Synchronicity of historical dry spells in the Southern Hemisphere

A shift in climate occurred during the mid-1970s that affected the hydroclimate of the Southern Hemisphere resulting in drying trends across continental regions including Australia, New Zealand and southern and western Africa. There is also anecdotal evidence of other periods of climatic synchronicity in the Southern Hemisphere (e.g., the 1920s and 1940s), indicating that the mid-1970s event may not be anomalous. This paper identifies periods within the last ~120 years using statistical analysis where dry spells (in terms of annual to multi-decadal rainfall deficiencies) have coincided across the continental Southern Hemisphere in order to characterize temporal consistency. It is shown that synchronicity of dry spells is (a) most likely common over the last 120 years and (b) associated with changes in the large-scale climate modes of the Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans. Importantly, the findings presented in this paper have marked implications for drought management and drought forecasting studies in the Southern Hemisphere

U(N) Instantons on N=1/2 superspace -- exact solution & geometry of moduli space

We construct the exact solution of one (anti)instanton in N=1/2 super Yang-Mills theory defined on non(anti)commutative superspace. We first identify N = 1/2 superconformal invariance as maximal spacetime symmetry. For gauge group U(2), SU(2) part of the solution is given by the standard (anti)instanton, but U(1) field strength also turns out nonzero. The solution is SO(4) rotationally symmetric. For gauge group U(N), in contrast to the U(2) case, we show that the entire U(N) part of the solution is deformed by non(anti)commutativity and fermion zero-modes. The solution is no longer rotationally symmetric; it is polarized into an axially symmetric configuration because of the underlying non(anti)commutativity. We compute the `information metric' of one (anti) instanton. We find that moduli space geometry is deformed from hyperbolic space (Euclidean anti-de Sitter space) in a way anticipated from reduced spacetime symmetry. Remarkably, the volume measure of the moduli space turns out to be independent of the non(anti)commutativity. Implications to D-branes in Ramond- Ramond flux background and Maldacena's gauge-gravity correspondence are discussed.Comment: 39 pages, 3 figures, JHEP style; v2. typos corrected + a paragraph adde

Links between the Big Dry in Australia and hemispheric multi-decadal climate variability – implications for water resource management

Southeast Australia (SEA) experienced a protracted drought during the mid-1990s until early 2010 (known as the Big Dry or Millennium Drought) that resulted in serious environmental, social and economic effects. This paper analyses a range of historical climate data sets to place the recent drought into context in terms of Southern Hemisphere inter-annual to multi-decadal hydroclimatic variability. The findings indicate that the recent Big Dry in SEA is in fact linked to the widespread Southern Hemisphere climate shift towards drier conditions that began in the mid-1970s. However, it is shown that this link is masked because the large-scale climate drivers responsible for drying in other regions of the mid-latitudes since the mid-1970s did not have the same effect on SEA during the mid- to late 1980s and early 1990s. More specifically, smaller-scale synoptic processes resulted in elevated autumn and winter rainfall (a crucial period for SEA hydrology) during the mid- to late 1980s and early 1990s, which punctuated the longer-term drying. From the mid-1990s to 2010 the frequency of the synoptic processes associated with elevated autumn/winter rainfall decreased, resulting in a return to drier than average conditions and the onset of the Big Dry. The findings presented in this paper have marked implications for water management and climate attribution studies in SEA, in particular for understanding and dealing with "baseline" (i.e. current) hydroclimatic risks

Interacting Dipoles from Matrix Formulation of Noncommutative Gauge Theories

We study the IR behavior of noncommutative gauge theory in the matrix formulation. We find that in this approach, the nature of the UV/IR mixing is easily understood, which allows us to perform a reliable calculation of the quantum effective action for the long wavelength modes of the noncommutative gauge field. At one loop, we find that our description is weakly coupled only in the supersymmetric theory. At two loops, we find non-trivial interaction terms suggestive of dipole degrees of freedom. These dipoles exhibit a channel duality reminiscent of string theory.Comment: LaTeX 11 pages, 4 figures; v.2 minor changes and some references added; v.3 many more technical details added and significantly different presentation, use REVTeX 4, to appear in PR

Graviton-Scalar Interaction in the PP-Wave Background

We compute the graviton two scalar off-shell interaction vertex at tree level in Type IIB superstring theory on the pp-wave background using the light-cone string field theory formalism. We then show that the tree level vertex vanishes when all particles are on-shell and conservation of p_{+} and p_{-} are imposed. We reinforce our claim by calculating the same vertex starting from the corresponding SUGRA action expanded around the pp-wave background in the light-cone gauge.Comment: 26 pages, harvmac One reference added. A few comments changed in the introduction. The "cyclic perms." term removed from some equations as unnecessary and equations (2.38) and (3.19) are corrected accordingl

Preclinical correction of human Fanconi anemia complementation group A bone marrow cells using a safety-modified lentiviral vector.

One of the major hurdles for the development of gene therapy for Fanconi anemia (FA) is the increased sensitivity of FA stem cells to free radical-induced DNA damage during ex vivo culture and manipulation. To minimize this damage, we have developed a brief transduction procedure for lentivirus vector-mediated transduction of hematopoietic progenitor cells from patients with Fanconi anemia complementation group A (FANCA). The lentiviral vector FancA-sW contains the phosphoglycerate kinase promoter, the FANCA cDNA, and a synthetic, safety-modified woodchuck post transcriptional regulatory element (sW). Bone marrow mononuclear cells or purified CD34(+) cells from patients with FANCA were transduced in an overnight culture on recombinant fibronectin peptide CH-296, in low (5%) oxygen, with the reducing agent, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), and a combination of growth factors, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), Flt3 ligand, stem cell factor, and thrombopoietin. Transduced cells plated in methylcellulose in hypoxia with NAC showed increased colony formation compared with 21% oxygen without NAC (P<0.03), showed increased resistance to mitomycin C compared with green fluorescent protein (GFP) vector-transduced controls (P<0.007), and increased survival. Thus, combining short transduction and reducing oxidative stress may enhance the viability and engraftment of gene-corrected cells in patients with FANCA

Tropical cyclone perceptions, impacts and adaptation in the Southwest Pacific: an urban perspective from Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga

The destruction caused by tropical cyclone (TC) Pam in March 2015 is considered one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Vanuatu. It has highlighted the need for a better understanding of TC impacts and adaptation in the Southwest Pacific (SWP) region. Therefore, the key aims of this study are to (i) understand local perceptions of TC activity, (ii) investigate impacts of TC activity and (iii) uncover adaptation strategies used to offset the impacts of TCs. To address these aims, a survey (with 130 participants from urban areas) was conducted across three SWP small island states (SISs): Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga (FVT). It was found that respondents generally had a high level of risk perception and awareness of TCs and the associated physical impacts, but lacked an understanding of the underlying weather conditions. Responses highlighted that current methods of adaptation generally occur at the local level, immediately prior to a TC event (preparation of property, gathering of food, finding a safe place to shelter). However higher level adaptation measures (such as the modification to building structures) may reduce vulnerability further. Finally, we discuss the potential of utilising weather-related traditional knowledge and non-traditional knowledge of empirical and climate-model-based weather forecasts to improve TC outlooks, which would ultimately reduce vulnerability and increase adaptive capacity. Importantly, lessons learned from this study may result in the modification and/or development of existing adaptation strategies

Thermodynamics of doubly charged CGHS model and D1-D5-KK black holes of IIB supergravity

We study the doubly charged Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger (CGHS) model, which has black hole solutions that were found to be U-dual to the D1-D5-KK black holes of the IIB supergravity. We derive the action of the model via a spontaneous compactification on S^3 of the IIB supergravity on S^1*T^4 and obtain the general static solutions including black holes corresponding to certain non-asymptotically flat black holes in the IIB supergravity. Thermodynamics of them is established by computing the entropy, temperature, chemical potentials, and mass in the two-dimensional setup, and the first law of thermodynamics is explicitly verified. The entropy is in precise agreement with that of the D1-D5-KK black holes, and the mass turns out to be consistent with the infinite Lorentz boost along the M theory circle that is a part of the aforementioned U-dual chain.Comment: 21 pages, Revte

Interacting Open Wilson Lines in Noncommutative Field Theories

In noncommutative field theories, it was known that one-loop effective action describes propagation of non-interacting open Wilson lines, obeying the flying dipole's relation. We show that two-loop effective action describes cubic interaction among `closed string' states created by open Wilson lines. Taking d-dimensional noncommutative [\Phi^3] theory as the simplest setup, we compute nonplanar contribution at low-energy and large noncommutativity limit. We find that the contribution is expressible in a remarkably simple cubic interaction involving scalar open Wilson lines only and nothing else. We show that the interaction is purely geometrical and noncommutative in nature, depending only on sizes of each open Wilson line.Comment: v1: 27 pages, Latex, 7 .eps figures v2: minor wording change + reference adde

Effective Action for Membrane Dynamics in DLCQ MM theory on a Two-torus

The effective action for the membrane dynamics on the background geometry of the $N$-sector DLCQ $M$ theory compactified on a two-torus is computed via supergravity. We compare it to the effective action obtained from the matrix theory, i.e., the (2+1)-dimensional supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory, including the one-loop perturbative and full non-perturbative instanton effects. Consistent with the DLCQ prescription of $M$ theory {\em a la} Susskind, we find the precise agreement for the finite $N$-sector (off-conformal regime), as well as for the large $N$ limit (conformal regime), providing us with a concrete example of the correspondence between the matrix theory and the DLCQ $M$ theory. Non-perturbative instanton effects in the SYM theory conspire to yield the eleven-dimensionally covariant effective action.Comment: 11 pages, latex, no figure