Breakup coupling effects on near-barrier ⁶Li, ⁷Be and ⁸B + ⁵⁸Ni elastic scattering compared

New data for near-barrier 6Li, 7Be and 8B + 58Ni elastic scattering enable a comparison of breakup coupling effects for these loosely-bound projectiles. Coupled Discretised Continuum Channels (CDCC) calculations suggest that the large total reaction cross sections for 8B + 58Ni are dominated by breakup at near-barrier energies, unlike 6Li and 7Be where breakup makes a small contribution. In spite of this, the CDCC calculations show a small coupling influence due to breakup for 8B, in contrast to the situation for 6Li and 7Be. An examination of the S matrices gives a clue to this counter-intuitive behaviour

Linear response theory around a localized impurity in the pseudogap regime of an anisotropic superconductor: precursor pairing vs the d-density-wave scenario

We derive the polarizability of an electron system in (i) the superconducting phase, with d-wave symmetry, (ii) the pseudogap regime, within the precursor pairing scenario, and (iii) the d-density-wave (dDW) state, characterized by a d-wave hidden order parameter, but no pairing. Such a calculation is motivated by the recent proposals that imaging the effects of an isolated impurity may distinguish between precursor pairing and dDW order in the pseudogap regime of the high-Tc superconductors. In all three cases, the wave-vector dependence of the polarizability is characterized by an azymuthal modulation, consistent with the d-wave symmetry of the underlying state. However, only the dDW result shows the fingerprints of nesting, with nesting wave-vector Q=(pi,pi), albeit imperfect, due to a nonzero value of the hopping ratio t'/t in the band dispersion relation. As a consequence of nesting, the presence of hole pockets is also exhibited by the (q,omega) dependence of the retarded polarizability.Comment: accepted in Phys. Rev.

Aphidophagous Coccinellids in Alfalfa, Small Grains, and Maize in Eastern South Dakota

In a 13-year study of aphidophagous coccinellids associated with alfalfa (Medicago sativa), maize (Zea mays), and small grain crops in eastern South Dakota, the following species were consistently associated with the crops: Hippodamia convergens, H. tredecimpunctata tibialis, H. parenthesis, Coleomegilla maculata lengi, Coccinella transversoguttata richardsoni, Cycloneda munda, and Adalia bipunctata. All species except A. bipunctata were associated with each of the three crops, while A. bipunctata occurred only in maize. Relative abundances of each species varied among crops and among years. Although only seven species were associated with the crops, additional species were captured on sticky traps stationed adjacent to sampled fields. The species diversity of immature coccinellids did not differ among crops but did differ among years. The diversity of adults differed among crops and years. The site from which samples were taken had no influence on the diversity of immatures or adults. Species relative abundances in alfalfa and small grains were more similar to each other than they were to relative abundances in maize

The failed promise of foreign direct investment: some remarks on ‘malign’ investment and political instability in former Soviet states

The policy of key international organisation continues to be informed by the assumption that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has an unambiguously positive effect on recipient nations. However, there is increasing evidence that, on a global scale, increased trade and investment flows from rich to poorer nations have not contributed to a convergence of levels of income and well-being. This is particularly apparent in the context of former Soviet states, many of which continue to experience a decline, in both relative and absolute terms, in per capita GDP alongside a diminution in the life expectancy of their populations. Examining data on FDI received by former Soviet States from 1997 to 2005, this paper notes, firstly, that these investments have been concentrated on a few, typical natural-resource-rich states. Secondly, it observes that even these resource-rich countries experienced massive fluctuations in terms of the amounts of FDI they received over this time period. Lastly, the paper examines the impact of FDI on a number of country risk indicators via a pooled regression model which includes data for twelve former Soviet countries, namely the Central and Eastern European States of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine, and the Central Asian Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. This analysis indicates that FDI has either a marginally negative effect on individual country risk measures such as in the case of ‘Overall Country Risk’, or significantly negative effects as in the case of ‘Economic Risk’ and ‘Legal Risk’. The paper concludes that there is strong case for questioning the existing orthodoxy which argues that problems of transition can be overcome via increased FDI and which continues to advise former Soviet states to pursue foreign capital at all cost

Statistics of 3-dimensional Lagrangian turbulence

We consider a superstatistical dynamical model for the 3-d movement of a Lagrangian tracer particle embedded in a high-Reynolds number turbulent flow. The analytical model predictions are in excellent agreement with recent experimental data for flow between counter-rotating disks. In particular, we calculate the Lagrangian scaling exponents zeta_j for our system, and show that they agree well with the measured exponents reported in [X. Hu et al., PRL 96, 114503 (2006)]. Moreover, the model correctly predicts the shape of velocity difference and acceleration probability densities, the fast decay of component correlation functions and the slow decay of the modulus, as well as the statistical dependence between acceleration components. Finally, the model explains the numerically [P.K. Yeung and S.B. Pope, J. Fluid Mech. 207, 531 (1989)] and experimentally observed fact [B.W. Zeff et al., Nature 421, 146 (2003)] that enstrophy lags behind dissipation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Replaced by final version accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

The social, cosmopolitanism and beyond

First, this article will outline the metaphysics of ‘the social’ that implicitly and explicitly connects the work of lassical and contemporary cosmopolitan sociologists as different as Durkheim, Weber, Beck and Luhmann. In a second step, I will show that the cosmopolitan outlook of classical sociology is driven by exclusive differences. In understanding human affairs, both classical sociology and contemporary cosmopolitan sociology reflect a very modernist outlook of epistemological, conceptual, methodological and disciplinary rigour that separates the cultural sphere from the natural objects of concern. I will suggest that classical sociology – in order to be cosmopolitan – is forced (1) to exclude non-social and non-human objects as part of its conceptual and methodological rigour, and (2) consequently and methodologically to rule out the non-social and the non-human. Cosmopolitan sociology imagines ‘the social’ as a global, universal explanatory device to conceive and describe the non-social and non-human. In a third and final step the article draws upon the work of the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde and offers a possible alternative to the modernist social and cultural other-logics of social sciences. It argues for a inclusive conception of ‘the social’ that gives the non-social and non-human a cosmopolitan voice as well

Biases in the polarization position angles in the NVSS point source catalogue

We have examined the statistics of the polarization position angles determined for point sources in the NRAO-VLA sky survey (NVSS) and find that there is a statistically significant bias toward angles which are multiples of 45 degrees. The formal probability that the polarization angles are drawn from a uniform distribution is exponentially small. When the sample of those NVSS sources with polarizations detected with a signal to noise $\geq$3 is split either around the median polarized flux density or the median fractional polarization, the effect appears to be stronger for the more highly polarized sources. Regions containing strong sources and regions at low galactic latitudes are not responsible for the non-uniform distribution of position angles. We identify CLEAN bias as the probable cause of the dominant effect, coupled with small multiplicative and additive offsets on each of the Stokes parameters. Our findings have implications for the extraction of science, such as information concerning galactic magnetic fields, from large scale polarization surveys

Central limit behavior of deterministic dynamical systems

We investigate the probability density of rescaled sums of iterates of deterministic dynamical systems, a problem relevant for many complex physical systems consisting of dependent random variables. A Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is only valid if the dynamical system under consideration is sufficiently mixing. For the fully developed logistic map and a cubic map we analytically calculate the leading-order corrections to the CLT if only a finite number of iterates is added and rescaled, and find excellent agreement with numerical experiments. At the critical point of period doubling accumulation, a CLT is not valid anymore due to strong temporal correlations between the iterates. Nevertheless, we provide numerical evidence that in this case the probability density converges to a $q$-Gaussian, thus leading to a power-law generalization of the CLT. The above behavior is universal and independent of the order of the maximum of the map considered, i.e. relevant for large classes of critical dynamical systems.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Regularity of a inverse problem for generic parabolic equations

The paper studies some inverse boundary value problem for simplest parabolic equations such that the homogenuous Cauchy condition is ill posed at initial time. Some regularity of the solution is established for a wide class of boundary value inputs.Comment: 9 page