6,201 research outputs found
Growth, profits and technological choice: The case of the Lancashire cotton textile industry
Using Lancashire textile industry company case studies and financial records, mainly from the period just before the First World War, the processes of growth and decline are re-examined. These are considered by reference to the nature of Lancashire entrepreneurship and the impact on technological choice. Capital accumulation, associated wealth distributions and the character of Lancashire business organisation were sybiotically linked to the success of the industry before 1914. However, the legacy of that accumulation in later decades, chronic overcapacity, formed a barrier to reconstruction and enhanced the preciptious decline of a once great industry
Comparison theory and smooth minimal C*-dynamics
We prove that the C*-algebra of a minimal diffeomorphism satisfies
Blackadar's Fundamental Comparability Property for positive elements. This
leads to the classification, in terms of K-theory and traces, of the
isomorphism classes of countably generated Hilbert modules over such algebras,
and to a similar classification for the closures of unitary orbits of
self-adjoint elements. We also obtain a structure theorem for the Cuntz
semigroup in this setting, and prove a conjecture of Blackadar and Handelman:
the lower semicontinuous dimension functions are weakly dense in the space of
all dimension functions. These results continue to hold in the broader setting
of unital simple ASH algebras with slow dimension growth and stable rank one.
Our main tool is a sharp bound on the radius of comparison of a recursive
subhomogeneous C*-algebra. This is also used to construct uncountably many
non-Morita-equivalent simple separable amenable C*-algebras with the same
K-theory and tracial state space, providing a C*-algebraic analogue of McDuff's
uncountable family of II_1 factors. We prove in passing that the range of the
radius of comparison is exhausted by simple C*-algebras.Comment: 30 pages, no figure
Quantum corrections to Higher-Dimensional Theories
This is a non-technical summary of the subtleties of quantum corrections on
extra-dimensional theories: should one first renormalize and then mode expand,
or first expand in four-dimensional modes and then renormalize?Comment: 9 pages, based on a talk at IRGAC 2006, Barcelon
BDE-209 in the Australian environment: desktop review
The commercial polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardant mixture c-decaBDE is now being considered for listing on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The aim of our study was to review the literature regarding the use and detection of BDE-209, a major component of c-decaBDE, in consumer products and provide a best estimate of goods that are likely to contain BDE-209 in Australia. This review is part of a larger study, which will include quantitative testing of items to assess for BDE-209. The findings of this desktop review will be used to determine which items should be prioritized for quantitative testing. We identified that electronics, particularly televisions, computers, small household appliances and power boards, were the items that were most likely to contain BDE-209 in Australia. Further testing of these items should include items of various ages. Several other items were identified as high priority for future testing, including transport vehicles, building materials and textiles in non-domestic settings. The findings from this study will aid in the development of appropriate policies, should listing of c-decaBDE on the Stockholm Convention and Australia's ratification of that listing proceed
Statistical mechanics of an ideal Bose gas in a confined geometry
We study the behaviour of an ideal non-relativistic Bose gas in a
three-dimensional space where one of the dimensions is compactified to form a
circle. In this case there is no phase transition like that for the case of an
infinite volume, nevertheless Bose-Einstein condensation signified by a sudden
buildup of particles in the ground state can occur. We use the grand canonical
ensemble to study this problem. In particular, the specific heat is evaluated
numerically, as well as analytically in certain limits. We show analytically
how the familiar result for the specific heat is recovered as we let the size
of the circle become large so that the infinite volume limit is approached. We
also examine in detail the behaviour of the chemical potential and establish
the precise manner in which it approaches zero as the volume becomes large.Comment: 13 pages, 2 eps figures, revtex
One-Loop Renormalization of a Self-Interacting Scalar Field in Nonsimply Connected Spacetimes
Using the effective potential, we study the one-loop renormalization of a
massive self-interacting scalar field at finite temperature in flat manifolds
with one or more compactified spatial dimensions. We prove that, owing to the
compactification and finite temperature, the renormalized physical parameters
of the theory (mass and coupling constant) acquire thermal and topological
contributions. In the case of one compactified spatial dimension at finite
temperature, we find that the corrections to the mass are positive, but those
to the coupling constant are negative. We discuss the possibility of
triviality, i.e. that the renormalized coupling constant goes to zero at some
temperature or at some radius of the compactified spatial dimension.Comment: 16 pages, plain LATE
Bose-Einstein condensation as symmetry breaking in compact curved spacetimes
We examine Bose-Einstein condensation as a form of symmetry breaking in the
specific model of the Einstein static universe. We show that symmetry breaking
never occursin the sense that the chemical potential never reaches its
critical value.This leads us to some statements about spaces of finite volume
in general. In an appendix we clarify the relationship between the standard
statistical mechanical approaches and the field theory method using zeta
functions.Comment: Revtex, 25 pages, 3 figures, uses EPSF.sty. To be published in Phys.
Rev.
Lack of association between glucocorticoid use and presence of the metabolic syndrome in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study
Introduction - Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) associates with excessive cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, attributed to both traditional and novel cardiovascular risk factors. The metabolic syndrome, a cluster of classical cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, obesity, glucose intolerance, and dyslipidaemia, is highly prevalent in RA. Reports suggest that long-term glucocorticoid (GC) use may exacerbate individual cardiovascular risk factors, but there have been no studies in RA to assess whether it associates with the metabolic syndrome. We examined whether GC exposure associates with the presence of metabolic syndrome in patients with RA. Methods - RA patients (n = 398) with detailed clinical and laboratory assessments were categorised into three groups according to GC exposure: no/limited (<3 months) exposure (NE), low-dose (<7.5 mg/day) long-term exposure (LE), and medium-dose (greater than or equal to 7.5 mg to 30 mg/day) long-term exposure (ME). The metabolic syndrome was defined using the National Cholesterol Education Programme III guidelines. The association of GC exposure with the metabolic syndrome was evaluated using binary logistic regression. Results - The metabolic syndrome was present in 40.1% of this population and its prevalence did not differ significantly between the GC exposure groups (NE 37.9% versus LE 40.7% versus ME 50%, P = 0.241). Binary logistic regression did not demonstrate any increased odds for the metabolic syndrome when comparing ME with LE (odds ratio = 1.64, 95% confidence interval 0.92 to 2.92, P = 0.094) and remained non significant after adjusting for multiple potential confounders. Conclusions - Long-term GC exposure does not appear to associate with a higher prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in patients with RA. The components of the metabolic syndrome may already be extensively modified by other processes in RA (including chronic inflammation and treatments other than GCs), leaving little scope for additive effects of GCs
- …