Hartree-Fock ground state of the composite fermion metal

Within the Hartree-Fock approximation the ground state of the composite fermion metal is found. We observe that the single-particle energy spectrum is dominated by the logarithmic interaction exchange term which leads to an infinite jump of the single-particle energy at the Fermi momentum. It is shown that the Hartree-Fock result brings no corrections to the RPA Fermi velocity.Comment: 8 pages (Latex), to appear in Mod.Phys.Lett.

Molecular emission bands in the ultraviolet spectrum of the red rectangle star HD 44179

New observations of the ultraviolet spectrum of HD 44179 are reported. Absorption due to the CO molecule is present in the spectrum with NCO approximately 10 to the 18th power per sq cm. Emission due to either CO or a molecule containing C=C, C=N, C-C, and C-H bonds (or both) is also present

Urban disaster resilience: learning from the 2011 Bangkok flood

Reducing disaster risk, managing rapid urbanisation and tackling poverty is an enormous challenge, particularly in vulnerable neighbourhoods in low and middle-income countries. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in towns and cities, with 95 per cent of future urban expansion in the global South. At the same time, disasters are increasing in frequency, severity and intensity. Poorer people in vulnerable neighbourhoods are least equipped to cope with the threat of disaster. When flooding struck Thailand’s capital city Bangkok in 2011, the United Nations estimated that 73 per cent of low-income households were badly affected (UNISDR 2013). With disasters in cities on the rise, current thinking suggests that resilience offers valuable insights for reducing risk. This research seeks to develop and validate a conceptual framework for understanding urban disaster resilience in low-income neighbourhoods. It combines two urban approaches. The first, complex adaptive systems (CAS), views the city as a combination of inter-dependent parts working together at a multitude of scales that shapes its overall behaviour. The second, urban morphology, seeks to understand the creation of urban form by establishing connections between the city’s historical economic, political and social transformations to its modern day form. The conceptual framework was applied to three low-income neighbourhoods in Bangkok affected by the 2011 flood. Through a case study approach, qualitative information was gathered and analysed in order to understand city-scale and neighbourhood level transformations that built patterns of vulnerability and resilience to chronic stresses and acute shocks. This research concludes that combining CAS and morphology provides a valuable conceptual framework for understanding urban disaster resilience. Such a framework places people at the centre while providing a scalar and temporal analysis of co-evolving acute and chronic risks in urban areas. Moreover, the intersections of CAS and urban morphology identify dimensions of resilience, where human systems and the built environment affect each other in a positive or negative ways – before, during and after a disaster. Overall, this research concludes that resilience needs to be built both before and after a disaster to be effective, and that disaster itself is a test of how systems and the built environment have learned from history about how to cope with and adapt to shocks and stresses. To these ends, urban disaster resilience can be defined as the ways in which the built environment, complex adaptive systems and people interact to cope, adapt and transform in order to reduce disaster risk

Work experiences of Polish women in the Scottish hospitality industry – an intersectional study

A growing body of research examines the experiences of women and migrants in the workplace; however, the academic literature offers a limited insight into migrant women’s experiences of both privilege and disadvantage. The purpose of this study is to reveal the roles of intersecting social identities in migrant women’s work experiences, specifically (hetero)gender, migratory status and whiteness. To achieve its aim, the study investigates the case of Polish women in the Scottish hospitality industry, with the use of life history interviews with 20 women and 14 semi-structured follow-up interviews. Data was analysed using a thematic analysis approach providing an in-depth exploration of work experiences of the largest non-UK born group of women in Scotland and furthering our understanding of gender inequality in the hospitality industry. The findings indicate that while research participants experienced a combination of privilege and disadvantage, disadvantage significantly outweighed the partial advantageous treatment which Polish women received. The data also provided an account of Polish women’s reflections on episodes which can be recognised as instances of inequality. Through an intersectional lens the relationships between (hetero)gender, migration status and whiteness can be seen. By presenting new findings on Polish women’s working experiences the thesis helps hospitality employers to understand and identify discriminating and privileging practices targeting a group of employees that is valuable for the industry. The study brings practitioners’ attention to inequality forming practices between Polish women and other groups of employees but also within the studied population. The thesis contributes to the intersectional understanding of work inequality in a twofold manner. Firstly, it demonstrates the importance of incorporating (hetero)gender in intersectional studies of organisations. Drawing on Ingraham’s call for the exposure of the “heterosexual imaginary” the study incorporates (hetero)gender along with other vectors of social categorisation to explain the roots of migrant women’s disadvantage and privilege. Secondly, the thesis identifies contextual factors shaping migrant women’s experiences of inequality. Situational influences catalysing migrant women’s privilege and disadvantage were revealed at individual, organisational and international levels

Exclusion Statistics of Quasiparticles in Condensed States of Composite Fermion Excitations

The exclusion statistics of quasiparticles is found at any level of the hierarchy of condensed states of composite fermion excitations (for which experimental indications have recently been found). The hierarchy of condensed states of excitations in boson Jain states is introduced and the statistics of quasiparticles is found. The quantum Hall states of charged $\alpha$-anyons ($\alpha$ -- the exclusion statistics parameter) can be described as incompressible states of $(\alpha+2p)$-anyons ($2p$ -- an even number).Comment: 4 page

Understanding Pain in Non-Human Animals: a Critical Exploration of Arguements

Abstract This essay contains a critical analysis of common understandings of pain in animals and challenges common arguments for the presence of phenomenological pain sensations in non-human animals. I will argue that (i) pain behaviors are neither necessary nor sufficient for pain sensations, (ii) the presence of nerve structures in non-human animals which are similar to that of humans are not sufficient for pain sensations, (iii) we cannot rely on similarities between human and non-human experiences of pain to argue for the presence of pain sensations in animals, unless we think that animals are self-conscious in the same way that humans are. In addition to this, possible moral implications of denying sensory pains in animals are discussed, as well as considering what animal pain experiences might be like if we reject the common understanding of animal pain; these considerations appeal to the arguments made by Peter Carruthers, who suggests an answer as to what non-human animals might experience in lieu of a sensory or phenomenological experience of pain. Though this analysis of animal pain is inconclusive as to the question of the existence of animal pains, it suggests that the likely hood of phenomenological pain sensations in non-human animals is low. Further, its goal is to demonstrate to the reader that our common understandings of and arguments for pain experiences in animals are not as sound as we may be inclined to think. Some caveats regarding the implications of accepting this argument are offered, and demonstrate that we need to abandon our empathetic inclinations towards these creatures in order to accept this conclusion

Contesting capital allocation : a sociological perspective on the interaction among hedge fund activists, CEOs, and directors

Using ninety-nine semi-structured interviews with S&P1500 CEOs, directors, and hedge fund managers, this study examines why and how hedge funds pursue activism with target companies, and why and how firms either acquiesce to or resist these pressures. When including friendly activism together with hostile activism, it finds that the degree of engagement of hedge funds with their targets is substantial. Likewise, the degree of engagement of CEOs with their preferred institutional investors is also nearly constant. Together, this level of interaction strongly suggests that the idea of the separation of ownership and control is an increasingly anachronistic concept describing the current relationship between managers and their shareholders. It also finds that, because hedge funds represent a distilled form of capitalist action, CEOs and boards have little space to engage in symbolic management. Because of the loss of power to institutional shareholders over the past several decades, epitomized by hostile hedge fund activism, the substantially increased engagement of management with their shareholders can be seen as a mechanism for recouping power. Dedicated hostile hedge fund activists derive their power not from exercising social influence over their targeted firms, with whom they have no history of repeated and recurring interactions, but from exercising social influence over other institutional investors by cultivating reputations based on legitimate action. Similarly, dedicated hostile hedge fund activists’ expertise, a second source of power, is also not attained from repeated interactions with their targets but from their greater experiences in capital allocation, from past business experiences, and from hiring analysts and consultants with the necessary expertise. By contrast, friendly hedge fund activists do exercise social influence over their target firms derived from longer-term recurring interactions with them. While this accords them shareholder power, this power is limited by their aversion to exercising coercive tactics. Paradoxically, management can appropriate the shareholder power of friendly activists to the extent that such allies can counter the power of hostile activists. Directors were found to be severely disadvantaged by the paucity of their interactions with shareholders, a circumstance that they are beginning to rectify through increasing their dialogue with them.Sociolog