Evidence for a spin-aligned neutron-proton paired phase from the level structure of (92)Pd

Shell structure and magic numbers in atomic nuclei were generally explained by pioneering work that introduced a strong spin-orbit interaction to the nuclear shell model potential. However, knowledge of nuclear forces and the mechanisms governing the structure of nuclei, in particular far from stability, is still incomplete. In nuclei with equal neutron and proton numbers (N = Z), enhanced correlations arise between neutrons and protons (two distinct types of fermions) that occupy orbitals with the same quantum numbers. Such correlations have been predicted to favour an unusual type of nuclear superfluidity, termed isoscalar neutron-proton pairing, in addition to normal isovector pairing. Despite many experimental efforts, these predictions have not been confirmed. Here we report the experimental observation of excited states in the N = Z = 46 nucleus (92)Pd. Gamma rays emitted following the (58)Ni((36)Ar,2n)(92)Pd fusion-evaporation reaction were identified using a combination of state-of-the-art high-resolution γ-ray, charged-particle and neutron detector systems. Our results reveal evidence for a spin-aligned, isoscalar neutron-proton coupling scheme, different from the previous prediction. We suggest that this coupling scheme replaces normal superfluidity (characterized by seniority coupling) in the ground and low-lying excited states of the heaviest N = Z nuclei. Such strong, isoscalar neutron-proton correlations would have a considerable impact on the nuclear level structure and possibly influence the dynamics of rapid proton capture in stellar nucleosynthesis.     

A History of the Action Learning,Action Research,and Process Management Association (ALARPM): From Brisbane (Australia) to the World Through Inclusion and Networks

Action Learning, Action Research, and Process Management Association (ALARPM) is an organization of volunteers dedicated to the international expansion of action learning, action research, and process management, through world congresses. It has existed for over a dozen years now, despite significant stresses and strains, and has successfully conducted five world congresses with a sixth one in 2003. This history of ALARPM shows that a small group can set out to be international and inclusive from the beginning, so long as it also develops processes to sustain itself internally.     

Is it Safe to Talk About Systems Again Yet?

The following article makes a case for the social sciences to renew their interest in systems, drawing on ideas circulating in organisational and community psychology, industry, engineering, biology and ecology, the new physics, management, evaluation, religion and spirituality, policy-making, human services professions, and service-user and community movements. It charts a different kind of systemic thinking in striking contrast to traditional mechanistic social systems theory. Sociology’s current resiling from systems theory is explained as a legacy of its loyal service in the ‘battlefield’ of the post WW2 critique of authoritarian structural-functionalist positivist systems and the hard-won interpretive turn to issues of process, diversity, conflict, change and a critical and ‘qualitative’ epistemology. A new transdisciplinary mental architecture of self-organising processes for complex living systems is offered which integrates understandings of both ‘structural systems’ and the ‘processual systemic’ in individual psychology, organisational sociology, and in action research as its epistemology.

Systemic Human Relations in Dynamic Equilibrium

This paper reports on a breakthrough in thinking based on 33 years of field practice-based inquiry and previously published studies. It brings together several bodies of established and emerging thought including systems thinking, epistemology, psychology and sociology, in a way of thinking about the living fabric of complex human systems-in-process. It is offered here as a kind of transdisciplinary ‘Rosetta stone’ to those working around the world with one or more of these bodies of thought as a way of making some critical connections between them. In summary, an integrating ‘mental architecture’ is proposed whereby inquiry (research as an evaluative dynamic act of seeking) may be seen as the way by which living (notably human) systems come alive, and which is incorporated, organ-ised, ‘structured’ and relationally embodied in an individual and their psychological mind as personal process, and in social collectivities and their sociological organisation as cultural process.

Effect of the synthetic cannabinoid nabilone on spermatogenesis in mice

Chronic treatment of mice with the synthetic cannabinoid nabilone (50 mg/kg, 3 times per week) reduced the number of pachytene spermatocytes. Nabilone did not affect other cell types in the testis or the sex organ weights. Nabilone tended to increase the number of abnormal spermatozoa, but this did not reach statistical significance. It is concluded that nabilone causes less testicular toxicity than the natural cannabinoids.     

Building in Dialogue Between Consumers and Staff in Acute Mental Health Services

This paper describes some aspects of the methodology, material, and findings from a lengthy participatory action research engagement by a consumer organization in Australia, which was undertaken in collaboration with staff at a major public psychiatric hospital and then went on to involve players throughout the local and national mental health services system. A small first phase established a dialogic methodology for the exchange of experiences and thinking between staff and consumers. The purpose of the second phase of the research was to explore how consumers' voices might be heard, and how staff–consumer communication about that feedback, might be built in to ongoing organizational structure and culture. Systems thinking about defensive routines, silences, and voice-as-discourse is reported as offering a possible way of cracking the puzzle of the closed-loop cycle of claim/ blame-defense-and-counter-claim/blame-defense that has been characteristic to date.     

Species difference in trapped plasma of the packed red cell column

Zusammenfassung Nach Zentrifugieren unter gleichen Bedingungen enthält bei Ziegenblut die Erythrozytensäule ungefähr siebenmal soviel eingeschlossenes Plasma wie bei Menschenblut. Mit Hilfe der angegebenen Formeln können diese Plasmamengen berechnet werden; dabei werden die Resultate in Hämatokritwerten ausgedrückt. Es ist wichtig, bei der Berechnung der Eigenschaften von Erythrozyten diese Unterschiede zwischen den verschiedenen Spezies in der Menge des zurückgehaltenen Plasmas zu berücksichtigen.