The forgotten '45 : Donald Dubh's rebellion in an archipelagic context

The final rebellion of Donald Dubh, heir to the forfeited MacDonald lordship of the Isles, is usually examined within the context of Highland rebellions that occurred in the half century after forfeiture. However, the factors that motivated the Islesmen to rise in rebellion in 1545 are multi-faceted and can only be fully understood by placing the rising in a wider context, which considers national and archipelagic events. The discussion that follows explores the reasons why the Islesmen, almost unanimously, entered into agreement with Henry VIII to attack Scotland from the west and why this endeavour failed. At the same time, the article highlights Henry’s recognition of the strategic importance of the west which led him into alliance with Donald Dubh and his supporters

A model structure for coloured operads in symmetric spectra

We describe a model structure for coloured operads with values in the category of symmetric spectra (with the positive model structure), in which fibrations and weak equivalences are defined at the level of the underlying collections. This allows us to treat R-module spectra (where R is a cofibrant ring spectrum) as algebras over a cofibrant spectrum-valued operad with R as its first term. Using this model structure, we give suficient conditions for homotopical localizations in the category of symmetric spectra to preserve module structures.Comment: 16 page

Operadic formulation of topological vertex algebras and Gerstenhaber or Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras

We give the operadic formulation of (weak, strong) topological vertex algebras, which are variants of topological vertex operator algebras studied recently by Lian and Zuckerman. As an application, we obtain a conceptual and geometric construction of the Batalin-Vilkovisky algebraic structure (or the Gerstenhaber algebra structure) on the cohomology of a topological vertex algebra (or of a weak topological vertex algebra) by combining this operadic formulation with a theorem of Getzler (or of Cohen) which formulates Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras (or Gerstenhaber algebras) in terms of the homology of the framed little disk operad (or of the little disk operad).Comment: 42 page

On operad structures of moduli spaces and string theory

Recent algebraic structures of string theory, including homotopy Lie algebras, gravity algebras and Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras, are deduced from the topology of the moduli spaces of punctured Riemann spheres. The principal reason for these structures to appear is as simple as the following. A conformal field theory is an algebra over the operad of punctured Riemann surfaces, this operad gives rise to certain standard operads governing the three kinds of algebras, and that yields the structures of such algebras on the (physical) state space naturally.Comment: 33 pages (An elaboration of minimal area metrics and new references are added

Yukawa Couplings in Heterotic Compactification

We present a practical, algebraic method for efficiently calculating the Yukawa couplings of a large class of heterotic compactifications on Calabi-Yau three-folds with non-standard embeddings. Our methodology covers all of, though is not restricted to, the recently classified positive monads over favourable complete intersection Calabi-Yau three-folds. Since the algorithm is based on manipulating polynomials it can be easily implemented on a computer. This makes the automated investigation of Yukawa couplings for large classes of smooth heterotic compactifications a viable possibility.Comment: 38 page

Multiperspective analysis of erosion tolerance

Erosion tolerance is the most multidisciplinary field of soil erosion research. Scientists have shown lack in ability to adequately analyze the huge list of variables that influence soil loss tolerance definitions. For these the perspectives of erosion made by farmers, environmentalists, society and politicians have to be considered simultaneously. Partial and biased definitions of erosion tolerance may explain not only the polemic nature of the currently suggested values but also, in part, the nonadoption of the desired levels of erosion control. To move towards a solution, considerable changes would have to occur on how this topic is investigated, especially among scientists, who would have to change methods and strategies and extend the perspective of research out of the boundaries of the physical processes and the frontiers of the academy. A more effective integration and communication with the society and farmers, to learn about their perspective of erosion and a multidisciplinary approach, integrating soil, social, economic and environmental sciences are essential for improved erosion tolerance definitions. In the opinion of the authors, soil erosion research is not moving in this direction and a better understanding of erosion tolerance is not to be expected in the near future

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is a second generation water Cherenkov detector designed to determine whether the currently observed solar neutrino deficit is a result of neutrino oscillations. The detector is unique in its use of D2O as a detection medium, permitting it to make a solar model-independent test of the neutrino oscillation hypothesis by comparison of the charged- and neutral-current interaction rates. In this paper the physical properties, construction, and preliminary operation of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory are described. Data and predicted operating parameters are provided whenever possible.Comment: 58 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Nucl. Inst. Meth. Uses elsart and epsf style files. For additional information about SNO see http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca . This version has some new reference

Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders 1 . They are heritable 2,3 and etiologically related 4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts 6–11 . In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

A baby steps/giant steps Monte Carlo algorithm for computing roadmaps in smooth compact real hypersurfaces

International audienceWe consider the problem of constructing roadmaps of real algebraic sets. The problem was introduced by Canny to answer connectivity questions and solve motion planning problems. Given $s$ polynomial equations with rational coefficients, of degree $D$ in $n$ variables, Canny's algorithm has a Monte Carlo cost of $s^n\log(s) D^{O(n^2)}$ operations in $\mathbb{Q}$; a deterministic version runs in time $s^n \log(s) D^{O(n^4)}$. The next improvement was due to Basu, Pollack and Roy, with an algorithm of deterministic cost $s^{d+1} D^{O(n^2)}$ for the more general problem of computing roadmaps of semi-algebraic sets ($d \le n$ is the dimension of an associated object). We give a Monte Carlo algorithm of complexity $(nD)^{O(n^{1.5})}$ for the problem of computing a roadmap of a compact hypersurface $V$ of degree $D$ in $n$ variables; we also have to assume that $V$ has a finite number of singular points. Even under these extra assumptions, no previous algorithm featured a cost better than $D^{O(n^2)}$