Creating a virtual support group in an interactive narrative:a companionship game for cancer patients

Over one in five cancer patients are affected by feelings of loneliness [1]. This paper proposes a text-based game aimed at affected cancer patients, in which the player develops relationships with non-player characters in the context of a fictitious cancer support group. This would be designed with the aim of alleviating patient loneliness and fostering a sense of companionship. This work is part of an interdisciplinary project led by Abertay University and partnered with Macmillan Cancer Support, exploring the ways in which interactive storytelling can be used to support cancer patients. The game’s narrative and characters will be designed drawing on real patient experiences gathered in interviews. The game will go through several iterations of feedback and rewriting in response to focus groups held with patients and healthcare professionals.</p

Estimation of gravitational acceleration with quantum optical interferometers

The precise estimation of the gravitational acceleration is important for various disciplines. We consider making such an estimation using quantum optics. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer in an "optical fountain" type arrangement is considered and used to define a standard quantum limit for estimating the gravitational acceleration. We use an approach based on quantum field theory on a curved, Schwarzschild metric background to calculate the coupling between the gravitational field and the optical signal. The analysis is extended to include the injection of a squeezed vacuum to the Mach-Zehnder arrangement and also to consider an active, two-mode SU(1,1) interferometer in a similar arrangement. When detection loss is larger than $8\%$, the SU(1,1) interferometer shows an advantage over the MZ interferometer with single-mode squeezing input. The proposed system is based on current technology and could be used to examine the intersection of quantum theory and general relativity as well as for possible applications.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

A simple element for multilayer beams in NASTRAN thermal stress analysis

In the application of NASTRAN, structural members are usually represented by bar elements with multipoint constraint cards to enforce the interface conditions. While this is a very powerful method in principle, it was found that in practice the process for specification of constraints became tedious and error prone, unless the geometry was simple and the number of grid points low. An alternative approach was found within the framework of the NASTRAN program. This approach made use of the idea that a thermal distortion in a multilayer beam may be similar to a homogeneous beam with a thermal gradient across the cross section. The exact mathematical derivation for the equivalent beam, and all the necessary formulae for the equivalent parameters in NASTRAN analysis are presented. Some numerical examples illustrate the simplicity and ease of this approach for finite element analysis

Stability Of contact discontinuity for steady Euler System in infinite duct

In this paper, we prove structural stability of contact discontinuities for full Euler system

Suspension of the fiber mode-cleaner launcher and measurement of the high extinction-ratio (10^{-9}) ellipsometer for the Q & A experiment

The Q & A experiment, first proposed and started in 1994, provides a feasible way of exploring the quantum vacuum through the detection of vacuum birefringence effect generated by QED loop diagram and the detection of the polarization rotation effect generated by photon-interacting (pseudo-)scalar particles. Three main parts of the experiment are: (1) Optics System (including associated Electronic System) based on a suspended 3.5-m high finesse Fabry-Perot cavity, (2) Ellipsometer using ultra-high extinction-ratio polarizer and analyzer, and (3) Magnetic Field Modulation System for generating the birefringence and the polarization rotation effect. In 2002, the Q & A experiment achieved the Phase I sensitivity goal. During Phase II, we set (i) to improve the control system of the cavity mirrors for suppressing the relative motion noise, (ii) to enhance the birefringence signal by setting-up a 60-cm long 2.3 T transverse permanent magnet rotatable to 10 rev/s, (iii) to reduce geometrical noise by inserting a polarization-maintaining optical fiber (PM fiber) as a mode cleaner, and (iv) to use ultra-high extinction-ratio (10^{-9}) polarizer and analyzer for ellipsometry. Here we report on (iii) & (iv); specifically, we present the properties of the PM-fiber mode-cleaner, the transfer function of its suspension system, and the result of our measurement of high extinction-ratio polarizer and analyzer.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, presented in the 6th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, Okinawa, Japan, June 2005, and accepted by "Journal of Physics: Conference Series". Modifications from version 2 were made based on the referees' comments on figures. Ref. [31] were update

Exotic-Hadron Signature by Constituent-Counting Rule in Perturbative QCD

We explain a method to find internal quark configurations of exotic hadron candidates by using the constituent counting rule. The counting rule was theoretically predicted in perturbative QCD for hard exclusive hadron reactions, and it has been tested in experiments for stable hadrons including compound systems of hadrons such as the deuteron, $^3$H, and $^3$He. It indicates that the cross section scales as $d\sigma /dt \sim 1/s^{n-2}$, where $s$ is the center-of-mass energy squared and $n$ is the total number of constituents. We apply this method for finding internal configurations of exotic hadron candidates, especially $\Lambda (1405)$. There is a possibility that $\Lambda (1405)$ could be five-quark state or a $\bar K N$ molecule, and scaling properties should be different between the ordinary three-quark state or five-quark one. We predict such a difference in $\pi^- + p \to K^0 + \Lambda (1405)$, and it could be experimentally tested, for example, at J-PARC. On the other hand, there are already measurements for $\gamma + p \to K^+ + \Lambda (1405)$ as well as the ground $\Lambda$ in photoproduction reactions. Analyzing such data, we found an interesting indication that $\Lambda (1405)$ looks like a five-quark state at medium energies and a three-quark one at high energies. However, accurate higher-energy measurements are necessary for drawing a solid conclusion, and it should be done at JLab by using the updated 12 GeV electron beam. Furthermore, we discuss studies of exotic hadron candidates, such as $f_0 (980)$ and $a_0 (980)$, in electron-positron annihilation by using generalized distribution amplitudes and the counting rule. These studies should be possible as a KEKB experiment.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX, 10 eps files, to be published in JPS Conf. Proc., Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the Nucleon (MENU2016), July 25-30, 2016, Kyoto, Japa