Gauge Theory and the Excision of Repulson Singularities

We study brane configurations that give rise to large-N gauge theories with eight supersymmetries and no hypermultiplets. These configurations include a variety of wrapped, fractional, and stretched branes or strings. The corresponding spacetime geometries which we study have a distinct kind of singularity known as a repulson. We find that this singularity is removed by a distinctive mechanism, leaving a smooth geometry with a core having an enhanced gauge symmetry. The spacetime geometry can be related to large-N Seiberg-Witten theory.Comment: 31 pages LaTeX, 2 figures (v3: references added

Towards a Stringy Resolution of the Cosmological Singularity

We study cosmological solutions to the low-energy effective action of heterotic string theory including possible leading order $\alpha'$ corrections and a potential for the dilaton. We consider the possibility that including such stringy corrections can resolve the initial cosmological singularity. Since the exact form of these corrections is not known the higher-derivative terms are constructed so that they vanish when the metric is de Sitter spacetime. The constructed terms are compatible with known restrictions from scattering amplitude and string worldsheet beta-function calculations. Analytic and numerical techniques are used to construct a singularity-free cosmological solution. At late times and low-curvatures the metric is asymptotically Minkowski and the dilaton is frozen. In the high-curvature regime the universe enters a de Sitter phase.Comment: 6 pages, 2 Figures; minor revisions; references added; REVTeX 4; version to appear in Phys. Rev.

CDMS, Supersymmetry and Extra Dimensions

The CDMS experiment aims to directly detect massive, cold dark matter particles originating from the Milky Way halo. Charge and lattice excitations are detected after a particle scatters in a Ge or Si crystal kept at ~30 mK, allowing to separate nuclear recoils from the dominating electromagnetic background. The operation of 12 detectors in the Soudan mine for 75 live days in 2004 delivered no evidence for a signal, yielding stringent limits on dark matter candidates from supersymmetry and universal extra dimensions. Thirty Ge and Si detectors are presently installed in the Soudan cryostat, and operating at base temperature. The run scheduled to start in 2006 is expected to yield a one order of magnitude increase in dark matter sensitivity.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of the 7th UCLA symposium on sources and detection of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, Marina del Rey, Feb 22-24, 200

Climate variability and climate change vulnerability and adaptation. Workshop summary

Representatives from fifteen countries met in Prague, Czech Republic, on September 11-15, 1995, to share results from the analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to global climate change. The workshop focused on the issues of global climate change and its impacts on various sectors of a national economy. The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), which has been signed by more than 150 governments worldwide, calls on signatory parties to develop and communicate measures they are implementing to respond to global climate change. An analysis of a country`s vulnerability to changes in the climate helps it identify suitable adaptation measures. These analyses are designed to determine the extent of the impacts of global climate change on sensitive sectors such as agricultural crops, forests, grasslands and livestock, water resources, and coastal areas. Once it is determined how vulnerable a country may be to climate change, it is possible to identify adaptation measures for ameliorating some or all of the effects.The objectives of the vulnerability and adaptation workshop were to: The objectives of the vulnerability and adaptation workshop were to: Provide an opportunity for countries to describe their study results; Encourage countries to learn from the experience of the more complete assessments and adjust their studies accordingly; Identify issues and analyses that require further investigation; and Summarize results and experiences for governmental and intergovernmental organizations

Effect of age, sex and gender on pain sensitivity: A narrative review

© 2017 Eltumi And Tashani. Introduction: An increasing body of literature on sex and gender differences in pain sensitivity has been accumulated in recent years. There is also evidence from epidemiological research that painful conditions are more prevalent in older people. The aim of this narrative review is to critically appraise the relevant literature investigating the presence of age and sex differences in clinical and experimental pain conditions. Methods: A scoping search of the literature identifying relevant peer reviewed articles was conducted on May 2016. Information and evidence from the key articles were narratively described and data was quantitatively synthesised to identify gaps of knowledge in the research literature concerning age and sex differences in pain responses. Results: This critical appraisal of the literature suggests that the results of the experimental and clinical studies regarding age and sex differences in pain contain some contradictions as far as age differences in pain are concerned. While data from the clinical studies are more consistent and seem to point towards the fact that chronic pain prevalence increases in the elderly findings from the experimental studies on the other hand were inconsistent, with pain threshold increasing with age in some studies and decreasing with age in others. Conclusion: There is a need for further research using the latest advanced quantitative sensory testing protocols to measure the function of small nerve fibres that are involved in nociception and pain sensitivity across the human life span. Implications: Findings from these studies should feed into and inform evidence emerging from other types of studies (e.g. brain imaging technique and psychometrics) suggesting that pain in the older humans may have unique characteristics that affect how old patients respond to intervention

Structural Analysis of Narratives with the Coq Proof Assistant

Abstract. This paper proposes a novel application of Interactive Proof Assistants for studying the formal properties of Narratives, building on recent work demonstrating the suitability of Intuitionistic Linear Logic as a conceptual model. More specifically, we describe a method for modelling narrative resources and actions, together with constraints on the story endings in the form of an ILL sequent. We describe how well-formed narratives can be interpreted from cut-free proof trees of the sequent obtained using Coq. We finally describe how to reason about narratives at the structural level using Coq: by allowing to prove 2nd order properties on the set of all the proofs generated by a sequent, Coq assists the verification of structural narrative properties traversing all possible variants of a given plot

The current state of digital manikins to support pain self-reporting: a systematic literature review

This systematic literature review aimed to explore the current state of digital manikins to support pain self-reporting and to explore the extent to which manikins had progressed along the translational pathway. We systematically searched six electronic databases using a combination of key words and MeSH terms for “pain” and “manikin” to identify original studies in English that used a digital pain manikin for collecting information from adults with any condition. We extracted and descriptively synthesised data on the characteristics of studies and digital pain manikins and mapped them to a stage of the translational pathway (ie, design, testing, metric validation, and diffusion). We screened 6,189 articles, of which we included 104. Articles reported on 31 unique digital pain manikins. Most studies were conducted in Europe (n = 60; 58%), recruited people with pain/painful conditions (n = 69; 66%) from clinical settings (n = 67; 64%). Of the 31 manikins, the majority were two-dimensional (n = 21; 68%) with a front and back body view (n = 18; 58%) and allowed users to draw their pain on any area of the manikin (n = 23; 74%). Most manikins were still in the development and testing stages (n = 23; 74%). Only eight (26%) had progressed fully through the translational pathway, taking between 7 and 20 years to go from early development to diffusion. We found a substantial number of mostly two-dimensional digital pain manikins reported on in the last decade. However, most were still at early stages of the translational pathway, with only few having progressed through to diffusion into research and health care settings

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations