Virtual Las Vegas: Regulate or Prohibit?

With online gambling becoming increasingly accessible and popular, state and federal politicians are asking themselves how to make the prohibition on online gambling effective. Nevertheless, questions still linger as to whether outright prohibition is truly the right answer

Musical Ear Syndrome: What Do We Know?

The purpose of this study was to review the existing literature regarding Musical Ear Syndrome and other related auditory hallucinations. While the existence of auditory hallucinations is evident, their cause is unclear and widely understudied. There was a need for existing information to be compiled for use in the healthcare field. This review of existing literature will aid speech-language pathologists, audiologists, nurses, psychologists, and physicians in understanding this condition and what differentiates it from other various disorders. This will allow these professionals to better understand the experiences and needs of those with Musical Ear Syndrome

MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with VLBA Experiments. VI. Kinematics Analysis of a Complete Sample of Blazar Jets

We discuss the jet kinematics of a complete flux-density-limited sample of 135 radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) resulting from a 13 year program to investigate the structure and evolution of parsec-scale jet phenomena. Our analysis is based on new 2 cm Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) images obtained between 2002 and 2007, but includes our previously published observations made at the same wavelength, and is supplemented by VLBA archive data. In all, we have used 2424 images spanning the years 1994-2007 to study and determine the motions of 526 separate jet features in 127 jets. The data quality and temporal coverage (a median of 15 epochs per source) of this complete AGN jet sample represents a significant advance over previous kinematics surveys. In all but five AGNs, the jets appear one-sided, most likely the result of differential Doppler boosting. In general the observed motions are directed along the jet ridge line, outward from the optically thick core feature. We directly observe changes in speed and/or direction in one third of the well-sampled jet components in our survey. While there is some spread in the apparent speeds of separate features within an individual jet, the dispersion is about three times smaller than the overall dispersion of speeds among all jets. This supports the idea that there is a characteristic flow that describes each jet, which we have characterized by the fastest observed component speed. The observed maximum speed distribution is peaked at ~10c, with a tail that extends out to ~50c. This requires a distribution of intrinsic Lorentz factors in the parent population that range up to ~50. We also note the presence of some rare low-pattern speeds or even stationary features in otherwise rapidly flowing jets... (abridged)Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, accepted by the Astronomical Journal; online only material is available from http://www.cv.nrao.edu/2cmVLBA/pub/MOJAVE_VI_suppl.zi

Cultured

This memoir piece comprises three parts, each of which tells a humorous and perhaps slightly embarrassing story of interpersonal upsets the narrator experienced while studying abroad in Europe. Their telling exposes the narrator as a naïve American tourist, despite her conscious attempts to be culturally sensitive and respectful. The intent of this piece was neither to make a political statement about being American in Europe, nor to present yet another trite account “the best four months of [my] life.” While my primary goal was to share these stories for their entertainment value (if self-effacing), my hope was to transform the piece from a fact-driven personal essay into a compelling piece of memoir in which the narrator’s character drives the reader to stick with it. Nevertheless, readers in workshop noted that the piece does grapple with the misguided belief that merely travelling abroad accomplishes some ideal of cultural immersion and enlightenment. The experiences are enriching, yes, but hard won. Further, their meaning may not be realized until long after they\u27ve passed and are subjected to workshop scrutiny! In any case, the piece was fun to write, is riddled with irony, and I hope the reader derives some pleasure from it

An American Reset – Safe Water & a Workable Model of Federalism

In 2015, at least 3.9 million Americans were exposed to lead in their drinking water at legally unacceptable levels. An additional 18 million Americans were at risk because their water systems were not in compliance with federal rules designed to detect the presence of lead contamination and to ameliorate its impact. What’s more, in 82 percent of the cases where the violation related to a health standard, no formal state or federal enforcement action was taken. These startling statistics indicate that the Flint Water Crisis (“Flint Water”) is not an isolated event. In fact, it is a case study that might explain these statistics. Flint Water reveals a fault line within our cooperative federalism model: We are relying on an increasingly ineffective power structure to guarantee the safety of our water supply, one that places the heaviest burden on the least powerful actor—the water supplier. This article proposes a ‘reset’ of the model in order to achieve safe water and government accountability

An American Reset – Safe Water & a Workable Model of Federalism

In 2015, at least 3.9 million Americans were exposed to lead in their drinking water at legally unacceptable levels. An additional 18 million Americans were at risk because their water systems were not in compliance with federal rules designed to detect the presence of lead contamination and to ameliorate its impact. What’s more, in 82 percent of the cases where the violation related to a health standard, no formal state or federal enforcement action was taken. These startling statistics indicate that the Flint Water Crisis (“Flint Water”) is not an isolated event. In fact, it is a case study that might explain these statistics. Flint Water reveals a fault line within our cooperative federalism model: We are relying on an increasingly ineffective power structure to guarantee the safety of our water supply, one that places the heaviest burden on the least powerful actor—the water supplier. This article proposes a ‘reset’ of the model in order to achieve safe water and government accountability

Chandra Discovery of 10 New X-Ray Jets Associated With FR II Radio Core-Selected AGNs in the MOJAVE Sample

The Chandra X-ray observatory has proven to be a vital tool for studying high-energy emission processes in jets associated with Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).We have compiled a sample of 27 AGN selected from the radio flux-limited MOJAVE (Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments) sample of highly relativistically beamed jets to look for correlations between X-ray and radio emission on kiloparsec scales. The sample consists of all MOJAVE quasars which have over 100 mJy of extended radio emission at 1.4 GHz and a radio structure of at least 3" in size. Previous Chandra observations have revealed X-ray jets in 11 of 14 members of the sample, and we have carried out new observations of the remaining 13 sources. Of the latter, 10 have Xray jets, bringing the overall detection rate to ~ 78%. Our selection criteria, which is based on highly compact, relativistically beamed jet emission and large extended radio flux, thus provides an effective method of discovering new X-ray jets associated with AGN. The detected X-ray jet morphologies are generally well correlated with the radio emission, except for those displaying sharp bends in the radio band. The X-ray emission mechanism for these powerful FR II (Fanaroff-Riley type II) jets can be interpreted as inverse Compton scattering off of cosmic microwave background (IC/CMB) photons by the electrons in the relativistic jets. We derive viewing angles for the jets, assuming a non-bending, non-decelerating model, by using superluminal parsec scale speeds along with parameters derived from the inverse Compton X-ray model. We use these angles to calculate best fit Doppler and bulk Lorentz factors for the jets, as well as their possible ranges, which leads to extreme values for the bulk Lorentz factor in some cases. When both the non-bending and non-decelerating assumptions are relaxed [abridged]Comment: 38 Pages, 4 Figures, 5 Tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Friedrich von Hayek: The Socialist-Calculation Debate, Knowledge Arguments, And Modern Economic Development

At the close of the nineteenth and the commencement of the twentieth century, socialism began to gain momentum as a large-scale movement in Europe and the United States. This popularity was supported by an increased influence of the working class in society, which put pressure for representation upon European parliaments and began to secure concrete improvements in labor protection laws. Moreover, socialist proponents looked hopefully towards the living example of the Soviet Union, which began its socialist experiment in 1917 following the success of the Bolshevik Revolution. Socialism, which found its economic grounding in the legacies of such men as David Ricardo and Karl Marx, tended to encourage a more central and vital role for government intervention in the economy. Thus economists who favored a socialist-oriented change in contemporary societies began to develop theories intended to address such issues as “where, when and how the state should intervene in economic life” and how societies might be successfully reorganized so as to be based upon these new precepts. [excerpt

The Radio to Gamma Ray Connection of EGRET Blazars: Correlation, Regression and Monte Carlo Analysis

A comprehensive statistical analysis of the broadband properties of EGRET blazars is presented. This analysis includes sources identified as blazars in the Sowards-Emmerd publications. Using this sample of 122 sources, we find that there is a relationship $L_\gamma \propto {L_r}^{0.77 \pm 0.03}$ as well as a correlation between $\alpha_{og}$ and $\alpha_{ro}$, and a correlation between radio luminosity and $\alpha_{og}$. Through the use of Monte Carlo simulations, we can replicate the observed luminosity relationship if a synchrotron self-Compton model is assumed. However, this relationship can not be replicated if an external Compton scattering model is assumed. These differences are primarily due to beaming effects. In addition it has been determined that the intrinsic radio luminosity of the parent sample falls in the range $10^{21} < L < 10^{30} {\rm Watts Hz^{-1}}$ and that the bulk Lorentz factors of the source are in the range $1 < \Gamma < 30$, in a agreement with VLBI observations. Finally, we discuss implications for GLAST, successfully launched in June 2008