Polyakov Loops and Magnetic Screening from Monopoles in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

We present results from magnetic monopoles in $SU(2)$ lattice gauge theory at finite temperature. The lattices are $16^{3}\times N_{t}$, for $N_{t}=4,6,8,12$, at $\beta=2.5115$. Quantities discussed are: the spacial string tension, Polyakov loops, and the screening of timelike and spacelike magnetic currents.Comment: 5 pages, four Postscript figures, Late

Monopoles at Finite Volume and Temperature in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

We resolve a discrepancy between the SU(2) spacial string tension at finite temperature, and the value obtained by monopoles in the maximum Abelian gauge. Previous work had incorrectly omitted a term due to Dirac sheets. When this term is included, the monopole and full SU(2) determinations of the spacial string tension agree to within the statistical errors of the monopole calculation.Comment: 8 pages, Latex files: msum.tex,msum.aux packaged with uufile

Tribology matters

Tribology touches every aspect of our day to day existence and the wonder of this is that we are completely unaware how central it is to how we function. Take a snapshot of thebeginning of a normal working day for example. A typical morning start will involve brushing one's teeth with toothpaste containing mild abrasive (with a toothbrush with an optimized design for brushing efficiency), using a shampoo and conditioner which have been tested for frictional properties on a wide range of hair types, and for those who have the traditional morning fry up - lubricating the pan in advance with cooking oil to provide a boundary layer between the food and the pan and to reduce adhesion and heat transfer. It is clear that tribology plays a major role in our everyday lives. Whether starting out for work by foot, bicycle or car, friction will define whether our shoes or tyres can grip the road surface and whether the brake or clutch will do their job. If it is raining, the speed limit is modified in some countries, testifying to the influence of tribologists in decision making in the transport industries

Tribo-corrosion mechanisms of stainless steel in soft drinks

Tribo-corrosion mechanisms of 316L Stainless Steel in slurries containing common household soft drinks have been studied through investigating the micro-abrasion-corrosion performance using a ball and disk apparatus which has been modified to measure the in-situ corrosion current during the abrasion process. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of pH and solution viscosity on the micro-abrasion-corrosion performance of the material. 316L Stainless Steel was selected because it is commonly used as a dental replacement material. This is an important area of work as the use of steel retainers as well as other stainless steel dental replacements is still widespread and the effectiveness of these devices will be determined by their tribological and tribo-corrosion performance. Additionally, an attempt has been made to investigate the importance of the pH and viscosity variables on the tribo-corrosive synergism, wastage and mechanism maps

The death of John Stuart Mill

This article surveys the fiercely contested posthumous assessments of John Stuart Mill in the newspaper and periodical press, in the months following his death in May 1873, and elicits the broader intellectual context. Judgements made in the immediate wake of Mill's death influence biographers and historians to this day and provide an illuminating aperture into the politics and shifting ideological forces of the period. The article considers how Mill's failure to control his posthumous reputation demonstrates both the inextricable intertwining of politics and character in the 1870s, and the difficulties his allies faced. In particular, it shows the sharp division between Mill's middle and working class admirers; the use of James Mill's name as a rebuke to his son; the redefinition of Malthusianism in the 1870s; and how publication of Mill's Autobiography damaged his reputation. Finally, the article considers the relative absence of both theological and Darwinian critiques of Mill

There's something in the way you move : horse racing and skiing are two sports where a better understanding of friction could work

Have you ever had the experience of gliding effortlessly across a dance floor with a partner of rugby-player proportions, yet endured a swollen ankle minutes later from the quickstep of someone half the size? Why does one twin sister seem to be "hard" on shoes while the other can make a pair last twice as long? The explanation for counterintuitive phenomena like these lies in the study of friction and wear - a field known as tribology - and an increasingly rich source of tribological data come from the science of sport

Some thoughts on neural network modelling of micro-abrasion-corrosion processes

There is increasing interest in the interactions of microabrasion, involving small particles of less than 10 μm in size, with corrosion. This is because such interactions occur in many environments ranging from the offshore to health care sectors. In particular, micro-abrasion-corrosion can occur in oral processing, where the abrasive components of food interacting with the acidic environment, can lead to degradation of the surface dentine of teeth. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are computing mechanisms based on the biological brain. They are very effective in various areas such as modelling, classification and pattern recognition. They have been successfully applied in almost all areas of engineering and many practical industrial applications. Hence, in this paper an attempt has been made to model the data obtained in microabrasion-corrosion experiments on polymer/steel couple and a ceramic/lasercarb coating couple using ANN. A multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network is applied and the results obtained from modelling the tribocorrosion processes will be compared with those obtained from a relatively new class of neural networks namely resource allocation network

Tribo-corrosion maps for application in bio-tribology : some new approaches

Advances in the study of tribo-corrosion of materials in recent years have included the development of mechanistic maps, showing the transitions between the regimes as a function of the main process parameters. In such cases, maps have been constructed in both two and three dimensions. There are now a variety of modelling algorithms which may be used to map a range of performance indicators over a multi-parameter space. The interactions of tribo-corrosion in biological environments are becoming of increasing importance