Generalised space-time and duality

In this paper we consider the previously proposed generalised space-time and investigate the structure of the field theory upon which it is based. In particular, we derive a SO(D,D) formulation of the bosonic string as a non-linear realisation at lowest levels of the semi-direct product of E11 with the first fundamental representation l1. We give a Hamiltonian formulation of this theory and carry out its quantisation. We argue that the choice of representation of the quantum theory breaks the manifest SO(D,D) symmetry but that the symmetry is manifest in a non-commutative field theory. We discuss the implications for the conjectured E11 symmetry and the role of the l1 representation.Comment: 17 pages, a few typographical errors correcte

Some simple predictions from E_{11} symmetry

The simplest consequences of the common E_{11} symmetry of the eleven dimensional, IIA and IIB theories are derived and are shown to imply the known relations between these three theories.Comment: plain tex, 14 page

E11E_{11}, SL(32) and Central Charges

We show that the $E_{11}$ representation that contains the space-time translation generators also contains the rank two and five totally anti-symmetric representations of $A_{10}$. By studying the behaviour of these latter $A_{10}$ representations under SL(32), which we argue is contained in the Cartan involution invariant sub-algebra of $E_{11}$, we find that the rank two and five totally anti-symmetric representations must be identified with the central charges of the eleven dimensional supersymmetry algebra.Comment: 12 pages, plain tex, Typos corrected, one reference and three sentences added and equation (3.8) change

Kac-Moody Symmetries of IIB Supergravity

We formulate the bosonic sector of IIB supergravity as a non-linear realisation. We show that this non-linear realisation contains the Borel subalgebras of SL(11) and $E_7$ and argue that it can be enlarged so as to be based on the rank eleven Kac-Moody algebra $E_{11}$Comment: 12 pages, plain te

All in the same boat? East Anglia, the North Sea World and the 1147 expedition to Lisbon

Unpaginated submission version of chapter published in East Anglia and the North Sea World

How to run a school concert

DVD Music Engagement ProgramThis documentary (formerly released as THE BIG GIG) explores some of the strategies involved in applying the radical philosophy developed over many years in music education by Dr Susan West of the School of Music at the Australian National University. The film and the event it records complement the ideas presented in Dr West's COMMON ARTISTRY lecture (also available on DVD from Ronin). In 2010, Dr West and her colleagues Georgia Pike and Nicole Mengel, in the Music Engagement Program at the ANU, mounted what they termed an “Outreach Concert” involving some 2,200 primary school pupils from 18 schools in Canberra. The participants were encouraged not to worry about “excellence” and accuracy in their performance but to make music in such a way that would encourage the audience to join in. As the concert reveals, the audience response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The key difference between this and many other school concerts is one of intent, which Dr West and her colleagues discuss in the documentary. If the intent of the “performers” is to engage others, there is minimal evidence of stage fright, issues of right or wrong notes dissipate, and a relaxed atmosphere of fun and joy in singing prevails. Schools elected to be involved at a range of levels, whether they wanted to sing from the auditorium, from the stage, or both. All participants were given a selection of songs to learn, and schools could also elect to present a song of their own on the stage. Some of these “presentation” songs rehearsed by individual schools also had interactive elements where “audience” could join in. Some schools brought their entire population, while others brought particular cohorts. Groups presenting songs on stage were not auditioned, as consistent with MEP principles, and could include children from one or several school years. A community group, with members ranging from 4 to 84, played an important role in helping to support both the musical and social elements of the event, and was open to anyone, regardless of age or musical background. T­­his group met weekly for two months prior to the event and leant much of the concert repertoire as well as preparing their own items. A group of instrumentalists was assembled from players in Canberra and from the Riverina Conservatorium of Music in Wagga Wagga. The leader of the group, Dr Lauren Davis, prepared arrangements that allowed any volunteer to participate, without audition, and regardless of skill level. The work of the Music Engagement Program is supported by artsACT, the arts office of the ACT Government, and also the Education and Training Directorate of the ACT

Freedom of the Church and our Endangered Civil Rights: Exiting the Social Contract

In this comment I suggest that the “Freedom of the Church” to ignore the dictates of our various Civil Rights Acts, whether in the ministerial context or more broadly, created or at least newly discovered by the Court in Hosanna-Tabor, is a vivid example of a newly emerging and deeply troubling family of rights, which I have called elsewhere “exit rights” and which collectively constitute a new paradigm of both institutional and individual rights in constitutional law quite generally. The Church’s right to the ministerial exception might be understood as one of this new generation of rights, including some newly recognized by the Court over the last two decades, some with a slightly older lineage, and some sought after but not yet won by litigants—the point of which is to exempt their holders from legal obligations which are themselves constitutive of some significant part of civil society and to thereby create, in effect, separate spheres of individual or group sovereignty into which otherwise binding legal norms and obligations do not reach. They are “rights to exit” civil society and the social compact at its core, or at least, rights to exit some substantial part of it

Defining “Accidents” in the Air: Why Tort Law Principles Are Essential to Interpret the Montreal Convention’s “Accident” Requirement

This Note examines the history of, and the reasons for, the Montreal Convention, which in part forces airlines to indemnify passengers for injuries resulting from “accidents”—a term undefined in the treaty. The Montreal Convention and the subsequent case law interpreting it demonstrate how, to qualify as an “accident,” the injury-producing incident must be causally connected to the plane’s operation. Importantly, the causal connection’s adequacy should be evaluated according to American tort jurisprudence even though the accident requirement itself is an exception to general tort law. This Note focuses on a particular type of injury-producing event, a copassenger tort, because of its interesting causal nature that exemplifies the contrast between decisions using tort law and those rendered under the Convention

Weaving the Fabric of Patient Safety

It is critical to support Colorado's leaders in health care, business and government to build a culture of safety, ensure safe and efficient transitions of care, and foster the creation of a Patient Safety Organization. This summary -- developed by the Colorado Patient Safety Leadership Task Force with support from The Colorado Trust -- provides a roadmap for patient safety activities in Colorado. The complete agenda, Weaving the Fabric of Patient Safety in Colorado, is available from the Colorado Patient Safety Coalition

The Word on Trial

Milner Ball\u27s extraordinary book, The Word and the Law, begins with a narrative account of seven practices in law. The seven practitioners Ball brings to life for the reader share two powerful traits: they all, in quite different ways, use law to lessen the multiple sufferings of various communities of poor people, and they all, by doing so, strengthen the communities within which and for which they labor. The reader gains from these accounts not only a sympathetic understanding of the lives of seven lawyers, but a renewed sense of the possibilities their practices present. This can be put any number of ways. Perhaps most simply, Ball\u27s retelling of these practices opens the possibility of finding in legal practice a vehicle for helping people, for attending with care to the needs of people, for making a change in the world for the better, for acting with compassion toward the end of social justice. These practices deserve our admiration, but they are by no means beyond our grasp. They are human-sized practices that suggest the feasibility, and not just the nobility, of a professional life committed to social justice. Ball employs theological argument, literary interpretation, journalistic reporting, a good deal of personal narrative, and simply, moral reflection to engage the reader directly with both the seven practices and with the texts, biblical, literary, and legal, that he brings to the task of understanding. These meditations are overflowing with insight, suggestion, description, self-revelation, interpretation, and stones within stones within stones. While never sentimental, his meditations are truly heartening. They tell the story of one man\u27s intellectual attempt to make moral and religious sense of his own life, and the lives of some people he admires, in law it is a story, and an intellectual journey, that is well conceived and well told. In the remainder of this Review, I will comment very briefly on two of the theological themes that recur in Ball\u27s meditations and note what I think are some possible connections between his theological arguments and some of our legal practices and habits of mind. Thus, in Part II, I will explore the possibility that the discussion Ball provides of the use of parables in the Bible, and particularly his challenging interpretation of a passage from the Book of Mark regarding the use of parables, might also shed some light on the use of narrative by critical race theorists, as well as some of the recent criticism that narrative jurisprudence has elicited. In Part III, I briefly suggest that the relation for which Ball argues between religion and Belief, or between religious practices and God\u27s Word, may find an echo in the relation between law and justice. I hope that by drawing analogies between the theological arguments Ball makes about religion and the Word, on the one hand, and some of our contemporary debates about law and justice, on the other, I am not trivializing or grossly misstating Ball\u27s positions. I must emphasize that the analogies I draw are mine, not his, and I apologize for any distortion in his positions that may result from my attempt to make a coherent claim that fruitful analogies exist