11,428 research outputs found
National evaluation of the neighbourhood nurseries: integrated report
Report description: The NNI was launched in 2001 to provide high quality childcare in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of England, to help parents into employment, reduce child poverty and boost children’s development. By 2005 45,000 new childcare places had been created in approximately 1,400 neighbourhood nurseries.
This report brings together the findings of the four individual strands of the National Evaluation of Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative as shown above and makes a number of recommendations.
The report shows the rationale for the government’s strategy in targeting disadvantaged neighbourhoods and in focusing on high quality childcare to provide the link between raising parental employment and income and improving children’s life chances
A_4-based neutrino masses with Majoron decaying dark matter
We propose an A_4 flavor-symmetric SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) seesaw model where lepton
number is broken spontaneously. A consistent two-zero texture pattern of
neutrino masses and mixing emerges from the interplay of type-I and type-II
seesaw contributions, with important phenomenological predictions. We show
that, if the Majoron becomes massive, such seesaw scenario provides a viable
candidate for decaying dark matter, consistent with cosmic microwave background
lifetime constraints that follow from current WMAP observations. We also
calculate the sub-leading one-loop-induced decay into photons which leads to a
mono-energetic emission line that may be observed in future X-ray missions such
as Xenia.Comment: 16 pages, 6 eps figures. Minor corrections. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Transient Gamma Ray Spectrometer Measurements of Gamma-Ray Lines from Novae. II. Constraining the Galactic Nova Rate from a Survey of the Southern Sky during 1995-1997
The good energy resolution (3--4 keV FWHM) of the Transient Gamma Ray
Spectrometer (TGRS) on board the WIND spacecraft makes it sensitive to
Doppler-shifted outbursts of 511 keV electron-positron annihilation radiation,
the reason being that the Doppler shift causes the cosmic line to be slightly
offset from a strong instrumental background 511 keV line at rest, which is
ubiquitous in space environments. Such a cosmic line (blueshifted) is predicted
to arise in classical novae due to the annihilation of positrons from
-decay on a timescale of a few hours in an expanding envelope. A further
advantage of TGRS - its broad field of view, containing the entire southern
ecliptic hemisphere - has enabled us to make a virtually complete and unbiased
3-year search for classical novae at distances up to ~1 kpc. We present
negative results of this search, and estimate its implications for the
highly-uncertain Galactic classical nova rate and for future space missions.Comment: 22 pp. + 3 fig
Supersymmetric Origin of Neutrino Mass
Supersymmetry with breaking of R-parity provides an attractive way to
generate neutrino masses and lepton mixing angles in accordance to present
neutrino data. We review the main theoretical features of the bilinear R-parity
breaking (BRpV) model, and stress that it is the simplest extension of the
minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) which includes lepton number
violation. We describe how it leads to a successful phenomenological model with
hierarchical neutrino masses. In contrast to seesaw models, the BRpV model can
be probed at future collider experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider or the
Next Linear Collider, since the decay pattern of the lightest supersymmetric
particle provides a direct connection with the lepton mixing angles determined
by neutrino experiments.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, review for NJP focus issue on neutrino
Neutrino Unification
Present neutrino data are consistent with neutrino masses arising from a
common seed at some ``neutrino unification'' scale . Such a simple
theoretical ansatz naturally leads to quasi-degenerate neutrinos that could lie
in the electron-volt range with neutrino mass splittings induced by
renormalization effects associated with supersymmetric thresholds. In such a
scheme the leptonic analogue of the Cabibbo angle describing
solar neutrino oscillations is nearly maximal. Its exact value is correlated
with the smallness of . These features agree both with latest
data on the solar neutrino spectra and with the reactor neutrino data. The two
leading mass-eigenstate neutrinos present in \ne form a pseudo-Dirac neutrino,
avoiding conflict with neutrinoless double beta decay.Comment: RevTex format, 2 figures, 4 pages, a few new references, no other
important change, figures unchanged, version to be published in PR
Selection of Panicum maximum hybrids in Brazil.
In search of new cultivars with differentials that better meet the needs of the cattle ranchers, crosses between five sexual plants and the apomictic accessions PM20, PM21 and Myiage were carried out at Embrapa Beef Cattle, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil. Accessions PM20 and PM21 were used to generate shorter hybrids for use under grazing and for crop-livestock integration; Myiage was used because of its ability to retain seeds.bitstream/item/210922/1/Selection-of-Panicum-maximum-hybrids-in-Brazil.pd
Quasi Harmonic Lattice Dynamics and Molecular Dynamics calculations for the Lennard-Jones solids
We present Molecular Dynamics (MD), Quasi Harmonic Lattice Dynamics (QHLD)
and Energy Minimization (EM) calculations for the crystal structure of Ne, Ar,
Kr and Xe as a function of pressure and temperature. New Lennard-Jones (LJ)
parameters are obtained for Ne, Kr and Xe to reproduce the experimental
pressure dependence of the density. We employ a simple method which combines
results of QHLD and MD calculations to achieve densities in good agreement with
experiment from 0 K to melting. Melting is discussed in connection with
intrinsic instability of the solid as given by the QHLD approximation. (See
http://www.fci.unibo.it/~valle for related papers)Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, REVte
Limits on Low Energy Photon-Photon Scattering from an Experiment on Magnetic Vacuum Birefringence
Experimental bounds on induced vacuum magnetic birefringence can be used to
improve present photon-photon scattering limits in the electronvolt energy
range. Measurements with the PVLAS apparatus (E. Zavattini {\it et al.}, Phys.
Rev. D {\bf77} (2008) 032006) at both nm and 532 nm lead to
bounds on the parameter {\it A}, describing non linear effects in QED, of
T @ 1064 nm and T @ 532 nm, respectively, at 95% confidence level,
compared to the predicted value of T. The
total photon-photon scattering cross section may also be expressed in terms of
, setting bounds for unpolarized light of m and m. Compared to the expected QED scattering cross
section these results are a factor of higher and represent
an improvement of a factor about 500 on previous bounds based on ellipticity
measurements and of a factor of about on bounds based on direct
stimulated scattering measurements
Gravitational Violation of R Parity and its Cosmological Signatures
The discrete R-parity () usually imposed on the Supersymmetric (SUSY)
models is expected to be broken at least gravitationally. If the neutralino is
a dark matter particle its decay channels into positrons, antiprotons and
neutrinos are severely constrained from astrophysical observations. These
constraints are shown to be violated even for Planck-mass-suppressed
dimension-five interactions arising from gravitational effects. We perform a
general analysis of gravitationally induced violation and identify two
plausible and astrophysically consistent scenarios for achieving the required
suppression.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
Oscillations of Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos and the Solar Neutrino Problem
The oscillations of pseudo-Dirac neutrinos in matter are discussed and
applied to the solar neutrino problem. Several scenarios such as both
and being pseudo-Dirac and only or being
pseudo-Dirac are examined. It is shown that the allowed region in the
mass-mixing angle parameter space obtained by comparing the solar neutrino data
with the calculations based on the standard solar model and the MSW effect is
not unique. The results depend on the nature of neutrinos; for example, if both
and are pseudo-Dirac, the allowed region determined by the
current solar neutrino data does not overlap with that obtained in the usual
case of pure Dirac or Majorana neutrinos.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures (not included
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