An analysis of the shapes of interstellar extinction curves. VII Milky Way spectrophotometric optical-through-ultraviolet extinction and its R-dependence

We produce a set of 72 NIR-through-UV extinction curves by combining new Hubble Space Telescope/STIS optical spectrophotometry with existing International Ultraviolet Explorer spectrophotometry (yielding gapless coverage from 1150 to 10000 ?) and NIR photometry. These curves are used to determine a new, internally consistent NIR-through-UV Milky Way mean curve and to characterize how the shapes of the extinction curves depend on R(V). We emphasize that while this dependence captures much of the curve variability, considerable variation remains that is independent of R(V). We use the optical spectrophotometry to verify the presence of structure at intermediate wavelength scales in the curves. The fact that the optical-through-UV portions of the curves are sampled at relatively high resolution makes them very useful for determining how extinction affects different broadband systems, and we provide several examples. Finally, we compare our results to previous investigations

The effect of weld residual stresses and their re-distribution with crack growth during fatigue under constant amplitude loading

In this work the evolution of the residual stresses in a MIG-welded 2024-T3 aluminium alloy M(T) specimen during in situ fatigue crack growth at constant load amplitude has been measured with neutron diffraction. The plastic relaxation and plasticity-induced residual stresses associated with the fatigue loading were found to be small compared with the stresses arising due to elastic re-distribution of the initial residual stress field. The elastic re-distribution was modelled with a finite element simulation and a good correlation between the experimentally-determined and the modelled stresses was found. A significant mean stress effect on the fatigue crack growth rate was seen and this was also accurately predicted using the measured initial residual stresses

New Ultraviolet Extinction Curves for Interstellar Dust in M31

New low-resolution UV spectra of a sample of reddened OB stars in M31 were obtained with HST/STIS to study the wavelength dependence of interstellar extinction and the nature of the underlying dust grain populations. Extinction curves were constructed for four reddened sightlines in M31 paired with closely matching stellar atmosphere models. The new curves have a much higher S/N than previous studies. Direct measurements of N(H I) were made using the Ly$\alpha$ absorption lines enabling gas-to-dust ratios to be calculated. The sightlines have a range in galactocentric distance of 5 to 14 kpc and represent dust from regions of different metallicities and gas-to-dust ratios. The metallicities sampled range from Solar to 1.5 Solar. The measured curves show similarity to those seen in the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Maximum Entropy Method was used to investigate the dust composition and size distribution for the sightlines observed in this program finding that the extinction curves can be produced with the available carbon and silicon abundances if the metallicity is super-Solar.Comment: ApJ, in press, 9 pages, 5 figure

Relaxing to a three dimensional brane junction

We suggest a mechanism which leads to 3+1 space-time dimensions. The Universe assumed to have nine spatial dimensions is regarded as a special nonlinear oscillatory system -- a kind of Einstein solid. There are p-brane solutions which manifest as phase oscillations separating different phase states. The presence of interactions allows for bifurcations of higher dimensional spaces to lower dimensional ones in the form of brane junctions. We argue this is a natural way to select lower dimensions.Comment: RevTex, 5 pages; version to appear in Europhys. Let

A review of agriculture on the Esperance Downs

Esperance is approaching a period of rapid development based on the results of research at Esperance Downs Research Station and on farmers\u27 properties in the area. This article reviews the soils, vegetation, climate, agricultural development and development costs of the area

Evaluating New Interactions in Healthcare: Challenges and Approaches

New technologies for supporting the provision of healthcare are increasingly pervasive. While healthcare computing previously referred to a desktop computer within the consulting room, we are now seeing an ever broader range of software, hardware and settings. This workshop is concerned with how to conduct evaluations which allow assessment of the overall impact of technology. The workshop will explore challenges and approaches for evaluating new interactions in healthcare. In this paper we outline the goals for this workshop and summarize the issues and questions it intends to explore

After the Standard Model: New Resonances at the LHC

Experiments will soon start taking data at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with high expectations for discovery of new physics phenomena. Indeed, the LHC's unprecedented center-of-mass energy will allow the experiments to probe an energy regime where the standard model is known to break down. In this article, the experiments' capability to observe new resonances in various channels is reviewed.Comment: Preprint version of a Brief Review for Modern Physics Letters A. Changes w.r.t. the fully corrected version are smal

Protocol for the United Kingdom Rotator Cuff Study (UKUFF) : a randomised controlled trial of open and arthroscopic rotator cuff repair

This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme (project number 05/47/02). J. L. Rees has received a grant from Oxford University which is related to this paper. J. Dawson reports that Oxford University has received a grant from HTA which is related to this paper, as well as a study grant.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sequestering CP Violation and GIM-Violation with Warped Extra Dimensions

We propose a model of spontaneous CP violation to address the strong CP problem in warped extra dimensions that relies on sequestering flavor and CP violation. We assume that brane-localized Higgs Yukawa interactions respect a U(3) flavor symmetry that is broken only by bulk fermion mass and Yukawa terms. All CP violation arises from the vev of a CP-odd scalar field localized in the bulk. To suppress radiative corrections to theta-bar, the doublet quarks in this model are localized on the IR brane. We calculate constraints from flavor-changing neutral currents (FCNCs), precision electroweak measurements, CKM unitarity, and the electric dipole moments in this model and predict theta-bar to be at least about 10^-12.Comment: 38 page