Relativistically Covariant Symmetry in QED

We construct a relativistically covariant symmetry of QED. Previous local and nonlocal symmetries are special cases. This generalized symmetry need not be nilpotent, but nilpotency can be arranged with an auxiliary field and a certain condition. The Noether charge generating the symmetry transformation is obtained, and it imposes a constraint on the physical states.Comment: Latex file, 9 page

The Nielsen Identities for the Two-Point Functions of QED and QCD

We consider the Nielsen identities for the two-point functions of full QCD and QED in the class of Lorentz gauges. For pedagogical reasons the identities are first derived in QED to demonstrate the gauge independence of the photon self-energy, and of the electron mass shell. In QCD we derive the general identity and hence the identities for the quark, gluon and ghost propagators. The explicit contributions to the gluon and ghost identities are calculated to one-loop order, and then we show that the quark identity requires that in on-shell schemes the quark mass renormalisation must be gauge independent. Furthermore, we obtain formal solutions for the gluon self-energy and ghost propagator in terms of the gauge dependence of other, independent Green functions.Comment: 25 pages, plain TeX, 4 figures available upon request, MZ-TH/94-0

A New Symmetry for QED

We demonstrate that QED exhibits a previously unobserved symmetry. Some consequences are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, MZ-TH/93-02, DIAS-STP-93-0

Dynamic Evocation of Hand Action Representations During Sentence Comprehension

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. When listening to a sentence describing an interaction with a manipulable object, understanding the actor’s intentions is shown to have a striking influence on action representations evoked during comprehension. Subjects performed a cued reach and grasp response while listening to a context sentence. Responses were primed when they were consistent with the proximal intention of an actor (“John lifted the cell phone...”), but this effect was evanescent and appeared only when sentences mentioned the proximal intention first. When the sentence structure was changed to mention the distal intention first (“To clear the shelf...”), priming effects were no longer context specific and actions pertaining to the function of an object were clearly favored. These results are not compatible with a straightforward mental-simulation account of sentence comprehension but instead reflect a hierarchy of intentions distinguishing how and why actions are performed

Pretreatment health measures and complications after surgical management of elderly women with breast cancer

Elderly patients with breast cancer are less likely to be offered surgery, partly owing to co-morbidities and reduced functional ability. However, there is little consensus on how best to assess surgical risk in this patient group.The ability of pretreatment health measures to predict complications was investigated in a prospective cohort study of a consecutive series of women aged at least 70 years undergoing surgery for operable (stage I-IIIa) breast cancer at 22 English breast units between 2010 and 2013. Data on treatment, surgical complications, health measures and tumour characteristics were collected by case-note review and/or patient interview. Outcome measures were all complications and serious complications within 30 days of surgery.The study included 664 women. One or more complications were experienced by 41·0 per cent of the patients, predominantly seroma or primary/minor infections. Complications were serious in 6·5 per cent. More extensive surgery predicted a higher number of complications, but not serious complications. Older age did not predict complications. Several health measures were associated with complications in univariable analysis, and were included in multivariable analyses, adjusting for type/extent of surgery and tumour characteristics. In the final models, pain predicted a higher count of complications (incidence rate ratio 1·01, 95 per cent c.i. 1·00 to 1·01; P = 0·004). Fatigue (odds ratio (OR) 1·02, 95 per cent c.i. 1·01 to 1·03; P = 0·004), low platelet count (OR 4·19, 1·03 to 17·12: P = 0·046) and pulse rate (OR 0·96, 0·93 to 0·99; P = 0·010) predicted serious complications.The risk of serious complications from breast surgery is low for older patients. Surgical decisions should be based on patient fitness rather than age. Health measures that predict surgical risk were identified in multivariable models, but the effects were weak, with 95 per cent c.i. close to unity.This paper presents independent research funded by theBreast Cancer Campaign (2008NOVPR35), a NationalInstitute for Health Research (NIHR) Programme Grantfor Applied Research (RP-PG-0608-10168) and researcharising from a Post Doctoral Fellowship supported by theNIHR (PDF/01/2008/027). The views expressed in thispublication are those of the authors and not necessarilythose of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health

Symmetry breaking, conformal geometry and gauge invariance

When the electroweak action is rewritten in terms of SU(2) gauge invariant variables, the Higgs can be interpreted as a conformal metric factor. We show that asymptotic flatness of the metric is required to avoid a Gribov problem: without it, the new variables fail to be nonperturbatively gauge invariant. We also clarify the relations between this approach and unitary gauge fixing, and the existence of similar transformations in other gauge theories.Comment: 11 pages. Version 2: typos corrected, discussion of Elitzur's theorem added. Version to appear in J.Phys.