Body dissatisfaction, appearance investment and wellbeing: how older obese men orient to 'aesthetic health' [forthcoming]

Most research on male body image to date has focused on young men using quantitative methods. The study reported here is based on qualitative interviews with a sample of older men (n = 30) on a weight management programme, and we asked them about body-related feelings. The interviews were all transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Our results indicate that although body weight was typically minimised, body image was a key concern, with many examples of body consciousness and body dissatisfaction evident. On the other hand, post-programme weight loss was associated with a transformative shift in body image, with the men emphasising enhanced body confidence, self-esteem and psychological wellbeing. We conclude by highlighting the need to recognise and address appearance issues and/as health concerns for middle-aged and older men

Experimental Study of Diamond Like Carbon (DLC) Coated Electrodes for Pulsed High Gradient Electron Gun

For the SwissFEL Free Electron Laser project at the Paul Scherrer Institute, a pulsed High Gradient (HG) electron gun was used to study low emittance electron sources. Different metals and surface treatments for the cathode and anode were studied for their HG suitability. Diamond Like Carbon (DLC) coatings are found to perform exceptionally well for vacuum gap insulation. A set of DLC coated electrodes with different coating parameters were tested for both vacuum breakdown and photo electron emission. Surface electric fields over 250MV/m (350 - 400kV, pulsed) were achieved without breakdown. From the same surface, it was possible to photo-emit an electron beam at gradients up to 150MV/m. The test setup and the experimental results are presentedComment: 4 pages, 14 figures, IPMHVC 2010 : IEEE International Power Modulator and High Voltage Conferenc

On the magnetic field required for driving the observed angular-velocity variations in the solar convection zone

A putative temporally varying circulation-free magnetic-field configuration is inferred in an equatorial segment of the solar convection zone from the helioseismologically inferred angular-velocity variation, assuming that the predominant dynamics is angular acceleration produced by the azimuthal Maxwell stress exerted by a field whose surface values are consistent with photospheric line-of-sight measurements.Comment: to appear in MNRA

The impact of occupational pensions on retirement age

This article contributes to the debate about retirement age and the extent to which occupational pensions influence the decision to retire. It uses the waves of Labour Force Survey (1984-91) and Quarterly Labour Force Survey (1992-2003) to review the changes in the actual average retirement age in the UK during the period 1984-2003 by gender and ethnicity. The article investigates the link between occupational pension schemes and the actual retirement age of men and women. It explores the impact of pension type on employees' expected retirement age and the decision to take early retirement using the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (2002-03)

Review of meteoroid-bumper interaction studies at McGill University

Experimental investigation of meteoroid-bumper impact, debris cloud expansion, and second surface pressure loadin

Asteroseismic study of solar-like stars: A method of estimating stellar age

Asteroseismology, as a tool to use the indirect information contained in stellar oscillations to probe the stellar interiors, is an active field of research presently. Stellar age, as a fundamental property of star apart from its mass, is most difficult to estimate. In addition, the estimating of stellar age can provide the chance to study the time evolution of astronomical phenomena. In our poster, we summarize our previous work and further present a method to determine age of low-mass main-sequence star.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figures, submitted to IAUS25

Modelling and forecasting international interest rate spreads: UK, Germany, Japan and the US

The interest rate spread is of importance to policy-makers and finance professionals in asset allocation and is a common measure of financial market stress. In this paper, we model and forecast the interest rate spreads for a number of countries using two well-known continuous time models and discrete time ARMA and ARFIMA models. We use monthly and weekly data which cover the recent global financial market crisis of 2007-2009 for Germany, Japan, UK and the USA. We find that the Merton's continuous-time model outperforms all other model specifications in terms of the mean of the forecast errors, MAPE and RMSE

Solar-cycle variation of the sound-speed asphericity from GONG and MDI data 1995-2000

We study the variation of the frequency splitting coefficients describing the solar asphericity in both GONG and MDI data, and use these data to investigate temporal sound-speed variations as a function of both depth and latitude during the period from 1995-2000 and a little beyond. The temporal variations in even splitting coefficients are found to be correlated to the corresponding component of magnetic flux at the solar surface. We confirm that the sound-speed variations associated with the surface magnetic field are superficial. Temporally averaged results show a significant excess in sound speed around 0.92 solar radii and latitude of 60 degrees.Comment: To be published in MNRAS, accepted July 200

Contemplations on Dirac's equation in quaternionic coordinates

A formulation of Dirac's equation using complex-quaternionic coordinates appears to yield an enormous gain in formal elegance, as there is no longer any need to invoke Dirac matrices. This formulation, however, entails several peculiarities, which we investigate and attempt to interpret