Divergence beneath the Brillouin sphere and the phenomenology of prediction error in spherical harmonic series approximations of the gravitational field.

The Brillouin sphere is defined as the smallest sphere, centered at the origin of the geocentric coordinate system, that incorporates all the condensed matter composing the planet. The Brillouin sphere touches the Earth at a single point, and the radial line that begins at the origin and passes through that point is called the singular radial line. For about 60 years there has been a persistent anxiety about whether or not a spherical harmonic (SH) expansion of the external gravitational potential,, will converge beneath the Brillouin sphere.

The Outreach Virtual Fracture Clinic - a Pilot Report of the Initial Nine Months.

The virtual fracture clinic (VFC) enables the safe, cost-effective delivery of high-quality patient-centred fracture care, whilst reducing hospital footfall. Within our institution, an Outreach VFC was launched, accepting a pre-defined range of trauma referrals from the outreach centre's emergency department (ED). The initial nine months' worth of cases referred to the Outreach VFC were assessed.

Genetics of bull semen characteristics in a multi-breed cattle population.

Little is known of the genetic variability in semen quality traits in cattle and their inter-relationships. The objective of the present study was to estimate genetic parameters for a range of semen quality measures. The data consisted of 35,573 ejaculates from 787 artificial insemination bulls of 16 breeds.

A comparison of positive vicarious learning and verbal information for reducing vicariously learned fear.

Research with children has demonstrated that both positive vicarious learning (modelling) and positive verbal information can reduce children's acquired fear responses for a particular stimulus. However, this fear reduction appears to be more effective when the intervention pathway matches the initial fear learning pathway. That is, positive verbal information is a more effective intervention than positive modelling when fear is originally acquired via negative verbal information.

Vicarious learning and reduction of fear in children via adult and child models.

Children can learn to fear stimuli vicariously, by observing adults' or peers' responses to them. Given that much of school-age children's time is typically spent with their peers, it is important to establish whether fear learning from peers is as effective or robust as learning from adults, and also whether peers can be successful positive models for reducing fear. During a vicarious fear learning procedure, children (6 to 10 years; N = 60) were shown images of novel animals together with images of adult or peer faces expressing fear.

Stimulus fear relevance and the speed, magnitude, and robustness of vicariously learned fear.

Superior learning for fear-relevant stimuli is typically indicated in the laboratory by faster acquisition of fear responses, greater learned fear, and enhanced resistance to extinction. Three experiments investigated the speed, magnitude, and robustness of UK children's (6-10 years; N = 290; 122 boys, 168 girls) vicariously learned fear responses for three types of stimuli. In two experiments, children were presented with pictures of novel animals (Australian marsupials) and flowers (fear-irrelevant stimuli) alone (control) or together with faces expressing fear or happiness.

A comparison of semen diluents on the in vitro and in vivo fertility of liquid bull semen.

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of semen diluent on calving rate (CR) following artificial insemination with liquid bull semen stored for up to 3 d postcollection. In experiment 1, the effect of storing liquid semen maintained at a constant ambient temperature in 1 of 7 different diluents [Caprogen (homemade), OptiXcell, BioXcell, BullXcell, INRA96, NutriXcell, or AndroMed (all commercially available)] on total and progressive motility was assessed on d 0, 1, 2, and 3 postcollection. In experiment 2, the field fertility of liquid semen diluted in Caprogen, BioXcell, or INRA96 and inseminated on d 1, 2, or 3 postcollection was assessed in comparison to frozen-thawed semen (total of n = 19,126 inseminations).

Complex Path Integrals and Saddles in Two-Dimensional Gauge Theory.

We study numerically the saddle point structure of two-dimensional lattice gauge theory, represented by the Gross-Witten-Wadia unitary matrix model. The saddle points are, in general, complex valued, even though the original integration variables and action are real. We confirm the trans-series and instanton gas structure in the weak-coupling phase, and we identify a new complex-saddle interpretation of nonperturbative effects in the strong-coupling phase.

Complexified Path Integrals, Exact Saddles, and Supersymmetry.

In the context of two illustrative examples from supersymmetric quantum mechanics we show that the semiclassical analysis of the path integral requires complexification of the configuration space and action, and the inclusion of complex saddle points, even when the parameters in the action are real. We find new exact complex saddles, and show that without their contribution the semiclassical expansion is in conflict with basic properties such as the positive semidefiniteness of the spectrum, as well as constraints of supersymmetry. Generic saddles are not only complex, but also possibly multivalued and even singular.

Infrared Renormalons versus Operator Product Expansions in Supersymmetric and Related Gauge Theories.

We use the connection between infrared (IR) renormalons and condensates in the operator product expansion for correlation functions to make predictions concerning the structure of singularities in the Borel plane for the perturbative series in quantum field theories with different levels of supersymmetry. The same conspiracy can be used for establishing the absence of condensates or IR renormalons in gauge theories with an IR conformal regime or gauge theories in the Higgs phase. The absence of the renormalon-induced factorial divergence implies that instanton contributions (where present) must be well defined.

Resurgence in quantum field theory: nonperturbative effects in the principal chiral model.

We explain the physical role of nonperturbative saddle points of path integrals in theories without instantons, using the example of the asymptotically free two-dimensional principal chiral model (PCM). Standard topological arguments based on homotopy considerations suggest no role for nonperturbative saddles in such theories. However, the resurgence theory, which unifies perturbative and nonperturbative physics, predicts the existence of several types of nonperturbative saddles associated with features of the large-order structure of the perturbation theory.

Time-dependent Hartree-Fock solution of Gross-Neveu models: twisted-kink constituents of baryons and breathers.

We find the general solution to the time-dependent Hartree-Fock problem for the Gross-Neveu models, with both discrete (GN(2)) and continuous [Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL(2))] chiral symmetry. We find new multibaryon, multibreather, and twisted breather solutions, and show that all GN(2) baryons and breathers are composed of constituent twisted kinks of the NJL(2) model.

The novel toluidine sulphonamide EL102 shows pre-clinical in vitro and in vivo activity against prostate cancer and circumvents MDR1 resistance.

Background: Taxanes are routinely used for the treatment of prostate cancer, however the majority of patients eventually develop resistance. We investigated the potential efficacy of EL102, a novel toluidine sulphonamide, in pre-clinical models of prostate cancer.

Methods: The effect of EL102 and/or docetaxel on PC-3, DU145, 22Rv1 and CWR22 prostate cancer cells was assessed using cell viability, cell cycle analysis and PARP cleavage assays.

Salicylate elimination diets in children: is food restriction supported by the evidence?

A review of case notes from our Sydney-based paediatric allergy services, between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2011, identified 74 children who had been prescribed diets that eliminated foods containing natural salicylates before attending our clinics. The most common indications for starting the diets were eczema (34/74) and behavioural disturbances (17/74) including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We could find no peer-reviewed evidence to support the efficacy of salicylate elimination diets in managing these diseases.

Vicarious learning and unlearning of fear in childhood via mother and stranger models.

Evidence shows that anxiety runs in families. One reason may be that children are particularly susceptible to learning fear from their parents. The current study compared children's fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for animals following positive or fearful modeling by mothers and strangers in vicarious learning and unlearning procedures.

Stimulus fear-relevance and the vicarious learning pathway to childhood fears.

Enhanced fear learning for fear-relevant stimuli has been demonstrated in procedures with adults in the laboratory. Three experiments investigated the effect of stimulus fear-relevance on vicarious fear learning in children (aged 6-11 years). Pictures of stimuli with different levels of fear-relevance (flowers, caterpillars, snakes, worms, and Australian marsupials) were presented alone or together with scared faces.

ASCIA guidelines for prevention of anaphylaxis in schools, pre-schools and childcare: 2012 update.

Appropriate management and prevention of anaphylaxis in the school, pre-school and childcare settings requires advanced planning and communication. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy has developed Guidelines for Prevention of Anaphylaxis in Schools, Pre-schools and Childcare to assist school, pre-school and childcare staff in appropriate implementation of risk-minimisation strategies. Risk-minimisation strategies recommended take into consideration the needs of the allergic child; effectiveness of measures; stresses on parents and staff, the allergic child and their peers; and the implications of the recommended risk-minimisation strategies.

Spatial log-periodic oscillations of first-passage observables in fractals.

For transport processes in geometrically restricted domains, the mean first-passage time (MFPT) admits a general scaling dependence on space parameters for diffusion, anomalous diffusion, and diffusion in disordered or fractal media. For transport in self-similar fractal structures, we obtain an expression for the source-target distance dependence of the MFPT that exhibits both the leading power-law behavior, depending on the Hausdorff and spectral dimension of the fractal, as well as small log-periodic oscillations that are a clear and definitive signal of the underlying fractal structure. We also present refined numerical results for the Sierpinski gasket that confirm this oscillatory behavior.

Ramsey fringes and time-domain multiple-slit interference from vacuum.

Sequences of alternating-sign time-dependent electric field pulses lead to coherent interference effects in Schwinger vacuum pair production, producing a Ramsey interferometer, an all-optical time-domain realization of the multiple-slit interference effect, directly from the quantum vacuum. The interference, obeying fermionic quantum statistics, is manifest in the momentum dependence of the number of produced electrons and positrons along the linearly polarized electric field. The central value grows like N(2) for N pulses [i.

The influence of company identity on the perception of vehicle sounds.

In order to determine how the interior of a car should sound, automotive manufacturers often rely on obtaining data from individual evaluations of vehicle sounds. Company identity could play a role in these appraisals, particularly when individuals are comparing cars from opposite ends of the performance spectrum. This research addressed the question: does company identity influence the evaluation of automotive sounds belonging to cars of a similar performance level and from the same market segment? Participants listened to car sounds from two competing manufacturers, together with control sounds.

Thermodynamics of photons on fractals.

A thermodynamical treatment of a massless scalar field (a photon) confined to a fractal spatial manifold leads to an equation of state relating pressure to internal energy, PV(s) = U/d(s), where d(s) is the spectral dimension and V(s) defines the "spectral volume." For regular manifolds, V(s) coincides with the usual geometric spatial volume, but on a fractal this is not necessarily the case. This is further evidence that on a fractal, momentum space can have a different dimension than position space.

Stokes phenomenon and schwinger vacuum pair production in time-dependent laser pulses.

Particle production due to external fields (electric, chromoelectric, or gravitational) requires evolving an initial state through an interaction with a time-dependent background, with the rate being computed from a Bogoliubov transformation between the in and out vacua. When the background fields have temporal profiles with substructure, a semiclassical analysis of this problem confronts the full subtlety of the Stokes phenomenon: WKB solutions are only local, while the production rate requires global information. We give a simple quantitative explanation of the recently computed [Phys.

Chiral magnetic spirals.

We argue that the presence of a very strong magnetic field in the chirally broken phase induces inhomogeneous expectation values, of a spiral nature along the magnetic field axis, for the currents of charge and chirality, when there is finite baryon density or an imbalance between left and right chiralities. This "chiral magnetic spiral" is a gapless excitation transporting the currents of (i) charge (at finite chirality), and (ii) chirality (at finite baryon density) along the direction of the magnetic field. In both cases it also induces in the transverse directions oscillating currents of charge and chirality.

Modulation of P-gp expression by lapatinib.

Chemotherapy drug resistance is a major obstacle in the treatment of cancer. It can result from an increase in levels of cellular drug efflux pumps, such as P-glycoprotein (P-gp). Lapatinib, a growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is currently in clinical trials for treatment of breast cancer.