Fermions scattering in a three dimensional extreme black hole background

The absorption cross section for scattering of fermions off an extreme BTZ black hole is calculated. It is shown that, as in the case of scalar particles, an extreme BTZ black hole exhibits a vanishing absorption cross section, which is consistent with the vanishing entropy of such object. Additionally, we give a general argument to prove that the particle flux near the horizon is zero. Finally we show that the {\it reciprocal space} introduced previously in \cite{gm} gives rise to the same result and, therefore, it could be considered as the space where the scattering process takes place in an AdS spacetime.Comment: 15 pages, RevTex4. Revised version. To be published in Class. Quantum. Gra

Industrial and Human Ruins of Post Communist Europe

With the former industrial cities of Eastern Europe in ruin - once the pillars of these former communist economies - the attention of both investors and academics has shifted towards capital cities and their political and economic potential fueled by the rise of new governments and foreign direct investment. The failed attempts to privatize many of these former industrial spaces, has left entire cities in ruin and despair, forgotten by all but artists and preservationists, who see these spaces not only as aesthetically inspiring but also as charged with redemptive potential. This article puts forward an alternative exploration of the Eastern European post-communist transition through these ruined spaces, arguing that the aesthetic dimension of change is key to understanding the human impact of the transition. Focusing on two former industrial sites – the Hunedoara Ironworks in Romania and the Vitkovice Ironworks in the Czech Republic, the article seeks to understand the rhetorical and material relationship between these ruined spaces and the workers who once inhabited them as well as the effect that different practices of representation – mainly photography - and preservation have had on these spaces

National interest to global reform: patterns of reasoning in British foreign policy discourse

Discussion of the national interest often focuses on how Britain's influence can be maximized, rather than on the goals that influence serves. Yet what gives content to claims about the national interest is the means-ends reasoning which links interests to deeper goals. In ideal-typical terms, this can take two forms. The first, and more common, approach is conservative: it infers national interests and the goals they advance from existing policies and commitments. The second is reformist: it starts by specifying national goals and then asks how they are best advanced under particular conditions. New Labour's foreign policy discourse is notable for its explicit use of a reformist approach. Indeed, Gordon Brown's vision of a 'new global society' not only identifies global reform as a key means of fulfilling national goals, but also thereby extends the concept of the national interest well beyond a narrow concern with national security

Significance of Soil Lightness Versus Physicochemical Soil Properties in Semiarid Areas

This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published in " Arid Land Research and Management"; Volume 28, Issue 4, 2014; copyright Taylor & Francis; available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15324982.2014.882871Modern agriculture aims to encompass all soil attributes to optimize soil use and minimize environmental impacts. One of those attributes is soil color, which allows determining important soil variables for crop management and soil conservation. In this study, the relationships between lightness and several pedologic, topographic, and soil management variables were determined. One hundred and ten topsoil points were sampled in an area where the Mediterranean climate is the only homogeneous soil forming factor. Soil samples were air dried, crushed, and sieved, and lightness measurements were made using a trichromatic colorimeter. The relationships between lightness and soil-related parameters were carried out by means of bivariate linear correlation, and Mann-Witney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Soil textural fractions (sand and silt), electrical conductivity and carbonates were statistically significant (p<0.001) and exhibited moderate correlation coefficients (0.32 0.45). Topographic variables (slope and aspect), soil organic carbon, iron, nitrogen, pH, and parent material (marls) exhibited lower effect on lightness. The response of lightness to clay content was highly conditioned by iron content. Stoniness, phosphorous, elevation, and soil management variables (irrigation and land use) were not statistically significant. The results obtained with calcareous samples from semiarid areas showed that soil lightness behavior agree with findings in developed soils, despite of the large differences in soil composition and the heterogeneity of the study area.Moreno-Ramón, H.; Marqués-Mateu, Á.; Ibañez Asensio, S. (2014). Significance of Soil Lightness Versus Physicochemical Soil Properties in Semiarid Areas. Arid Land Research and Management. 28(4):371-382. doi:10.1080/15324982.2014.882871S371382284Al-Mahawili , S. M. H. , M. F. Baumgardner , R. A. Weismiller , and W. N. Melhorn . 1983 . Satellite image interpretation and laboratory spectral reflectance measurements of saline and gypsiferous soils of West Baghdad, Iraq.LARS Technical Reports. Paper 104.Barrett, L. R. (2002). Spectrophotometric color measurement in situ in well drained sandy soils. Geoderma, 108(1-2), 49-77. doi:10.1016/s0016-7061(02)00121-0Bogrekci, I., & Lee, W. S. (2005). Spectral Phosphorus Mapping using Diffuse Reflectance of Soils and Grass. Biosystems Engineering, 91(3), 305-312. doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2005.04.015Buol, S. W., Southard, R. J., Graham, R. C., & McDaniel, P. A. (2011). Soil Genesis and Classification. doi:10.1002/9780470960622Christensen, L. K., Bennedsen, B. S., Jørgensen, R. N., & Nielsen, H. (2004). Modelling Nitrogen and Phosphorus Content at Early Growth Stages in Spring Barley using Hyperspectral Line Scanning. Biosystems Engineering, 88(1), 19-24. doi:10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2004.02.006Doi, R., Wachrinrat, C., Teejuntuk, S., Sakurai, K., & Sahunalu, P. (2009). Semiquantitative color profiling of soils over a land degradation gradient in Sakaerat, Thailand. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 170(1-4), 301-309. doi:10.1007/s10661-009-1233-xDuiker, S. W., Rhoton, F. E., Torrent, J., Smeck, N. E., & Lal, R. (2003). Iron (Hydr)Oxide Crystallinity Effects on Soil Aggregation. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 67(2), 606. doi:10.2136/sssaj2003.0606Ehsani, M. R., Upadhyaya, S. K., Slaughter, D., Shafii, S., & Pelletier, M. (1999). Precision Agriculture, 1(2), 219-236. doi:10.1023/a:1009916108990Gunal, H., Ersahin, S., Yetgin, B., & Kutlu, T. (2008). Use of Chromameter‐Measured Color Parameters in Estimating Color‐Related Soil Variables. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 39(5-6), 726-740. doi:10.1080/00103620701879422Ibarra-F., F. A., Martin-R., M. H., Cox, J. R., Crowl, T. A., Post, D. F., Miller, R. W., & Rasmussen, G. A. (1995). Relationship between Buffelgrass Survival, Organic Carbon, and Soil Color in Mexico. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 59(4), 1120. doi:10.2136/sssaj1995.03615995005900040025xKonen, M. E., Burras, C. L., & Sandor, J. A. (2003). Organic Carbon, Texture, and Quantitative Color Measurement Relationships for Cultivated Soils in North Central Iowa. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 67(6), 1823. doi:10.2136/sssaj2003.1823Mouazen, A. M., Maleki, M. R., De Baerdemaeker, J., & Ramon, H. (2007). On-line measurement of some selected soil properties using a VIS–NIR sensor. Soil and Tillage Research, 93(1), 13-27. doi:10.1016/j.still.2006.03.009Pan, G., Xu, X., Smith, P., Pan, W., & Lal, R. (2010). An increase in topsoil SOC stock of China’s croplands between 1985 and 2006 revealed by soil monitoring. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 136(1-2), 133-138. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2009.12.011Sánchez-Marañón, M., Martín-García, J. M., & Delgado, R. (2011). Effects of the fabric on the relationship between aggregate stability and color in a Regosol–Umbrisol soilscape. Geoderma, 162(1-2), 86-95. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2011.01.008Sánchez-Marañón, M., Ortega, R., Miralles, I., & Soriano, M. (2007). Estimating the mass wetness of Spanish arid soils from lightness measurements. Geoderma, 141(3-4), 397-406. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2007.07.005Sánchez-Marañón, M., Delgado, G., Melgosa, M., Hita, E., & Delgado, R. (1997). CIELAB COLOR PARAMETERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO SOIL CHARACTERISTICS IN MEDITERRANEAN RED SOILS. Soil Science, 162(11), 833-842. doi:10.1097/00010694-199711000-00007Singleton, P. (1991). Water tables and soil colour as an indicator of saturation in some soils of the Waikato, New Zealand. Soil Research, 29(4), 467. doi:10.1071/sr9910467Spielvogel, S., Knicker, H., & Kögel-Knabner, I. (2004). Soil organic matter composition and soil lightness. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, 167(5), 545-555. doi:10.1002/jpln.200421424Viscarra Rossel, R. A., Minasny, B., Roudier, P., & McBratney, A. B. (2006). Colour space models for soil science. Geoderma, 133(3-4), 320-337. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2005.07.017Webster, R., & Oliver, M. A. (2007). Geostatistics for Environmental Scientists. Statistics in Practice. doi:10.1002/978047051727

Klotho gene polymorphism, brain structure and cognition in early-life development

Open access via Springer Compact Agreement Acknowledgements We thank the PING study participants who contributed to the research. The study was supported by the University of Aberdeen Development Trust and by the SINAPSE (Scottish Imaging Network: A Platform for Scientific Excellence) Postdoctoral and Early Career Researcher Exchanges funding. The PING Study (National Institutes of Health Grant RC2DA029475) funded data collection and sharing for this project. PING is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. PING data are disseminated by the PING Coordinating Center at the Center for Human Development, University of California, San Diego. Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics Study (PING) database (http://ping.chd.ucsd.edu/). As such, the investigators within PING contributed to the design and implementation of PING and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of PING investigators can be found at http://ping.chd.ucsd.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104&Itemid=134. The Generation R Study is conducted by the Erasmus Medical Center in close collaboration with the School of Law and Faculty of Social Sciences of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area, Rotterdam, the Rotterdam Homecare Foundation, Rotterdam and the Stichting Trombosedienst & Artsenlaboratorium Rijnmond (STAR-MDC), Rotterdam. Neuroimaging was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) TOP project number 91211021. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of children and parents, general practitioners, hospitals, midwives and pharmacies in Rotterdam. We would like to thank Karol Estrada, Dr. Tobias A. Knoch, Anis Abuseiris, Luc V. de Zeeuw, and Rob de Graaf, for their help in creating GRIMP, BigGRID, MediGRID, and Services@MediGRID/D-Grid, [funded by the German Bundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technology; grants 01 AK 803 A-H, 01 IG 07015 G] for access to their grid computing resources. We thank Pascal Arp, Mila Jhamai, Marijn Verkerk, Manoushka Ganesh, Lizbeth Herrera and Marjolein Peters for their help in creating, managing and QC of the GWAS database. The general design of Generation R Study is made possible by financial support from the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, ZonMw, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Ministry of Youth and Families.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0-50,000yeats cal BP

The IntCal04 and Marine04 radiocarbon calibration curves have been updated from 12 cal kBP (cal kBP is here defined as thousands of calibrated years before AD 1950), and extended to 50 cal kBP, utilizing newly available data sets that meet the IntCal Working Group criteria for pristine corals and other carbonates and for quantification of uncertainty in both the 14C and calendar timescales as established in 2002. No change was made to the curves from 0–12 cal kBP. The curves were constructed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) implementation of the random walk model used for IntCal04 and Marine04. The new curves were ratified at the 20th International Radiocarbon Conference in June 2009 and are available in the Supplemental Material at www.radiocarbon.org

Soil quality assessment based on soil organic matter pools under long‐term tillage systems and following tillage conversion in a semi‐humid region

A field study was conducted to assess the long-term effects of no-tillage (NT) and conventional tillage (CT), and the short-term effects following tillage conversion -from CT to NT (NTn) and from NT to CT (CTn) on soil quality (SQ) indicators in a semi-humid climate. First, plots of a long-term tillage experiment on a Luvic Phaeozem initiated in 1986, were split into two subplots in 2012, yielding four treatments: NT, CT, NTn and CTn. In 2015, composite soil samples were collected from each treatment and from a natural site (Ref) at depths 0-5, 5-10, 10-20 and 0-20 cm. Several indicators were determined: soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (SON); particulate organic C (POM-C) and N (POM-N); potential N mineralization (PMN) and soil respiration (Rs). Moreover, bulk density was determined in long-term tillage systems. Different ratios between indicators were calculated, with emphasis on its function in the agroecosystem, i.e. functional indicators. Significant differences in SOC, SON and PMN were found between CT and NT at most depths. In contrast, three years after tillage conversion, only a part of the SQ indicators studied were modified mainly at the 0-10 cm depth. The functional indicators showed differences between tillage systems in the long-term and after short-term tillage conversion depending on the depth; however, the PMN/SON ratio demonstrated differences at all depths. Under these conditions, this ratio -related to easily mineralizable N fraction- proved to be a promising indicator for assessing SQ under contrasting tillage systems regardless of the sampling depth.Fil: Martinez, Juan Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; ArgentinaFil: Galantini, Juan Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; Argentina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; ArgentinaFil: Duval, Matias Ezequiel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Agronomía; ArgentinaFil: López, Fernando Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Centro de Recursos Naturales Renovables de la Zona Semiárida; Argentin

Casimir Energies for Spherically Symmetric Cavities

A general calculation of Casimir energies --in an arbitrary number of dimensions-- for massless quantized fields in spherically symmetric cavities is carried out. All the most common situations, including scalar and spinor fields, the electromagnetic field, and various boundary conditions are treated with care. The final results are given as analytical (closed) expressions in terms of Barnes zeta functions. A direct, straightforward numerical evaluation of the formulas is then performed, which yields highly accurate numbers of, in principle, arbitrarily good precision.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, sub. Ann. Phy

A possible role for HLA-G in development of uteroplacental acute atherosis in preeclampsia

HLA-G, a non-classical HLA molecule expressed by extravillous trophoblasts, plays a role in the maternal immune tolerance towards fetal cells. HLA-G expression is regulated by genetic polymorphisms in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR). Low levels of HLA-G in the maternal circulation and placental tissue are linked to preeclampsia. Our objective was to investigate whether variants of the 3'UTR of the HLA-G gene in mother and fetus are associated with acute atherosis, a pregnancy specific arterial lesion of the decidua basalis that is prevalent in preeclampsia. Paired maternal and fetal DNA samples from 83 normotensive and 83 preeclamptic pregnancies were analyzed. We sequenced the part of the HLA-G 3'UTR containing a 14-bp insertion/deletion region and seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Associations with acute atherosis were tested by logistic regression. The frequency of heterozygosity for the 14-bp polymorphism (Ins/Del) and the +3142 SNP (C/G) variant in the fetus are associated with acute atherosis in preeclampsia (66.7 % vs. 39.6 %, p = 0.039, and 69.0 % vs. 43.4 %, p = 0.024). Furthermore, the fetal UTR-3 haplotype, which encompasses the 14-bp deletion and the +3142G variant, is associated with acute atherosis in preeclampsia (15 % vs. 3.8 %, p = 0.016). In conclusion, HLA-G polymorphisms in the fetus are associated with acute atherosis. We hypothesize that these polymorphisms lead to altered HLA-G expression in the decidua basalis, affecting local feto-maternal immune tolerance and development of acute atherosis

Business ethics : practical proposals

While most people agree that the inculcation of ethical awareness is desirable, the means of stimulating this awareness vary among companies, industries and cultures. The fundamental question surrounding the difference between social responsibility and ethics is addressed. Guidelines for establishing ethical priorities from both the individual, group and organisational perspectives are provided. <br /