1,185 research outputs found
The role of forensic geoscience in wildlife crime detection
The increase in both automation and precision in the analysis of geological materials has had significant impact upon forensic investigations in the last 10 years. There is however, a fundamental philosophical difference between forensic and geological enquiry. This paper presents the results of forensic geoscientific investigations of three cases of wildlife crime. Two cases involve the analysis of soils recovered after incidents of illegal badger baiting in the United Kingdom. The third case involves the illegal importation of Eleonora's Falcon (Falco eleonorae) into the United Kingdom from the Mediterranean. All three cases utilise the analysis of soils by a variety of physical, chemical and biological techniques. These involve mineral and grain size analyses, cation and anion compositions, pH, organic content and pollen analysis.The independent analysis undertaken by specialists in each of these three main fields conclude firstly, that there is a significant similarity between sediments taken at the crime site at both badger setts and with sediments recovered from various spades, shovels and clothing belonging to suspects and secondly, that the soils analysed associated with the removal of the falcon eggs in the Mediterranean contained characteristics similar in many respects to the soils of the breeding areas of E eleonorae on the cliffs of Mallorca. The use of these independent techniques in wildlife crime detection has great potential given the ubiquitous nature of soils and sediments found in association with wildlife sites. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved
Cosmic Acceleration from M Theory on Twisted Spaces
In a recent paper [I.P. Neupane and D.L. Wiltshire, Phys. Lett. B 619, 201
(2005).] we have found a new class of accelerating cosmologies arising from a
time--dependent compactification of classical supergravity on product spaces
that include one or more geometric twists along with non-trivial curved
internal spaces. With such effects, a scalar potential can have a local minimum
with positive vacuum energy. The existence of such a minimum generically
predicts a period of accelerated expansion in the four-dimensional
Einstein-conformal frame. Here we extend our knowledge of these cosmological
solutions by presenting new examples and discuss the properties of the
solutions in a more general setting. We also relate the known (asymptotic)
solutions for multi-scalar fields with exponential potentials to the
accelerating solutions arising from simple (or twisted) product spaces for
internal manifolds.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures; added a summary Table, PRD versio
Charged gravitational instantons in five-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet-Maxwell theory
We study a solution of the Einstein-Gauus-Bonnet theory in 5 dimensions
coupled to a Maxwell field, whose euclidean continuation gives rise to an
instanton describing black hole pair production. We also discuss the dual
theory with a 3-form field coupled to gravity.Comment: 8 pages, plain Te
Robertson-Walker fluid sources endowed with rotation characterised by quadratic terms in angular velocity parameter
Einstein's equations for a Robertson-Walker fluid source endowed with
rotation Einstein's equations for a Robertson-Walker fluid source endowed with
rotation are presented upto and including quadratic terms in angular velocity
parameter. A family of analytic solutions are obtained for the case in which
the source angular velocity is purely time-dependent. A subclass of solutions
is presented which merge smoothly to homogeneous rotating and non-rotating
central sources. The particular solution for dust endowed with rotation is
presented. In all cases explicit expressions, depending sinusoidally on polar
angle, are given for the density and internal supporting pressure of the
rotating source. In addition to the non-zero axial velocity of the fluid
particles it is shown that there is also a radial component of velocity which
vanishes only at the poles. The velocity four-vector has a zero component
between poles
Accelerating cosmologies from compactification with a twist
It is demonstrated by explicit solutions of the (4+n)-dimensional vacuum
Einstein equations that accelerating cosmologies in the Einstein conformal
frame can be obtained by a time-dependent compactification of string/M-theory,
even in the case that internal dimensions are Ricci-flat, provided one includes
one or more geometric twists. Such acceleration is transient. When both compact
hyperbolic internal spaces and geometric twists are included, however, the
period of accelerated expansion may be made arbitrarily large.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX
Hubble flow variance and the cosmic rest frame
We characterize the radial and angular variance of the Hubble flow in the
COMPOSITE sample of 4534 galaxies, on scales in which much of the flow is in
the nonlinear regime. With no cosmological assumptions other than the existence
of a suitably averaged linear Hubble law, we find with decisive Bayesian
evidence (ln B >> 5) that the Hubble constant averaged in independent spherical
radial shells is closer to its asymptotic value when referred to the rest frame
of the Local Group, rather than the standard rest frame of the Cosmic Microwave
Background. An exception occurs for radial shells in the range 40/h-60/h Mpc.
Angular averages reveal a dipole structure in the Hubble flow, whose amplitude
changes markedly over the range 32/h-62/h Mpc. Whereas the LG frame dipole is
initially constant and then decreases significantly, the CMB frame dipole
initially decreases but then increases. The map of angular Hubble flow
variation in the LG rest frame is found to coincide with that of the residual
CMB temperature dipole, with correlation coefficient -0.92. These results are
difficult to reconcile with the standard kinematic interpretation of the motion
of the Local Group in response to the clustering dipole, but are consistent
with a foreground non-kinematic anisotropy in the distance-redshift relation of
0.5% on scales up to 65/h Mpc. Effectively, the differential expansion of space
produced by nearby nonlinear structures of local voids and denser walls and
filaments cannot be reduced to a local boost. This hypothesis suggests a
reinterpretation of bulk flows, which may potentially impact on calibration of
supernovae distances, anomalies associated with large angles in the CMB
anisotropy spectrum, and the dark flow inferred from the kinematic
Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. It is consistent with recent studies that find
evidence for a non-kinematic dipole in the distribution of distant radio
sources.Comment: 37 pages, 9 tables, 13 figures; v2 adds extensive new analysis
(including additional subsections, tables, figures); v3 adds a Monte Carlo
analysis (with additional table, figure) which further tightens the
statistical robustness of the dipole results; v4 adds further clarifications,
small corrections, references and discussion of Planck satellite results; v5
typos fixed, matches published versio
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