Viscoelastic deformation near active plate boundaries

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) now has the capacity to monitor geodetic positions with precisions of a few 1 mm over continental baselines. For tectonic applications, one of the major products of the VLBI program is the determination of the rate of change of station locations. Vector site velocities are now routinely produced. One of the novel techniques, VLBI Euler poles, is discussed

Neoliberalism, Networks and Knowledge: The commercialisation and resituating of universities

The influence of new “edu-businesses” on policy makers and administrators represents the most recent expansion of neoliberal inspired marketisation into higher education. It is also a sign of the expansion of a new, networked structure of policy making and institutional governance. Steven Ward discusses the profound changes in the way universities today are expected to interface with the states that support them, as well as the new assortment of “stakeholders” that influence their activities

Inflation from Geometrical Tachyons

We propose an alternative formulation of tachyon inflation using the geometrical tachyon arising from the time dependent motion of a BPS $D3$-brane in the background geometry due to $k$ parallel $NS$5-branes arranged around a ring of radius $R$. Due to the fact that the mass of this geometrical tachyon field is $\sqrt{2/k}$ times smaller than the corresponding open-string tachyon mass, we find that the slow roll conditions for inflation and the number of e-foldings can be satisfied in a manner that is consistent with an effective 4-dimensional model and with a perturbative string coupling. We also show that the metric perturbations produced at the end of inflation can be sufficiently small and do not lead to the inconsistencies that plague the open string tachyon models. Finally we argue for the existence of a minimum of the geometrical tachyon potential which could give rise to a traditional reheating mechanism.Comment: Latex, 20 pages, 4 figures; correction of algebraic errors in section 5 concerning the tachyon potential near its minimum. Conclusions unchange

What if we turned the skills-gap debate around?

Skills are in abundance, and the true gap is the underutilisation of talent, writes Steven C. War

Postmodernism as the sociocultural deconstruction of modernity

This work seeks to provide a description of the theoretical positions and cultural expressions of postmodernism and to provide a sociological critique of its conclusions. The work uses the writings of the Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Lacan, and Baudrillard, as well as arguments in neo-pop art and postmodern architecture, as representatives of the postmodern position on the issues of referentiality, subjectivity, and rationality. Postmodernism is treated as a skeptical theoretical and cultural system which levels all ideational distinctions between belief and knowledge and truth and rhetoric. This work argues that a social or constructivist epistemology can provide a different way of approaching the issues of knowledge and truth, which avoids postmodernism\u27s skeptical and nihilistic conclusions. Postmodernism is seen as making sociological arguments against traditional philosophical distinctions, but drawing idealistic conclusions about the end of all meaning. Using the Neo-Durkheimians orientation towards cognitive style and the constructivist position in the sociology of scientific knowledge as starting points, it is argued that while pure philosophical distinctions between true and false and knowledge and belief cannot be made, these distinctions remain strong and powerful social distinctions. These distinctions serve to foster group cohesion and identity. Finally, this work examines how postmodernism can be seen as the outcome of the social organization of specific culture-producing and culture-consuming groups in contemporary society

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry response pattern analysis of volatile organics in soils

The purge-and-trap gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric methods used by government agencies and their contracting laboratories for the analysis of volatile organic compounds in soils require the addition of both surrogate and internal standards to the sample matrix just prior to purging the sample with an inert gas. Addition of the standards at this point in the analysis provides no information regarding the effect that the sample matrix has on the target compounds, with a resultant artificially low calculated value for the target compounds; Addition of surrogate standards to the sample matrix at the same time as the target compounds reveals patterns of response indicating which surrogates should be associated with which target compounds. Response ratios generated from these target/surrogate pairs are then applied to subsequent sample analyses within the same soil type, providing recoveries of 90-105% with low relative standard deviations; Samples spiked with target compounds then spiked with surrogate compounds three days later, provided the same accuracy and precision when analyzed at holding times of zero, two, and three days after the surrogate spike

H-Diplo ISSF round table: Steven Ward. status and the challenge of rising powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Published versio

Crustal deformation at the Sumatran Subduction Zone revealed by coral rings

Analyses of coral rings grown in the interval 1970–1997 reveal a geographically distinct pattern of interseismic uplift off Sumatra's western coast. At distances less than 110 km from the Sumatran trench, coral reefs are submerging as fast as 5 mm/y. At 130 and 180 km distance from the trench, they are emerging at similar rates. We suggest that a locked, or partially locked patch, located above 30 km depth on the upper surface of the subducting oceanic plate, generates this pattern