459 research outputs found
Sheet SK 00 SW and SK 00 SE ALDRIDGE - BROWNHILLS : part of 1:50 000 Sheet 154 (Lichfield)
This report embodies some of the results of a study commissioned by the Department of the Environment in 1983 to provide a geological information base, to enable informed consideration to be given to development proposals for the Aldridge - Brownhills area. It is mainly concerned with hydrogeology, subsidence and bulk minerals resources.There is a substantial introductory section on general geology, to give the geological context of these planning-related aspects
Patterns of biogeographic and regional life-history trait variation in four large-bodied tropical wrasses
Ectotherms display substantial demographic variation across latitudinal gradients of temperature. Higher temperatures are often associated with smaller size, rapid initial growth rates, and early maturation, generally described as the Temperature-Size Rule (TSR). The longevity of most ectotherms also declines at warmer, lower latitudes. However, these patterns may be modified by increases in food resources that can flow on to continuous growth and large adult size. The present study estimates age-based demographic parameters of large-bodied tropical wrasses (Hemigymnus melapterus, H. fasciatus, Cheilinus fasciatus, and Oxycheilinus digramma) collected from Philippine fish markets (9-11 degrees N) and sampled from Palm (18.53-18.70 degrees S) and Whitsunday (20.05-20.21 degrees S) reefs on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (GBR). Differences in longevity, initial growth rates, and the age at sexual maturation at a biogeographic scale, between the Philippines and GBR, conformed to predictions of the TSR. However, Philippine specimens exhibited greater relative body condition and sustained periods of growth beyond sexual maturity resulting in larger adult size than GBR samples. Size-structure data from Philippine marine reserves and fished sites indicated that these differences were not confounded by fishery-dependent sampling. Moreover, latitudinal length-weight relationships could not be explained by lower densities of the focal wrasses in the Philippines or by relative gonad size. Less pronounced patterns of demographic variation that differed across species were evident at a regional scale, among Palm and Whitsunday reefs. Patterns of demographic variation between the Philippines and GBR strongly suggest that differences in food resource levels will be important in explaining the observed geographic variation
Homeless population
The aim was to derive and analyze a model for numbers of homeless and non-homeless people in a borough, in particular to see how these figures might be affected by different policies regarding housing various categories of people. Most attention was focused on steady populations although the stability of these and possible timescales of dynamic problems were also discussed.
The main outcome of this brief study is the identification of the key role played by the constant k_1 - the constant which fixes the speed at which the homeless are rehoused in permanent council property. Reducing this constant, i.e. making the system "fairer" with less priority to accommodating homeless families, appears to have little effect on the sizes of other categories on the waiting list but there is a marked increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation.
The model, indicated by the size of its longest time-scale, should be modified to allow for births etc.
It could be varied by allowing people to remove themselves from the register or by allowing the rates at which registered and unregistered people become homeless to differ, but these modifications are unlikely to substantially change the main result.
The inclusion of movement from the homeless to the general population would have the effect of limiting the numbers in temporary accommodation. However, it is thought this effect is very small so a great reduction in k_1 would be needed for this flow to become significant
Solitonic Strings and BPS Saturated Dyonic Black Holes
We consider a six-dimensional solitonic string solution described by a
conformal chiral null model with non-trivial superconformal transverse
part. It can be interpreted as a five-dimensional dyonic solitonic string wound
around a compact fifth dimension. The conformal model is regular with the
short-distance (`throat') region equivalent to a WZW theory. At distances
larger than the compactification scale the solitonic string reduces to a dyonic
static spherically-symmetric black hole of toroidally compactified heterotic
string. The new four-dimensional solution is parameterised by five charges,
saturates the Bogomol'nyi bound and has nontrivial dilaton-axion field and
moduli fields of two-torus. When acted by combined T- and S-duality
transformations it serves as a generating solution for all the static
spherically-symmetric BPS-saturated configurations of the low-energy heterotic
string theory compactified on six-torus. Solutions with regular horizons have
the global space-time structure of extreme Reissner-Nordstrom black holes with
the non-zero thermodynamic entropy which depends only on conserved (quantised)
charge vectors. The independence of the thermodynamic entropy on moduli and
axion-dilaton couplings strongly suggests that it should have a microscopic
interpretation as counting degeneracy of underlying string configurations. This
interpretation is supported by arguments based on the corresponding
six-dimensional conformal field theory. The expression for the level of the WZW
theory describing the throat region implies a renormalisation of the string
tension by a product of magnetic charges, thus relating the entropy and the
number of oscillations of the solitonic string in compact directions.Comment: 27 Pages, uses RevTeX (solution for the axion field corrected,
erratum to appear in Phys. Rev. D
Generalised chiral null models and rotating string backgrounds
We consider an extension of a special class of conformal sigma models
(`chiral null models') which describe extreme supersymmetric string solutions.
The new models contain both `left' and `right' vector couplings and should
correspond to non-BPS backgrounds. In particular, we discuss a conformal
six-dimensional model which is a combination of fundamental string and 5-brane
models with two extra couplings representing rotations in orthogonal planes. If
the two rotational parameters are independent the resulting background is found
to be either singular or not asymptotically flat. The non asymptotically flat
solution has a regular short distance limit described by a `twisted' product of
SL(2,R) and SU(2) WZW theories with two twist parameters mixing the isometric
Euler angles of SU(2) with a null direction of SL(2,R).Comment: 12 pages, late
Melvin solution in string theory
We identify a string theory counterpart of the dilatonic Melvin D=4
background describing a "magnetic flux tube" in low-energy field theory limit.
The corresponding D=5 bosonic string model containing extra compact
Kaluza-Klein dimension is a direct product of the D=2 Minkowski space and a D=3
conformal sigma model. The latter is a singular limit of the [SL(2,R) x R]/R
gauged WZW theory. This implies, in particular, that the dilatonic Melvin
background is an exact string solution to all orders in \a'. Moreover, the D=3
model is formally related by an abelian duality to a flat space with a
non-trivial topology. The conformal field theory for the Melvin solution is
exactly solvable (and for special values of magnetic field parameter is
equivalent to CFT for a orbifold of 2-plane times a circle) and should
exhibit tachyonic instabilities.Comment: 12 pages, harvmac (substantial revision, especially of the part
discussing the structure of the corresponding conformal theory
Vapour-liquid coexistence in many-body dissipative particle dynamics
Many-body dissipative particle dynamics is constructed to exhibit
vapour-liquid coexistence, with a sharp interface, and a vapour phase of
vanishingly small density. In this form, the model is an unusual example of a
soft-sphere liquid with a potential energy built out of local-density dependent
one-particle self energies. The application to fluid mechanics problems
involving free surfaces is illustrated by simulation of a pendant drop.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, revtex
Probing black holes in non-perturbative gauge theory
We use a 0-brane to probe a ten-dimensional near-extremal black hole with N
units of 0-brane charge. We work directly in the dual strongly-coupled quantum
mechanics, using mean-field methods to describe the black hole background
non-perturbatively. We obtain the distribution of W boson masses, and find a
clear separation between light and heavy degrees of freedom. To localize the
probe we introduce a resolving time and integrate out the heavy modes. After a
non-trivial change of coordinates, the effective potential for the probe agrees
with supergravity expectations. We compute the entropy of the probe, and find
that the stretched horizon of the black hole arises dynamically in the quantum
mechanics, as thermal restoration of unbroken U(N+1) gauge symmetry. Our
analysis of the quantum mechanics predicts a correct relation between the
horizon radius and entropy of a black hole.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX, 8 eps figures. v2: references added. v3: more
reference
Higher-Derivative Terms in N=2 Supersymmetric Effective Actions
We show how to systematically construct higher-derivative terms in effective
actions in harmonic superspace despite the infinite redundancy in their
description due to the infinite number of auxiliary fields. Making an
assumption about the absence of certain superspace Chern-Simons-like terms
involving vector multiplets, we write all 3- and 4-derivative terms on Higgs,
Coulomb, and mixed branches. Among these terms are several with only
holomorphic dependence on fields, and at least one satisfies a
non-renormalization theorem. These holomorphic terms include a novel
3-derivative term on mixed branches given as an integral over 3/4 of
superspace. As an illustration of our method, we search for Wess-Zumino terms
in the low energy effective action of N=2 supersymmetric QCD. We show that such
terms occur only on mixed branches. We also present an argument showing that
the combination of space-time locality with supersymmetry implies locality in
the anticommuting superspace coordinates of for unconstrained superfields.Comment: 30 pages. Added references and simplified final form of WZ ter
3-D Perturbations in Conformal Turbulence
The effects of three-dimensional perturbations in two-dimensional turbulence
are investigated, through a conformal field theory approach. We compute scaling
exponents for the energy spectra of enstrophy and energy cascades, in a strong
coupling limit, and compare them to the values found in recent experiments. The
extension of unperturbed conformal turbulence to the present situation is
performed by means of a simple physical picture in which the existence of small
scale random forces is closely related to deviations of the exact
two-dimensional fluid motion.Comment: Discussion of intermittency improved. Figure include
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