572 research outputs found
The Wadi Faynan Project, Southern Jordan: a Preliminary Report on Geomorphology and Landscape Archaeology
Reproduced with permission of the publisher. © 1997 Council for British Research in the Levant. Details of the publication are available at: http://www.cbrl.org.uk/Publications/publications_default.shtmThe Wadi Faynan Project of the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History (BIAAH) has as its principal objective the provision of a detailed case study in the relationship between environmental change and human history in the arid zone, from prehistory to the present day. This report describes the preliminary findings of an initial campaign of fieldwork in geomorphology and landscape archaeology conducted by an inter-disciplinary team in 1996. A preliminary sequence of fluvial events has been established, represented by the Ghuwayr and Shayqar Beds dated to the Late Pleistocene, and the Faynan and Dana Beds dated to the Holocene. Methodologies have been trialed for recording, dating and interpreting the ancient field system assumed to be of Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine date; initial findings confirm its longevity of use and complexity of purpose. There are also indications that floodwater farming began in the Wadi Faynan in the Chalcolithic or Early Bronze Ag
Asymptotically cylindrical 7-manifolds of holonomy G_2 with applications to compact irreducible G_2-manifolds
We construct examples of exponentially asymptotically cylindrical Riemannian
7-manifolds with holonomy group equal to G_2. To our knowledge, these are the
first such examples. We also obtain exponentially asymptotically cylindrical
coassociative calibrated submanifolds. Finally, we apply our results to show
that one of the compact G_2-manifolds constructed by Joyce by desingularisation
of a flat orbifold T^7/\Gamma can be deformed to one of the compact
G_2-manifolds obtainable as a generalized connected sum of two exponentially
asymptotically cylindrical SU(3)-manifolds via the method given by the first
author (math.DG/0012189).Comment: 36 pages; v2: corrected trivial typos; v3: some arguments corrected
and improved; v4: a number of improvements on presentation, paritularly in
sections 4 and 6, including an added picture
Materials for stem cell factories of the future
The materials community is now identifying polymeric substrates that could permit translation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) from lab-based research to industrial scale biomedicine. Well defined materials are required to allow cell banking and to provide the raw material for reproducible differentiation into lineages for large scale drug screening programs and clinical use, wherein >1 billion cells for each patient are needed to replace losses during heart attack, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. Producing this number of cells for one patient is challenging and a rethink is needed to scalable technology with the potential to meet the needs of millions of patients a year. Here we consider the role of materials discovery, an emerging area of materials chemistry that is in a large part driven by the challenges posed by biologists to materials scientists1-4
Some general properties of the renormalized stress-energy tensor for static quantum states on (n+1)-dimensional spherically symmetric black holes
We study the renormalized stress-energy tensor (RSET) for static quantum
states on (n+1)-dimensional, static, spherically symmetric black holes. By
solving the conservation equations, we are able to write the stress-energy
tensor in terms of a single unknown function of the radial co-ordinate, plus
two arbitrary constants. Conditions for the stress-energy tensor to be regular
at event horizons (including the extremal and ``ultra-extremal'' cases) are
then derived using generalized Kruskal-like co-ordinates. These results should
be useful for future calculations of the RSET for static quantum states on
spherically symmetric black hole geometries in any number of space-time
dimensions.Comment: 9 pages, no figures, RevTeX4, references added, accepted for
publication in General Relativity and Gravitatio
Two-dimensional Quantum-Corrected Eternal Black Hole
The one-loop quantum corrections to geometry and thermodynamics of black hole
are studied for the two-dimensional RST model. We chose boundary conditions
corresponding to the eternal black hole being in the thermal equilibrium with
the Hawking radiation. The equations of motion are exactly integrated. The one
of the solutions obtained is the constant curvature space-time with dilaton
being a constant function. Such a solution is absent in the classical theory.
On the other hand, we derive the quantum-corrected metric (\ref{solution})
written in the Schwarzschild like form which is a deformation of the classical
black hole solution \cite{5d}. The space-time singularity occurs to be milder
than in classics and the solution admits two asymptotically flat black hole
space-times lying at "different sides" of the singularity. The thermodynamics
of the classical black hole and its quantum counterpart is formulated. The
thermodynamical quantities (energy, temperature, entropy) are calculated and
occur to be the same for both the classical and quantum-corrected black holes.
So, no quantum corrections to thermodynamics are observed. The possible
relevance of the results obtained to the four-dimensional case is discussed.Comment: Latex, 28 pges; minor corrections in text and abstract made and new
references adde
Deposition and solubility of airborne metals to four plant species grown at varying distances from two heavily trafficked roads in London
In urban areas, a highly variable mixture of pollutants is deposited as particulate matter. The concentration and bioavailability of individual pollutants within particles need to be characterised to ascertain the risks to ecological receptors. This study, carried out at two urban parks, measured the deposition and water-solubility of metals to four species common to UK urban areas. Foliar Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn concentrations were elevated in at least one species compared with those from a rural control site. Concentrations were, however, only affected by distance to road in nettle and, to a lesser extent, birch leaves. Greater concentrations of metal were observed in these species compared to cypress and maple possibly due to differences in plant morphology and leaf surfaces. Solubility appeared to be linked to the size fraction and, therefore, origin of the metal with those present predominantly in the coarse fraction exhibiting low solubility. © 2009
Elected Mayors: Leading Locally?
The directly elected executive mayor was introduced to England a decade ago. Drawing inspiration from European and American experience, the elected mayor appealed to both New Labour and Conservative commentators in offering a solution to perceived problems of local leadership. There was a shared view that governance of local areas was failing and that elected mayors were the answer. The first local referendums were held in 2001. Most have continued to reject the idea of the elected mayor. During 2012, the coalition government initiated 10 further mayoral referendums in England's largest cities but only one, Bristol, opted for an elected mayor. Overall, there is no evidence of widespread public support, yet the prospect of more mayors - with enhanced powers - remains firmly on the policy agenda. Drawing from a decade of research, this paper considers reasons for the persistence of the mayoral experiment, the importance of local factors in the few areas where mayors hold office and the link to current policy debates. Using the authors' analytical leadership grid, this paper links the governmental, governance and allegiance roles of mayors to the problematic nature of local leadership. It then draws tentative conclusions about the strange case of the elected mayor in England
Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees,
and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This
paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal
heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where
the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar
wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few
decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still
do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do
we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute
to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the
central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come
from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal
loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our
understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence,
stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to
unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We
also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data
analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and
theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue
connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space
Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure
Towards resolution of the enigmas of P-wave meson spectroscopy
The mass spectrum of P-wave mesons is considered in a nonrelativistic
constituent quark model. The results show the common mass degeneracy of the
isovector and isodoublet states of the scalar and tensor meson nonets, and do
not exclude the possibility of a similar degeneracy of the same states of the
axial-vector and pseudovector nonets. Current experimental hadronic and \tau
-decay data suggest, however, a different scenario leading to the a_1 meson
mass \simeq 1190 MeV and the K_{1A}-K_{1B} mixing angle \simeq (37\pm 3)^o.
Possible s\bar{s} states of the four nonets are also discussed.Comment: 22 pages, LaTe
Quantization of the interior Schwarzschild black hole
We study a Hamiltonian quantum formalism of a spherically symmetric
space-time which can be identified with the interior of a Schwarzschild black
hole. The phase space of this model is spanned by two dynamical variables and
their conjugate momenta. It is shown that the classical Lagrangian of the model
gives rise the interior metric of a Schwarzschild black hole. We also show that
the the mass of such a system is a Dirac observable and then by quantization of
the model by Wheeler-DeWitt approach and constructing suitable wave packets we
get the mass spectrum of the black hole.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, revised versio
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