Measuring our impact, setting our course

Measuring our Universe

In the 3 century BCE, the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes was able to estimate the Earth’s circumference. He learned that on the summer solstice the Sun at noon was reflected in a deep well in the southern Egyptian city of Syene, which indicated that the Sun was directly overhead at that time. He also knew the Sun was not directly overhead at that time where he lived (Alexandria, in northern E...

Intrauterine device insertions: setting our standards.

OBJECTIVE To determine if the documentation for intrauterine device (IUD) insertions was satisfactory and to agree minimum standards for practice. METHOD A list was drawn up with minimum standards for documentation in the case notes. These were agreed at the clinical audit meeting. A retrospective analysis of case notes was done and a list completed for each IUD insertion. SETTING AND PARTI...

Setting our sights on the stars.

Next Generation Web Search: Setting Our Sites

The current state of web search is most successful at directing users to appropriate web sites. Once at the site, the user has a choice of following hyperlinks or using site search, but the latter is notoriously problematic. One solution is to develop specialized search interfaces that explicitly support the types of tasks users perform using the information specific to the site. A new way to s...

Measuring Hubble’s Constant in our Inhomogeneous Universe

Recent observations of Cepheids in the Virgo cluster have bolstered the evidence that supports a Hubble constant in 70−90 km sec−1 Mpc−1 range. This evidence, by and large, probes the expansion of the Universe within 100Mpc. We investigate the possibility that the expansion rate within this region is systematically higher than the true expansion rate due to the presence of a local, large underd...