Foamed in place ceramic refractory insulating material Patent

Characteristics of foamed-in-place ceramic refractory insulating material and method of fabricatio

Understanding the social in a digital age

Datafication, algorithms, social media and their various assemblages enable massive connective processes, enriching personal interaction and amplifying the scope and scale of public networks. At the same time, surveillance capitalists and the social quantification sector are committed to monetizing every aspect of human communication, all of which threaten ideal social qualities, such as togetherness and connection. This Special Issue brings together a range of voices and provocations around ‘the social’, all of which aim to critically interrogate mediated human connection and their contingent socialities. Conventional methods may no longer be adequate, and we must rethink not only the fabric of the social but the very tools we use to make sense of our changing social formations. This Special Issue raises shared concerns with what the social means today, unpicking and rethinking the seams between digitization and social life that characterize today’s digital age

Moduli-Space Approximation for BPS Brane-Worlds

We develop the moduli-space approximation for the low energy regime of BPS-branes with a bulk scalar field to obtain an effective four-dimensional action describing the system. An arbitrary BPS potential is used and account is taken of the presence of matter in the branes and small supersymmetry breaking terms. The resulting effective theory is a bi-scalar tensor theory of gravity. In this theory, the scalar degrees of freedom can be stabilized naturally without the introduction of additional mechanisms other than the appropriate BPS potential. We place observational constraints on the shape of the potential and the global configuration of branes.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Quasar Proper Motions and Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves

We report observational upper limits on the mass-energy of the cosmological gravitational-wave background, from limits on proper motions of quasars. Gravitational waves with periods longer than the time span of observations produce a simple pattern of apparent proper motions over the sky, composed primarily of second-order transverse vector spherical harmonics. A fit of such harmonics to measured motions yields a 95%-confidence limit on the mass-energy of gravitational waves with frequencies <2e-9 Hz, of <0.11/h*h times the closure density of the universe.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure. Also available at http://charm.physics.ucsb.edu:80/people/cgwinn/cgwinn_group/index.htm

Report of the panel on earth rotation and reference frames, section 7

Objectives and requirements for Earth rotation and reference frame studies in the 1990s are discussed. The objectives are to observe and understand interactions of air and water with the rotational dynamics of the Earth, the effects of the Earth's crust and mantle on the dynamics and excitation of Earth rotation variations over time scales of hours to centuries, and the effects of the Earth's core on the rotational dynamics and the excitation of Earth rotation variations over time scales of a year or longer. Another objective is to establish, refine and maintain terrestrial and celestrial reference frames. Requirements include improvements in observations and analysis, improvements in celestial and terrestrial reference frames and reference frame connections, and improved observations of crustal motion and mass redistribution on the Earth

Low Energy Branes, Effective Theory and Cosmology

The low energy regime of cosmological BPS-brane configurations with a bulk scalar field is studied. We construct a systematic method to obtain five-dimensional solutions to the full system of equations governing the geometry and dynamics of the bulk. This is done for an arbitrary bulk scalar field potential and taking into account the presence of matter on the branes. The method, valid in the low energy regime, is a linear expansion of the system about the static vacuum solution. Additionally, we develop a four-dimensional effective theory describing the evolution of the system. At the lowest order in the expansion, the effective theory is a bi-scalar tensor theory of gravity. One of the main features of this theory is that the scalar fields can be stabilized naturally without the introduction of additional mechanisms, allowing satisfactory agreement between the model and current observational constraints. The special case of the Randall-Sundrum model is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Cosmic String Wakes in Scalar-Tensor Gravities

The formation and evolution of cosmic string wakes in the framework of a scalar-tensor gravity are investigated in this work. We consider a simple model in which cold dark matter flows past an ordinary string and we treat this motion in the Zel'dovich approximation. We make a comaprison between our results and previous results obtained in the context of General Relativity. We propose a mechanism in which the contribution of the scalar field to the evolution of the wakes may lead to a cosmological observation.Comment: Replaced version to be published in the Classical and Quantum Gravit

Vacuum Polarization in the Spacetime of a Scalar-Tensor Cosmic String

We study the vacuum polarization effect in the spacetime generated by a magnetic flux cosmic string in the framework of a scalar-tensor gravity. The vacuum expectation values of the energy-momentum tensor of a conformally coupled scalar field are calculated. The dilaton's contribution to the vacuum polarization effect is shown explicitly.Comment: 11 pages, LATEX file, 2 eps figure

Reconstruction of a scalar-tensor theory of gravity in an accelerating universe

The present acceleration of the Universe strongly indicated by recent observational data can be modeled in the scope of a scalar-tensor theory of gravity. We show that it is possible to determine the structure of this theory (the scalar field potential and the functional form of the scalar-gravity coupling) along with the present density of dustlike matter from the following two observable cosmological functions: the luminosity distance and the linear density perturbation in the dustlike matter component as functions of redshift. Explicit results are presented in the first order in the small inverse Brans-Dicke parameter 1/omega.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX 2.09, REVTeX 3.0, two-column forma

WRITERS AND THEIR WAYS WITH WORDS: MIGRATION AND LANGUAGE IN CONTEMPORARY GERMANY

On 9 and 10 December 1991, the European Citizen was created during the Maastricht European Council. Since then, Europeans of the member states of the European Union (EU) have witnessed the introduction of a common currency, and the institutional, administrative, and civic Europeanization of Europe characterizes an arguably new Europe for the new millennium. In contrast to the administrative and civic Europeanization, there many and varied debates about what it means or may mean to be European and about European culture. In the context of these discussions, the comparative study of literature of migrants can be productive. Although somewhat different for the individual EU member states, the history of literature of migrants and its reception have unfolded in similar ways. In addition to the creation of a conflicted relationship between national and migrant literature, terms like the German Gastarbeiterliteratur have not only created a separate and distinct category for migrant literature, but have also served to limit its authors to a single characteristic (they are ‘guest workers’) and, by extension, the content of the works to a few themes such as feelings of loneliness, loss of home, a sense of isolation, etc. Significantly, what dominated the discourse about migrant literature was the concern with themes rather than with its vehicle, i.e., language. The literary productions of migrants to Germany during the past two decades invite comparison of these works to explore the extent and degree to which they are contributions to the debates about ‘European identity’. As basis for comparison serve examples from diverse texts and authors with diverse language backgrounds such as Italian, French, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish, for example. The authors are different in terms of both their (or their parents’) countries of origin and in terms of their current homes and languages. The intentional reference to such variegated works serves to illuminate that despite the authors being subject to different first languages, they also have in common the translinguistic character of their texts. Importantly, the translinguistic aspects of the texts do not constitute the encounter (or even clash) between two given cultures (homeland and country of residence). Instead, each of the texts presents instances of the linguistic and creative potential when any two cultures ‘meet’ to inform each other and, in the process, both emerge as changed. One of the effects on the reader/recipient of the text or texts is defamiliarization with his or her native language; she or he is thus invited not only to encounter something (another culture/country) or someone (the narrator) Other but to also experience the assumed ‘normal’ (most readers’ native language) as Other. In this sense, the different texts all ‘teach’ that alterity is not far away, but that it exists where one might not expect it (at home, in one’s native language). The creative, aesthetic and profound play with language may not bring anyone closer to answering questions about ‘European identity’ (and may indeed raise new questions in addition to existing ones). However, the turn to its constitutive medium, i.e., language, clearly outlines the challenges that are implicit in recent migrant literatures across Europe and across other parts of the world. For Germany (and Europe), one of these challenges is to acknowledge current realities (as a consequence of historical phenomena) and to reimagine itself as the heterogenous space it has always been