Fiscal autonomy for Scotland? A rejoinder

In their paper „A restatement of the case for fiscal autonomy‟ Hallwood and MacDonald (2006b) claim that Barnett is a formula for a rake‟s progress and that fiscal autonomy, as outlined in their previous paper „The economic case for Scottish fiscal autonomy: with or without independence‟ (Hallwood and MacDonald, 2006a), offers a superior financial settlement for Scotland. We here restate our continued disagreements with their argument. We start with corrections of their interpretation of our paper „Flaws and myths in the case for Scottish fiscal autonomy‟ (Ashcroft, Christie and Swales, 2006) before highlighting where we believe their latest paper fails to provide answers to important questions we posed

Devolution and the economy : a Scottish perspective

In their interesting and challenging chapter John Adams and Peter Robinson assess the consequences for economic development policy of the devolution measures enacted by the UK Labour government post 1997. Their chapter ranges widely over current UK regional disparities, the link between devolution and economic growth, the balance of responsibilities in policy between Whitehall and the devolved administrations, and finally, they raise questions about the developing "quasi-federal" role of Whitehall in regulating or coordinating the new devolved policy landscape. In response, we propose to focus on four issues that we believe are key to understanding the economic consequences of devolution both at the Scottish and UK levels. First, we argue that the view of Scotland's devolutionary experience in economic policy is partial and so does not fully capture the nature and extent of change post 1999. Secondly, we examine the role of devolution in regional economic performance. There is much in their paper on this topic with which we agree but we contend that there are significant omissions in the analysis, which are important for policy choice. Our third section highlights an area not discussed in depth by Adams and Robinson's paper: the funding of the devolution settlement. Here we consider some of the implications of funding arrangements for economic performance and the options for a new funding settlement. Finally, we deal with the difficult issue of co-ordination between the centre and the devolved regions. We contend that co-ordination is largely conspicuous by its absence. Moreover, where coordination is deployed it reflects an inadequate understanding of the extent to which the economies of the regions and devolved territories of the UK are linked

A superconductor to superfluid phase transition in liquid metallic hydrogen

Although hydrogen is the simplest of atoms, it does not form the simplest of solids or liquids. Quantum effects in these phases are considerable (a consequence of the light proton mass) and they have a demonstrable and often puzzling influence on many physical properties, including spatial order. To date, the structure of dense hydrogen remains experimentally elusive. Recent studies of the melting curve of hydrogen indicate that at high (but experimentally accessible) pressures, compressed hydrogen will adopt a liquid state, even at low temperatures. In reaching this phase, hydrogen is also projected to pass through an insulator-to-metal transition. This raises the possibility of new state of matter: a near ground-state liquid metal, and its ordered states in the quantum domain. Ordered quantum fluids are traditionally categorized as superconductors or superfluids; these respective systems feature dissipationless electrical currents or mass flow. Here we report an analysis based on topological arguments of the projected phase of liquid metallic hydrogen, finding that it may represent a new type of ordered quantum fluid. Specifically, we show that liquid metallic hydrogen cannot be categorized exclusively as a superconductor or superfluid. We predict that, in the presence of a magnetic field, liquid metallic hydrogen will exhibit several phase transitions to ordered states, ranging from superconductors to superfluids.Comment: for a related paper see cond-mat/0410425. A correction to the front page caption appeared in Oct 14 issue of Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/links/041014/041014-11.htm

Evidence for a quantum phase transition in electron-doped Pr2−x_{2-x}Cex_{x}CuO4−δ_{4-\delta} from Thermopower measurements

The evidence for a quantum phase transition under the superconducting dome in the high-$T_c$ cuprates has been controversial. We report low temperature normal state thermopower(S) measurements in electron-doped Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_{x}$CuO$_{4-\delta}$ as a function of doping (x from 0.11 to 0.19). We find that at 2K both S and S/T increase dramatically from x=0.11 to 0.16 and then saturate in the overdoped region. This behavior has a remarkable similarity to previous Hall effect results in Pr$_{2-x}$Ce$_{x}$CuO$_{4-\delta}$ . Our results are further evidence for an antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic quantum phase transition in electron-doped cuprates near x=0.16.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Effective mass in quasi two-dimensional systems

The effective mass of the quasiparticle excitations in quasi two-dimensional systems is calculated analytically. It is shown that the effective mass increases sharply when the density approaches the critical one of metal-insulator transition. This suggests a Mott type of transition rather than an Anderson like transition.Comment: 3 pages 3 figure

Break-junction experiments on the zero-bias anomaly of non-magnetic and ferromagnetically ordered metals

We have investigated break junctions of normal non-magnetic metals as well as ferromagnets at low temperatures. The point contacts with radii 0.15 - 15 nm showed zero-bias anomalies which can be attributed to Kondo scattering at a single Kondo impurity at the contact or to the switching of a single conducting channel. The Kondo temperatures derived from the width of the anomalies varied between 10 and 1000 K. These results agree well with literature data on atomic-size contacts of the ferromagnets as well as with spear-anvil type contacts on a wide variety of metals.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Low Temperature Physic

Theory of Diamagnetism in the Pseudogap Phase: Implications from the Self energy of Angle Resolved Photoemission

In this paper we apply the emerging- consensus understanding of the fermionic self energy deduced from angle resolved photoemisssion spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments to deduce the implications for orbital diamagnetism in the underdoped cuprates. Many theories using many different starting points have arrived at a broadened BCS-like form for the normal state self energy associated with a d-wave excitation gap, as is compatible with ARPES data. Establishing compatibility with the f-sum rules, we show how this self energy, along with the constraint that there is no Meissner effect in the normal phase are sufficient to deduce the orbital susceptibility. We conclude, moreover, that diamagnetism is large for a d-wave pseudogap. Our results should apply rather widely to many theories of the pseudogap, independent of the microscopic details.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Length-dependent conductance and thermopower in single-molecule junctions of dithiolated oligophenylene derivatives

We study theoretically the length dependence of both conductance and thermopower in metal-molecule-metal junctions made up of dithiolated oligophenylenes contacted to gold electrodes. We find that while the conductance decays exponentially with increasing molecular length, the thermopower increases linearly as suggested by recent experiments. We also analyze how these transport properties can be tuned with methyl side groups. Our results can be explained by considering the level shifts due to their electron-donating character as well as the tilt-angle dependence of conductance and thermopower. Qualitative features of the substituent effects in our density-functional calculations are explained using a tight-binding model. In addition, we observe symmetry-related even-odd transmission channel degeneracies as a function of molecular length.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.

A spiral curriculum for teaching resuscitation: the what, the why, the how

Background: More than fifty years ago, Jerome Bruner introduced the spiral curriculum based on constructivist ideas. Most fields of education adopted this concept which promises to enable the learner to develop their ability to transfer thinking processes from one context to another - also an essential skill for a medical doctor. Aim: By implementing the spiral curriculum model throughout our course, we aim to not only accelerate our students\u27 learning, we also seek to better prepare them to master situations that arise infrequently or urgently, such as the need for life support skills. Method: Based on the our MBBS entry requirement Possession of a First Aid Certificate , our clinical skills teaching revisits Basic Life Support (BLS) on several occasions throughout the four year degree, building cumulatively on already learnt content. We guide the students to acquire new psychomotor skills at the same time as applying already learnt concepts and facilitating their ongoing learning through inquiry. Equipped with these skills students participate then in our graded submersive, high-fidelity manikin-based simulation program with a focus on BLS and Advanced Life Support (ALS) scenarios. Results: Evaluation comments such as; CPR is vital for medical training , Great revision of BLS, Automated External Defibrillation (AED) and bagging or An excellent activity, reinforced lots of physiology and pharmacology while also refreshing BLS/ALS demonstrate the acceptance of the spiral teaching approach by the students and validates the effort and dedication of our staff

Kinks: Fingerprints of strong electronic correlations

The textbook knowledge of solid state physics is that the electronic specific heat shows a linear temperature dependence with the leading corrections being a cubic term due to phonons and a cubic-logarithmic term due to the interaction of electrons with bosons. We have shown that this longstanding conception needs to be supplemented since the generic behavior of the low-temperature electronic specific heat includes a kink if the electrons are sufficiently strongly correlatedComment: 4 pages, 1 figure, ICM 2009 conference proceedings (to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Series