The Robber Flies (Diptera: Asilidae) of the Albany Pinebush

The Albany Pinebush, a pitch pine-scrub oak sand barrens, was examined for robber flies and the results compared to historical records found in the New York State Museum, Albany. Thirty-six species were recorded of which seventeen were new records. Two species, Cyrtopogon laphriformis and Promachus bastardii, last recorded in 1914 and 1931, respectively, were not located in the survey

A Dark Matter Hurricane: Measuring the S1 Stream with Dark Matter Detectors

The recently discovered S1 stream passes through the Solar neighbourhood on a low inclination, counter-rotating orbit. The progenitor of S1 is a dwarf galaxy with a total mass comparable to the present-day Fornax dwarf spheroidal, so the stream is expected to have a significant DM component. We compute the effects of the S1 stream on WIMP and axion detectors as a function of the density of its unmeasured dark component. In WIMP detectors the S1 stream supplies more high energy nuclear recoils so will marginally improve DM detection prospects. We find that even if S1 comprises less than 10% of the local density, multi-ton xenon WIMP detectors can distinguish the S1 stream from the bulk halo in the relatively narrow mass range between 5 and 25 GeV. In directional WIMP detectors such as CYGNUS, S1 increases DM detection prospects more substantially since it enhances the anisotropy of the WIMP signal. Finally, we show that axion haloscopes possess by far the greatest potential sensitivity to the S1 stream. Once the axion mass has been discovered, the distinctive velocity distribution of S1 can easily be extracted from the axion power spectrum.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

Excitation Spectrum at the Yang-Lee Edge Singularity of 2D Ising Model on the Strip

At the Yang-Lee edge singularity, finite-size scaling behavior is used to measure the low-lying excitation spectrum of the Ising quantum spin chain for free boundary conditions. The measured spectrum is used to identify the CFT that describes the Yang-Lee edge singularity of the 2D Ising model for free boundary conditions.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

An empirical investigation of hypersexuality

The aim of this study was to investigate the nature of hypersexuality and the personality factors associated with the desire for and experience of high frequency sexual behavior. Participants in the study were 69 male and 93 female university students. Respondents reported on their desire for and experience of masturbation, oral sex, sexual intercourse, pornography, indecent phone calls or letters, prostitution, exhibitionism, voyeurism, as well as providing self-report measures which evaluated their levels of state and trait anxiety, depression, obsessive and compulsive symptoms and fear of intimacy. The results demonstrated that subjects who engaged in high-frequency voyeurism were more depressed than low-frequency voyeurs. Respondents in the high-frequency sexual deviant desire and behavior groups appeared to have more obsessive-compulsive symptoms in comparison to the low-frequency deviant sexual behavior and desire groups. Increased psychopathology was not associated with high-frequency non-deviant sexual behaviors and desires. This finding raised the question of whether labels such as sexual compulsion and addiction are merely pathologizing illegal sexual behavior

Cloud Chamber: A Performance with Real Time Two-Way Interaction between Subatomic Particles and Violinist

‘Cloud Chamber’ - a composition by Alexis Kirke, Antonino Chiaramonte, and Anna Troisi - is a live performance in which the invisible quantum world becomes visible as a violinist and subatomic particle tracks interact together. An electronic instrument was developed which can be “played” live by radioactive atomic particles. Electronic circuitry was developed enabling a violin to create a physical force field that directly affects the ions generated by cosmic radiation particles. This enabled the violinist and the ions to influence each other musically in real time. A glass cloud chamber was used onstage to make radioactivity visible in bright white tracks moving within, with the tracks projected onto a large screen

Cholesterol and coronary heart disease: screening and treatment

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the United Kingdom, accounting for just under one quarter of all deaths in 1995: 27% among men and 21% among women.1 Although many CHD deaths occur among elderly people, CHD accounts for 31% of male and 13% of female deaths within the 45–64 age group

Axial Load Behavior of a Driven Cast-In-Situ Pile in Sand

Driven cast-in-situ (DCIS) piles are a popular choice amongst piling contractors due to the ability to readily adjust pile lengths to suit the depth of penetration required. Despite their widespread use, there is a dearth of published data on the axial load behavior of temporary-cased DCIS piles, particularly in cohesionless soils. This paper reports the results of a static compression load test on a 340 mm nominal diameter, 5.75 m long DCIS pile in a dense sand deposit in Shotton, Wales. The test pile was instrumented with vibrating-wire strain gauges at various levels to determine the shaft and base resistance during loading. Analysis of the test results showed that pile behavior was predominantly end-bearing, with the base resistance accounting for approximately 81 % of the total capacity at a displacement of 10 % of the pile diameter. The pile exhibited a stiff stress-displacement response during the initial stages of loading due to the level of pre-stress applied to the soil beneath the base during driving of the steel installation tube. The displacement required to mobilize the shaft resistance was similar to that reported for preformed displacement piles, with a peak local shaft friction of 105 kPa occurring near the base of the pile which diminished with increasing distance from the tip. Finally, the load test results were compared with two popular CPT-based design methods (LCPC and Imperial College methods) for displacement piles in sand. Despite having specific empirical correlations for DCIS piles, the LCPC method significantly under-predicted the capacity of the test pile

Searching for aminomethanol amongst the reaction products of o(1d) insertion into methylamine

Aminomethanol (HOCH$_2$NH$_2$) is a molecule of astrochemical interest as it is thought to be the precursor to the simplest amino acid, glycine. To date, no laboratory spectrum has been recorded because it is unstable under normal laboratory conditions. As a result, a millimeter spectrometer was developed to study the products of O($^1$D) insertion into \mbox{methylamine}, with the goal of producing aminomethanol. Here we present the results of this study, including other observed reaction products and a preliminary assignment of aminomethanol