On the survival of brown dwarfs and planets engulfed by their giant host star

The recent discovery of two Earth-mass planets in close orbits around an evolved star has raised questions as to whether substellar companions can survive encounters with their host stars. We consider whether these companions could have been stripped of significant amounts of mass during the phase when they orbited through the dense inner envelopes of the giant. We apply the criterion derived by Murray et al. for disruption of gravitationally bound objects by ram pressure, to determine whether mass loss may have played a role in the histories of these and other recently discovered low-mass companions to evolved stars. We find that the brown dwarf and Jovian mass objects circling WD 0137-349, SDSS J08205+0008, and HIP 13044 are most unlikely to have lost significant mass during the common envelope phase. However, the Earth-mass planets found around KIC 05807616 could well be the remnant of one or two Jovian mass planets that lost extensive mass during the common envelope phase.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Singlet Boson in Supersymmetric Model as a Mimic of the Standard Model Higgs at the LHC

We show that the gauge singlet scalar boson in low-energy supersymmetric model may behave as the standard model (SM) Higgs boson if the singlet couples to (heavy) vector-like colored particles. In this case, the SM-Higgs-like signal at the LHC can be mimicked by the singlet production process for wide range of the singlet mass.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Modern Methods of Book Composition

A TREATISE ON TYPE-SETTING BY HAND AND BY MACHINE AND ON THE PROPER ARRANGEMENT AND IMPOSITION OF PAGES I EQUIPMENT. Types ... Stands .•. Cases ••. Case-racks. II EQUIPMENT. Galleys and galley-racks ... Compositors\u27 implements Brass rules and cases for labor-saving rule and leads … Dashes and braces ... Leads ... Furniture of wood and ofmeiaI .•. Furniture-racks ••. Quotations and electrotype guards. III COMPOSITION. Time-work and piece-work •.. Customary routine on book-work ... Justi1lcation ... Spacing and leading Distribution ... Composition by hand and machine IV COMPOSITION OF BOOKS. Title-page ... Preface matter ... Chapter headings and synopsis ... Subheadings ... Extracts ... Notes and illustrations ... Running titles and paging at head or at foot ... Poetry ... Appendix and index Initials ... Head-bands, etc. V DIFFICULT COMPOSITION. Algebra ... Tables and table-work ... Music and music cases ... Genealogies. VI FOREIGN LANGUAGES. Accents ... Greek ... Hebrew ..• German. VII MAKING UP. The running title ... Signatures ... Notes, tables, extracts, and illustrations. VIII STONE-WORK. Stones and chases ... Exact adjustment of margins ... Locking up ... Taking proofs ... Corrections ... Clearing away. IX IMPOSITION. Elementary principles ... Schemes for various forms from two and four to one hundred and twenty-eight pages .•. Inset forms ... Oblong pages ... The leaflet ... Small pamphlets ... New method of collating Folding-machines ... Concluding remarks. X MACHINE-COMPOSITION . Review of early methods . . . General organization Assembling and keyboard mechanisms . . . Learning to operate ... Management of the linotype machine Temperature of metal ... Treatment of matrices and of space-bands . . . The melting-pot, mould, and disk The assembling elevator ... Correct keyboard fingering. 497 page

Chlamydia control activities in Europe: cross-sectional survey

Background: Chlamydia is the most commonly reported bacterial sexually transmitted infection in Europe. The objective of the Screening for Chlamydia in Europe (SCREen) project was to describe current and planned chlamydia control activities in Europe. Methods: The authors sent a questionnaire asking about different aspects of chlamydia epidemiology and control to public health and clinical experts in each country in 2007. The principles of sexually transmitted infection control were used to develop a typology comprising five categories of chlamydia control activities. Each country was assigned to a category, based on responses to the questionnaire. Results: Experts in 29 of 33 (88%) invited countries responded. Thirteen of 29 countries (45%) had no current chlamydia control activities. Six countries in this group stated that there were plans to introduce chlamydia screening programmes. There were five countries (17%) with case management guidelines only. Three countries (10%) also recommended case finding amongst partners of diagnosed chlamydia cases or people with another sexually transmitted infection. Six countries (21%) further specified groups of asymptomatic people eligible for opportunistic chlamydia testing. Two countries (7%) reported a chlamydia screening programme. There was no consistent association between the per capita gross domestic product of a country and the intensity of chlamydia control activities (P = 0.816). Conclusion: A newly developed classification system allowed the breadth of ongoing national chlamydia control activities to be described and categorized. Chlamydia control strategies should ensure that clinical guidelines to optimize chlamydia diagnosis and case management have been implemented before considering the appropriateness of screening programmes

Unification via intermediate symmetry breaking scales with the quartification gauge group

The idea of quark-lepton universality at high energies has been introduced as a natural extension to the standard model. This is achieved by endowing leptons with new degrees of freedom -- leptonic colour, an analogue of the familiar quark colour. Grand and partially unified models which utilise this new gauge symmetry SU(3)_\ell have been proposed in the context of the quartification gauge group SU(3)^4. Phenomenologically successful gauge coupling constant unification without supersymmetry has been demonstrated for cases where the symmetry breaking leaves a residual SU(2)_\ell unbroken. Though attractive, these schemes either incorporate ad hoc discrete symmetries and non-renormalisable mass terms, or achieve only partial unification. We show that grand unified models can be constructed where the quartification group can be broken fully [i.e. no residual SU(2)_\ell] to the standard model gauge group without requiring additional discrete symmetries or higher dimension operators. These models also automatically have suppressed nonzero neutrino masses. We perform a systematic analysis of the renormalisation-group equations for all possible symmetry breaking routes from SU(3)^4 --> SU(3)_q x SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y. This analysis indicates that gauge coupling unification can be achieved for several different symmetry breaking patterns and we outline the requirements that each gives on the unification scale. We also show that the unification scenarios of those models which leave a residual SU(2)_\ell symmetry are not unique. In both symmetry breaking cases, some of the scenarios require new physics at the TeV scale, while others do not allow for new TeV phenomenology in the fermionic sector.Comment: 25 page

Beyond the Relativistic Point Particle: A Reciprocally Invariant System and its Generalisation

We investigate a reciprocally invariant system proposed by Low and Govaerts et al., whose action contains both the orthogonal and the symplectic forms and is invariant under global $O(2,4)\cap Sp(2,4)$ transformations. We find that the general solution to the classical equations of motion has no linear term in the evolution parameter, $\tau$, but only the oscillatory terms, and therefore cannot represent a particle propagating in spacetime. As a remedy, we consider a generalisation of the action by adopting a procedure similar to that of Bars et al., who introduced the concept of a $\tau$ derivative that is covariant under local Sp(2) transformations between the phase space variables $x^\mu(\tau)$ and $p^\mu (\tau)$. This system, in particular, is similar to a rigid particle whose action contains the extrinsic curvature of the world line, which turns out to be helical in spacetime. Another possible generalisation is the introduction of a symplectic potential proposed by Montesinos. We show how the latter approach is related to Kaluza-Klein theories and to the concept of Clifford space, a manifold whose tangent space at any point is Clifford algebra Cl(8), a promising framework for the unification of particles and forces.Comment: 15 pages; Revised version, accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Versatile electrochemical coatings and surface layers from aqueous methanesulfonic acid

Ever tightening environmental pressure together with the continued need for coatings able to meet challenging service environments have stimulated advances in coating technology. In the case of electrochemical techniques, the classical techniques of electrodeposition and anodising are being upgraded to meet the need for modern surface engineering coatings (including nanostructured films) on metals. A major challenge is to retain conventional processing, including aqueous solutions, simple power supplies and existing electrolyte tanks while using cost effective, ‘green’ electrolytes. One successful direction has been the emergence of electrolytes based on methanesulfonic acid, MSA which has good electrolytic conductivity and is capable of dissolving many metals as well as acting as a useful medium for dispersion of solids prior to electrophoretic coating. A range of application methods result, including electroplating, anodising and electrophoretic deposition from a stable, aqueous sol. A diverse range of coating materials is emerging, including metals, alloys, porous metal oxide films, conductive polymers and many composites. This review illustrates the usefulness and applications of MSA electrolytes using recent examples from the authors' laboratories and others. Developing coatings, including alternating multilayers of Sn and Cu, nanostructured metals, hierarchical pores, nanotubular metal oxides and graphene composites are briefly considered. This is a review with 94 references