The Reluctance of Cattle to Change a Learned Choice May Confound Preference Tests

The conclusion of the article states "it appears that previously learned choices may affect future choices in Y-mazes for cattle. Another area that needs to be researched is the effects of a mildly aversive treatment versus a severely aversive treatment on the tendency of a bovine to resist changing a learned choice"

The Spherically Symmetric Standard Model with Gravity

Spherical reduction of generic four-dimensional theories is revisited. Three different notions of "spherical symmetry" are defined. The following sectors are investigated: Einstein-Cartan theory, spinors, (non-)abelian gauge fields and scalar fields. In each sector a different formalism seems to be most convenient: the Cartan formulation of gravity works best in the purely gravitational sector, the Einstein formulation is convenient for the Yang-Mills sector and for reducing scalar fields, and the Newman-Penrose formalism seems to be the most transparent one in the fermionic sector. Combining them the spherically reduced Standard Model of particle physics together with the usually omitted gravity part can be presented as a two-dimensional (dilaton gravity) theory.Comment: 58 pages, 2 eps figure

Black Hole Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

We have known for more than thirty years that black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, radiating as black bodies with characteristic temperatures and entropies. This behavior is not only interesting in its own right; it could also, through a statistical mechanical description, cast light on some of the deep problems of quantizing gravity. In these lectures, I review what we currently know about black hole thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, suggest a rather speculative "universal" characterization of the underlying states, and describe some key open questions.Comment: 35 pages, Springer macros; for the Proceedings of the 4th Aegean Summer School on Black Hole