The Mertiyo Rathors of Merto, Rajasthan

The Meṛtīyo Rāṭhoṛs of Meṛto, Rājasthān is a treasure for scholars of Rajpūt history. Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, whose contributions to Rajpūt studies are well known to specialists in the field, have given us a work of deep and exacting scholarship. It is the culmination of decades devoted to the study of Middle Marwari chronicles from Rājasthān. The sources translated here provide access to the fortunes of a branch of the Jodhpur royal family, and in doing so they illuminate the larger world of Rajpūts in the middle period. The Meṛtīyo Rāṭhoṛs are significant for several reasons. Their story traces the emergence of a Rajpūt brotherhood into local prominence and follows the establishment of their kingdom on the eastern edge of Mārvāṛ as a defined territorial unit. The evolution of the Meṛtīyos as a brotherhood passed through several clearly defined stages, including a relationship with the house of Jodhpur that ranged from mutual support among brothers to hostility and clear separation. A study of the Meṛtīyos in this context provides a unique view of the formation of a strong and indpenedent Rajpūt cadet line, of the establishment and defense of a local territory, and of the internal relations among Rajpūt brotherhoods regarding issues of precedence, honor, patronage, and service. The translations are accompanied by an extensive explanatory apparatus taking various forms, which includes a valuable essay on Rajput social organization, complete genealogies, and biographies of all the major personages of the chronicles

Enhanced orbital electron-capture nuclear decay rate in compact medium

The eigenstate energies of an atom increase under spatial confinement and this effect should also increase the electron density of the orbital electrons at the nucleus thus increasing the decay rate of an electron-capturing radioactive nucleus. We have observed that the orbital electron capture rates of 109In and 110Sn increased by (1.00+-0.17)% and (0.48+-0.25)% respectively when implanted in the small Au lattice versus large Pb lattice. These results have been understood because of the higher compression experienced by the large radioactive atoms due to the spatial confinement in the smaller Au lattice.Comment: 30 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Table

Overscreening of magnetic impurities in dx2−y2d_{x^2-y^2} wave superconductors

We consider the screening of a magnetic impurity in a $d_{x^2-y^2}$ wave superconductor. The properties of the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ state lead to an unusual behavior in the impurity magnetic susceptibility, the impurity specific heat and in the quasiparticle phase shift which can be used to diagnose the nature of the condensed state. We construct an effective theory for this problem and show that it is equivalent to a multichannel (one per node) non-marginal Kondo problem with linear density of states and coupling constant J. There is a quantum phase transition from an unscreened impurity state to an overscreened Kondo state at a critical value J_c which varies with $\Delta_0$, the superconducting gap away from the nodes. In the overscreened phase, the impurity Fermi level $\epsilon_f$ and the amplitude $\Delta$ of the ground state singlet vanish at J_c like $\Delta_0 \exp(- const. / \Delta)$ and J-J_c respectively. We derive the scaling laws for the susceptibility and specific heat in the overscreened phase at low fields and temperatures.Comment: 43 pages; shortened version; a number of typos have been correcte

Early-type galaxies in the PEARS survey: Probing the stellar populations at moderate redshift

Using HST/ACS slitless grism spectra from the PEARS program, we study the stellar populations of morphologically selected early-type galaxies in the GOODS North and South fields. The sample - extracted from a visual classification of the (v2.0) HST/ACS images and restricted to redshifts z>0.4 - comprises 228 galaxies (F775W<24 ABmag) out to z~1.3 over 320 arcmin2, with a median redshift zM=0.75. This work significantly increases our previous sample from the GRAPES survey in the HUDF (18 galaxies over ~11 arcmin2; Pasquali et al. 2006b). The grism data allow us to separate the sample into `red' and `blue' spectra, with the latter comprising 15% of the total. Three different grids of models parameterising the star formation history are used to fit the low-resolution spectra. Over the redshift range of the sample - corresponding to a cosmic age between 5 and 10 Gyr - we find a strong correlation between stellar mass and average age, whereas the **spread** of ages (defined by the RMS of the distribution) is roughly ~1 Gyr and independent of stellar mass. The best-fit parameters suggest it is formation epoch and not formation timescale, that best correlates with mass in early-type galaxies. This result - along with the recently observed lack of evolution of the number density of massive galaxies - motivates the need for a channel of (massive) galaxy formation bypassing any phase in the blue cloud, as suggested by the simulations of Dekel et al. (2009).Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables. Submitted for publication in Ap

Simulations of multiphase turbulence in jet cocoons

M. Krause and P. Alexander, 'Simulations of multiphase turbulence in jet cocoons', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 376, pp. 465-478, April 2007, the version of record is available online at doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11480.x. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 RASThe interaction of optically emitting clouds with warm X-ray gas and hot, tenuous radio plasma in radio jet cocoons is modelled by 2D compressible hydrodynamic simulations. The initial setup is the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability at a contact surface of density contrast 104. The denser medium contains clouds of higher density. Optically thin radiation is realized via a cooling source term. The cool phase effectively extracts energy from the other gas which is both, radiated away and used for acceleration of the cold phase. This increases the system’s cooling rate substantially and leads to a massively amplified cold mass dropout. We show that it is feasible, given small seed clouds of the order of 100 M, that all of the optically emitting gas in a radio jet cocoon may be produced by this mechanism on the propagation time-scale of the jet. The mass is generally distributed as T−1/2 with temperature, with a prominent peak at 14 000 K. This peak is likely to be related to the counteracting effects of shock heating and a strong rise in the cooling function. The volume filling factor of cold gas in this peak is of the order of 10−5–10−3 and generally increases during the simulation time. The simulations tend towards an isotropic scale-free Kolmogorov-type energy spectrum over the simulation time-scale. We find the same Mach-number density relation as Kritsuk & Norman and show that this relation may explain the velocity widths of emission lines associated with high-redshift radio galaxies, if the environmental temperature is lower, or the jet-ambient density ratio is less extreme than in their low-redshift counterparts.Peer reviewe

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies from the CHARGE consortium identifies common variants associated with carotid intima media thickness and plaque

Carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) and plaque determined by ultrasonography are established measures of subclinical atherosclerosis that each predicts future cardiovascular disease events. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association data in 31,211 participants of European ancestry from nine large studies in the setting of the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium. We then sought additional evidence to support our findings among 11,273 individuals using data from seven additional studies. In the combined meta-analysis, we identified three genomic regions associated with common carotid intima media thickness and two different regions associated with the presence of carotid plaque (P < 5 × 10 -8). The associated SNPs mapped in or near genes related to cellular signaling, lipid metabolism and blood pressure homeostasis, and two of the regions were associated with coronary artery disease (P < 0.006) in the Coronary Artery Disease Genome-Wide Replication and Meta-Analysis (CARDIoGRAM) consortium. Our findings may provide new insight into pathways leading to subclinical atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular events

The power of civilizational nationalism in Russian foreign policy making

The article draws upon theories of identity to understand Russian foreign policy towards Ukraine since 2000. The article argues that contemporary Russian foreign policy can be best understood as an articulation of ‘civilizational nationalism’ which relies on the myth of cultural superiority. The focus is on not only treating Russia as an imperial power, but on the cultural claims that this relies upon and its configuration within changing historical ideas of ‘Russianness’. Since the Orange Revolution, Russian presidents have accused Ukraine of following anti-Russian policies. This has been aided by a discourse of ‘civilizational nationalism’ where Ukraine is described as being part of a ‘Greater Russia’, rather than as a sovereign territory. This article analyses how imagined civilization and greatness of Russian culture is driving foreign policy making towards the Ukraine. Rather than an external territory, Ukraine is constructed as a ‘little brother’ which renders interventions legitimate

RANTES/CCL5 and risk for coronary events: Results from the MONICA/KORA Augsburg case-cohort, Athero-express and CARDIoGRAM studies

Background: The chemokine RANTES (regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted)/CCL5 is involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in mice, whereas less is known in humans. We hypothesised that its relevance for atherosclerosis should be reflected by associations between CCL5 gene variants, RANTES serum concentrations and protein levels in atherosclerotic plaques and risk for coronary events. Methods and Findings: We conducted a case-cohort study within the population-based MONICA/KORA Augsburg studies. Baseline RANTES serum levels were measured in 363 individuals with incident coronary events and 1,908 non-cases (mean follow-up: 10.2±