A Tale of Two Distances

There are two basic ways to measure physical distances in cosmology: One based on standard candles and one based on standard rulers. Comparing current data for each method allows us to rule out axion-photon mixing and dust-extinction as the sources of supernova dimming and generally protects the case for cosmic acceleration from attacks based on loss of photons. The combined data constrains the energy densities in a LCDM model to 0.19 < Omega_m < 0.32 and 0.47 < Omega_Lambda < 0.82 (at 2\sigma) without recourse to any further data sets. Future data will improve on these limits and allow us to place constraints on more exotic physics.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, uses moriond.sty. To be published in the Proceedings of the XXXIX Rencontres de Moriond 'Exploring the Universe

Reproducing the observed Cosmic microwave background anisotropies with causal scaling seeds

During the last years it has become clear that global O(N) defects and U(1) cosmic strings do not lead to the pronounced first acoustic peak in the power spectrum of anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background which has recently been observed to high accuracy. Inflationary models cannot easily accommodate the low second peak indicated by the data. Here we construct causal scaling seed models which reproduce the first and second peak. Future, more precise CMB anisotropy and polarization experiments will however be able to distinguish them from the ordinary adiabatic models.Comment: 6 pages 2 figures, revtex; minor corrections and references adde

Field testing of strategies for fire blight control in organic fruit growing

In organic fruit growing effective control strategies are needed to prevent blossom infections by the fire blight pathogen Erwinia amylovora. Many potential control agents are under discussion and have been tested in vitro and in vivo. 19 out of 27 tested preparations showed a high efficacy against E. amylovora in vitro. Nevertheless, on detached apple blossoms only 7 of them led to a symptom reduction by more than 50%. In six field trials conducted according to the EPPO guideline PP1/166(3) BlossomProtect (82%), Myco-sin (65%) and Funguran (58%) had the highest efficiency. In 2006 and 2007, strategies to integrate BlossomProtect in spray schedules of organic apple production have been tested. The use of sulphur or lime-sulphur before or after BlossomProtect did not influence the efficiency of BlossomProtect, which showed that fire blight control is possible without compromising apple scab control. The addition of Cutisan to BlossomProtect reduced fruit russet. An alternating use of BlossomProtect and Myco-sin was shown to be possible

Why we need to see the dark matter to understand the dark energy

The cosmological concordance model contains two separate constituents which interact only gravitationally with themselves and everything else, the dark matter and the dark energy. In the standard dark energy models, the dark matter makes up some 20% of the total energy budget today, while the dark energy is responsible for about 75%. Here we show that these numbers are only robust for specific dark energy models and that in general we cannot measure the abundance of the dark constituents separately without making strong assumptions.Comment: 4 pages, to be published in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series as a contribution to the 2007 Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physic

Prolonged elevations in haemostatic and rheological responses following psychological stress in low socioeconomic status men and women

Low socioeconomic status (SES) and psychological stress are associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease, and both may influence haemostatic responses. Von Willebrand factor (vWF), Factor VIII, plasma viscosity, haematocrit, blood viscosity, tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) and fibrin D- dimer were measured at rest and following stressful tasks in 238 middle-aged British civil servants. SES was defined by grade of employment. Lower SES was associated with higher resting vWF, Factor VIII and plasma viscosity. Psychological stress stimulated increases in haemostatic and rheological factors. Initial stress responses did not vary with SES, but Factor VIII, plasma viscosity and blood viscosity remained more elevated 45 minutes post-stress in lower SES participants. High blood pressure stress reactivity was also associated with greater haemostatic responses. We conclude that lower SES is characterised by more prolonged elevations in procoagulant responses following psychological stress, and that these processes might contribute to increased cardiac risk

General Rotorcraft Aeromechanical Stability Program (GRASP) version 1.03: User's manual

The Rotorcraft Dynamics Division, Aeroflightdynamics Directorate, U.S. Army Aviation Research and Technology Activity has developed the General Rotorcraft Aeromechanical Stability Program (GRASP) to perform calculations that will assess the stability of rotorcraft in hovering flight and ground contact conditions. The program is designed to be state-of-the-art, hybrid, finite-element/multibody code that can be applied to all existing and future helicopter configurations. While GRASP was specifically designed to solve rotorcraft stability problems, its innovative structure and formulation allow for application to a wide range of structures. This manual describes the preparation of the input file required by Version 1.03 of GRASP, the procedures used to invoke GRASP on the NASA Ames Research Center CRAY X-MP 48 computer, and the interpretation of the output produced by GRASP. The parameters used by the input file are defined, and summaries of the input file and the job control language are included

Black Holes with Yang-Mills Hair

In Einstein-Maxwell theory black holes are uniquely determined by their mass, their charge and their angular momentum. This is no longer true in Einstein-Yang-Mills theory. We discuss sequences of neutral and charged SU(N) Einstein-Yang-Mills black holes, which are static spherically symmetric and asymptotically flat, and which carry Yang-Mills hair. Furthermore, in Einstein-Maxwell theory static black holes are spherically symmetric. We demonstrate that, in contrast, SU(2) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory possesses a sequence of black holes, which are static and only axially symmetric.Comment: LaTeX using epsf, aipproc, 10 pages including 9 ps figures, Talk held by Jutta Kunz at the Conference on Particles, Fields and Gravitation in Lodz, Poland, April 199