Very Low Thrust Gaseous Oxygen-hydrogen Rocket Engine Ignition Technology

An experimental program was performed to determine the minimum energy per spark for reliable and repeatable ignition of gaseous oxygen (GO2) and gaseous hydrogen (GH2) in very low thrust 0.44 to 2.22-N (0.10 to 0.50-lb sub f) rocket engines or spacecraft and satellite attitude control systems (ACS) application. Initially, the testing was conducted at ambient conditions, with the results subsequently verified under vacuum conditions. An experimental breadboard electrical exciter that delivered 0.2 to 0.3 mj per spark was developed and demonstrated by repeated ignitions of a 2.22-N (0.50-lb sub f) thruster in a vacuum chamber with test durations up to 30 min

Elliptic Flow Measurements with the PHENIX Detector

Two particle azimuthal correlation functions are presented for charged hadrons produced in Au+Au collisions at RHIC ($\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130$ GeV). The measurements allow for the determination of elliptic flow without event-by-event estimation of the reaction plane. The measured correlation functions indicate elliptic flow values ($v_2$) which show significant sensitivity to both the collision centrality and the transverse momenta of emitted hadrons.Comment: Contribution to Quark Matter 2001, Long Island, New York, January 15-20, 200

A Plea for Reality

Legend has it that a long-ago Chief Justice of Texas said, “No judicial selection system is worth a damn.” This view has been all but proven by American experience; nothing else in American law matches this subject in terms of the volume of written debate and endless sweat spent working for change. The selection system for federal judges is unchanged but far from untroubled, and the States have never used a common method . . . . [O]ne can identify almost as many different methods . . . as there are States in the Union . . . . Moreover, most States have changed the way they choose judges at some point in their history, often more than once. My focus is on judicial elections. Since I began work on them, I have adhered to agnosticism about methods of selection. One reason is this: My writing and work aim at making a difference, but to say anything new on this subject seems almost impossible, and for the last generation the battles to change selection methods have been futile. Of course past performance is no predictor of the future, but, as the chief justices formally resolved two years ago, “elections will stay in many and perhaps all of the states that have that system.” People who advocate ending contestable elections always point to some pending bill in some state (lately, Nevada), but for over one hundred years, the hurdles in turning proposals into constitutional amendments have been all but insuperable. The endless debate does have new elements. Some “merit” systems have recently suffered unusual confrontations between governors and nominating committees. Also, we have new analyses drawing upon the actual operation of “merit” systems to argue that some are dominated (or even controlled) by the organized bar and that at least some actions have been partisan. Further, unless the Tennessee legislature does this spring what it refused to do in 2008, its “merit” system for appellate judges will terminate in June 2009. This would be the first time for any jurisdiction to return to contestable elections after ending them

Comment on Professor Carrington\u27s Article The Independence and Democratic Accountability of the Supreme Court of Ohio

In my view, whether or not Article III is written as members of a new constitutional convention might write it, there is nothing more fundamental to the way our entire judicial system operates (including in many ways, although indirectly, our state courts) than federal judges being as independent as law can make them. Perhaps I suffer from Burkean skepticism about reform of long-standing institutions, or perhaps I am merely a supporter of the status quo. But I believe that, despite obvious drawbacks in giving anyone life tenure in any job, we gain far more than we lose by making federal judges independent, i.e., so protected from external pressures and internal incentives. Article III\u27s grant of life tenure is the bedrock of our Constitution\u27s guarantees (and therefore our Rule of Law and our protection of minorities arid dissenters) and assurances that lasting values are not eroded by ephemeral passions

New CLEO Results for |V_cb| and |V_ub|

We report recent measurements from CLEO of the first two moments of the photon energy spectrum for b -> s gamma decays and the hadronic recoil mass in B -> X_c l nu. These physical quantities allow one to fix non-perturbative parameters occurring in calculations based on HQET and QCD. Predictions for semileptonic decay rates within this same framework depend in addition on the CKM matrix elements V_qq' governing quark mixing. We can thus extract |V_cb| from the inclusive semileptonic decay rate of B mesons, and |V_ub| from the lepton endpoint spectrum of B -> X_u l nu. Model dependence is reduced except for the assumption of quark-hadron duality. Finally, we update the classic measurement of |V_cb| from B -> D* l nu at zero recoil.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 9th Int'l Symposium on Heavy Flavor Physics; some references updated her

Myth, Reality Past and Present, and Judicial Elections

Why do we have judicial elections? A democracy without elections for the legislature and executive (or, in parliamentary systems, for the executive as the leadership of the elected legislators), would be simply inconceivable. But no one would deny that eleven of our states, or many other nations, are democracies even though they do not elect judges. It might follow from that irrefutable, fundamental difference between elections for judges and for other offices, that judicial elections should not-or more to the point, need not-be conducted the same as other elections. Before we soar into debate, let us lay a foundation with elements of fact: first, the historical facts about why we have judicial elections; second, how well or poorly those facts-that is, the very purpose of having judicial elections-have been taken into account by the courts that have stricken efforts to treat judicial elections differently