Exact Self-consistent Particle-like Solutions to the Equations of Nonlinear Scalar Electrodynamics in General Relativity

Exact self-consistent particle-like solutions with spherical and/or cylindrical symmetry to the equations governing the interacting system of scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational fields have been obtained. As a particular case it is shown that the equations of motion admit a special kind of solutions with sharp boundary known as droplets. For these solutions, the physical fields vanish and the space-time is flat outside of the critical sphere or cylinder. Therefore, the mass and the electric charge of these configurations are zero.Comment: 17 pages, Submitted to the International Journal of Theoretical Physic

Data for Consistent greenhouse accounting identifies forests and land use as crucial determinants of climate

<p>Data supporting the article Wedderburn-Bisshop, G. Consistent greenhouse accounting identifies forests and land use as crucial determinants of climate </p&gt

Frequency And Content Of Chat Questions By Time Of Semester At The University Of Central Florida: Implications For Training, Staffing And Marketing

The more than 4,000 chats received by the University of Central Florida\u27s (UCF) Ask-A-Librarian digital reference service are the subject of this practitioner-based, descriptive case study. Question content from chats received during four semesters between January 2005 and May 2006 are categorized and plotted, by semester, to show the number of questions received in each question category. The study seeks to provide a baseline of descriptive statistics for the UCF digital reference service and to address gaps in the literature about the manner in which patrons are using digital reference services. Further, awareness of question topics can contribute to effective decisions about training and staffing requirements and marketing of services. © 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved

Neglected transformational responses: implications of excluding short lived emissions and near term projections in greenhouse gas accounting

Greenhouse gas conventions and metrics have powerful framing effects, significantly under-reporting emissions and obscuring the impact of shorter-lived emissions. This interdisciplinary Australian case study re-calculates emissions to include short lived gases and use 20 year Global Warming Potentials (GWPs), a timeframe relevant to averting catastrophic change. Australia's annual emissions more than double when compared to the national inventory, with agriculture producing 54% of the national total. Ruminant livestock emerge as a transformative mitigation opportunity. While success in rapid cuts could revitalise other mitigation efforts, it would require demand-led change and significant producer adaptation. Most siloed analyses neglect such flow-on effects

Livestock's near term climate impact and mitigation policy implications

Human consumption of livestock remains a marginal issue in climate change debates, partly due to the IPCC's arbitrary adoption of 100-year global warming potential framework to compare different emissions, blinding us to the significance of shorter-term emissions, namely methane. Together with the gas it reacts to form - tropospheric ozone - methane has been responsible for 37% of global warming since 1750, yet its atmospheric life is just 10 years. Neglecting its role means overlooking powerful mitigation opportunities. The chapter discusses the role of livestock, the largest anthropogenic methane source, and the need to include reduced meat consumption in climate change responses. Looking beyond the conventional focus on the consumer, we point to some underlying challenges in addressing the meatclimate relationship, including the climate science community's reluctance to adopt a short-term focus in its climate projections. Policy options are presented

Articulating thresholds ~ artistic techniques for more-than-human sensitivities

This practice-based research proposes thresholding techniques as a contribution to processual artistic practices. It argues that such practices engage matter not as readymade form, but as a flux of creative becomings, active within compositional processes. Following Henri Bergson, it proposes that such becomings are ‘more-than-human’, habitually eliding ‘human’ perception. This project engages process-based philosophy and process as ways of encountering matter’s movements, through and beyond human ‘subjects’ and material ‘objects’.Through this research, I develop an image of the threshold as the field through which ‘bodies’ are linked and elaborated, via matter’s creative becomings. The investigation of these concepts engages Erin Manning and Brian Massumi’s artistic process of research-creation, where the intersection of thinking and doing is a generative threshold for the invention of techniques. Through artistic experimentation, I propose four thresholding techniques for composing in relation to material-force, and for opening on to more-than-human experience. My own techniques are developed in concert with an analysis of those at work in artistic praxes engaging process as compositional force: Pierre Huyghe; Nina Canell; Olafur Eliasson; Senselab (space for collective research-creation).Pausing~displacing proposes a technique for expanding the interval of duration, and accessing the more-than-human rhythms that it fields. It is elaborated through my initial multimodal sculptural experiments that slow and attend to different temporalities. Holding~circling proposes a technique for thresholding the tensions between framing/deframing. It emerges from sculptural/performative experiments in framing the event of sunset, and opening thresholds to new fields of relation. Feeling~following proposes an intuitive engagement with matter’s more-than-human movements. This technique emerges across sculptural/installation works that follow material lures for composing. Through further sculptural and textual experiments, swelling~spilling is proposed as a technique for amplifying the virtual potentials of material-forces within experiential thresholds, and making their difference felt.Thresholding techniques offer artistic propositions for becoming-sensitive to material becomings, such that matter is understood as creative force. They therefore articulate an ethics that situates the creative act as emergent from thresholds of relation. This project proposes a new understanding of processual practice as a mode of encountering more-than-human material becomings, and contributes research-creation techniques for engaging this relational threshold

HIV in practice: current approaches and challenges in the diagnosis, treatment and management of HIV infection in Australia

As treatment improves, people living with HIV (PLWHIV) can now expect to live longer, which means that the foci of HIV-related care for them and their medical practitioners continue to change. With an increasingly older cohort of patients with HIV infection, practitioners’ key considerations are shifting from issues of acute treatment and patient survival to multiple comorbidities, toxicities associated with chronic therapy, and ongoing health maintenance. Within this context, this paper explores the current standard of practice for the management of HIV infection in Australia. We surveyed 56 Australian practitioners currently involved in managing HIV infection: ‘HIV section 100’ (HIV therapy-prescribing) general practitioners (s100 GPs; n = 26), sexual health physicians (SHPs; n = 24) and hospital-based physicians (HBPs; n = 6). Survey results for practice approaches and challenges were broadly consistent across the three practitioner specialties, apart from a few key areas. s100 GPs reported less prophylaxis use among patients whom they deemed at risk of HIV infection in comparison with SHPs, which may reflect differences in patient populations. Further, a higher proportion of s100 GPs nominated older HIV treatment regimens as their preferred therapy choices compared with the other specialties. In contrast with SHPs, s100 GPs were less likely to switch HIV therapies to simplify the treatment protocol, and to immediately initiate treatment upon patient request in those newly diagnosed with HIV infection. Considerably lower levels of satisfaction with current HIV practice guidelines were also reported by s100 GPs. It appears that greater support for s100 GPs may be needed to address these identified challenges and enhance approaches to HIV practice. Across all specialties, increasing access to mental health services for patients with HIV infection was reported as a key management issue. A renewed focus on providing improved mental health and wellbeing supports is recommended, particularly in the face of an ageing HIV-infected population