they used Skype to design a leaflet that addressed a real world issue: the Argentinian military dictatorship and its manipulation of the 1978 Football World Cup. The data consists of students’ discussions of this highly disturbing human rights issue. A first level of analysis focused on identifying evidence of competences using the Council of Europe’s conceptual model of ‘competences for democratic culture’ (2016). In a second level of analysis, the data was categorized within the framework of Article 2.2 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011). This research study provides an empirical test of these two frameworks in the field of language education, an aspect that has not been investigated before. It also contributes to our understanding of the potential of intercultural citizenship projects in achieving the goals of human rights education in foreign language teaching. Results indicate the development of substantial competences for democratic culture defined in the Council of Europe’s model

Competences for democratic culture: An empirical study of an intercultural citizenship project in language pedagogy

This article reports on a pedagogical intervention in foreign language teaching in higher education. It analizes the competences developed by Argentinian and UK-based students as they used Skype to design a leaflet that addressed a real world issue: the Argentinian military dictatorship and its manipulation of the 1978 Football World Cup. The data consists of students’ discussions of this highly disturbing human rights issue. A first level of analysis focused on identifying evidence of competences using the Council of Europe’s conceptual model of ‘competences for democratic culture’ (2016). In a second level of analysis, the data was categorized within the framework of Article 2.2 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training (2011). This research study provides an empirical test of these two frameworks in the field of language education, an aspect that has not been investigated before. It also contributes to our understanding of the potential of intercultural citizenship projects in achieving the goals of human rights education in foreign language teaching. Results indicate the development of substantial competences for democratic culture defined in the Council of Europe’s model

Postcopulatory Sexual Selection Is Associated with Reduced Variation in Sperm Morphology

The evolutionary role of postcopulatory sexual selection in shaping male reproductive traits, including sperm morphology, is well documented in several taxa. However, previous studies have focused almost exclusively on the influence of sperm competition on variation among species. In this study we tested the hypothesis that intraspecific variation in sperm morphology is driven by the level of postcopulatory sexual selection in passerine birds.Using two proxy measures of sperm competition level, (i) relative testes size and (ii) extrapair paternity level, we found strong evidence that intermale variation in sperm morphology is negatively associated with the degree of postcopulatory sexual selection, independently of phylogeny.Our results show that the role of postcopulatory sexual selection in the evolution of sperm morphology extends to an intraspecific level, reducing the variation towards what might be a species-specific 'optimum' sperm phenotype. This finding suggests that while postcopulatory selection is generally directional (e.g., favouring longer sperm) across avian species, it also acts as a stabilising evolutionary force within species under intense selection, resulting in reduced variation in sperm morphology traits. We discuss some potential evolutionary mechanisms for this pattern

Third Report on Chicken Genes and Chromosomes 2015

Following on from the First Report on Chicken Genes and Chromosomes [Schmid et al., 2000] and the Second Report in 2005 [Schmid et al., 2005], we are pleased to publish this long-awaited Third Report on the latest developments in chicken genomics. The First Report highlighted the availability of genetic and physical maps, while the Second Report was published as the chicken genome sequence was released. This report comes at a time of huge technological advances (particularly in sequencing methodologies) which have allowed us to examine the chicken genome in detail not possible until now. This has also heralded an explosion in avian genomics, with the current availability of more than 48 bird genomes [Zhang G et al., 2014b; Eöry et al., 2015], with many more planned