Group-Theoretic Evidence for SO(10) Grand Unification

The hypercharges of the fermions are not uniquely determined in SO(10) grand unification, but rather depend upon which linear combination of the two U(1) subgroups of SO(10) > SU(3) X SU(2) X U(1) X U(1) remains unbroken. We show that, in general, a given hypercharge assignment can be obtained only with very high-dimensional Higgs representations. The observation that the standard model is obtained with low-dimensional Higgs representations can therefore be regarded as further evidence for SO(10) grand unification. This evidence is independent of the fact that SO(10) > SU(5).Comment: 6 pages, Late

Transmute

Man has an enduring subconscious connection with anthropological imagery and narrative. This association extends to the methods and practices that place importance on certain objects over others. In every culture throughout history the shared understanding of existence has been determined by images, symbols and archetypes. Intuitive logic and shared unconscious knowledge pervaded the daily lives of pre-modern man. Early people maintained a stronger connection with nature, spirituality and the subconscious. Archaic man acknowledged one stone among many as possessing spiritual properties. That stone could become a sacred receptacle that differentiated it from all others and saturated it with meaning and value. I believe any object can acquire an allegorical content. The similarities between cultures with no apparent contact are striking, the same artifacts, stories and explanations of existence originated in different cultures separated by thousands of miles. My interests lie in the narrative power of the objects themselves. These mythic objects were used as symbols of the stories of creation

Subtitling for Cooperation? A Case in São Tomé and Príncipe

This paper explores the possibilities of subtitling for Cooperation projects in São Tome island. We focus on the marginalization situation of elderly people and their language, creole Forro. To achieve this objective, three elderly Forro speakers were interviewed on linguistic and cultural matters. A group of non-older people watched the video of these interviews subtitled in Portuguese to analyse their opinions on the same issues and their perception of subtitling. Finally, different agents related to Cooperation and Audiovisual Translation were consulted on the possibilities of subtitling applied to Cooperation in São Tome

Association of winter weather variability in Central and Eastern North America with tropical Pacific sea surface temperature.

The analysis of North American daily precipitation and temperature distributions during warm and cold TP SSTA events identified unique changes. In the southeastern U.S., increased precipitation during January-March warm TP SSTA events was generally linked to more frequent daily precipitation totals above 10 mm, while the increased November precipitation in similar regions resulted from increased daily precipitation totals of all amounts. Further, below average January precipitation in the southwestern Appalachian Mountain region during warm TP SSTA events was associated with the lack of occurrence of very large (>25 mm) daily precipitation totals. During cold TP SSTA events, below average November precipitation principally was associated with reduced frequency of larger (>10 mm) precipitation events. Similarly unique relationships were identified in monthly average daily temperature extremes. Cooler than average February daily minimum temperatures in the central U.S. Great Plains mainly arose from the lack of occurrence of observations well below the monthly mean. Also, cooler than average daily maximum temperatures in the southern U.S. were associated principally with relatively few observations well above the monthly mean. For many other locations, the shifts in the daily maximum and minimum temperature distributions were quantified.The present research contributes to the need for such a linkage using a comprehensive set of analyses relating monthly composite patterns to daily atmospheric flow. First, the approach used in an earlier analysis of precipitation data is applied to monthly averages of daily maximum/minimum temperatures during warm and cold TP SSTA events, providing a set of regions with notable precipitation or temperature anomalies during warm and cold TP SSTA events. The associated series of daily precipitation and temperature anomalies during warm TP SSTA events are examined to document the change in the frequency of daily observations, the duration of consecutive days of daily anomalies, and the antecedent North Pacific-North American atmospheric conditions. Additionally, for all results, the modulation of the TP SSTA-North American teleconnections by other atmospheric modes is examined.The surface climate anomalies with the longest duration are the temperature anomalies in the northern U.S. Great Plains and south-central Canada during warm TP SSTA events. During warm TP SSTA events, these regions observed noticeably warmer than average temperatures that last for as many as 14 consecutive days during December-March. Other regions exhibited anomalies with shorter durations. For all regions, the key feature was the location of positive geopotential height anomalies located over North America and the placement of negative geopotential height anomalies in the north Pacific Ocean. This anomalous upper tropospheric longwave pattern develops as a cyclonic system moves off northeast Asia into the north Pacific Ocean to the region of favorable development north of the TP SSTAs and remains there until dissipating before another system moves off northeast Asia.Many authors have statistically documented the seasonal precipitation and temperature patterns linked to tropical Pacific (TP) SST anomaly (SSTA) events. Only recently have changes in the daily distributions of observed surface precipitation and temperature begun to be analyzed in this context. But no extensive linkage of TP SSTs with daily North American weather observations has been established.The Arctic Oscillation (AO) was shown to materially modify the teleconnection between the TP and North American climate in both its positive and negative phases. Particularly, the AO modulates the placement of the negative geopotential height anomalies in the north Pacific Ocean and the positive geopotential height anomalies over North America. These changes in atmospheric flow then bring about differences in the associated precipitation and temperature anomalies.The monthly composite temperature analyses demonstrated that, similar to the earlier precipitation analysis, the patterns of monthly average daily temperature extremes yielded previously unknown regions associated with TP SSTAs. In particular, new regions found to be characterized by strong temperature anomalies included the eastern U.S. (warm, December), the central U.S. Great Plains (warm, February), and the U.S. Great Plains (cool, October-November) during warm TP SSTA events, and south central Canada (March-April) and the southern U.S. Great Plains (warm, December-April) during cold TP SSTA events. Additionally, the observed monthly precipitation/temperature anomalies during SSTA events after 1992 exhibited strong similarities to the features common to the 1950-92 events

University students’ perceptions of parental discipline techniques: Personal acceptability of the use of corporal punishment

This study examines college students’ perceptions of the use of physical punishment as a discipline technique. Factors such as social acceptability, effectiveness, short and long-term behavior recurrence, and abusiveness were assessed. Current literature shows that the use of corporal punishment in childhood leads to negative developmental consequences across the lifespan. Additionally, physical punishment has not shown any effectiveness for either short- or long-term behavior correction (Gershoff, 2013). This study incorporates a vignette style methodology, in which participants read one of two randomly assigned vignettes (i.e., developmentally appropriate discipline or corporal punishment). They were asked a series of questions on the discipline used. A one-way MANOVA was conducted on the quantitative data, in addition to a qualitative analysis. The results of a one-way MANOVA revealed that the three of the dependent variables had statistically significant differences between the two vignettes. A comparative analysis observing the difference between current research findings to the participant\u27s ratings showed that there are some existing gaps between the literature and the participants\u27 perceptions in regard to the severity of the developmental outcomes. However, this study was consistent with the research on declining acceptability of physical punishment. These results can be implemented in targeting educational content and conversations to pinpoint the components of physical punishment that have a lack of understanding and need more awareness

Recuperar la llengua per recuperar la dignitat: Noves propostes de cooperació a São Tomé i Príncep

XXIII Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials (Any 2018)Aquesta investigació es planteja com una proposta per a analitzar la realitat sociolingüística i cultural de l’illa de São Tomé, a São Tomé i Príncep (Àfrica), i les possibilitats de cooperació en la lluita contra la marginació que pateixen les persones majors i la desaparició de trets identitaris de l’illa, com ara el crioll forro i algunes de les tradicions (danses, celebracions, etc.). Partim de la premissa que la subtitulació al portugués de contingut audiovisual en forro pot ser una eina beneficiosa en la sensibilització de la població en l’àmbit de la cooperació. En aquest cas, parlem sobre l’abandonament que viuen els ancians i les ancianes a São Tomé i sobre el risc d’extinció del crioll forro amb tot el que això comporta: pèrdua d’aspectes culturals, desigualtats dels seus parlants respecte als monolingües de portugués, etc. Per tal de portar a terme l’objectiu de la investigació, es va realitzar una primera entrevista a tres ancians que parlen en crioll forro sobre qüestions socials i culturals de São Tomé. Aquest vídeo es va subtitular al portugués i es va mostrar a un grup de persones de diferents edats i professions perquè servira de base per reflexionar sobre el que diuen els ancians i quina n’és la percepció de la població en general. A partir de les reflexions dels entrevistats, entenem que seria possible una cooperació alternativa, per exemple, la cooperació lingüística, que tinguera per objectiu revitalitzar el forro i, per tant, contribuiria indirectament a la sensibilització de la població cap a les persones ancianes i la cultura i les tradicions pròpies

Polarization Diffusion from Spacetime Uncertainty

A model of Lorentz invariant random fluctuations in photon polarization is presented. The effects are frequency dependent and affect the polarization of photons as they propagate through space. We test for this effect by confronting the model with the latest measurements of polarization of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photons.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Constraints on ultracompact minihalos from extragalactic {\gamma}-ray background

It has been proposed that ultracompact minihalos (UCMHs) might be formed in earlier epoch. If dark matter consists of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), UCMHs can be treated as the {\gamma}-ray sources due to dark matter annihilation within them. In this paper, we investigate the contributions of UCMHs formed during three phase transi- tions (i.e., electroweak symmetry breaking, QCD confinement and e+ e- annihilation) to the extragalactic {\gamma}-ray background. Moreover, we use the Fermi-LAT observation data of the extragalactic {\gamma}-ray background to get the constraints on the current abundance of UCMHs produced during these phase transitions. We also compare these results with those obtained from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations and find that the constraints from the Fermi-LAT are more stringent than those from CMBComment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

ROMA: a map-making algorithm for polarised CMB data sets

We present ROMA, a parallel code to produce joint optimal temperature and polarisation maps out of multidetector CMB observations. ROMA is a fast, accurate and robust implementation of the iterative generalised least squares approach to map-making. We benchmark ROMA on realistic simulated data from the last, polarisation sensitive, flight of BOOMERanG.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Version with higher quality figures available at http://www.fisica.uniroma2.it/~cosmo/ROM