Margins within margins?: voices Speaking through a study of the provision of an educational program for the children of one Australian show circuit

This paper examines the tactics used by the Showmen's Guild of Australasia in successfully lobbying for the development of a distance education program for their children. The Guild is considered to be a 'marginalized' group, meaning members have less access to wealth, power, and status. Since 1930, members of the Showmen's Guild and their families have traveled from town to town providing agricultural and equestrian shows. Despite the diversity of backgrounds and experiences among people connected with the show circuit, the Guild is highly organized and has been politically active. Informal sanctions have been effective in enforcing group discipline and in presenting the image of a single body of opinion. In addition, investment in sophisticated machinery and technology has resulted in show people having the financial resources to buy homes and have a political voice via more 'normalized channels'. Although members learn early that they are a marginalized group and are perceived as different from the mainstream, the group maintains close ties and often celebrates its difference. Implications for educational program development center on the goals of educational programs designed for disadvantaged groups, and the status of other marginalized groups and their efforts to contest their marginalized status. (LP

Towards Development Of A Decision Support System For Water Resource Development In Semi-Arid Micro-Catchments

IES Working Paper.The objective of the paper is to bring together, within a single holistic framework, the principle findings of the research into the physical and human aspects a study in Romwe micro-catchment in southern Zimbabwe. The framework is developed using Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) to identify and model the central aspects of both physical and human environment (at both the micro and macro scale), and their impacts on each other. In particular I look at the likely impact of effective catchment management (here taken to be physical and technical interventions) on the probability of livelihoods improving. BBNs offer an exciting new way of bringing together very disparate data sources within useful frameworks, which could then be used not only for decision making about development needs, but also to target better the next generation of research. For groundwater, a sizeable improvement in supply can be achieved by moving from poor to good catchment management under medium rainfall conditions, but not under poor or good rainfall. For improved surface water and improved soil moisture, it is particularly under low rainfall conditions that it is worth moving from poor to good catchment management. It is clear from the results that physical catchment management on its own is incapable of having a major impact on peoples’ livelihoods other than within a very narrow range of parameters. The suggestion is that outside this range, the decision as to whether or not to lake a physical catchment management approach has a negligible impact on water resources and even less on livelihoods. In relative terms a number of factors both extraneous (wider economy, underlying geology), and internal (community cohesion, skills levels) to the community rank equally or more highly in terms of general impact on well being.Funding for the study was provided by the Department for International Development Micro-Catchment Management Project. DFID Project No: R730

Topology of Cell-Aggregated Planar Graphs

We present new algorithm for growth of non-clustered planar graphs by aggregation of cells with given distribution of size and constraint of connectivity k=3 per node. The emergent graph structures are controlled by two parameters--chemical potential of the cell aggregation and the width of the cell size distribution. We compute several statistical properties of these graphs--fractal dimension of the perimeter, distribution of shortest paths between pairs of nodes and topological betweenness of nodes and links. We show how these topological properties depend on the control parameters of the aggregation process and discuss their relevance for the conduction of current in self-assembled nanopatterns.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Gauge Couplings calculated from Multiple Point Criticality yield α−1=136.8±9\alpha^{-1}=136._8\pm 9: At Last the Elusive Case of U(1)U(1)

We calculate the $U(1)$ continuum gauge coupling using the values of action parameters at the multiple point in the phase diagram of a lattice gauge theory. The multiple point is where a maximum number of phases convene. We obtain for the running inverse finestructure constant the values $\alpha_1^{-1}=56\pm 5$ and $\alpha_1^{-1}=99\pm 5$ at respectively the Planck scale and the $M_Z$ scale. The gauge group underlying the phase diagram in which we seek multiple point values of action parameters is what we call the Anti Grand Unified Theory (AGUT) gauge group $SMG^3$ which is the Cartesian product of 3 standard model groups (SMGs). There is one SMG factor for each of the $N_{gen}=3$ generations of quarks and leptons. In our model, this gauge group $SMG^3$ is the predecessor to the usual standard model group. The latter arises as the diagonal subgroup surviving the Planck scale breakdown of $SMG^3. This breakdown leads to a weakening of the$U(1)$coupling by a$N_{gen}$-related factor. The most important correction obtained from using multiple point parameter values (in a multi-parameter phase diagram instead of the single critical parameter value obtained say in the 1-dimensional phase diagram of a Wilson action) comes from including the influence of having phases confined solely w.r.t. discrete subgroups. In particular, what matters is that the degree of first-orderness is taken into account in making the transition from these latter phases at the multiple point to the totally Coulomb-like phase. Combined with the results of earlier work on the non-Abelian gauge couplings, the results presented here lead to our prediction of$\alpha^{-1}=136._8\pm 9$ as the value for the fine-structure constant at low energies.Comment: 4 figures, 85 pages, accepted for publication in Intl. J. Mod. Phys. A, this is a second replacement that should correct the lack of references in the original versio

Vortex Dynamics in Selfdual Maxwell-Higgs Systems with Uniform Background Electric Charge Density

We introduce selfdual Maxwell-Higgs systems with uniform background electric charge density and show that the selfdual equations satisfied by topological vortices can be reduced to the original Bogomol'nyi equations without any background. These vortices are shown to carry no spin but to feel the Magnus force due to the shielding charge carried by the Higgs field. We also study the dynamics of slowly moving vortices and show that the spin-statistics theorem holds to our vortices.Comment: 24 pages + 2 figures ( not included), Cu-TP-611, IASSNS-HEP-93/33, NSF-ITP-93-13

The Nature of the IRAS Ring G159.6−18.5 in Perseus and Its Exciting Star HD 278942

We discuss an extended feature in the Perseus molecular cloud complex, most prominent in the IRAS database as an almost complete ring of radius 0.75 degrees, but also clearly seen in optical surveys and in radio continuum emission

Field theory simulation of Abelian-Higgs cosmic string cusps

We have performed a lattice field theory simulation of cusps in Abelian-Higgs cosmic strings. The results are in accord with the theory that the portion of the strings which overlaps near the cusp is released as radiation. The radius of the string cores which must touch to produce the evaporation is approximately $r = 1$ in natural units. In general, the modifications to the string shape due to the cusp may produce many cusps later in the evolution of a string loop, but these later cusps will be much smaller in magnitude and more closely resemble kinks.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, 13 figures with eps

Discovery of Early Optical Emission from GRB 021211

We report our discovery and early time optical, near-infrared, and radio wavelength follow-up observations of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 021211. Our optical observations, beginning 21 min after the burst trigger, demonstrate that the early afterglow of this burst is roughly three magnitudes fainter than the afterglow of GRB 990123 at similar epochs, and fainter than almost all known afterglows at an epoch of 1d after the GRB. Our near-infrared and optical observations indicate that this is not due to extinction. Combining our observations with data reported by other groups, we identify the signature of a reverse shock. This reverse shock is not detected to a 3-sigma limit of 110 uJy in an 8.46-GHz VLA observation at t=0.10d, implying either that the Lorentz factor of the burst gamma <~ 200, or that synchrotron self-absorption effects dominate the radio emission at this time. Our early optical observations, near the peak of the optical afterglow (forward shock), allow us to characterize the afterglow in detail. Comparing our model to flux upper limits from the VLA at later times, t >~ 1 week, we find that the late-time radio flux is suppressed by a factor of two relative to the >~ 80 uJy peak flux at optical wavelengths. This suppression is not likely to be due to synchrotron self-absorption or an early jet break, and we suggest instead that the burst may have suffered substantial radiative corrections.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, ApJL accepted; edits for lengt