Modern and Vernacular Settlements in Doha: An Urban Planning Strategy to Pursue Modernity and Consolidate Cultural identity

Scholars and researchers, who investigate the extent to which spatial form and livability are mutually interconnected, stress that the built environment provides the space for the enhancement of social interactions, which in turn have a deep impact on the level of livability of cities. Namely, in relation to this relationship, to which extent the built environment of (1) the contemporary business district of ‘West Bay’ and (2) of the heritage site of the ‘Souq Waqif’ in Doha contributes to the enhancement of social interactions and/or livability has not been comparatively investigated yet. This study aims at investigating how the spatial form of the two selected precincts contributes to create a livable environment. The analysis indicates that while West Bay’s contemporary built environment contributes to the image of Doha as a modern city, the traditional settlement of the Souq Waqif contributes to the formation of a sense of community, increase occasions for social interactions, enhance livability and finally consolidate cultural identity

Evaluation of the N33∗N weak coupling constants by means of current algebra

Abstract The form factors of the N33∗N weak axial vertex are expressed in terms of the form factors of the nucleon. A relation between N33∗Nπ and NNπ coupling constants and an estimate of the mass of a 1+ meson are obtained

Modelling background charge rearrangements near single-electron transistors as a Poisson process

Background charge rearrangements in metallic single-electron transistors are modelled in two-level tunnelling systems as a Poisson process with a scale parameter as only variable. The model explains the recent observation of asymmetric Coulomb blockade peak spacing distributions in metallic single-electron transistors. From the scale parameter we estimate the average size of the tunnelling systems, their density of states, and the height of their energy barrier. We conclude that the observed background charge rearrangements predominantly take place in the substrate of the single-electron transistor.Comment: 7 pages, 2 eps figures, used epl.cls macro include

Built Form and Culture: Italian Transnational Houses in Australia

Accordingly to Wagner, “Dwellings stand as the concrete expressions of a complex interaction among cultural skills and norms, climatic conditions and the potentialities of natural materials”. This study, beginning with an enquiry into the way trans-national houses are the physical expression of interacting cultural factors, provides a theoretical framework grounded on cross-cultural studies for understanding the way cultural needs have influenced the form of the archetypal post WWII ‘house on a quarter-acre block’ built in Brisbane by Italian migrants. The findings reveal that while the architectural form of the Italian Trans-national houses built in Brisbane is influenced by the need to continue architectural cultural traditions in the host country, the spatial distribution of the artifact was influenced by socio-cultural factors and urban fabric, from both the native and hosting built environment, in the attempt of re-establishing and enhancing the native way of life

Far from the Particle Crowd: Shugyosha Nambu and Michizane Wheeler

In the late 1940s many physicists embrace the surging particle physics regarding it as potentially resolutive of the crisis of nuclear physics. Against this backdrop, two thinkers of peculiar taste choose otherwise. Here we trace the roots and consequences of their decisions

Looking Stereoscopically at Goethe vs. Newton: Heisenberg and Pauli on the Future of Physics

Goethe’s polemics against Newtonian optics is not rarely men- tioned as a singular instance of incompetent stubbornness, or quickly dis- posed of as an embarrassing incident, not worthy of Goethe’s stature. None- theless, Goethe’s presence in the mind of 20th-century physicists is not a neg- ligible chapter, not only due to the pre-eminence of his literary work but to a suffused Naturphilosophie as well. Even more significantly, physicists of the calibre of Heisenberg and Pauli, while openly recognizing the ‘mistakes’ of the Goethean polemics in optics, tried to extract from that episode important lessons and expectations about the future of science

Properties and occurrence rates of KeplerKepler exoplanet candidates as a function of host star metallicity from the DR25 catalog

Correlations between the occurrence rate of exoplanets and their host star properties provide important clues about the planet formation processes. We studied the dependence of the observed properties of exoplanets (radius, mass, and orbital period) as a function of their host star metallicity. We analyzed the planetary radii and orbital periods of over 2800 $Kepler$ candidates from the latest $Kepler$ data release DR25 (Q1-Q17) with revised planetary radii based on $Gaia$~DR2 as a function of host star metallicity (from the Q1-Q17 (DR25) stellar and planet catalog). With a much larger sample and improved radius measurements, we are able to reconfirm previous results in the literature. We show that the average metallicity of the host star increases as the radius of the planet increases. We demonstrate this by first calculating the average host star metallicity for different radius bins and then supplementing these results by calculating the occurrence rate as a function of planetary radius and host star metallicity. We find a similar trend between host star metallicity and planet mass: the average host star metallicity increases with increasing planet mass. This trend, however, reverses for masses $> 4.0\, M_\mathrm{J}$: host star metallicity drops with increasing planetary mass. We further examined the correlation between the host star metallicity and the orbital period of the planet. We find that for planets with orbital periods less than 10 days, the average metallicity of the host star is higher than that for planets with periods greater than 10 days.Comment: 14 pages, 13 Figures, Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Non-critical string pentagon equations and their solutions

We derive pentagon type relations for the 3-point boundary tachyon correlation functions in the non-critical open string theory with generic c_{matter} < 1 and study their solutions in the case of FZZ branes. A new general formula for the Liouville 3-point factor is derived.Comment: 18 pages, harvmac; misprints corrected, section 3.2 extended, a new general formula for the Liouville 3-point factor adde

Tales from Dubna’s Oakwood: Bogoliubov, Pontecorvo, and the JINR Seminars

Not much has been said about the scientific milieu in which Bru- no Pontecorvo worked after his emigration to the USSR (1950): the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. In this paper, we begin to fill this gap by focusing on some of the distinguished scientists he interacted with, besides direct collaborations, paying particular attention to Nikolai N. Bogoliubov around 1957