Universal Properties in Low Dimensional Fermionic Systems and Bosonization

We analyze the universal transport behavior in 1D and 2D fermionic systems by following the unified framework provided by bosonization. The role played by the adiabatic transition between interacting and noninteracting regions is emphasized.Comment: 2 pages, RevTex, contribution for the Proceedings of the XVIII Autumn School `Topology of Strongly Correlated Systems', Lisbon, Portugal, October, 200

Relationship between fish size and otolith length for 63 species of fishes from the Eastern North Pacific Ocean

Otoliths commonly are used to determine the taxon, age, and size of fishes. This information is useful for population management, predator-prey studies, and archaeological research. The relationship between the length of a fish and the length of its otoliths remains unknown for many species of marine fishes in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the relationships between fish length and fish weight, and between otolith length and fish length, were developed for 63 species of fishes caught in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. We also summarized similar relationships for 46 eastern North Pacific fish species reported in the literature. The relationship between fish length and otolith length was linear, and most of the variability was explained by a simple least-squares regression (r 2 > 0.700 for 45 of 63 species). The relationship between otolith length and fish length was not significantly different between left and right otoliths for all but one fish species. Images of otoliths from 77 taxa are included to assist in the identification of species. (PDF file contains 38 pages.

The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea: the 1975 Geneva Session

The second substantive session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea was held at Geneva from March 26 to May 10, 1975. It was decided at the outset that this would be a negotiating session. There was no general debate. Few formal meetings were held. Even informal working groups of the whole tended to rely on smaller groups the work of which was necessarily removed from public view. Progress, in many respects substantial progress, was made toward producing generally acceptable texts in this way. However, the Conference did not complete the negotiation of a new Law of the Sea Convention or approved texts.</jats:p

The Preparations for the Law of the Sea Conference

The United Nations General Assembly has convened a new Conference on the Law of the Sea. Its object is to achieve comprehensive agreement on the international law of the sea. Most if not all members of the United Nations, as well as other states, can be expected to attend the substantive session in Caracas this summer. The Conference will have before it the results of the work of the 91member UN Seabed Committee which has been carrying on preparations for the Conference since 1970. The Committee's reports include draft texts, usually in the form of alternatives, notably with respect to the question of the legal regime for the deep seabeds and the prevention of ocean pollution; proposals made by a large number of states on one or more issues; and a comprehensive list of subjects and issues.1 To these should be added a number of studies prepared by the UN Secretariat at the Committee's request. The Conference must likewise take into account the four Conventions 2 adopted by the 1958 Conference on the Law of the Sea on the basis of texts prepared by the International Law Commission; relevant decisions of the International Court of Justice; the Declaration of Principles regarding the deep seabeds adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1970; 3 and a vast array of official statements and scholarly writings regarding the nature and content of the existing law of the sea

The infrared Yang-Mills wave functional due to percolating center vortices

Inspired by the center-vortex dominance in the infrared sector of $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory observed on the lattice, we propose a vacuum wave functional localized on an ensemble of correlated center vortices endowed with stiffness and magnetic monopoles that change the orientation of the vortex flux. In the electric-field representation, this wave functional becomes an effective partition function for N complex scalar fields. The inclusion of both oriented and non-oriented vortices as well as so-called N-vortex matchings leads to an effective potential that has only a center symmetry left. In the center-vortex condensed phase, this symmetry is spontaneously broken. In this case, the Wilson loop average can be approximated by a solitonic saddle-point localized around the minimal surface. The asymptotic string tension thus obtained displays Casimir scaling

Attractive Casimir effect in an infrared modified gluon bag model

In this work, we are motivated by previous attempts to derive the vacuum contribution to the bag energy in terms of familiar Casimir energy calculations for spherical geometries. A simple infrared modified model is introduced which allows studying the effects of the analytic structure as well as the geometry in a clear manner. In this context, we show that if a class of infrared vanishing effective gluon propagators is considered, then the renormalized vacuum energy for a spherical bag is attractive, as required by the bag model to adjust hadron spectroscopy.Comment: 7 pages. 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D. Revised version with improved analysis and presentation, references adde

Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 1. Guidelines for guidelines

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the first of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this. OBJECTIVES: We reviewed the literature on guidelines for the development of guidelines. METHODS: We searched PubMed and three databases of methodological studies for existing systematic reviews and relevant methodological research. We did not conduct systematic reviews ourselves. Our conclusions are based on the available evidence, consideration of what WHO and other organisations are doing and logical arguments. KEY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: We found no experimental research that compared different formats of guidelines for guidelines or studies that compared different components of guidelines for guidelines. However, there are many examples, surveys and other observational studies that compared the impact of different guideline development documents on guideline quality. WHAT HAVE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS DONE TO DEVELOP GUIDELINES FOR GUIDELINES FROM WHICH WHO CAN LEARN? • Establish a credible, independent committee that evaluates existing methods for developing guidelines or that updates existing ones. • Obtain feedback and approval from various stakeholders during the development process of guidelines for guidelines. • Develop a detailed source document (manual) that guideline developers can use as reference material. WHAT SHOULD BE THE KEY COMPONENTS OF WHO GUIDELINES FOR GUIDELINES? • Guidelines for guidelines should include information and instructions about the following components: 1) Priority setting; 2) Group composition and consultations; 3) Declaration and avoidance of conflicts of interest; 4) Group processes; 5) Identification of important outcomes; 6) Explicit definition of the questions and eligibility criteria ; 7) Type of study designs for different questions; 8) Identification of evidence; 9) Synthesis and presentation of evidence; 10) Specification and integration of values; 11) Making judgments about desirable and undesirable effects; 12) Taking account of equity; 13) Grading evidence and recommendations; 14) Taking account of costs; 15) Adaptation, applicability, transferability of guidelines; 16) Structure of reports; 17) Methods of peer review; 18) Planned methods of dissemination & implementation; 19) Evaluation of the guidelines. WHAT HAVE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS DONE TO IMPLEMENT GUIDELINES FOR GUIDELINES FROM WHICH WHO CAN LEARN? • Obtain buy-in from regions and country level representatives for guidelines for guidelines before dissemination of a revised version. • Disseminate the guidelines for guidelines widely and make them available (e.g. on the Internet). • Develop examples of guidelines that guideline developers can use as models when applying the guidelines for guidelines. • Ensure training sessions for those responsible for developing guidelines. • Continue to monitor the methodological literature on guideline development