W/Z + b,bbar/jets at NLO using the Monte Carlo MCFM

We summarize recent progress in next-to-leading order QCD calculations made using the Monte Carlo MCFM. In particular, we focus on the calculations of p anti-p -> W b-bbar, Z b-bbar and highlight the significant corrections to background estimates for Higgs searches in the channels WH and ZH at the Tevatron. We also report on the current progress of, and strategies for, the calculation of the process p anti-p -> W/Z + 2 jets.Comment: 4 pages, talk presented at the XXXVI Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions, 17-24 March 2001, Les Arcs, Savoie, Franc

Brazil’s Deferred Highway: Mobility, Development, and Anticipating the State in Amazonia

Four decades ago, Brazilian officials plotted designs for colonization and resource extraction in Amazonia; subsequently the region has become a test-lab for successive development regimes. Along the Santarém-Cuiabá Highway (Br-163) in the state of Pará, residents have engaged in a range of licit and illicit activities as official development policy has shifted throughout the years. Despite assertions that living along the unpaved road is tantamount to “being stuck” in place and time, residents move widely throughout the region, using the road, trails, streams, and rivers as thoroughfares. I argue that “being stuck” functions as a discursive label for illegible mobilities and the speculative economies they support as agrarian reform clients, ranchers, and others compete for position in anticipation of the road’s paving. Novel forms of resource speculation result from the labor of moving and maintaining anticipatory structures along the road, a process that remains obscure from state development projects

From Grutter to Fisher: Is Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s Legacy in Danger?

[Excerpt] “This paper explores the impact of Justice O’Connor on the Court’s race and education jurisprudence, both in the context of primary through secondary school education and in public universities. Section II outlines Justice O’Connor’s biography and explores several external influences on the Justice. Section III reviews the Court’s race and education jurisprudence prior to Justice O’Connor’s appointment to the Court. Section IV exposes the Court’s jurisprudence in this area during Justice O’Connor’s time on the Court, with an emphasis on those opinions authored by Justice O’Connor. Section V offers an analysis of the aftermath of Justice O’Connor’s race and education jurisprudence, beginning with Section V(A) addressing the state of the law after Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger. Section V(B) discusses the Court’s race and education jurisprudence following Justice O’Connor’s tenure, primarily through an analysis of Parents Involved in Community Schools. Finally, Section V(C) hypothesizes the future of race-conscious decision-making in education and Justice O’Connor’s legacy through the lens of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Section VI concludes this paper.

Ionospheric Corrections via PIM and Real-Time Data

We describe a method for removing ionospheric effects from single-frequency radio data a posteriori. This method is based on a theoretical climatological model developed by the USAF, which returns electron density as a function of position and time along the line of sight to the source. Together with a model of the earth's magnetic field, ionospheric delays and Faraday rotation values ensue. If contemoraneous ionospheric data -- GPS TEC observations or ionosonde profiles -- exist, they can be incorporated to update the modeled electron densities.Comment: 6 pages, 2 fiugres; LaTeX2e (96/12/01); uses elsart.cls (2.15, 98/07/15); to appear in New Astronomy Review