Phonon-phason coupling in icosahedral quasicrystals

From relaxation simulations of decoration-based quasicrystal structure models using microscopically based interatomic pair potentials, we have calculated the (usually neglected) phonon-phason coupling constant. Its sign is opposite for the two alloys studied, i-AlMn and i-(Al,Cu)Li; a dimensionless measure of its magnitude relative to the phonon and phason elastic constants is of order 1/10, suggesting its effects are small but detectable. We also give a criterion for when phonon-phason effects are noticeable in diffuse tails of Bragg peaks.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, uses Europhys Lett macros (included

Professional Songwriting: Creativity, the Creative Process and tensions between higher education songwriting and industry practice in the U.K.

Musical creativity has been scrutinised from a variety of perspectives (Burnard, 2012); however, research into the creation of songs remains limited (Bennett, 2013). This chapter presents research that explores the creative process of songwriting. Two contrasting perspectives are considered: a professional songwriting team and a student songwriting team, both working to the same ‘real-world’ brief. Key findings reveal that both teams worked in a similar way in terms of the procedure of songwriting, but that there were great differences in the way that each team searched for and selected ideas, and evaluated the emerging song. We question why these differences occurred, offering a discussion of the context and role of songwriting in the curriculum in relation to the growing trend placing entrepreneurialism and creativity at the centre of Higher Education (HE) agendas (Odena & Welch, 2013)

Irrebuttable Presumption Doctrine: Applied to State and Federal Regulations excluding Females from Contact Sports

Yellow Springs Exempted Village School District Board of Education v. Ohio High School Athletic Association, 443 F. Supp. 753 (S.D. Ohio 1978). Since the early part of this decade, state high school athletic association rules barring females from participation in various interscholastic sports have been invalidated at both the state and federal level. The recent federal district court decision in Yellow Springs Exempted Village School District Board of Education v. Ohio High School Athletic Association conforms to this trend by requiring equal opportunity for females in state high school athletics. Judicial invalidation of these discriminatory regulations has generally been based on one of the various state laws prohibiting sex discrimination or on the equal protection clause of the fourteenth :amendment to the United States Constitution. In contrast, the court in Yellow Springs found that an Ohio High School Athletic Association rule, by creating an irrebuttable presumption of female nonqualification, violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. Moreover, the court extended its decision beyond the challenged state regulation to find that 45 C.F.R. section 86.41(b), a federal administrative guideline for providing equal athletic opportunity in public schools, violates the due process clause of the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution to the extent that it authorizes the exclusion of females from contact sports. Yellow Springs is the first recorded decision to consider the constitutionality of this federal regulation. This casenote will examine both findings of the court, each of which break new judicial ground in the area of sports. The distinctions in methodology and effect between an equal protection analysis and a due process analysis will be discussed in order to compare the two different approaches to invalidation of sexually discriminatory athletic rules. Then the specific language of 45 C.F.R. section 86.41(b) and related sections will be examined in reviewing the Yellow Springs court\u27s decision that this federal regulation is unconstitutional

Competing on Climate Change: An interprovincial, longitudinal review of emerging environmental risks to Canadian homeowners

In an era of accelerated climate change, Canadian homeowners face growing financial exposures to environmental risks, and climate-related property damage now represents the largest aggregate cause of losses in the global insurance industry (Mills, 2012, p. 1424). This study presents data regarding hydrological, meteorological, and wildfire disasters occurring in Canadian provinces from 1970 to 2010. The rising incidence of natural disasters suggests that natural disasters are affecting an increasing number of Canadians across all provinces. In light of this data, the researcher recommends that Canadian insurers implement a “4-C” strategy to help reduce the human impact of future natural disasters: (1) Coaching local communities to adapt to climate change; (2) Consensus-building around common consumer risks; (3) Collaborating with governments to protect against catastrophic losses; and (4) Cooperating with consumers to co-insure frequent events. Finally, it is recommended that risk capital be invested carefully and sustainably, so that the 4-Cs is customized to address emerging challenges specific to each climate zone

Phason elasticity of a three-dimensional quasicrystal: transfer-matrix method

We introduce a new transfer matrix method for calculating the thermodynamic properties of random-tiling models of quasicrystals in any number of dimensions, and describe how it may be used to calculate the phason elastic properties of these models, which are related to experimental measurables such as phason Debye-Waller factors, and diffuse scattering wings near Bragg peaks. We apply our method to the canonical-cell model of the icosahedral phase, making use of results from a previously-presented calculation in which the possible structures for this model under specific periodic boundary conditions were cataloged using a computational technique. We give results for the configurational entropy density and the two fundamental elastic constants for a range of system sizes. The method is general enough allow a similar calculation to be performed for any other random tiling model.Comment: 38 pages, 3 PostScript figures, self-expanding uuencoded compressed tar file, LaTeX using RevTeX macros and epsfig.st