Monte Carlo simulation of baryon and lepton number violating processes at high energies

We report results obtained with the first complete event generator for electroweak baryon and lepton number violating interactions at supercolliders. We find that baryon number violation would be very difficult to establish, but lepton number violation can be seen provided at least a few hundred L violating events are available with good electron or muon identification in the energy range 10 GeV to 1 TeV.Comment: 40 Pages uuencoded LaTeX (20 PostScript figures included), Cavendish-HEP-93/6, CERN-TH.7090/9

An intermediate state between the kagome-ice and the fully polarized state in Dy2_2Ti2_2O7_7

Dy$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ is at present the cleanest example of a spin-ice material. Previous theoretical and experimental work on the first-order transition between the kagome-ice and the fully polarized state has been taken as a validation for the dipolar spin-ice model. Here we investigate in further depth this phase transition using ac-susceptibility and dc-magnetization, and compare this results with Monte-Carlo simulations and previous magnetization and specific heat measurements. We find signatures of an intermediate state between the kagome-ice and full polarization. This signatures are absent in current theoretical models used to describe spin-ice materials.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Charge Symmetry Violation Effects in Pion Scattering off the Deuteron

We discuss the theoretical and experimental situations for charge symmetry violation (CSV) effects in the elastic scattering of pi+ and pi- on deuterium (D) and 3He/3H. Accurate comparison of data for both types of targets provides evidence for the presence of CSV effects. While there are indications of a CSV effect in deuterium, it is much more pronounced in the case of 3He/3H. We provide a description of the CSV effect on the deuteron in terms of single- and double- scattering amplitudes. The Delta-mass splitting is taken into account. Theoretical predictions are compared with existing experimental data for pi-d scattering; a future article will speak to the pi-three nucleon case.Comment: 16 pages of RevTeX, 7 postscript figure

On the formation/dissolution of equilibrium droplets

We consider liquid-vapor systems in finite volume $V\subset\R^d$ at parameter values corresponding to phase coexistence and study droplet formation due to a fixed excess $\delta N$ of particles above the ambient gas density. We identify a dimensionless parameter $\Delta\sim(\delta N)^{(d+1)/d}/V$ and a \textrm{universal} value \Deltac=\Deltac(d), and show that a droplet of the dense phase occurs whenever \Delta>\Deltac, while, for \Delta<\Deltac, the excess is entirely absorbed into the gaseous background. When the droplet first forms, it comprises a non-trivial, \textrm{universal} fraction of excess particles. Similar reasoning applies to generic two-phase systems at phase coexistence including solid/gas--where the ``droplet'' is crystalline--and polymorphic systems. A sketch of a rigorous proof for the 2D Ising lattice gas is presented; generalizations are discussed heuristically.Comment: An announcement of a forthcoming rigorous work on the 2D Ising model; to appear in Europhys. Let

Discipline-Specific Compared to Generic Training of Teachers in Higher Education

A recurrent theme arising in the higher education sector is the suitability and effectiveness of generic versus discipline-specific training of university teachers, who are often recruited based on their disciplinary specialties to become teachers in higher education. We compared two groups of participants who had undergone training using a generic post-graduate certificate in higher education (PGCertGeneric) versus a discipline-specific course in veterinary education (PGCertVetEd). The study was conducted using a survey that allowed comparison of participants who completed PGCertGeneric (n=21) with PGCertVetEd (n=22). Results indicated that participants from both PGCertGeneric and PGCertVetEd considered teaching to be satisfying and important to their careers, valued the teaching observation component of the course, and identified similar training needs. However, the participants of the PGCertVetEd felt that the course made them better teachers, valued the relevance of the components taught, understood course design better, were encouraged to do further courses/reading in teaching and learning, changed their teaching as a result of the course, and were less stressed about teaching as compared to the PGCertGeneric participants (p<.05). It is likely that the PGCertVetEd, which was designed and developed by veterinarians with a wider understanding of the veterinary sector, helped the participants perceive the training course as suited to their needs

Double Charge Exchange And Configuration Mixing

The energy dependence of forward pion double charge exchange reactions on light nuclei is studied for both the Ground State transition and the Double-Isobaric-Analog-State transitions. A common characteristic of these double reactions is a resonance-like peak around 50 MeV pion lab energy. This peak arises naturally in a two-step process in the conventional pion-nucleon system with proper handling of nuclear structure and pion distortion. A comparison among the results of different nuclear structure models demonstrates the effects of configuration mixing. The angular distribution is used to fix the single particle wave function.Comment: Added 1 figure (now 8) corrected references and various other change

Detecting Sarcasm in Multimodal Social Platforms

Sarcasm is a peculiar form of sentiment expression, where the surface sentiment differs from the implied sentiment. The detection of sarcasm in social media platforms has been applied in the past mainly to textual utterances where lexical indicators (such as interjections and intensifiers), linguistic markers, and contextual information (such as user profiles, or past conversations) were used to detect the sarcastic tone. However, modern social media platforms allow to create multimodal messages where audiovisual content is integrated with the text, making the analysis of a mode in isolation partial. In our work, we first study the relationship between the textual and visual aspects in multimodal posts from three major social media platforms, i.e., Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, and we run a crowdsourcing task to quantify the extent to which images are perceived as necessary by human annotators. Moreover, we propose two different computational frameworks to detect sarcasm that integrate the textual and visual modalities. The first approach exploits visual semantics trained on an external dataset, and concatenates the semantics features with state-of-the-art textual features. The second method adapts a visual neural network initialized with parameters trained on ImageNet to multimodal sarcastic posts. Results show the positive effect of combining modalities for the detection of sarcasm across platforms and methods.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, final version published in the Proceedings of ACM Multimedia 201

Satellite holmium M-edge spectra from the magnetic phase via resonant x-ray scattering

Developing an expression of resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) amplitude which is convenient for investigating the contributions from the higher rank tensor on the basis of a localized electron picture, we analyze the RXS spectra from the magnetic phases of Ho near the $M_{4,5}$ absorption edges. At the $M_5$ edge in the uniform helical phase, the calculated spectra of the absorption coefficient, the RXS intensities at the first and second satellite spots capture the properties the experimental data possess, such as the spectral shapes and the peak positions. This demonstrates the plausibility of the adoption of the localized picture in this material and the effectiveness of the spectral shape analysis. The latter point is markedly valuable since the azimuthal angle dependence, which is one of the most useful informations RXS can provides, is lacking in the experimental conditions. Then, by focusing on the temperature dependence of the spectral shape at the second satellite spot, we expect that the spectrum is the contribution of the pure rank two profile in the uniform helical and the conical phases while that is dominated by the rank one profile in the intermediate temperature phase, so-called spin slip phase. The change of the spectral shape as a function of temperature indicates a direct evidence of the change of magnetic structures undergoing. Furthermore, we predict that the intensity, which is the same order observed at the second satellite spot, is expected at the fourth satellite spot from the conical phase in the electric dipolar transition.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Observation of dipole-dipole interaction in a degenerate quantum gas

We have investigated the expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of strongly magnetic chromium atoms. The long-range and anisotropic magnetic dipole-dipole interaction leads to an anisotropic deformation of the expanding Cr-BEC which depends on the orientation of the atomic dipole moments. Our measurements are consistent with the theory of dipolar quantum gases and show that a Cr-BEC is an excellent model system to study dipolar interactions in such gases.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Acceptability of remote prescribing and postal delivery services for contraceptive pills and treatment of uncomplicated Chlamydia trachomatis

Objectives: The digitalisation of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services offer valuable opportunities to deliver contraceptive pills and Chlamydia treatment by post. We aimed to examine the acceptability of remote prescribing and “medication-by-post” in SRH. Study design: An online survey assessing attitudes towards remote management was distributed in three UK SRH clinics and via an integrated sexually transmitted infection (STI) postal self-sampling service. Logistic regressions were performed to identify potential correlates. Results: There were 1281 participants (74% female and 49% 45 years old OR:0.43(0.23-0.81), screened for STIs less than once annually OR:0.63(0.42-0.93), concerned about confidentiality OR:0.21(0.90-0.50), concerned about absence during delivery OR:0.09(0.02-0.32), unwilling to provide blood pressure readings OR:0.22(0.04-0.97). Higher acceptability was observed among participants who reported: previously receiving medication by post OR:4.63(1.44-14.8), preference for home delivery over clinic collection OR:24.1(11.1-51.9), preference for home STI testing OR:10.3(6.16-17.4), ability to communicate with health advisors OR:4.01(1.03-15.6), and willingness to: register their real name OR:3.09(1.43-10.6), complete online health questionnaires OR:3.09(1.43-10.6), and use generic contraceptive pills OR:2.88(1.21-6.83). Conclusion: Postal treatment and entering information online to allow remote prescribing were acceptable methods for SRH services and should be considered alongside medication collection in pharmacies. These methods could be particularly useful for patients facing barriers in accessing SRH. The cost-effectiveness and implementation of these novel methods of service delivery should be further investigated