Written evidence to the House of Commons Business and Skills Committee (ed) Local enterprise partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund

The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee announced an inquiry looking into the Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund. In particular, the Committee examined how the proposed new structures would work, alongside issues such as distribution of funding, value for money, accountability, timing, transitional arrangements and required legislation. A Report on the Local Enterprise Partnerships was published on 26 April 2013

Shielding of Space Vehicles by Magnetic Fields

Spacecraft shielding by magnetic field

Bohm and Einstein-Sasaki Metrics, Black Holes and Cosmological Event Horizons

We study physical applications of the Bohm metrics, which are infinite sequences of inhomogeneous Einstein metrics on spheres and products of spheres of dimension 5 <= d <= 9. We prove that all the Bohm metrics on S^3 x S^2 and S^3 x S^3 have negative eigenvalue modes of the Lichnerowicz operator and by numerical methods we establish that Bohm metrics on S^5 have negative eigenvalues too. We argue that all the Bohm metrics will have negative modes. These results imply that higher-dimensional black-hole spacetimes where the Bohm metric replaces the usual round sphere metric are classically unstable. We also show that the stability criterion for Freund-Rubin solutions is the same as for black-hole stability, and hence such solutions using Bohm metrics will also be unstable. We consider possible endpoints of the instabilities, and show that all Einstein-Sasaki manifolds give stable solutions. We show how Wick rotation of Bohm metrics gives spacetimes that provide counterexamples to a strict form of the Cosmic Baldness conjecture, but they are still consistent with the intuition behind the cosmic No-Hair conjectures. We show how the Lorentzian metrics may be created ``from nothing'' in a no-boundary setting. We argue that Lorentzian Bohm metrics are unstable to decay to de Sitter spacetime. We also argue that noncompact versions of the Bohm metrics have infinitely many negative Lichernowicz modes, and we conjecture a general relation between Lichnerowicz eigenvalues and non-uniqueness of the Dirichlet problem for Einstein's equations.Comment: 53 pages, 11 figure

Isometric Embedding of BPS Branes in Flat Spaces with Two Times

We show how non-near horizon p-brane theories can be obtained from two embedding constraints in a flat higher dimensional space with 2 time directions. In particular this includes the construction of D3 branes from a flat 12-dimensional action, and M2 and M5 branes from 13 dimensions. The worldvolume actions are determined by constant forms in the higher dimension, reduced to the usual expressions by Lagrange multipliers. The formulation affords insight in the global aspects of the spacetime geometries and makes contact with recent work on two-time physics.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, Latex using epsf.sty and here.sty; v2: reference added and some small correction

Vacuum decay via Lorentzian wormholes

We speculate about the spacetime description due to the presence of Lorentzian wormholes (handles in spacetime joining two distant regions or other universes) in quantum gravity. The semiclassical rate of production of these Lorentzian wormholes in Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetimes is calculated as a result of the spontaneous decay of vacuum due to a real tunneling configuration. In the magnetic case it only depends on the field theoretical fine structure constant. We predict that the quantum probability corresponding to the nucleation of such geodesically complete spacetimes should be actually negligible in our physical Universe

Relative contribution of abundant and rare species to species–energy relationships

A major goal of ecology is to understand spatial variation in species richness. The latter is markedly influenced by energy availability and appears to be influenced more by common species than rare ones; species–energy relationships should thus be stronger for common species. Species–energy relationships may arise because high-energy areas support more individuals, and these larger populations may buffer species from extinction. As extinction risk is a negative decelerating function of population size, this more-individuals hypothesis (MIH) predicts that rare species should respond more strongly to energy. We investigate these opposing predictions using British breeding bird data and find that, contrary to the MIH, common species contribute more to species–energy relationships than rare ones

HLA-B27 Positivity: associated health implications

HLA-B27 positivity makes the onset of autoimmune diseases such as uveitis, ankylosing spondylitis and Crohn's disease more likely to occur. Ankylosing spondylitis and Crohn's disease are two types of HLA-B27 positive diseases that demonstrate a direct association with uveitis. Although the possession of HLA-B27 positivity is not mandatory for autoimmune diseases such as uveitis to occur, HLA-B27 positivity not only makes it more likely but may modify the clinical picture in which a patient presents. In relation to assessment and diagnosis it is imperative that the medical history of patients is thoroughly examined to ensure pathological sequelae are appropriately treated. Nurses play an important role in assessing patients that have uveitis and should suspect ankylosing spondylitis or Crohn's disease may be present

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