A class of homogeneous scalar-tensor cosmologies with a radiation fluid

We present a new class of exact homogeneous cosmological solutions with a radiation fluid for all scalar-tensor theories. The solutions belong to Bianchi type $VI_{h}$ cosmologies. Explicit examples of nonsingular homogeneous scalar-tensor cosmologies are also given.Comment: 7 pages, LaTex; v2 type mistakes corrected, comments adde

Spherical Orbifolds for Cosmic Topology

Harmonic analysis is a tool to infer cosmic topology from the measured astrophysical cosmic microwave background CMB radiation. For overall positive curvature, Platonic spherical manifolds are candidates for this analysis. We combine the specific point symmetry of the Platonic manifolds with their deck transformations. This analysis in topology leads from manifolds to orbifolds. We discuss the deck transformations of the orbifolds and give eigenmodes for the harmonic analysis as linear combinations of Wigner polynomials on the 3-sphere. These provide new tools for detecting cosmic topology from the CMB radiation.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1011.427

Fluorescence Analysis for Multi-Site Aluminum Binding to Natural Organic Matter

Natural organic matter (NOM) samples isolated from different water sources in Norway were compared using their fluorescence properties. Fluorescence surfaces were observed at pH 4.36 and deconvoluted using SIMPLISMA (Windig and Guilment 1991). There were a total of seven different fluorophores observed for these samples and each sampling site had between four and six ofthe fluorescent components. These components were observed to bind Al during titrations at the same pH. Multiresponse titration curves were fit using the method of Smith and Kramer (1998) and most of the binding strengths are similar to values for Suwannee River fulvic acid (1ogK’ between 4.8 and 5.5), but there are strong sites (IogK’ = 7) and weak sites (1ogK’ between 3 and 4) also observed. Results depended on the isolation method used; reverse osmosis and low pressure evaporation yielded different values but with no consistent trends

Researching the support needs of Pakistani families with disabled children in the UK

Copyright @ 2007 Social Services Research Group.Pakistani families living in the UK form one of the most disadvantaged sections of the society. Key issues faced relate to poverty, high unemployment, ill health, low levels of English proficiency, rising ‘Islamophobia’, men feeling misunderstood and misrepresented, and a lack of faith/culture appropriate facilities. When a disabled child is born, additional issues are added to this already challenging situation. These include a significantly higher incidence of disability, high costs of raising a disabled child, being less likely to receive benefits, poor access to health and social care, negative attitudes towards disability within the community and a high incidence of depression and anxiety among primary carers. Although a considerable body of research-based evidence has been available for well over a decade, no significant improvement in service provision to these families has been seen. The paper suggests that a critical paradigm of research, with emancipatory goals, is needed and that participatory action research be used to help Pakistani families gain better understanding of their own support needs and to provide better skills to be able to ensure that these needs will be met more effectively within the family, in the community and through mainstream services

Evaluation of Proposed Rocket Engines for Earth-to-Orbit Vehicles

The objective is to evaluate recently analyzed rocket engines for advanced Earth-to-orbit vehicles. The engines evaluated are full-flow staged combustion engines and split expander engines, both at mixture ratios at 6 and above with oxygen and hydrogen propellants. The vehicles considered are single-stage and two-stage fully reusable vehicles and the Space Shuttle with liquid rocket boosters. The results indicate that the split expander engine at a mixture ratio of about 7 is competitive with the full-flow staged combustion engine for all three vehicle concepts. A key factor in this result is the capability to increase the chamber pressure for the split expander as the mixture ratio is increased from 6 to 7

A Bayesian method for pulsar template generation

Extracting Times of Arrival from pulsar radio signals depends on the knowledge of the pulsars pulse profile and how this template is generated. We examine pulsar template generation with Bayesian methods. We will contrast the classical generation mechanism of averaging intensity profiles with a new approach based on Bayesian inference. We introduce the Bayesian measurement model imposed and derive the algorithm to reconstruct a "statistical template" out of noisy data. The properties of these "statistical templates" are analysed with simulated and real measurement data from PSR B1133+16. We explain how to put this new form of template to use in analysing secondary parameters of interest and give various examples: We implement a nonlinear filter for determining ToAs of pulsars. Applying this method to data from PSR J1713+0747 we derive ToAs self consistently, meaning all epochs were timed and we used the same epochs for template generation. While the average template contains fluctuations and noise as unavoidable artifacts, we find that the "statistical template" derived by Bayesian inference quantifies fluctuations and remaining uncertainty. This is why the algorithm suggested turns out to reconstruct templates of statistical significance from ten to fifty single pulses. A moving data window of fifty pulses, taking out one single pulse at the beginning and adding one at the end of the window unravels the characteristics of the methods to be compared. It shows that the change induced in the classical reconstruction is dominated by random fluctuations for the average template, while statistically significant changes drive the dynamics of the proposed method's reconstruction. The analysis of phase shifts with simulated data reveals that the proposed nonlinear algorithm is able to reconstruct correct phase information along with an acceptable estimation of the remaining uncertainty.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRA

Extremal Isolated Horizon/CFT Correspondence

The near-horizon limit of the extremal (weakly) isolated horizon is obtained under the Bondi-like coordinates. For the vacuum case, explicit coordinate transformation relating the near-horizon metric under the Bondi-like coordinates and the standard Poincar\'e-type or global near-horizon metric of the extremal Kerr black hole is found, which shows that the two geometries are the same. Combined with the known thermodynamics of the (weakly) isolated horizon, it is argued that the Kerr/CFT correspondence can be generalized to the case of a large class of non-stationary extremal black holes.Comment: 13 pages, no figure, revtex4; v2: abstract revised, minor corrections, references added; v3: minor corrections, version to appear in PR