Epistemic ethnonationalism: identity policing in neo-Traditionalism and Decoloniality theory

Traditionalism’s most influential contemporary revival, Dugin’s Eurasianism, is routinely characterised as being of the radical Right. The Decoloniality theory of Quijano, Mignolo and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, on the other hand, with its intellectual roots in Marxist dependency theory, presents itself as on the progressive Left. Yet, despite their different intellectual genealogies and drastically different reputations, both theoretical approaches have converged on a position with troubling practical consequences: epistemic ethnonationalism, the doctrine that which beliefs one should adopt and which concepts one should employ are determined by which ethnos/ethnie one belongs to. Both approaches deplore acceptance of Western beliefs and employment of Western concepts outside the West, both turn to existential phenomenology to ground their ethnorelativism, and both have influenced contemporary politics. I assess the theoretical underpinnings of both approaches, and argue that if neo-Traditionalism is to be classified as a Rightist body of thought, then Decoloniality theory ought also to be

Penrose limits and maximal supersymmetry

We show that the maximally supersymmetric pp-waves of IIB superstring and M-theories can be obtained as a Penrose limit of the supersymmetric AdS x S solutions. In addition we find that in a certain large tension limit, the geometry seen by a brane probe in an AdS x S background is either Minkowski space or a maximally supersymmetric pp-wave.Comment: 12 pages, v2: references adde

Can aggregate quarry silt lagoons provide resources for wading birds?

Wading birds have declined across Europe as the intensification of lowland agriculture has resulted in the loss and degradation of wetland areas. Lowland aggregate extraction sites that incorporate areas of fine, waste sediments deposited in silt lagoons have the potential to be restored for wader conservation. We set out to determine the potential value of silt lagoons to wading birds by comparing the water quality, sediment profiles, aquatic invertebrate abundance and diversity (prey availability) and wader site use at five sites representing various stages of active aggregate extraction and restoration for conservation purposes. Wader counts were conducted monthly over a twelve month period using replicated scan samples, and the invertebrate communities studied during the breeding and autumn migration season (June–September). Water quality variables were similar between sites, but sediments from active quarries were dominated by moderately sorted fine sands in comparison to the coarser sediment profiles of restored areas. June and September there was no significant difference in invertebrate diversity between sites, however richness was significantly lower on quarry sites and total abundance a factor of ten higher at restored sites than on silt lagoons, with the dominant taxa similar across all sites. Waders used all sites; albeit at lower abundance and richness on silt lagoons and two species were recorded breeding on active silting sites. We conclude that the fine, uniform sediments of modern silt lagoons limited invertebrate diversity and abundance, diminishing the value of silt lagoons to waders. Simple low-cost intervention measures increasing substrate heterogeneity and creating temporary ponds could increase invertebrate richness and abundance, and enhance the conservation potential of these sites

Quantum Mechanics of the Doubled Torus

We investigate the quantum mechanics of the doubled torus system, introduced by Hull [1] to describe T-folds in a more geometric way. Classically, this system consists of a world-sheet Lagrangian together with some constraints, which reduce the number of degrees of freedom to the correct physical number. We consider this system from the point of view of constrained Hamiltonian dynamics. In this case the constraints are second class, and we can quantize on the constrained surface using Dirac brackets. We perform the quantization for a simple T-fold background and compare to results for the conventional non-doubled torus system. Finally, we formulate a consistent supersymmetric version of the doubled torus system, including supersymmetric constraints.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figure; v2: references added, minor corrections to final sectio

A new maximally supersymmetric background of IIB superstring theory

We present a maximally supersymmetric IIB string background. The geometry is that of a conformally flat lorentzian symmetric space G/K with solvable G, with a homogeneous five-form flux. We give the explicit supergravity solution, compute the isometries, the 32 Killing spinors, and the symmetry superalgebra, and then discuss T-duality and the relation to M-theory.Comment: 17 page

Firm Size and the Information Content of Over-the-Counter Common Stock Offerings

We examine the announcement period of stock returns for 179 over-the-counter (OTC) firms that issue common stock to reduce nonconvertible debt. We find that small OTC firms experience returns that are significantly more negative than large OTC firms. Regression tests reveal that firm size is a significant factor in accounting for stock returns. Other tests establish as firm size a dominant effect. Our support for a firm size effect is consistent with a differential information effect given that firm size is positively related to the amount of information available about firms

Reference to index of Hull Papers 1877-1895

Hugh Synnot Hull entered the civil service at the age of 15 in 1867 as a clerk in the Parliamentary Library, and in 1874 he was transferred to the Office of Stores. By 1879 he was earning 150 pound per annum and in 1893 he succeeded C H Huxtable as Government Storekeeper. Some of the Huxtables were also family friends. Hugh corresponded with his childhood friend Hugh Ralston Huxtable, who had gone to Edinburgh, UK and was for a short time engaged to Emily Agnes Huxtable. In 1878 Hugh became engaged to Laura Ann Allison, daughter of Frank Allison of Sandy Bay and was married to her on 10 January 1880 by Rev J Scott of St John's Presbyterian Church Hobart, at the Allison home in Sandy Bay. Hugh and Laura were both fond of music and were often invited to sing or play accompaniments to entertain friends or for charitable concerts. Hugh was a member of the Orpheus Choir, St Andrew's Church Choir and St Andrew's Choral Society. His cousin, Anna Hull* of Glenorchy also wrote about a visit from Amy Sherwin, the Tasmanian singer, 'she sings splendidly', in 1878 (Hll/61). Life was not easy for the couple as Hugh's salary was not high and although ,as resident clerk to the Stores, he had a rent free Government cottage in Castray Esplanade, this was rather small for a family. Indeed in 1893 he requested better accommodation as three rooms were insufficient for a family of 7, for as he pointed out, three children with croup had to occupy the same bedroom as their parents. They had four sons -Hugh, Frank, Herman and Max. Hugh obviously had difficulty in paying bills; there were many requests for payment and papers relating to debts

Freely acting orbifolds of type IIB string theory on T5T^5

We study freely acting orbifolds of type IIB string theory on $T^5$ that spontaneously break supersymmetry from $\mathcal{N}=8$ to $\mathcal{N}=6,4,2$ or 0 in five dimensions. We focus on orbifolds that are a $\mathbb{Z}_p$ quotient by a T-duality acting on $T^4$ and a shift on the remaining $S^1$. Modular invariant partition functions are constructed and detailed examples of both symmetric and asymmetric orbifolds are presented, including new examples of five-dimensional non-supersymmetric string theories with no tachyons. The orbifolds we consider arise at special points in the moduli space of string theory compactifications with a duality twist. The supergravity limit of these are Scherk-Schwarz reductions which generate gauged supergravities with positive definite potentials on the moduli space in five dimensions. Both symmetric and asymmetric freely acting orbifolds give a landscape of Minkowski vacua. For gauged supergravities to belong to this landscape, we find a number of constraints and conditions. Firstly, the scalar potential should lead to a massive spectrum with masses that obey quantization conditions arising from a string theory orbifold, which we discuss in detail. Secondly, we find constraints on the massless sector, e.g. in the examples of orbifolds preserving sixteen supercharges in five dimensions that we consider, only an odd number of vector multiplets arise. Lastly, we present new examples of candidate asymmetric orbifolds with modular invariant partition functions, but with non-integral coefficients in the $q\bar{q}$-expansion in the twisted sector.Comment: 66 pages, added refs and minor correction

An AdS/dS duality for a scalar particle

The motion of a scalar particle in (d+1)-dimensional AdS space may be described in terms of the Cartesian coordinates that span the (d+2)-dimensional space in which the AdS space is embedded. Upon quantization, the mass hyperboloid defined in terms of the conjugate momenta turns into the wave equation in AdS space. By interchanging the roles of coordinates and conjugate momenta in the (d+2)-dimensional space we arrive at a dual description. For massive modes, the dual description is equivalent to the conventional formulation, as required by holography. For tachyonic modes, this interchange of coordinates and momenta establishes a duality between Euclidean AdS and dS spaces. We discuss its implications on Green functions for the various vacua.Comment: 13 pages, v2 contains expanded discussion to appear in Phys. Lett.