The RHIC azimuth quadrupole: "perfect liquid" or gluonic radiation?

Large elliptic flow at RHIC seems to indicate that ideal hydrodynamics provides a good description of Au-Au collisions, at least at the maximum RHIC energy. The medium formed has been interpreted as a nearly perfect (low-viscosity) liquid, and connections have been made to gravitation through string theory. Recently, claimed observations of large flow fluctuations comparable to participant eccentricity fluctuations seem to confirm the ideal hydro scenario. However, determination of the azimuth quadrupole with 2D angular autocorrelations, which accurately distinguish ``flow'' (quadrupole) from ``nonflow'' (minijets), contradicts conventional interpretations. Centrality trends may depend only on the initial parton geometry, and methods used to isolate flow fluctuations are sensitive instead mainly to minijet correlations. The results presented in this paper suggest that the azimuth quadrupole may be a manifestation of gluonic multipole radiation.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Event anisotropy v2v_{2} at STAR

Collective flow reflects the dynamical evolution in high-energy heavy ion collisions. In particular, the elliptic flow reflects early collision dynamics.We present a systematic analysis of elliptic flow ($v_{2}$) for identified particles measured in Au + Au and Cu + Cu collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV. Number of quark scaling is tested in the intermediate $p_{T}$ region and in the smaller system (Cu + Cu). The Cu + Cu collisions results are compared with those from ideal hydrodynamic model calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennesse

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Governor's Dialogue on Health Care: Vision and Values

Summarizes discussions with over four hundred business, civic, nonprofit and healthcare community leaders about their vision for their healthcare system, the roles of employers, government, individuals, and the free market, and the values behind that vis

Citizenship education, truth and learning : some thoughts on professional deliberation

Through consideration of a classroom context observed as part of a PGCE student teacher’s professional development, reading as a learning activity is considered. It is proposed that ‘learning to read’ engages pupils in a critical social-cultural-political project. Through further analysis of a pupil response identified as ‘wrong’, learning in citizenship education is considered through the prism of realist and constructivist perspectives. Finally, current educational ‘good practice’ is identified as offering more than just ‘things to do in the classroom’; aspects are shown to be concordant with elements of constructivist thinking, thinking which potentially offers professionals a prism through which to examine practise. In short, this paper does not propose that teachers ‘become’ constructivist in orientation; rather it offers, as an example, how adopting various theoretical positions from which to deconstruct education can and does provide for alternative perspectives both on educational policy and personal-professional viewpoints