8,077 research outputs found
A Search for Environmental Effects on Type Ia Supernovae
We use integrated colors and B and V absolute magnitudes of Type Ia supernova
(SN) host galaxies in order to search for environmental effects on the SN
optical properties. With the new sample of 44 SNe we confirm the conclusion by
Hamuy et al. (1996a) that bright events occur preferentially in young stellar
environments. We find also that the brightest SNe occur in the least luminous
galaxies, a possible indication that metal-poorer neighbourhoods produce the
more luminous events. The interpretation of these results is made difficult,
however, due to the fact that galaxies with younger stellar populations are
also lower in luminosity. In an attempt to remove this ambiguity we use models
for the line strengths in the absorption spectrum of five early-type galaxies,
in order to estimate metallicities and ages of the SN host galaxies. With the
addition of abundance estimates from nebular analysis of the emission spectra
of three spiral galaxies, we find possible further evidence that luminous SNe
are produced in metal-poor neighborhoods. Further spectroscopic observations of
the SN host galaxies will be necessary to test these results and assist in
disentangling the age/metallicity effects on Type Ia SNe.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, to appear in the September 2000 issue of The
Astronomical Journa
The Algorithmic Origins of Life
Although it has been notoriously difficult to pin down precisely what it is
that makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that
its informational aspect is one key property, perhaps the key property. The
unique informational narrative of living systems suggests that life may be
characterized by context-dependent causal influences, and in particular, that
top-down (or downward) causation -- where higher-levels influence and constrain
the dynamics of lower-levels in organizational hierarchies -- may be a major
contributor to the hierarchal structure of living systems. Here we propose that
the origin of life may correspond to a physical transition associated with a
shift in causal structure, where information gains direct, and
context-dependent causal efficacy over the matter it is instantiated in. Such a
transition may be akin to more traditional physical transitions (e.g.
thermodynamic phase transitions), with the crucial distinction that determining
which phase (non-life or life) a given system is in requires dynamical
information and therefore can only be inferred by identifying causal
architecture. We discuss some potential novel research directions based on this
hypothesis, including potential measures of such a transition that may be
amenable to laboratory study, and how the proposed mechanism corresponds to the
onset of the unique mode of (algorithmic) information processing characteristic
of living systems.Comment: 13 pages, 1 tabl
Probing the low transverse momentum domain of Z production with novel variables
The measurement of the low transverse momentum region of vector boson
production in Drell-Yan processes has long been invaluable to testing our
knowledge of QCD dynamics both beyond fixed-order in perturbation theory as
well as in the non-perturbative region. Recently the D\O\ collaboration have
introduced novel variables which lead to improved measurements compared to the
case of the standard QT variable. To complement this improvement on the
experimental side, we develop here a complete phenomenological study dedicated
in particular to the new \phi* variable. We compare our study, which contains
the state-of-the-art next-to-next-to-leading resummation of large logarithms
and a smooth matching to the full next-to-leading order result, to the
experimental data and find excellent agreement over essentially the entire
range of \phi*, even without direct inclusion of non-perturbative effects. We
comment on our findings and on the potential for future studies to constrain
non-perturbative behaviour.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in JHEP. A
figure with comparison to RESBOS has been adde
Effectiveness of enhanced diabetes care to patients of South Asian ethnicity : the United Kingdom Asian Diabetes Study (UKADS) : a cluster randomised controlled trial
Background: Delivering high quality and evidence based healthcare to deprived sectors of the community is a major goal for society. We investigated the effectiveness of a culturally sensitive enhanced care package in UK general practice in improving cardiovascular risk factors in South Asian patients with type 2 diabetes.
Methods: 21 inner city practices were randomised to intervention (enhanced practice nurse time, link worker and diabetes specialist nurse support) (n=868) or control (standard care) (n=618) groups. Prescribing algorithms with clearly defined targets were provided for all practices. Main outcome measures comprised changes in blood pressure, total cholesterol and glycaemic control (HbA1c) after 2 years.
Findings: At baseline, groups were similar with respect to age, sex and cardiovascular risk factors.
Comparing treatment groups, after adjustment for confounders, and clustering, differences in diastolic blood pressure (1.91mmHg, P=0.0001) and mean arterial pressure (1.36mmHg, P=0.0180) were significant. There were no significant differences between groups for total cholesterol or HbA1c. Economic analysis indicates the nurse-led intervention was not cost-effective.
Across the whole study population systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and cholesterol decreased significantly by 4.9mmHg, 3.8mmHg and 0.45mmol/L respectively, but there was no change in HbA1c.
Interpretation: Additional, although limited, benefits were observed from our culturally enhanced care package over and above the secular changes achieved in the UK in recent years. Stricter targets in general practice and further measures to motivate patients are needed to maximise healthcare outcomes in South Asian patients with diabetes
One-loop weak corrections to hadronic production of Z bosons at large transverse momenta
To match the precision of present and future measurements of Z-boson
production at hadron colliders, electroweak radiative corrections must be
included in the theory predictions. In this paper we consider their effect on
the transverse momentum () distribution of Z bosons, with emphasis on
large . We evaluate, analytically and numerically, the full one-loop
corrections for the parton scattering reaction and its
crossed variants. In addition we derive compact approximate expressions which
are valid in the high-energy region, where the weak corrections are strongly
enhanced by logarithms of . These expressions include quadratic
and single logarithms as well as those terms that are not logarithmically
enhanced. This approximation, which confirms and extends earlier results
obtained to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, permits to reproduce the
exact one-loop corrections with high precision. Numerical results are presented
for proton-proton and proton-antiproton collisions. The corrections are
negative and their size increases with . For the Tevatron they amount up
to -7% at 300 GeV. For the LHC, where transverse momenta of 2 TeV or more can
be reached, corrections up to -40% are observed. We also include the dominant
two-loop effects of up to 8% in our final LHC predictions.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure
Law, politics and the governance of English and Scottish joint-stock companies 1600-1850
This article examines the impact of law on corporate governance by means of a case study of joint-stock enterprise in England and Scotland before 1850. Based on a dataset of over 450 company constitutions together with qualitative information on governance practice, it finds little evidence to support the hypothesis that common-law regimes such as England were more supportive of economic growth than civil-law jurisdictions such as Scotland: indeed, levels of shareholder protection were slightly stronger in the civil-law zone. Other factors, such as local political institutions, played a bigger role in shaping organisational forms and business practice
Next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic corrections at small transverse momentum in hadronic collisions
We study the region of small transverse momenta in qqbar- and gg-initiated
processes with no colored particle detected in the final state. We present the
universal expression of the O(alpha_s^2) logarithmically enhanced contributions
up to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. From there we extract the
coefficients that allow the resummation of the large logarithmic contributions.
We find that the coefficient known in the literature as B^{(2)} is process
dependent, since it receives a hard contamination from the one loop correction
to the leading order subprocess. We present the general result of B^{(2)} for
both quark and gluon channels. In particular, in the case of Higgs production,
this result will be relevant to improve the matching between resummed
predictions and fixed order calculations.Comment: LaTeX, 8 pages. Few typos corrected, particularly Eq.(25). Two
references added, to be published in PR
Rationale and design of the ADDITION-Leicester study, a systematic screening programme and randomised controlled trial of multi-factorial cardiovascular risk intervention in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus detected by screening.
BACKGROUND: Earlier diagnosis followed by multi-factorial cardiovascular risk intervention may improve outcomes in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Latent phase identification through screening requires structured, appropriately targeted population-based approaches. Providers responsible for implementing screening policy await evidence of clinical and cost effectiveness from randomised intervention trials in screen-detected T2DM cases. UK South Asians are at particularly high risk of abnormal glucose tolerance and T2DM. To be effective national screening programmes must achieve good coverage across the population by identifying barriers to the detection of disease and adapting to the delivery of earlier care. Here we describe the rationale and methods of a systematic community screening programme and randomised controlled trial of cardiovascular risk management within a UK multiethnic setting (ADDITION-Leicester). DESIGN: A single-blind cluster randomised, parallel group trial among people with screen-detected T2DM comparing a protocol driven intensive multi-factorial treatment with conventional care. METHODS: ADDITION-Leicester consists of community-based screening and intervention phases within 20 general practices coordinated from a single academic research centre. Screening adopts a universal diagnostic approach via repeated 75g-oral glucose tolerance tests within an eligible non-diabetic population of 66,320 individuals aged 40-75 years (25-75 years South Asian). Volunteers also provide detailed medical and family histories; complete health questionnaires, undergo anthropometric measures, lipid profiling and a proteinuria assessment. Primary outcome is reduction in modelled Coronary Heart Disease (UKPDS CHD) risk at five years. Seven thousand (30% of South Asian ethnic origin) volunteers over three years will be recruited to identify a screen-detected T2DM cohort (n = 285) powered to detected a 6% relative difference (80% power, alpha 0.05) between treatment groups at one year. Randomisation will occur at practice-level with newly diagnosed T2DM cases receiving either conventional (according to current national guidelines) or intensive (algorithmic target-driven multi-factorial cardiovascular risk intervention) treatments. DISCUSSION: ADDITION-Leicester is the largest multiethnic (targeting >30% South Asian recruitment) community T2DM and vascular risk screening programme in the UK. By assessing feasibility and efficacy of T2DM screening, it will inform national disease prevention policy and contribute significantly to our understanding of the health care needs of UK South Asians. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrial.gov (NCT00318032).RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
Monte-Carlo Simulations of the Dynamical Behavior of the Coulomb Glass
We study the dynamical behavior of disordered many-particle systems with
long-range Coulomb interactions by means of damage-spreading simulations. In
this type of Monte-Carlo simulations one investigates the time evolution of the
damage, i.e. the difference of the occupation numbers of two systems, subjected
to the same thermal noise. We analyze the dependence of the damage on
temperature and disorder strength. For zero disorder the spreading transition
coincides with the equilibrium phase transition, whereas for finite disorder,
we find evidence for a dynamical phase transition well below the transition
temperature of the pure system.Comment: 10 pages RevTeX, 8 Postscript figure
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