Cancellation of divergences in N=4{\cal N}=4 SYM/Type IIB Supergravity correspondence

Using Schr\"odinger functional methods, we show that in the ${\cal N}=4$ SYM/Type IIB Supergravity correspondence the renormalisation of the boundary Newton and gravitational constants arising from bulk fields cancels when we sum over all the Kaluza-Klein modes of Supergravity. This accords with the expected finiteness of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM, and it is expected that other renormalisations cancel in a similar way.Comment: 7 page

Reconsidering feminisms and the work of Norbert Elias for understanding gender, sport and sport-related activities

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 North West Counties Physical Education Association and SAGE Publications.This paper reconsiders the relationships between feminist perspectives and the figurational/process-sociological perspective of Norbert Elias for understanding gender, sport and sport-related activities. The main aim of the article is to respond to Colwell's claim that there are differences between feminist and figurational approaches to understanding and explaining gender that potentially negate the possibility of being a feminist and figurational sociologist at the same time. The paper makes a contribution to the wider discussions about the adequacy of Elias's work in understanding gender and sport, and the potential of blending feminist and figurational perspectives on sport and gender. It introduces the principles underlying feminist and figurational approaches to sociology. The key features of the ongoing debate about the differences between feminist and figurational approaches are briefly outlined. I reply to Colwell's criticisms of my work and revisit issues surrounding the role of values and evaluation in sociology. Involved-detachment is introduced as a feminist interpretation of Elias's theory of ever changing balances of involvement-detachment. The final part of the paper presents some reflections about working with involved-detachment in specific research on women's involvement in sport-related fitness activities

Order 1/N3{\bf 1/N^3} corrections to the conformal anomaly of the (2,0) theory in six dimensions

Using Supergravity on $AdS_7\times S^4$ we calculate the bulk one-loop contribution to the conformal anomaly of the (2,0) theory describing $N$ coincident M5 branes. When this is added to the tree-level result, and an additional subleading order contribution calculated by Tseytlin, it gives an expression for the anomaly that interpolates correctly between the large $N$ theory and the free (2,0) tensor theory corresponding to N=1. Thus we can argue that we have identified the exact $N$-dependence of the anomaly, which may have a simple protected form valid away from the large $N$ limit.Comment: LaTeX, 9 page

Second Order Calculations of the O(N) sigma-Model Laplacian

For slowly varying fields on the scale of the lightest mass the logarithm of the vacuum functional of a massive quantum field theory can be expanded in terms of local functionals satisfying a form of the Schrodinger equation, the principal ingredient of which is a regulated functional Laplacian. We extend a previous work to construct the next to leading order terms of the Laplacian for the Schrodinger equation that acts on such local functionals. Like the leading order the next order is completely determined by imposing rotational invariance in the internal space together with closure of the Poincare algebra.Comment: 7 pages, Latex, no figure

Extraterritorial Application and Customary Norm Assessment of Non-Refoulement: The Legality of Australia\u27s \u27Turn-Back\u27 Policy

This article considers whether the Commonwealth Government’s border protection policy of turning back asylum seeker boats breaches its international obligation not to refoule refugees, as imposed under the Refugee Convention art 33(1). In addressing this issue the article examines whether art 33(1) applies extraterritorially, and whether a similar obligation has become embedded in customary international law. The conclusions reached are applied to specific situations where Australia has returned refugees

On the 'Reality' of Observable Properties

This note contains some initial work on attempting to bring recent developments in the foundations of quantum mechanics concerning the nature of the wavefunction within the scope of more logical and structural methods. A first step involves generalising and reformulating a criterion for the reality of the wavefunction proposed by Harrigan & Spekkens, which was central to the PBR theorem. The resulting criterion has several advantages, including the avoidance of certain technical difficulties relating to sets of measure zero. By considering the 'reality' not of the wavefunction but of the observable properties of any ontological physical theory a novel characterisation of non-locality and contextuality is found. Secondly, a careful analysis of preparation independence, one of the key assumptions of the PBR theorem, leads to an analogy with Bell locality, and thence to a proposal to weaken it to an assumption of `no-preparation-signalling' in analogy with no-signalling. This amounts to introducing non-local correlations in the joint ontic state, which is, at least, consistent with the Bell and Kochen-Specker theorems. The question of whether the PBR result can be strengthened to hold under this relaxed assumption is therefore posed.Comment: 8 pages, re-written with new section

Reducing book theft at university libraries

After the local press reported how a student stole books from the University Library and sold them on the online marketplace, eBay, it became clear that hardly any research had been undertaken into book theft at university libraries. This article puts forward some valuable recommendations that could be practically implemented, mindful of the dilemma of the juxtaposed needs of social inclusion and stock security

Developing a library off-air recording service

As a subject librarian it's essential to produce off-air recordings of TV and radio programmes, and review the curriculum relevance of audiovisual collections. Rejuvinating the collection at the University of Lincoln produced a two-fold project in creating an autonomous off-air recording service and transfer off-air recorded videos to the more modern format of DVDs. This article not only discusses the development of an off-air recording service, but covers the need to create much-needed shelf space, copyright compliance, a quality audit of the audiovisual collection and student satisfaction

[Review] Massimo Rospocher, ed. (2012) Beyond the public sphere: opinions, publics, spaces in early modern Europe

Beyond the Public Sphere is a collection of fourteen essays that have originated from two colloquia: a workshop entitled ‘Public Sphere and Public Opinion: Historical Paradigms?’ held in 2008 and a 2010 international conference in Trento, ‘Beyond the Public Sphere’. The collection delineates current thought on the public sphere debate while evaluating the continued relevance of Jürgen Habermas's seminal text Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962) to modern conceptions. For Habermas, the bourgeois public sphere allowed private men to discourse, debate and thereby regulate the general rules of society particularly those governing the ‘publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labour’, (Section 2, Chapter 4). In his introduction to Beyond the Public Sphere, Massimo Rospocher states that despite recent vociferous attacks on Habermas's highly influential model of the public sphere the work still has much value, especially for the early modern historian. Moreover, his ideas retain a wider significance due to the ‘persistence and cyclical return to Habermas's theory today’ (24) within a global community shaped by communication technologies. A central aspiration of the collection is to expose a paradigmatic shift presently occurring through 'historiographical transition' (27), moving beyond Habermas's deficiencies on the public sphere to create new interpretations