IR-Improved DGLAP Theory

We show that it is possible to improve the infrared aspects of the standard treatment of the DGLAP evolution theory to take into account a large class of higher order corrections that significantly improve the precision of the theory for any given level of fixed-order calculation of its respective kernels. We illustrate the size of the effects we resum using the moments of the parton distributions.Comment: 17 pages originally, 1 figure; improved text with 3 added pages; improved text; 1 added figure; improved text; improved text; improved text;improved text to 26 page

Massive Elementary Particles and Black Holes in Resummed Quantum Gravity

We use exact results in a new approach to quantum gravity to show that the classical conclusion that a massive elementary point particle is a black hole is obviated by quantum loop effects. Further phenomenological implications are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; presented at ICHEP0

Locally linear embedding: dimension reduction of massive protostellar spectra

We present the results of the application of locally linear embedding (LLE) to reduce the dimensionality of dereddened and continuum subtracted near-infrared spectra using a combination of models and real spectra of massive protostars selected from the Red MSX Source survey database. A brief comparison is also made with two other dimension reduction techniques; Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Isomap using the same set of spectra as well as a more advanced form of LLE, Hessian locally linear embedding. We find that whilst LLE certainly has its limitations, it significantly outperforms both PCA and Isomap in classification of spectra based on the presence/absence of emission lines and provides a valuable tool for classification and analysis of large spectral data sets.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS 2016 June 2

On the Running of the Cosmological Constant in Quantum General Relativity

We present arguments that show what the running of the cosmological constant means when quantum general relativity is formulated following the prescription developed by Feynman.Comment: 5 page

Globalization, Party Positions, and the Median Voter

The authors argue that the effects of economic globalization on social democratic parties in Western Europe are conditional on the position of the median voter. If the median is far enough to the right, such parties will adopt business-friendly policies because they are required to win office. Only when the median is relatively far to the left will globalization constrain social democratic parties, forcing them to adopt policies further to the right in order to retain credibility. It is on this basis the authors argue that empirical studies are misspecified unless they include an interaction between measures of globalization and the position of the median. In addition to presenting formal theoretical arguments, the article reports empirical findings from fifteen countries in the period from 1973 to 2002 that support the conclusion that the effects of globalization are indeed contingent on the median. The authors find that the effects of globalization are significant for social democratic parties only in circumstances in which the median is relatively far to the left