529 research outputs found
Introduction: preliminary reflections on the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu
Book synopsis: Pierre Bourdieu is widely regarded as one of the most influential sociologists of his generation, and yet the reception of his work in different cultural contexts and academic disciplines has been varied and uneven. This volume maps out the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu in contemporary social and political thought from the standpoint of classical European sociology and from the broader perspective of transatlantic social science. It brings together contributions from prominent scholars in the field, providing a range of perspectives on the continuing relevance of Bourdieuâs oeuvre to substantive problems in social and political analysis
Scalar Electrodynamics and Primordial Magnetic Fields
A primordial magnetic field may be generated during an inflationary period if
conformal invariance is broken. We reexamine and generalize previous results
about the magnetic field produced by couplings of the form . We show that the amplitude of the magnetic field depends
strongly on . For adequate values of the field produced can serve as
seed for galactic magnetic fields. We also compute the effective interaction
between the electromagnetic field and the geometry in the context of scalar QED
(with and without classical conformal invariance). In both cases, the amplitude
of the magnetic field is too small to be of astrophysical interest.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, no figure
Multi-species sociology of the body
The human body has become a central focus in sociology. Such work has centred largely on the human body and its significance in social contexts. This article draws on sociological understandings of human embodiment, especially the idea of the âbody as a projectâ, to facilitate a multi-species understanding of bodies and their entanglements. Conceptualising the body as a project has provided sociological insights into the scientific and technological innovations that are designed to improve health and delay death. Nonhuman animals are entangled in these efforts, though their presence is often occluded. By examining notions of body masks, body regimes and body options, which are well established in sociological thinking about the body, this article seeks to prompt consideration of how to utilise theories of the body to examine humanânonhuman animal entanglements in order to establish a multi-species sociology of the body
Scaling anomaly in cosmic string background
We show that the classical scale symmetry of a particle moving in cosmic
string background is broken upon inequivalent quantization of the classical
system, leading to anomaly. The consequence of this anomaly is the formation of
single bound state in the coupling interval \gamma\in(-1,1). The inequivalent
quantization is characterized by a 1-parameter family of self-adjoint extension
parameter \omega. It has been conjectured that the formation of loosely bound
state in cosmic string background may lead to the so called anomalous
scattering cross section for the particles, which is usually seen in molecular
physics.Comment: 4 pages,1 figur
Seed dormancy and germination in Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae) from south-western Saudi Arabia
Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae) is widespread in the mountainous highlands of the southwestern part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where it is a medicinally important species for the people of Saudi Arabia. Seeds of this species were collected from Mount Atharb in the Al-Baha region, at an altitude of 2100 m. The aims of this study were to determine if the seeds of D. viscosa have physical dormancy (i.e. a water-impermeable seed coat) and, if so, what treatments would break dormancy, and what conditions promote germination after dormancy has been broken. The dormancy-breaking treatments included: soaking of seeds in concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4) for 10 minutes, immersion in boiling water for 10 minutes and exposure to 50 °C for 1 minute. After seeds had been pre-treated with H2SO4, to break dormancy, they were incubated at constant temperatures from 5 to 35°C, under 12-h photoperiods or in continuous darkness, and germination recorded. Salinity tolerance was investigated by incubating acid-scarified seeds in 0, 100, 200 and 300 mM NaCl in the light at 25°C. Untreated seeds had low final germination (30%). Seeds that had been acid-scarified, immersed in boiling water or exposed to 50 °C all achieved 91% subsequently when incubated at 25°C. Thus, seeds of this species in Saudi Arabia have physical dormancy, which can be broken by all three treatments designed to increase the permeability of the testa. After pre-treatment, there was a broad optimum constant temperature for germination that ranged between 5-25°C but germination was inhibited by higher temperatures (30 and 35°C). Light had little effect on this germination response. Scarified seeds were also sensitive to salinity, with the highest germination in distilled water and complete inhibition in 400 mM NaCl. Seeds that failed to germinate in saline treatments were mostly able to germinate on transfer to distilled water, suggesting osmotic inhibition
Categorizing Different Approaches to the Cosmological Constant Problem
We have found that proposals addressing the old cosmological constant problem
come in various categories. The aim of this paper is to identify as many
different, credible mechanisms as possible and to provide them with a code for
future reference. We find that they all can be classified into five different
schemes of which we indicate the advantages and drawbacks.
Besides, we add a new approach based on a symmetry principle mapping real to
imaginary spacetime.Comment: updated version, accepted for publicatio
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