3,093 research outputs found
Popular music, psychogeography, place identity and tourism: The case of Sheffield
Tourism and cultural agencies in some English provincial cities are promoting their popular music âheritageâ and, in some cases, contemporary musicians through the packaging of trails, sites, âiconicâ venues and festivals. This article focuses on Sheffield, a âpost-industrialâ northern English city which is drawing on its associations with musicians past and present in seeking to attract tourists. This article is based on interviews with, among others, recording artists, promoters, producers and venue managers, along with reflective observational and documentary data. Theoretical remarks are made on the representations of popular musicians through cultural tourism strategies, programmes and products and also on the ways in which musicians convey a âpsychogeographicalâ sense of place in the âsoundscapeâ of the city
Assessment of culture and environment in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Rationale, description of measures, and early data.
Neurodevelopmental maturation takes place in a social environment in addition to a neurobiological one. Characterization of social environmental factors that influence this process is therefore an essential component in developing an accurate model of adolescent brain and neurocognitive development, as well as susceptibility to change with the use of marijuana and other drugs. The creation of the Culture and Environment (CE) measurement component of the ABCD protocol was guided by this understanding. Three areas were identified by the CE Work Group as central to this process: influences relating to CE Group membership, influences created by the proximal social environment, influences stemming from social interactions. Eleven measures assess these influences, and by time of publication, will have been administered to well over 7,000 9-10 year-old children and one of their parents. Our report presents baseline data on psychometric characteristics (mean, standard deviation, range, skewness, coefficient alpha) of all measures within the battery. Effectiveness of the battery in differentiating 9-10âŻyear olds who were classified as at higher and lower risk for marijuana use in adolescence was also evaluated. Psychometric characteristics on all measures were good to excellent; higher vs. lower risk contrasts were significant in areas where risk differentiation would be anticipated
Off-Critical SLE(2) and SLE(4): a Field Theory Approach
Using their relationship with the free boson and the free symplectic fermion,
we study the off-critical perturbation of SLE(4) and SLE(2) obtained by adding
a mass term to the action. We compute the off-critical statistics of the source
in the Loewner equation describing the two dimensional interfaces. In these two
cases we show that ratios of massive by massless partition functions,
expressible as ratios of regularised determinants of massive and massless
Laplacians, are (local) martingales for the massless interfaces. The
off-critical drifts in the stochastic source of the Loewner equation are
proportional to the logarithmic derivative of these ratios. We also show that
massive correlation functions are (local) martingales for the massive
interfaces. In the case of massive SLE(4), we use this property to prove a
factorisation of the free boson measure.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figures, Published versio
Pre-freezing of multifractal exponents in Random Energy Models with logarithmically correlated potential
Boltzmann-Gibbs measures generated by logarithmically correlated random
potentials are multifractal. We investigate the abrupt change ("pre-freezing")
of multifractality exponents extracted from the averaged moments of the measure
- the so-called inverse participation ratios. The pre-freezing can be
identified with termination of the disorder-averaged multifractality spectrum.
Naive replica limit employed to study a one-dimensional variant of the model is
shown to break down at the pre-freezing point. Further insights are possible
when employing zero-dimensional and infinite-dimensional versions of the
problem. In particular, the latter version allows one to identify the pattern
of the replica symmetry breaking responsible for the pre-freezing phenomenon.Comment: This is published version, 11 pages, 1 figur
Interaction of photons with plasmas and liquid metals: photoabsorption and scattering
Formulas to describe the photoabsorption and the photon scattering by a
plasma or a liquid metal are derived in a unified manner with each other. It is
shown how the nuclear motion, the free-electron motion and the core-electron
behaviour in each ion in the system determine the structure of photoabsorption
and scattering in an electron-ion mixture. The absorption cross section in the
dipole approximation consists of three terms which represent the absorption
caused by the nuclear motion, the absorption owing to the free-electron motion
producing optical conductivity or inverse Bremsstrahlung, and the absorption
ascribed to the core-electron behaviour in each ion with the Doppler
correction. Also, the photon scattering formula provides an analysis method for
experiments observing the ion-ion dynamical structure factor (DSF), the
electron-electron DSF giving plasma oscillations, and the core-electron DSF
yielding the X-ray Raman (Compton) scattering with a clear definition of the
background scattering for each experiment, in a unified manner. A formula for
anomalous X-ray scattering is also derived for a liquid metal. At the same
time, Thomson scattering in plasma physics is discussed from this general point
of view.Comment: LaTeX file: 18 pages without figur
Critical curves in conformally invariant statistical systems
We consider critical curves -- conformally invariant curves that appear at
critical points of two-dimensional statistical mechanical systems. We show how
to describe these curves in terms of the Coulomb gas formalism of conformal
field theory (CFT). We also provide links between this description and the
stochastic (Schramm-) Loewner evolution (SLE). The connection appears in the
long-time limit of stochastic evolution of various SLE observables related to
CFT primary fields. We show how the multifractal spectrum of harmonic measure
and other fractal characteristics of critical curves can be obtained.Comment: Published versio
Conformal loop ensembles and the stress-energy tensor
We give a construction of the stress-energy tensor of conformal field theory
(CFT) as a local "object" in conformal loop ensembles CLE_\kappa, for all
values of \kappa in the dilute regime 8/3 < \kappa <= 4 (corresponding to the
central charges 0 < c <= 1, and including all CFT minimal models). We provide a
quick introduction to CLE, a mathematical theory for random loops in simply
connected domains with properties of conformal invariance, developed by
Sheffield and Werner (2006). We consider its extension to more general regions
of definition, and make various hypotheses that are needed for our construction
and expected to hold for CLE in the dilute regime. Using this, we identify the
stress-energy tensor in the context of CLE. This is done by deriving its
associated conformal Ward identities for single insertions in CLE probability
functions, along with the appropriate boundary conditions on simply connected
domains; its properties under conformal maps, involving the Schwarzian
derivative; and its one-point average in terms of the "relative partition
function." Part of the construction is in the same spirit as, but widely
generalizes, that found in the context of SLE_{8/3} by the author, Riva and
Cardy (2006), which only dealt with the case of zero central charge in simply
connected hyperbolic regions. We do not use the explicit construction of the
CLE probability measure, but only its defining and expected general properties.Comment: 49 pages, 3 figures. This is a concatenated, reduced and simplified
version of arXiv:0903.0372 and (especially) arXiv:0908.151
The effects of the spontaneous presence of a spouse/partner and others on cardiovascular reactions to an acute psychological challenge
The presence of supportive others has been associated with attenuated cardiovascular reactivity in the laboratory. The effects of the presence of a spouse and others in a more naturalistic setting have received little attention. Blood pressure and heart rate reactions to mental stress were recorded at home in 1028 married/partnered individuals. For 112 participants, their spouse/partner was present; for 78, at least one other person was present. Women tested with a spouse/partner present showed lower magnitude systolic blood pressure and heart rate reactivity than those tested without. Individuals tested with at least one nonspousal other present also displayed attenuated reactivity. This extends the results of laboratory studies and indicates that the spontaneous presence of others is associated with a reduction in cardiovascular reactivity in an everyday environment; spouse/partner presence would appear to be especially effective for women.\ud
\u
Boundary conformal field theories and loop models
We propose a systematic method to extract conformal loop models for rational
conformal field theories (CFT). Method is based on defining an ADE model for
boundary primary operators by using the fusion matrices of these operators as
adjacency matrices. These loop models respect the conformal boundary
conditions. We discuss the loop models that can be extracted by this method for
minimal CFTs and then we will give dilute O(n) loop models on the square
lattice as examples for these loop models. We give also some proposals for WZW
SU(2) models.Comment: 23 Pages, major changes! title change
Calculus on manifolds of conformal maps and CFT
In conformal field theory (CFT) on simply connected domains of the Riemann
sphere, the natural conformal symmetries under self-maps are extended, in a
certain way, to local symmetries under general conformal maps, and this is at
the basis of the powerful techniques of CFT. Conformal maps of simply connected
domains naturally have the structure of an infinite-dimensional groupoid, which
generalizes the finite-dimensional group of self-maps. We put a topological
structure on the space of conformal maps on simply connected domains, which
makes it into a topological groupoid. Further, we (almost) extend this to a
local manifold structure based on the infinite-dimensional Frechet topological
vector space of holomorphic functions on a given domain A. From this, we
develop the notion of conformal A-differentiability at the identity. Our main
conclusion is that quadratic differentials characterizing cotangent elements on
the local manifold enjoy properties similar to those of the holomorphic
stress-energy tensor of CFT; these properties underpin the local symmetries of
CFT. Applying the general formalism to CFT correlation functions, we show that
the stress-energy tensor is exactly such a quadratic differential. This is at
the basis of constructing the stress-energy tensor in conformal loop ensembles.
It also clarifies the relation between Cardy's boundary conditions for CFT on
simply connected domains, and the expression of the stress-energy tensor in
terms of metric variations.Comment: v1: 51 pages, 5 figures. v2: 56 pages, corrections and
clarifications. v3: 53 pages, one substantial addition (groupoid structure),
discussion further clarified and simplified. v4: 59 pages, introduction
improved, with a discussion on the relations with previous works. Published
versio
- âŠ