Social Class in art and design education: a significant omission

This chapter investigate the way ‘classed’ practices permeate art and design education. It provides the wider context in both art and education, exploring contemporary sociological approaches to thinking about class and briefly outlining our methodology and focuses on A&D PGCE students’ complex and contradictory self-understandings in relation to class and their reflections on its impact on their educational journey. The chapter discusses implications for Initial Teacher Education and proffers ways in which art and design educators might be encouraged to refuse conformity, challenge unspoken ‘classism’ and work towards cultural democracy. Teachers are constantly encouraged to consider the significance of race, gender, Special Educational Needs and disability for an inclusive learning environment and heteronormativity and mental health; class is invariably omitted in the art curriculum. In 2002, the German sociologist Ulrich Beck famously stated that class had become a ‘Zombie Category’

Running with Rugby Balls: Bulk Renormalization of Codimension-2 Branes

We compute how one-loop bulk effects renormalize both bulk and brane effective interactions for geometries sourced by codimension-two branes. We do so by explicitly integrating out spin-zero, -half and -one particles in 6-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-Scalar theories compactified to 4 dimensions on a flux-stabilized 2D geometry. (Our methods apply equally well for D dimensions compactified to D-2 dimensions, although our explicit formulae do not capture all divergences when D>6.) The renormalization of bulk interactions are independent of the boundary conditions assumed at the brane locations, and reproduce standard heat-kernel calculations. Boundary conditions at any particular brane do affect how bulk loops renormalize this brane's effective action, but not the renormalization of other distant branes. Although we explicitly compute our loops using a rugby ball geometry, because we follow only UV effects our results apply more generally to any geometry containing codimension-two sources with conical singularities. Our results have a variety of uses, including calculating the UV sensitivity of one-loop vacuum energy seen by observers localized on the brane. We show how these one-loop effects combine in a surprising way with bulk back-reaction to give the complete low-energy effective cosmological constant, and comment on the relevance of this calculation to proposed applications of codimension-two 6D models to solutions of the hierarchy and cosmological constant problems.Comment: 42 pages + appendices. This is the final version which appears in JHE

Circumventing the eta problem in building an inflationary model in string theory

The eta problem is one of the most significant obstacles to building a successful inflationary model in string theory. Planck mass suppressed corrections to the inflaton potential generally lead to inflaton masses of order the Hubble scale and generate contributions of order unity to the eta slow roll parameter rendering prolonged slow roll inflation impossible. We demonstrate the severity of this problem in the context of brane anti-brane inflation in a warped throat of a Calabi-Yau flux compactification with all phenomenologically dangerous moduli stabilized. Using exact numerical solutions we show that the eta problem can be avoided in scenarios where the inflaton is non-minimally coupled to gravity and has Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term. We show that the resulting cosmic microwave background (CMB) observables such as measures of non-gaussianites can, in principle, serve as a probe of scalar-gravity couplings.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; title changed and reference added to match published version in PR

Consequences of Zeeman Degeneracy for van der Waals Blockade between Rydberg Atoms

We analyze the effects of Zeeman degeneracies on the long-range interactions between like Rydberg atoms, with particular emphasis on applications to quantum information processing using van der Waals blockade. We present a general analysis of how degeneracies affect the primary error sources in blockade experiments, emphasizing that blockade errors are sensitive primarily to the weakest possible atom-atom interactions between the degenerate states, not the mean interaction strength. We present explicit calculations of the van der Waals potentials in the limit where the fine-structure interaction is large compared to the atom-atom interactions. The results are presented for all potential angular momentum channels invoving s, p, and d states. For most channels there are one or more combinations of Zeeman levels that have extremely small dipole-dipole interactions and are therefore poor candidates for effective blockade experiments. Channels with promising properties are identified and discussed. We also present numerical calculations of Rb and Cs dipole matrix elements and relevant energy levels using quantum defect theory, allowing for convenient quantitative estimates of the van der Waals interactions to be made for principal quantum numbers up to 100. Finally, we combine the blockade and van der Waals results to quantitatively analyze the angular distribution of the blockade shift and its consequence for angular momentum channels and geometries of particular interest for blockade experiments with Rb.Comment: 16 figure

Toxoplasma gondii profilin does not stimulate an innate immune response through bovine or human TLR5

Toxoplasma gondii is responsible for one of the most prevalent infections in people. T. gondii profilin (TgPr) is a protein integral to parasite movement and cellular invasion. Murine TLR has been described to bind TgPr. Furthermore, more recently, human TLR5 has been described to recognise recombinant TgPr, as well as bacterial flagellin. In addition to infections in humans, T. gondii infects farm animals, but little information is available about its innate recognition. We aimed to investigate whether, similarly to their human orthologue, bovine and porcine TLR5 could also be stimulated by TgPr by using a combination of reporter cell lines expressing full length TLR5 from each species as well as primary cells. Although human and bovine TLR5-transfected cells responded to flagellin, no response was detected upon stimulation with profilin. Furthermore, TgPr failed to elicit IL-6 secretion in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and CD14þ monocytes. In contrast, exposure of RAW cells, known to express TLR11 to TgPr, slightly increased the IL-6 response. Our data cast doubts on the possibility that profilin is a specific ligand for human TLR5 and bovine TLR5. This leaves the immunogenic properties of this potential target antigen uncharacterised outside of the murine system

Accidental SUSY: Enhanced Bulk Supersymmetry from Brane Back-reaction

We compute how bulk loops renormalize both bulk and brane effective interactions for codimension-two branes in 6D gauged chiral supergravity, as functions of the brane tension and brane-localized flux. We do so by explicitly integrating out hyper- and gauge-multiplets in 6D gauged chiral supergravity compactified to 4D on a flux-stabilized 2D rugby-ball geometry, specializing the results of a companion paper, arXiv:1210.3753, to the supersymmetric case. While the brane back-reaction generically breaks supersymmetry, we show that the bulk supersymmetry can be preserved if the amount of brane-localized flux is related in a specific BPS-like way to the brane tension, and verify that the loop corrections to the brane curvature vanish in this special case. In these systems it is the brane-bulk couplings that fix the size of the extra dimensions, and we show that in some circumstances the bulk geometry dynamically adjusts to ensure the supersymmetric BPS-like condition is automatically satisfied. We investigate the robustness of this residual supersymmetry to loops of non-supersymmetric matter on the branes, and show that supersymmetry-breaking effects can enter only through effective brane-bulk interactions involving at least two derivatives. We comment on the relevance of this calculation to proposed applications of codimension-two 6D models to solutions of the hierarchy and cosmological constant problems.Comment: 49 pages + appendices. This is the final version to appear in JHE

Preheating after Small-Field Inflation

Whereas preheating after chaotic and hybrid inflation models has been abundantly studied in the literature, preheating in small field inflation models, where the curvature of the inflaton potential is negative during inflation, remains less explored. In these models, a tachyonic instability at the end of inflation leads to a succession of exponentially large increases and \emph{decreases} of the inflaton fluctuations as the inflaton condensate oscillates around the minimum of its potential. The net effect is a competition between low-momentum modes which grow and decrease significantly, and modes with higher momenta which grow less but also decrease less. We develop an analytical description of this process, which is analogous to the quantum mechanical problem of tunneling through a volcano-shaped potential. Depending on the parameters, preheating may be so efficient that it completes in less than one oscillation of the inflaton condensate. Preheating after small field inflation may also be followed by a long matter-dominated stage before the universe thermalizes, depending on the energy scale of inflation and the details of the inflaton interactions. Finally, another feature of these models is that the spectrum of the inflaton fluctuations at the end of preheating may be peaked around the Hubble scale. In fact, because preheating starts when the second slow-roll parameter $|\eta|$ becomes of order unity while the first slow-roll parameter $\epsilon$ is still much smaller than one, the universe is still inflating during preheating and the modes amplified by the initial tachyonic instability leave the Hubble radius. This may lead to an abundant production of primordial black holes and gravitational waves with frequencies today which are naturally small enough to fall into the range accessible by high-sensitivity interferometric experiments.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures. v2: 1 ref. added, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Heterogeneity of monosomy 3 in fine needle aspiration biopsy of choroidal melanoma.

PurposeTo report on the heterogeneity of monosomy 3 in a fine needle aspiration biopsy obtained transsclerally from choroidal melanoma for prognosis.MethodsAll clinical records for patients who had been diagnosed with choroidal melanoma and underwent iodine-125 plaque brachytherapy with intraoperative transscleral fine needle aspiration biopsy from January 2005 to August 20, 2011, and who had a positive result for monosomy 3 according to fluorescence in situ hybridization as reported by clinical cytogenetics testing were collected. Patient age and sex, total number of cells evaluated and number of cells positive for monosomy 3, tumor size, and metastatic outcome were recorded for each patient.ResultsA positive result for monosomy 3 was reported in 93 patients who underwent transscleral fine needle aspiration biopsy. Two patients were lost to follow-up immediately post-operatively, and the remaining 91 patients were included in this study. The mean number of cells evaluated in the biopsy was 273 (range 28 to 520). The mean percentage of cells positive for monosomy 3 was 62.9% (range 4.7%-100%). The mean tumor height was 5.91 mm (range 1.99 to 10.85 mm). Larger tumors were associated with a higher percentage of cells positive for monosomy 3. During the average follow-up interval of 28.9 months (range 3-76 months), choroidal melanoma metastasis developed in 18 (20%) patients. Patients whose tumors had 1%-33% of cells positive for monosomy 3 had a significantly lower risk of metastasis-related death compared to patients whose tumors harbored a higher percentage of monosomy 3 (p = 0.04).ConclusionsCytogenetic heterogeneity of fluorescent in situ hybridization for monosomy 3 exists in a biopsy sample. Larger tumors were more likely to have a higher percentage of monosomy 3 positive cells in the sample. Furthermore, patients whose tumors had more than 33% of cells positive for monosomy 3 had a poorer prognosis than patients whose tumors had lower percentages of monosomy 3

In search of 'community': a critical review of community mental health services for women in African settings

Community is deemed a central resource for the improvement of health, across disciplines, contexts and conditions. However, what is meant by this term is rarely critically explored. In Global Mental Health, considerable efforts in recent years have been directed towards scaling up ‘community’ approaches, with variable success, creating the need to better understand approaches to its use. Our study contributes to this need, through a critical review of studies engaging with the term ‘community’ in relation to women’s mental health services in African settings. Our review explored 30 peer-reviewed articles from the past 15 years, which were systematically evaluated for quality of evidence. Studies were then analysed using a blend of conventional and directed content analysis to unpack perspectives on the term’s use in intervention and phenomenological studies. We identified four broad categories of community: (1) place (shared geographical location or institutional affiliation), (2) practice (belongingness to a shared activity or profession), (3) symbols (meanings and experiences associated with shared community life) and (4) identity (diagnostic identity around a mental health condition). Analysis identified community of place as the most common primary focus of interest across the sample, with 80% of papers referencing this dimension. We noted that in studies where communities of practice were the focus, this was in relation to leveraging local knowledge to inform or support service delivery of intervention programmes, often designed by outsiders. Implications for future policy and mental health services research are discussed