Super exponential inflation from a dynamical foliation of a 5D vacuum state

We introduce super exponential inflation ($\omega < -1$) from a 5D Riemann-flat canonical metric on which we make a dynamical foliation. The resulting metric describes a super accelerated expansion for the early universe well-known as super exponential inflation that, for very large times, tends to an asymptotic de Sitter (vacuum dominated) expansion. The scalar field fluctuations are analyzed. The important result here obtained is that the spectral index for energy density fluctuations is not scale invariant, and for cosmological scales becomes $n_s(k<k_*) \simeq 1$. However, for astrophysical scales this spectrum changes to negative values $n_s(k>k_*) <0$.Comment: Final version, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Around the globe and across Canada : the agriculture and agri-food Canada agroforestry division

Paper presented at the 11th North American Agroforesty Conference, which was held May 31-June 3, 2009 in Columbia, Missouri.In Gold, M.A. and M.M. Hall, eds. Agroforestry Comes of Age: Putting Science into Practice. Proceedings, 11th North American Agroforestry Conference, Columbia, Mo., May 31-June 3, 2009."The Agroforestry Division of the new Agri-Environment Services Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is in transition from a predominantly regional focus to a national role in providing leadership and expertise in agroforestry research, development and delivery across Canada. In its expanded role, the Agroforestry Division seeks to enhance agroforestry practices through the development of partnerships with regional and local agroforestry interests. National coordination will assist to identify and prioritize research needs, develop and publish technical materials, and to establish demonstration sites to promote agroforestry as an economically viable and sustainable agricultural practice. However, many challenges exist in the expansion to a national role. This document will provide a history of the existing Division, its structure and the issues of functioning as a national organization."--From Introduction.Tricia Pollock (1) and Henry de Gooijer (1) ; 1. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Agroforestry Division, Indian Head, SK, Canada, S0G 2K0.Includes bibliographical references

Configuring the caller in ambiguous encounters: volunteer handling of calls to Samaritans emotional support services

This paper discusses volunteer strategies for handling and assessing calls to Samaritans emotional support services for the suicidal and despairing. It presents findings from the qualitative components of a two year mixed methods study based on an online caller survey, branch observations and interviews with volunteers and callers throughout the UK. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data analysis was undertaken using the principle of constant comparison. Many calls fell beyond the primary remit of a crisis service, and called for rapid attribution and assessment. Uncertainty about identifying ‘good’ calls and recognizing those which were not caused difficulty, frustration and negative attribution towards some callers. This paper presents our analysis of volunteers’ accounts of how they configure the caller in intrinsically uncertain and ambiguous encounters, and how such strategies relate to the formal principles of unconditional support and non-judgemental active listening espoused by the organization

Exploring the fate of cattle herds with inconclusive reactors to the tuberculin skin test

Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is an important animal health issue in many parts of the world. In England and Wales, the primary test to detect infected animals is the single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin test, which compares immunological responses to bovine and avian tuberculins. Inconclusive test reactors (IRs) are animals that demonstrate a positive reaction to the bovine tuberculin only marginally greater than the avian reaction, so are not classified as reactors and immediately removed. In the absence of reactors in the herd, IRs are isolated, placed under movement restrictions and re-tested after 60 days. Other animals in these herds at the time of the IR result are not usually subject to movement restrictions. This could affect efforts to control TB if undetected infected cattle move out of those herds before the next TB test. To improve our understanding of the importance of IRs, this study aimed to assess whether median survival time and the hazard of a subsequent TB incident differs in herds with only IRs detected compared with negative-testing herds. Survival analysis and extended Cox regression were used, with herds entering the study on the date of the first whole herd test in 2012. An additional analysis was performed using an alternative entry date to try to remove the impact of IR retesting and is presented in the Supplementary Material. Survival analysis showed that the median survival time among IR only herds was half that observed for clear herds (2.1 years and 4.2 years respectively; p < 0.001). Extended Cox regression analysis showed that IR-only herds had 2.7 times the hazard of a subsequent incident compared with negative-testing herds in year one (hazard ratio: 2.69; 95% CI: 2.54, 2.84; p < 0.001), and that this difference in the hazard reduced by 63% per year. After 2.7 years the difference had disappeared. The supplementary analysis supported these findings showing that IR only herds still had a greater hazard of a subsequent incident after the IR re-test, but that the effect was reduced. This emphasizes the importance of careful decision making around the management of IR animals and indicates that re-testing alone may not be sufficient to reduce the risk posed by IR only herds in England and Wales

Logarithmic link smearing for full QCD

A Lie-algebra based recipe for smoothing gauge links in lattice field theory is presented, building on the matrix logarithm. With or without hypercubic nesting, this LOG/HYL smearing yields fat links which are differentiable w.r.t. the original ones. This is essential for defining UV-filtered ("fat link") fermion actions which may be simulated with a HMC-type algorithm. The effect of this smearing on the distribution of plaquettes and on the residual mass of tree-level O(a)-improved clover fermions in quenched QCD is studied.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures; v2: improved text, includes comparison of APE/EXP/LOG with optimized parameters, 3 references adde

Rho-Nucleon Tensor Coupling and Charge-Exchange Resonances

The Gamow-Teller resonances are discussed in the context of a self-consistent RPA, based on the relativistic mean field theory. We inquire on the possibility of substituting the phenomenological Landau-Migdal force by a microscopic nucleon-nucleon interaction generated from the rho-nucleon tensor coupling. The effect of this coupling turns out to be very small when the short range correlations are not taken into account, but too large when these correlations are simulated by the simple extraction of the contact terms from the resulting nucleon-nucleon interaction.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures; extended text, improved figures, new references added, the version appearing in Phys.Lett.

Realistic Interactions and Dilepton production off pp-collisions

We present a model for dilepton production of proton-proton collisions using a realist T-matrix that by incorporating Delta-isobar degrees of freedom fits the NN-scattering data up to 2 GeV. The results we find differ in details from earlier work that use less sophisticated interactions but the overall agreement with these calculations is good.Comment: 11 pages Revtex, 2 postscript figures include

Noncompact KK theory of gravity: stochastic treatment for a nonperturbative inflaton field in a de Sitter expansion

We study a stochastic formalism for a nonperturbative treatment of the inflaton field in the framework of a noncompact Kaluza-Klein (KK) theory during an inflationary (de Sitter) expansion, without the slow-roll approximation.Comment: version to be published in Phys. Lett.