Cosmological structure formation from soft topological defects

Some models have extremely low-mass pseudo-Goldstone bosons that can lead to vacuum phase transitions at late times, after the decoupling of the microwave background.. This can generate structure formation at redshifts z greater than or approx 10 on mass scales as large as M approx 10 to the 18th solar masses. Such low energy transitions can lead to large but phenomenologically acceptable density inhomogeneities in soft topological defects (e.g., domain walls) with minimal variations in the microwave anisotropy, as small as delta Y/T less than or approx 10 to the minus 6 power. This mechanism is independent of the existence of hot, cold, or baryonic dark matter. It is a novel alternative to both cosmic string and to inflationary quantum fluctuations as the origin of structure in the Universe

Speculative bubbles in Bitcoin markets? An empirical investigation into the fundamental value of Bitcoin

Amid its rapidly increasing usage and immense public interest the subject of Bitcoin has raised profound economic and societal issues. In this paper we undertake economic and econometric modelling of Bitcoin prices. As with many asset classes we show that Bitcoin exhibits speculative bubbles. Further, we find empirical evidence that the fundamental price of Bitcoin is zero

QED in strong, finite-flux magnetic fields

Lower bounds are placed on the fermionic determinants of Euclidean quantum electrodynamics in two and four dimensions in the presence of a smooth, finite-flux, static, unidirectional magnetic field $B(r) =(0,0,B(r))$, where $B(r) \geq 0$ or $B(r) \leq 0$, and $r$ is a point in the xy-plane.Comment: 10 pages, postscript (in uuencoded compressed tar file

Pre-hospital pain management patterns and triage nurse documentation

Introduction: Little is known about the public's preferences for pain management prior to attending an Emergency Department (ED). Therefore, the aim of the study was to explore (i) triage documentation of pre-hospital analgesic patterns for patients presenting in pain; (ii) patient documented explanations for not self administering an analgesic in the pre-hospital setting; (iii) triage nurse documentation of pain descriptors and or pain scores; and (iv) the disposition of ED patients presenting in pain. Method: A 2-week retrospective exploratory review was conducted. Results: There were 2142 ED presentations during the 2-week study and 52% of patients had documented evidence of arriving with a painful condition. Of the 1113 patients 60% were documented to be in pain on arrival. Of the group documented to have arrived in pain only 28% self-administered or received an analgesic in the pre-hospital/community setting. Patients provided a variety of reasons for not self-administering a pre-hospital analgesic. Conclusion: Unnecessary suffering may be avoided if the public had a better understanding of pain and the benefits of pain management. Further research is required to better understand the beliefs and attitudes towards pain and pain management by clinicians and the public. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

A Logical Design Methodology for Relational Databases Using the Extended ER Model

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154152/1/39015099114723.pd

Culture change in a professional sports team: Shaping environmental contexts and regulating power

Although high performing cultures are crucial for the enduring success of professional sport performance teams, theoretical and practical understanding of how they are established and sustained is lacking. To develop knowledge in this area, a case study was undertaken to examine the key mechanisms and processes of a successful culture change programme at English Rugby Union’s Leeds Carnegie. Exploring the change process from a 360 degree perspective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with team management, one specialist coach, six players, and the CEO. Analysed and explained through decentred theory, results revealed that culture change was effectively facilitated by team management: a) subtly and covertly shaping the physical, structural, and psychosocial context in which support staff and players made performance-impacting choices, and b) regulating the ‘to and fro’ of power which characterises professional sport performance teams. Decentred theory is also supported as an effective framework for culture change study

Fermionic Determinant of the Massive Schwinger Model

A representation for the fermionic determinant of the massive Schwinger model, or $QED_2$, is obtained that makes a clean separation between the Schwinger model and its massive counterpart. From this it is shown that the index theorem for $QED_2$ follows from gauge invariance, that the Schwinger model's contribution to the determinant is canceled in the weak field limit, and that the determinant vanishes when the field strength is sufficiently strong to form a zero-energy bound state

The abundance of high-redshift objects as a probe of non-Gaussian initial conditions

The observed abundance of high-redshift galaxies and clusters contains precious information about the properties of the initial perturbations. We present a method to compute analytically the number density of objects as a function of mass and redshift for a range of physically motivated non-Gaussian models. In these models the non-Gaussianity can be dialed from zero and is assumed to be small. We compute the probability density function for the smoothed dark matter density field and we extend the Press and Schechter approach to mildly non-Gaussian density fields. The abundance of high-redshift objects can be directly related to the non-Gaussianity parameter and thus to the physical processes that generated deviations from the Gaussian behaviour. Even a skewness parameter of order 0.1 implies a dramatic change in the predicted abundance of z\gap 1 objects. Observations from NGST and X-ray satellites (XMM) can be used to accurately measure the amount of non-Gaussianity in the primordial density field.Comment: Minor changes to match the accepted ApJ version (ApJ, 539