Global Observations from PHOBOS

Particle production in Au+Au collisions has been measured in the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC for a range of collision energies. Three empirical observations have emerged from this dataset which require theoretical examination. First, there is clear evidence of limiting fragmentation. Namely, particle production in central Au+Au collisions, when expressed as $dN/d\eta'$ ($\eta' \equiv \eta-y_{beam}$), becomes energy independent at high energy for a broad region of $\eta'$ around $\eta'=0$. This energy-independent region grows with energy, allowing only a limited region (if any) of longitudinal boost-invariance. Second, there is a striking similarity between particle production in e+e- and Au+Au collisions (scaled by the number of participating nucleon pairs). Both the total number of produced particles and the longitudinal distribution of produced particles are approximately the same in e+e- and in scaled Au+Au. This observation was not predicted and has not been explained. Finally, particle production has been found to scale approximately with the number of participating nucleon pairs for $N_{part}>65$. This scaling occurs both for the total multiplicity and for high \pT particles (3 <\pT< 4.5 GeV/c).Comment: QM2002 plenary talk, 10 pages, 11 figure

RE: pedagogy – after neutrality

Within the UK and in many parts of the world, official accounts of what it is to make sense of religion are framed within a rhetorics of neutrality in which such study is premised upon the possibility of dispassionate engagement and analysis. This paper, which is largely theoretical in scope, explores both the affordances and the costs of such an approach which has become ‘black boxed’ on account of the work that it achieves. A series of new orientations within the academy that are broadly associated with post-structuralist philosophies, feminist and post-colonial studies, together with insights from Science and Technology Studies, question the plausibility of these claims for neutrality whilst in turn raising a series of new questions and priorities. It therefore becomes necessary to re-think and re-frame what it is to make sense of religious and cultural difference after neutrality. The gathering and co-ordination of new planes of sense-making that are responsive to an emergent series of epistemological, ontological, and ethical orientations are considered. Some of the distinctive pedagogical implications of such an approach that engages material practice, difference and uncertainty are then entertained

Lower urinary tract symptoms in women with type 2 diabetes mellitus

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to compare lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) in women with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM)