Childcare quality improvement and assurance practices

This study set out to examine how quality assurance and quality improvement schemes are being used by Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships and childcare providers in England to improve the quality of services beyond minimum standards. Three types of early years providers took part: day nurseries, out-of-school clubs and childminding networks

The Onset of Phase Transitions in Condensed Matter and Relativistic QFT

Kibble and Zurek have provided a unifying causal picture for the appearance of topological defects like cosmic strings or vortices at the onset of phase transitions in relativistic QFT and condensed matter systems respectively. There is no direct experimental evidence in QFT, but in condensed matter the predictions are largely, but not wholly, supported in superfluid experiments on liquid helium. We provide an alternative picture for the initial appearance of strings/vortices that is commensurate with all the experimental evidence from condensed matter and consider some of its implications for QFT.Comment: 37 pages, to be published in Condensed Matter Physics, 200

Observations and analysis of geomagnetic field variations near the magnetic equator

In 1961 a magnetic observatory was established at Freetown, Sierra Leone (13º 13'W, 8º 28'N) just north of the dip equator. Records for H, D and Z for the period July 1961 to June 1965, covering the recent minimum in sunspot activity, have been analysed by the method due to Chapman and Miller to give the first four solar and luni-solar harmonics of the daily variation. The data was divided into three seasonal sets and two groups, firstly the International Quiet Days and secondly all days having magnetic activity index Ci ≤ 1.2. Probable errors for all harmonics have been determined and plotted on the harmonic dials. The seasonal changes of the solar terms show a movement of the equatorial current system in opposition to the sun with a larger shift during the northern summer months than during the northern winter months. The seasonal variations of the lunar terms show similar changes indicating that the lunar ionospheric current system behaves in a similar way to the solar current system. The occurrence of pulsations in the horizontal intensity of period approximately two minutes has been analysed for the year from March 1962 to February 1963. Two maxima were found, one at dawn and the second at noon. The dawn maxima was absent during northern winter months. A short field survey was undertaken to enable the plotting of magnetic charts for Sierra Leone. Measurements were also made of the daily variations at three field stations in Sierra Leone which confirmed the day-to-day variability of the daily variations of the equatorial ionospheric current system

Suzaku Confirms NGC~3660 is an Unabsorbed Seyfert 2

An enigmatic group of objects, unabsorbed Seyfert 2s may have intrinsically weak broad line regions, obscuration in the line of sight to the BLR but not to the X-ray corona, or so much obscuration that the X-ray continuum is completely suppressed and the observed spectrum is actually scattered into the line of sight from nearby material. NGC 3660 has been shown to have weak broad optical/near infrared lines, no obscuration in the soft X-ray band, and no indication of "changing look" behavior. The only previous hard X-ray detection of this source by Beppo-SAX seemed to indicate that the source might harbor a heavily obscured nucleus. However, our analysis of a long-look Suzaku observation of this source shows that this is not the case, and that this source has a typical power law X-ray continuum with normal reflection and no obscuration. We conclude that NGC 3660 is confirmed to have no unidentified obscuration and that the anomolously high Beppo-SAX measurement must be due to source confusion or similar, being inconsistent with our Suzaku measurements as well as non-detections from Swift-BAT and RXTE.Comment: Accepted to PAS

A renormalized large-n solution of the U(n) x U(n) linear sigma model in the broken symmetry phase

Dyson-Schwinger equations for the U(n) x U(n) symmetric matrix sigma model reformulated with two auxiliary fields in a background breaking the symmetry to U(n) are studied in the so-called bare vertex approximation. A large n solution is constructed under the supplementary assumption so that the scalar components are much heavier than the pseudoscalars. The renormalizability of the solution is investigated by explicit construction of the counterterms.Comment: RevTeX4, 14 pages, 2 figures. Version published in Phys. Rev.

Finite temperature corrections and embedded strings in noncommutative geometry and the standard model with neutrino mixing

The recent extension of the standard model to include massive neutrinos in the framework of noncommutative geometry and the spectral action principle involves new scalar fields and their interactions with the usual complex scalar doublet. After ensuring that they bring no unphysical consequences, we address the question of how these fields affect the physics predicted in Weinberg-Salam theory, particularly in the context of the Electroweak phase transition. Applying the Dolan-Jackiw procedure, we calculate the finite temperature corrections, and find that the phase transition is first order. The new scalar interactions significantly improve the stability of the Electroweak Z string, through the ``bag'' phenomenon described by Watkins and Vachaspati. (Recently cosmic strings have climbed back into interest due to new evidence). Sourced by static embedded strings, an internal space analogy of Cartan's torsion is drawn, and a possible Higgs-force-like `gravitational' effect of this non-propagating torsion on the fermion masses is described. We also check that the field generating the Majorana mass for the $\nu_R$ is non-zero in the physical vacuum.Comment: 42 page