Story of Use: Analysis of Film Narratives to Inform the Design of Object Interactions

Not only is using a product an experience, it is an interaction and it is narrative in nature. This work in progress paper describes the narrative theory background for this statement, in particular schemata theory and the concepts of agency, tellability and narrativity, then describes methods that are being used in the project to analyse film narratives and apply these to the design of tellable physical products

Clusters of galaxies and variation of the fine structure constant

We propose a new method to probe for variations in the fine structure constant alpha using clusters of galaxies, opening up a window on a new redshift range for such constraints. Hot clusters shine in the X-ray mainly due to bremsstrahlung, while they leave an imprint on the CMB frequency spectrum through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. These two physical processes can be characterized by the integrated Comptonization parameter Y_SZ DA^2 and its X-ray counterpart, the Y_X parameter. The ratio of these two quantities is expected to be constant from numerical simulations and current observations. We show that this fact can be exploited to constrain alpha, as the ratio of the two parameters depends on the fine structure constant as alpha^{3.5}. We determine current constraints from a combination of Planck SZ and XMM-Newton data, testing different models of variation of alpha. When fitting for a constant value of alpha, we find that current constraints are at the 1% level, comparable with current CMB constraints. We discuss strategies for further improving these constraints by almost an order of magnitude.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Modern Narcissus: the lingering reflections of myth in modern art

Why has myth continued to fascinate modern artists, and why the myth of Narcissus, with its modern association with narcissism? This article considers the relationship between the Narcissus myth and the lineage of modern art that runs from Symbolism to surrealism through the polymorphous prism of the Greco-Roman Pantheon to which Narcissus belongs. The article offers an interpretation of the role of mythology in modern art that moves beyond psychoanalysis to incorporate the longer span of the art-historical tradition. Addressing issues of aesthetics, gender and sexuality, the following account highlights Narcissus‟s double nature as an erotic myth that comprises both identity formation and intersubjectivity, as enacted in the field of representation. The myths associated with Narcissus in the history of Western art will help us reconsider his role as a powerful figure capable to activate that slippage between word and image, identity and sociability, representation and reality which was celebrated by the Symbolists and formed the centre of the surrealists‟ social-aesthetic project

Indirect CP violation results and HFAG averages

The current status of the search for indirect CP violation in the neutral D meson system at the B-factories and at LHCb is reported. The indirect CP asymmetry search is performed by the measurement of the proper-time asymmetry ($A_{\Gamma}$) in decays of $D^0-\bar{D^0}$ mesons to CP eigenstates, $K^-K^+$ and $\pi^- \pi^+$, and by $y_{CP}$, the ratio between the effective lifetime measured in decay to a CP eigenstate and that to the mixed eigenstate $K \pi$. All results are consistent with the no CP violation hypothesis. The latest world averages for mixing and CP asymmetry in the charm sector evaluated by the Heavy Flavour Averaging Group are presented. The no mixing hypothesis is excluded at more than 12 standard deviations. The search for direct and indirect CP violation in the charm sector is consistent with no CP violation at 2.0% confident level.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of The 6th International Workshop on Charm Physics (CHARM 2013

The NA62 Experiment at CERN

The main physics goal of the NA62 experiment at CERN is to precisely measure the branching ratio of the kaon rare decay $K^+\rightarrow \pi^+ \nu \bar\nu$. This decay is strongly suppressed in the Standard Model and its branching ratio is theoretically calculated with high accuracy. The NA62 experiment is designed to measure this decay rate with an uncertainty better than 10\%. The measurement can be a good probe of new physics phenomena, which can alter the SM decay rate. The NA62 experiment has been successfully launched in October 2014. In this document, after an introduction to the theoretical framework, the NA62 experimental setup is described and a first look at the pilot run data is reported

Behavioural Types for Actor Systems

Recent mainstream programming languages such as Erlang or Scala have renewed the interest on the Actor model of concurrency. However, the literature on the static analysis of actor systems is still lacking of mature formal methods. In this paper we present a minimal actor calculus that takes as primitive the basic constructs of Scala's Actors API. More precisely, actors can send asynchronous messages, process received messages according to a pattern matching mechanism, and dynamically create new actors, whose scope can be extruded by passing actor names as message parameters. Drawing inspiration from the linear types and session type theories developed for process calculi, we put forward a behavioural type system that addresses the key issues of an actor calculus. We then study a safety property dealing with the determinism of finite actor com- munication. More precisely, we show that well typed and balanced actor systems are (i) deadlock-free and (ii) any message will eventually be handled by the target actor, and dually no actor will indefinitely wait for an expected messag

Modal Structuralism and Theism

Drawing an analogy between modal structuralism about mathematics and theism, I oer a structuralist account that implicitly denes theism in terms of three basic relations: logical and metaphysical priority, and epis- temic superiority. On this view, statements like `God is omniscient' have a hypothetical and a categorical component. The hypothetical component provides a translation pattern according to which statements in theistic language are converted into statements of second-order modal logic. The categorical component asserts the logical possibility of the theism struc- ture on the basis of uncontroversial facts about the physical world. This structuralist reading of theism preserves objective truth-values for theistic statements while remaining neutral on the question of ontology. Thus, it oers a way of understanding theism to which a naturalist cannot object, and it accommodates the fact that religious belief, for many theists, is an essentially relational matter

Compactifying the image of the Abel map

Let $\alpha_X^{\underline d}$ be the Abel map of multidegree $\underline d$ of a singular curve $X$ of genus $g$. We describe the closure of ${\rm Im}\alpha_X^{\underline d}$ inside Caporaso's compactified Jacobian $\bar{P_X^d}$ for irreducible curves, curves of compact type and binary curves