Resonant Leptogenesis

We study the scenario of thermal leptogenesis in which the leptonic asymmetries are resonantly enhanced through the mixing of nearly degenerate heavy Majorana neutrinos that have mass differences comparable to their decay widths. Field-theoretic issues arising from the proper subtraction of real intermediate states from the lepton-number-violating scattering processes are addressed in connection with an earlier developed resummation approach to unstable particle mixing in decay amplitudes. The pertinent Boltzmann equations are numerically solved after the enhanced heavy-neutrino self-energy effects on scatterings and the dominant gauge-mediated collision terms are included. We show that resonant leptogenesis can be realized with heavy Majorana neutrinos even as light as about 1 TeV, in complete accordance with the current solar and atmospheric neutrino data.Comment: 53 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures, improved Eq. (A.7) and clarifying comments adde

STARPROBE: Scientific rationale

The scientific rationale and instrumentation problems in the areas of solar internal dynamics and relativity, solar plasma and particle dynamics, and solar atmosphere structure were studied. Current STARPROBE mission and system design concepts are summarized

On the Consistency of Perturbativity and Gauge Coupling Unification

We investigate constraints that the requirements of perturbativity and gauge coupling unification impose on extensions of the Standard Model and of the MSSM. In particular, we discuss the renormalization group running in several SUSY left-right symmetric and Pati-Salam models and show how the various scales appearing in these models have to be chosen in order to achieve unification. We find that unification in the considered models occurs typically at scales below M^{min}_{B violation} = 10^16 GeV, implying potential conflicts with the non-observation of proton decay. We emphasize that extending the particle content of a model in order to push the GUT scale higher or to achieve unification in the first place will very often lead to non-perturbative evolution. We generalize this observation to arbitrary extensions of the Standard Model and of the MSSM and show that the requirement of perturbativity up to M^{min}_{B violation}, if considered a valid guideline for model building, severely limits the particle content of any such model, especially in the supersymmetric case. However, we also discuss several mechanisms to circumvent perturbativity and proton decay issues, for example in certain classes of extra dimensional models.Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Towards developing an industry led educational framework using LEAN approach

The poor performance and inefficient manner in which the construction industry operates has been recognised through a variety of combined government and industry initiatives over the years. A major challenge towards improvement is recognised as lying with education and industry stakeholders actively creating closer and more effective relationships to facilitate a greater mutual understanding. The application of Information Technology (IT) systems can well enhance ‘Lean’ initiatives through improving process flow, reduction of the non-added value activities, better meet customers’ requirements and adding value which will increase the performance of the industry. This paper presents a project that is focused on developing an industry led framework for educational training programmes. The outcomes of two workshops organised with the industry that have resulted in a Continued Professional Development (CPD) training framework comprising of three distinct levels in terms of strategic, operational and technology aspects of that particular key area are discussed. The essence of this work is based on adopting the ‘Lean’ approach and adding value by identifying the IT skills gaps recognised ‘by the industry’ ‘for the industry’ and addressing them in developing training programmes

The State Of IS In Australian Universities - New South Wales Report

This paper, examining Information Systems in New South Wales universities, highlights the significance of New South Wales as the most populous state in Australia. Rather than offering a comprehensive coverage of all Information Systems courses in the state, the paper gives a broad overview of Information Systems in the states universities while seeking to highlight the distinctive characteristics of some of the universities, deemed to have particular significance in the state. The view portrayed is of an environment threatening the continuing existence of Information Systems in some of the states universities. Again, the state of Information Systems research in the states universities is characterised by diversity and limited collaboration

Affordance and Affect in Promotional Websites

Guidelines for e-commerce website design deal well with the more objective aspects of page design, but have less to say about overall site structure and users' emotional responses. In this study we used a semiotic approach to investigate how several fashion websites provide affordances for navigation and produce affective responses. We gained some interesting insights into how users interpret these websites and more importantly, we developed a method which could be usefule in evaluating website design

Space Trajectory Error Analysis Program (STEAP) for halo orbit missions. Volume 2: Programmer's manual

The six month effort was responsible for the development, test, conversion, and documentation of computer software for the mission analysis of missions to halo orbits about libration points in the earth-sun system. The software consisting of two programs called NOMNAL and ERRAN is part of the Space Trajectories Error Analysis Programs. The program NOMNAL targets a transfer trajectory from earth on a given launch date to a specified halo orbit on a required arrival date. Either impulsive or finite thrust insertion maneuvers into halo orbit are permitted by the program. The transfer trajectory is consistent with a realistic launch profile input by the user. The second program ERRAN conducts error analyses of the targeted transfer trajectory. Measurements including range, doppler, star-planet angles, and apparent planet diameter are processed in a Kalman-Schmidt filter to determine the trajectory knowledge uncertainty