Contraception as a Sex Equality Right

Challenges to federal law requiring insurance coverage of contraception are occurring on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut. It is a good time to reflect on the values served by protecting women’s access to contraception. In 1965, the Court ruled in Griswold that a law criminalizing the use of contraception violated the privacy of the marriage relationship. Griswold offered women the most significant constitutional protection since the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, constitutional protection as important as the cases prohibiting sex discrimination that the Court would decide in the next decade—perhaps even more so. Griswold is conventionally understood to have secured liberty for women. But the right to contraception also secures equality for women, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw clearly in the 1970s and as the Court eventually would explain in Planned Parenthood v. Casey

The origin of the relationship between black hole mass and host galaxy bulge luminosity

There is a strong decrease in scatter in the black hole mass versus bulge luminosity relationship with increasing luminosity and very little scatter for the most luminous galaxies. It is shown that this is a natural consequence of the substantial initial dispersion in the ratio of black hole mass to total stellar mass and of subsequent galaxy growth through hierarchical mergers. "Fine-tuning" through feedback between black hole growth and bulge growth is neither necessary nor desirable.Comment: In press in "The First Stars and Galaxies: Challenges for the Next Decade", America Institute of Physics Conf. Proc., eds. D. Whalen, V. Bromm, & N. Yoshida. 1 figure

III/V-on-Si MQW lasers by using a novel photonic integration method of regrowth on a bonding template.

Silicon photonics is becoming a mainstream data-transmission solution for next-generation data centers, high-performance computers, and many emerging applications. The inefficiency of light emission in silicon still requires the integration of a III/V laser chip or optical gain materials onto a silicon substrate. A number of integration approaches, including flip-chip bonding, molecule or polymer wafer bonding, and monolithic III/V epitaxy, have been extensively explored in the past decade. Here, we demonstrate a novel photonic integration method of epitaxial regrowth of III/V on a III/V-on-SOI bonding template to realize heterogeneous lasers on silicon. This method decouples the correlated root causes, i.e., lattice, thermal, and domain mismatches, which are all responsible for a large number of detrimental dislocations in the heteroepitaxy process. The grown multi-quantum well vertical p-i-n diode laser structure shows a significantly low dislocation density of 9.5 × 104 cm-2, two orders of magnitude lower than the state-of-the-art conventional monolithic growth on Si. This low dislocation density would eliminate defect-induced laser lifetime concerns for practical applications. The fabricated lasers show room-temperature pulsed and continuous-wave lasing at 1.31 μm, with a minimal threshold current density of 813 A/cm2. This generic concept can be applied to other material systems to provide higher integration density, more functionalities and lower total cost for photonics as well as microelectronics, MEMS, and many other applications

Growth and Inflation Disparities in Corridor V

The paper offers a brief discussion about the role of transport infrastructure in the current growth strategy followed by the EU. As a corridor is the locus where transport infrastructure and growth should interact more effectively, the central part of Corridor V is considered as an interesting case study. A growth scenario for eight countries is provided to show that wide growth disparities are to be expected during the next decade. The final part of the paper speculates about inflation differentials that are likely to emerge when growth differentials tend to persist inside a monetary union. As the Euro zone will be enlarged to host fast-growers in Corridor V such as Slovenia (maybe as soon as 2007), Hungary and the Slovak Republic, growth differentials and the single monetary policy could make it difficult to deliver a common monetary environment.Growth, money demand; inflation; infrastructure, European Union

Update on the Ares V to Support Heavy Lift for U.S. Space Exploration Policy

When NASA's Ares V cargo launch vehicle begins flying late next decade, its capabilities will significantly exceed the 1960s-era Saturn V. It will send more crew and cargo to more places on the lunar surface than Apollo and provide ongoing support to a permanent lunar outpost that will open the Moon to greater exploration, science and adventure than ever before. Moreover, it will restore the United States heavy-lift capability, which can support human and robotic exploration for decades to come. Ares V remains in a pre-design analysis cycle stage pending a planned Authority to Proceed (ATP) in late 2010. Ares V benefits from the decision to draw from heritage hardware and its commonality with the Ares I crew launch vehicle, which completed its preliminary design review (PDR) in September 2008. Most of the work on Ares V to date has been focused on refining the vehicle design through a variety of internal studies. This paper will provide background information on the Ares V evolution, emphasizing the vehicle configuration as it exists today

Gamma-ray bursts with ROSAT

I review the use of ROSAT over the last years for the investigation of well localized gamma-ray burst (GRB) error boxes. In particular, I cover (i) the systematic study of several dozens of IPN locations using the ROSAT All-Sky-Survey data, (ii) results of deep ROSAT pointings of selected small GRB error boxes, (iii) the attempts for and results of quick follow-up observations after GRB events including the three GRBs localized with BeppoSAX, (iv) the correlation of GRB locations with serendipitous ROSAT pointings and (v) the search for X-ray flashes in the database of pointed ROSAT observations.Comment: Invited talk at the workshop on "All-sky X-ray observations in the next decade", held at RIKEN, Tokyo, March 3-5, 1997; 6 pages incl. 3 ps-figures, plus workshop style file

Astrophotonic micro-spectrographs in the era of ELTs

The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), with diameters up to 39 meters, will start opera- tion in the next decade and promises new challenges in the development of instruments. The growing field of astrophotonics (the use of photonic technologies in astronomy) can partly solve this problem by allowing mass production of fully integrated and robust instruments combining various optical functions, with the potential to reduce the size, complexity and cost of instruments. In this paper, we focus on developments in integrated micro-spectrographs and their potential for ELTs. We take an inventory of the identified technologies currently in development, and compare the performance of the different concepts. We show that in the current context of single-mode instruments, integrated spectrographs making use of, e.g., a photonic lantern can be a solution to reach the desired performance. However, in the longer term, there is a clear need to develop multimode devices to improve overall the throughput and sensitivity, while decreasing the instrument complexity.Comment: 9 pages. 2 figures. Proceeding of SPIE 9147 "Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V

The Phenomena of High Energy Astrophysics

A brief summary of some highlights in the study of high energy astrophysical sources over the past decade is presented. It is argued that the great progress that has been made derives largely from the application of new technology to observation throughout all of the electromagnetic and other spectra and that, on this basis, the next decade should be even more exciting. However, it is imperative to observe cosmic sources throughout these spectra in order to obtain a full understanding of their properties. In addition, it is necessary to learn the universal laws that govern the macroscopic and the microscopic behavior of cosmic plasma over a great range of physical conditions by combining observations of different classes of source. These two injunctions are illustrated by discussions of cosmology, hot gas, supernova remnants and explosions, neutron stars, black holes and ultrarelativistic outflows. New interpreations of the acceleration of Galactic cosmic rays, the cooling of hot gas in rich clusters and the nature of ultrarelativistic outflows are outlined. The new frontiers of VHE $\gamma$-ray astronomy, low frequency radio astronomy, neutrino astronomy, UHE cosmic ray physics and gravitational wave astronomy are especially promising.Comment: To appear in "High Energy Processes and Phenomena in Astrophysics, IAU Symposium 214", X. Li, Z. Wang, V. Trimble (eds

Vývin kukuričiara koreňového Diabrotica virgifera virgifera v pôde

Monitoring of developmental stages of the Western corn rootworm (WCR) (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) is an important aspect of its control. In the experiment there were analysed randomly selected plants of maize on six localities in western Slovakia, in the years 2008-2010 a 2014-2015. The aim of the study was to identify exact time of the emergence of the WCR adults in the consequence of different years and different localities and to find the best date for their eradication. The most of the WCR individuals at the northern locality were observed on 29 June and the first adults were found on 07 June, during colder year 2006. The development started about nine days earlier in the next year in southern Slovakia, because of extremely hot weather. The population of pest increased slower in 2008 than in previous years, and the highest appearance was monitored up-to 02 July. The first adults were monitored on 27 June in the years 2009-2010 as well as 2014-2015. Generally, the highest numbers of the first instar larvae were observed on 22 June at the locality Čiližská Radvaň. The second instar larvae and the most of adults was found on 20 June in Sokolce. On 29 June it was monitored the largest amount of the third instar larvae at the locality Čiližská Radvaň. The differences in the time of the emergence of adults depended on the year. Based on the monitoring in Slovakia, it can be expected the third instar larvae from second decade of June and the first adults in the last decade of June and in the first decade of July.Monitorovanie vývinových štádií kukuričiara koreňového je dôležitým aspektom jeho regulácie. V experimente boli analyzované náhodne vybrané rastliny kukurice na šiestich vybraných lokalitách Západného Slovenska, v rokoch 2008-2010 a 2014-2015. Cieľom tejto štúdie bolo určiť presný čas výskytu dospelých jedincov kukuričiara koreňového (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) v dôsledku vplyvu ročníka a rôznych lokalít a nájsť najlepší dátum pre ich reguláciu. Počas chladnejšieho roku 2006 bolo v severnejšej lokalite najviac jedincov detekovaných 29. júna, a prvé imágo bolo pozorované 7. júla. O rok neskôr sa vývin na juhu Západného Slovenska vplyvom extrémne teplého počasia uskutočnil o 9 dní skôr. Nárast populácie škodcu bol v roku 2008 menší ako v predchádzajúcich rokoch, a maximálny počet imág bol zaznamenaný až 2. júla. Prvé imága v rokoch 2009-2010 a taktiež 2014-2015 boli pozorované 27. júna. Všeobecne, najvyšší počet lariev prvého instaru bol pozorovaný 22. júna v Čiližskej Radvani. Druhý instar lariev a najviac imág bolo sledovaných 20. júna v Sokolciach. Dňa 29. júna bolo monitorované najväčšie množstvo lariev tretieho instaru na lokalite Čiližská Radvaň. Rozdielnosť v čase výskytu imág ovplyvňoval ročník. Na základe monitoringu môžeme na Slovensku očakávať larvy tretieho instaru od druhej dekády júna, a prvé imága v poslednej dekáde júna a v prvej dekáde júla