Rb and Rc Crises

The Rb and Rc crises described by Kaoru Hagiwara in hep-ph/9512425 [2] can be resolved by the T-quark mass value of 130 GeV and the αs(MZ) value of 0.106 of the D4 − D5 − E6 model described in hep-ph/9501252 [5] and quant-ph/9503009 [6]. c○1995 Frank D. (Tony) Smith, Jr., Cartersville, Georgia USA1 Introduction. During 1995, precision electroweak data have confirmed the predictions of the Standard Model, with no new physics, with the possible exception of the two observables Rb and Rc. In his recent review, Kaoru Hagiwara [2] has described the situation i

Show Racism The Red Card: potential barriers to the effective implementation of the anti-racist message

This discussion paper focuses on anti-racist groups associated with British Association football (soccer) and the barriers that they face in relation to effective implementation of the anti-racism message and aspirational cultural change. In order to address those issues (above) this essay draws on the educational charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) and their work to educate individuals in Great Britain though football. It takes an overview of the work of the charity, specifically focusing on three key areas relating to the group’s mission statement. Concluding comments are made on the current position of SRTRC in light of recent high-profile racist incidents

Enabling the freight traffic controller for collaborative multi-drop urban logistics: practical and theoretical challenges

There is increasing interest in how horizontal collaboration between parcel carriers might help alleviate problems associated with last-mile logistics in congested urban centers. Through a detailed review of the literature on parcel logistics pertaining to collaboration, along with practical insights from carriers operating in the United Kingdom, this paper examines the challenges that will be faced in optimizing multicarrier, multidrop collection, and delivery schedules. A “freight traffic controller” (FTC) concept is proposed. The FTC would be a trusted third party, assigned to equitably manage the work allocation between collaborating carriers and the passage of vehicles over the last mile when joint benefits to the parties could be achieved. Creating this FTC concept required a combinatorial optimization approach for evaluation of the many combinations of hub locations, network configuration, and routing options for vehicle or walking to find the true value of each potential collaboration. At the same time, the traffic, social, and environmental impacts of these activities had to be considered. Cooperative game theory is a way to investigate the formation of collaborations (or coalitions), and the analysis used in this study identified a significant shortfall in current applications of this theory to last-mile parcel logistics. Application of theory to urban freight logistics has, thus far, failed to account for critical concerns including (a) the mismatch of vehicle parking locations relative to actual delivery addresses; (b) the combination of deliveries with collections, requests for the latter often being received in real time during the round; and (c) the variability in travel times and route options attributable to traffic and road network conditions

Clowns do ethnography: An experiment in long-distance comic failure

This paper examines the role of clowning in practice-as-research, and explores tensions between aspiration and execution in interdisciplinary projects. It draws on documentary assets (video screen grabs, photographs, texts) from a version of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis devised online and presented at The Light in Leeds as Ugly Scenes (Performance Studies international, Psi#18). It is also an experiment in writing ‘for’ and ‘as’ idiots, bringing together four interlocuting voices: those of two academics ‘in conversation with’ their antagonists and clown-esque alter egos, Kurt Zarniko and Teddy Love. The performance involved collaboration between academics and artists in the UK, USA, and Greece in the form of online auditioning, online devising, and collaborative writing. Formed into an international company, the group used open-source software (Google Docs, Skype, and Snagit) as platforms that offer productive arenas for live performance and improvisation. These platforms have an inherent potential for technological calamity (which is understood as fruitful in clown and comic modes). The actual staging of this work by this international but amateur outfit presented numerous obstacles, comical ‘failures’ and shortcomings, and there remains a wealth of material that offers a rich resource for a visually striking critical reflection

Forging volumetric methods

The last two decades have seen a “volumetric turn” within Anglophone social sciences and humanities scholarship. This turn is premised on the idea that space may be better understood in three-dimensional terms – with complex heights and depths – rather than as a series of two-dimensional areas or surfaces. While there is an increasingly diverse and rich set of scholarship accounting for voluminous complexities in the air, oceans, ice, mountains, and undergrounds, all too often this work foregrounds state and military-led approaches to volume. This has resulted in a limited methodological toolkit through which to explore voluminous complexities as they emerge and extend beyond military and state contexts. Often reliant on elite interviews, archives, and cartographies, there has been little critical discussion of both methodological practice and the “flatness” of research outputs articulating three-dimensional worlds. In this paper we address this by foregrounding the role of immersive and multisensory methodologies (sounding volumes, seeing-sensing drone volumes, and object volumes). To conclude, we offer avenues for further inquiry, including attending to shifting everyday voluminous experiences in the Anthropocene, and the need to diversify the communication of “volume” research

Reflexivity or orientation? Collective memories in the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national press

With regard to the notion of ‘national reflexivity’, an important part of Beck’s cosmopolitan outlook, this article examines how, and, in what ways, collective memories of empire were reflexively used in Australian, Canadian and New Zealand national newspaper coverage of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and London Olympic Games. In contrast to Beck, it is argued that examples of national reflexivity were closely tied to the history of the nation-state, with collective memories of the former British Empire used to debate, critique and appraise ‘the nation’. These memories were discursively used to ‘orientate’ each nation’s postcolonial emergence, suggesting that examples of national reflexivity, within the press’ coverage, remained closely tied to the ‘historical fetishes’ enveloped in each nations’ imperial past(s). This implies that the ‘national outlook’ does not objectively overlook, uncritically absorb or reflexively acknowledge differences with ‘the other’, but instead, negotiates a historically grounded and selective appraisal of the past that reveals a contingent and, at times, ambivalent, interplay with ‘the global’

Violence is rare in autism : when it does occur, is it sometimes extreme?

A small body of literature has suggested that, rather than being more likely to engage in offending or violent behaviour, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may actually have an increased risk of being the victim rather than the perpetrator of violence (Sobsey et al., 1995). There is no evidence that people with ASD are more violent than those without ASD (Im, 2016). There is nevertheless a small subgroup of individuals with ASD who exhibit violent offending behaviours and our previous work has suggested that other factors, such as adverse childhood experiences, might be important in this subgroup (Allely et al., 2014). Fitzgerald (2015) highlights that school shootings and mass killings are not uncommonly carried out by individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, with frequent evidence of warning indicators. The aim of the present review is to investigate this in more detail using the 73 mass shooting cases identified by Mother Jones (motherjones.com) in their database for potential ASD features. This exercise tentatively suggests evidence of ASD in six of 73 included cases (8%) which is ten times higher when compared to the prevalence of ASD found in the general population worldwide (motherjones.com). The 8% figure for individuals with ASD involved mass killings is a conservative estimate. In addition to the six cases which provide the 8% figure, there were 15 other cases with some indication of ASD. Crucially, ASD may influence, but does not cause, an individual to commit extreme violent acts such as a mass shooting episode