Shaping Metrics for HEI Cultural Engagement - Knowledge Transfer

An application was submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for support for a project that would identify and define activities deemed relevant to Knowledge Transfer (KT) - Cultural Engagement (CE), and propose appropriate means to evaluate them. It was acknowledged from the outset that efforts at agreeing “metrics” for the impact of such activities had been attempted before, albeit with limited success. (One such notable example has been lately provided by the Higher Education and Business Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) which has collected some data on social, community, and cultural engagement for some years; however, the robustness and consistency of the data for these purposes have often been questioned.

The unusual distribution of molecular gas and star formation in Arp 140

We investigate the atomic and molecular interstellar medium and star formation of NGC 275, the late-type spiral galaxy in Arp 140, which is interacting with NGC 274, an early-type system. The atomic gas (HI) observations reveal a tidal tail from NGC 275 which extends many optical radii beyond the interacting pair. The HI morphology implies a prograde encounter between the galaxy pair approximately 1.5 x 10**8 years ago. The Halpha emission from NGC 275 indicates clumpy irregular star-formation, clumpiness which is mirrored by the underlying mass distribution as traced by the Ks-band emission. The molecular gas distribution is striking in its anti-correlation with the {HII regions. Despite the evolved nature of NGC 275's interaction and its barred potential, neither the molecular gas nor the star formation are centrally concentrated. We suggest that this structure results from stochastic star formation leading to preferential consumption of the gas in certain regions of the galaxy. In contrast to the often assumed picture of interacting galaxies, NGC 275, which appears to be close to merger, does not display enhanced or centrally concentrated star formation. If the eventual merger is to lead to a significant burst of star formation it must be preceded by a significant conversion of atomic to molecular gas as at the current rate of star formation all the molecular gas will be exhausted by the time the merger is complete.Comment: 13 paper, accepted my Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Prolonging assembly through dissociation:A self assembly paradigm in microtubules

We study a one-dimensional model of microtubule assembly/disassembly in which GTP bound to tubulins within the microtubule undergoes stochastic hydrolysis. In contrast to models that only consider a cap of GTP-bound tubulin, stochastic hydrolysis allows GTP-bound tubulin remnants to exist within the microtubule. We find that these buried GTP remnants enable an alternative mechanism of recovery from shrinkage, and enhances fluctuations of filament lengths. Under conditions for which this alternative mechanism dominates, an increasing depolymerization rate leads to a decrease in dissociation rate and thus a net increase in assembly.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review

Compton Scattering of Fe K alpha Lines in Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables

Compton scattering of X-rays in the bulk flow of the accretion column in magnetic cataclysmic variables (mCVs) can significantly shift photon energies. We present Monte Carlo simulations based on a nonlinear algorithm demonstrating the effects of Compton scattering on the H-like, He-like and neutral Fe K alpha lines produced in the post-shock region of the accretion column. The peak line emissivities of the photons in the post-shock flow are taken into consideration and frequency shifts due to Doppler effects are also included. We find that line profiles are most distorted by Compton scattering effects in strongly magnetized mCVs with a low white dwarf mass and high mass accretion rate and which are viewed at an oblique angle with respect to the accretion column. The resulting line profiles are most sensitive to the inclination angle. We have also explored the effects of modifying the accretion column width and using a realistic emissivity profile. We find that these do not have a significant overall effect on the resulting line profiles. A comparison of our simulated line spectra with high resolution Chandra/HETGS observations of the mCV GK Per indicates that a wing feature redward of the 6.4 keV line may result from Compton recoil near the base of the accretion column.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 10 pages with 8 figure

Shaping Metrics for HEI Cultural Engagement - Knowledge Transfer

An application was submitted to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for support for a project that would identify and define activities deemed relevant to Knowledge Transfer (KT) - Cultural Engagement (CE), and propose appropriate means to evaluate them. It was acknowledged from the outset that efforts at agreeing “metrics” for the impact of such activities had been attempted before, albeit with limited success. (One such notable example has been lately provided by the Higher Education and Business Community Interaction Survey (HEBCIS) which has collected some data on social, community, and cultural engagement for some years; however, the robustness and consistency of the data for these purposes have often been questioned.

Similarity between Kaluza-Klein and Open-string amplitudes in Diphoton Production

We calculate the tree-level open-string amplitudes for the scattering of four massless particles with diphoton final states. These amplitudes are required to reproduce those of standard model at the tree level in the low energy limit. After low energy stringy corrections, we found that they have similar form to the same processes induced by exchange of the Kaluza-Klein(KK) excitations of graviton in ADD scenario. Using this similarity, we apply constraints on the KK mass scale $M_D$ to the string scale $M_S$. The results are consistent with constraints from the 4-fermion scattering, about $0.6-0.9$ TeV.Comment: 10 pages, modified reference

The relation between financial development, energy consumption and economic growth: empirical evidence for the United States

This paper examines the relation between financial development, energy consumption and economic growth in the United States (U.S) for the period 1966-2011. We use a vector error correction model (VECM) to investigate the effect of financial development and energy consumption on economic growth in the U.S. In addition to examining the relation in the long run of the aforementioned variables using Johansen co-integration analysis, we also examine the short-run and long-run causalities between them. In addition to economic growth, financial development and energy consumption variables, we also examine the impact of real interest rate, gross fixed capital formation and trade openness on economic growth. We find that there is at least one co-integrating relation among the variables. There is some evidence that in the long run financial development causes economic growth; however, there is no evidence that economic growth causes financial development. Neither do we find evidence that financial development positively affects energy consumption either in the short- or long-run. However, in the short run, we find some evidence of two-way causality between economic growth and financial development