60 research outputs found
Facts, Values and Quanta
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as
the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to
properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand
the meaning of probability statements. The interpretation of probability has
excited nearly as much philosophical controversy as the interpretation of
quantum mechanics. 20th century physicists have mostly adopted a frequentist
conception. In this paper it is argued that we ought, instead, to adopt a
logical or Bayesian conception. The paper includes a comparison of the orthodox
and Bayesian theories of statistical inference. It concludes with a few remarks
concerning the implications for the concept of physical reality.Comment: 30 pages, AMS Late
Observational constraints on conformal time symmetry, missing matter and double dark energy
The current concordance model of cosmology is dominated by two mysterious
ingredients: dark matter and dark energy. In this paper, we explore the
possibility that, in fact, there exist two dark-energy components: the
cosmological constant , with equation-of-state parameter
, and a `missing matter' component with , which we
introduce here to allow the evolution of the universal scale factor as a
function of conformal time to exhibit a symmetry that relates the big bang to
the future conformal singularity, such as in Penrose's conformal cyclic
cosmology. Using recent cosmological observations, we constrain the present-day
energy density of missing matter to be . This is
consistent with the standard CDM model, but constraints on the energy
densities of all the components are considerably broadened by the introduction
of missing matter; significant relative probability exists even for
, and so the presence of a missing matter component
cannot be ruled out. As a result, a Bayesian model selection analysis only
slightly disfavours its introduction by 1.1 log-units of evidence. Foregoing
our symmetry requirement on the conformal time evolution of the universe, we
extend our analysis by allowing to be a free parameter. For this more
generic `double dark energy' model, we find and
, which is again consistent with the standard
CDM model, although once more the posterior distributions are
sufficiently broad that the existence of a second dark-energy component cannot
be ruled out. The model including the second dark energy component also has an
equivalent Bayesian evidence to CDM, within the estimation error, and
is indistinguishable according to the Jeffreys guideline.Comment: Revised version emphasising a different version of the underlying
symmetry, as published in JCA
Leading change in higher education
This article considers the situation in the UK higher education system and investigates specifically the leadership practice in a cluster of UK institutions as they changed their status. The research goes further to advocate a form of contextualized leadership that is relevant to higher institutions under change
Networks of violence in the production of young women's trajectories and subjectivities
© 2016 Feminist Review. This paper focuses on the deployment and interdependence of different expressions of gendered and classed violence in shaping the choices, trajectories and subjectivities of young women on vocational beauty therapy courses. It takes as its premise the understanding that, far from simply being an aberrant expression of interpersonal or intergroup aggression, violence is embedded in social life in multiple and complex ways, reverberating through women's lives to reproduce disadvantage and subordination. The paper draws on theoretical and empirical investigations of the interrelationships between structural, direct and symbolic expressions of violence and asks what this literature can offer in challenging normative, often individualised, conceptions of violence. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) beauty therapy courses and the young women undertaking them, I explore the accounts of students and their tutors on becoming and being 'beauty girls'. I consider what these accounts might tell us about how forms of symbolic and interpersonal violence intersect with, reproduce and legitimise the violence involved in unequal and unjust socio-economic structures. I argue that the ways in which different forms of violence mutually reinforce each other at a micro-level produce an embodied 'sense of limits' that ultimately reproduces the structural violence of gendered and classed inequalities. The examples given illustrate both a 'chronology of violence' in young women's lives, and the way in which those lives can be understood, at least in part, as embedded in and shaped by networks of violence. Finally, I briefly consider examples of dissent and resistance, the conditions under which they might be possible and the ways in which, through the interplay of different forms of violence, they might also be curtailed
A search for doubly charged higgs production in z0 decays
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124394.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access
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