Mitchell and Seiden\u27s Reviewing the academic library: A guide to selfstudy and external review (Book Review)

A review of Mitchell, E., & Seiden, P. (Eds.) (2015). Reviewing the academic library: A guide to selfstudy and external review. Chicago: ACRL. 334 pp. $65.00. ISBN 978083898783

Cellular automata and self-organized criticality

Cellular automata provide a fascinating class of dynamical systems capable of diverse complex behavior. These include simplified models for many phenomena seen in nature. Among other things, they provide insight into self-organized criticality, wherein dissipative systems naturally drive themselves to a critical state with important phenomena occurring over a wide range of length and time scales.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures (most in color); uses sprocl.tex; chapter submitted for "Some new directions in science on computers," G. Bhanot, S. Chen, and P. Seiden, ed

A Past Full of Future: Law school alumnus finds his calling in the world of intellectual property law

Although he had to shift gears and change lanes, alumnus Matt Seiden\u27s background paved the way for a career in international intellectual property law

Comment Regarding the Functional Form of the Schmidt Law

Star formation rates on the galactic scale are described phenomenologically by two distinct relationships, as emphasized recently by Elmegreen (2002). The first of these is the Schmidt law, which is a power-law relation between the star formation rate and the column density. The other relationship is that there is a cutoff in the gas density below which star formation shuts off. The purpose of this paper is to argue that 1) these two relationships can be accommodated by a single functional form of the Schmidt law, and 2) this functional form is motivated by the hypothesis that star formation is a critical phenomenon, and that as a corollary, 3) the existence of a sharp cutoff may thus be an emergent property of galaxies, as was argued by Seiden (1983), as opposed to the classical view that this cutoff is due to an instability criterion.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, in press, New Astronomy. Figs provided in original (png) format as well as ps format for ps/pdf generatio

A test of arm-induced star formation in spiral galaxies from near-IR and Hα\alpha imaging

We have imaged a sample of 20 spiral galaxies in H$\alpha$ and in the near-infrared K band (2.2 um), in order to determine the location and strength of star formation in these objects with respect to perturbations in the old stellar population. We have found that star formation rates are significantly enhanced in the vicinity of K band arms. We have also found that this enhancement in star formation rate in arm regions correlates well with a quantity that measures the relative strengths of shocks in arms. Assuming that the K band light is dominated by emission from the old stellar population, this shows that density waves trigger star formation in the vicinity of spiral arms.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, accpeted for publication in MNRA

Disk Galaxy Models Driven by Stochastic Self-Propagating Star Formation

We present a model of chemical and spectrophotometric evolution of disk galaxies based on a stochastic self-propagating star formation scenario. The model incorporates galaxy formation through the process of accretion, chemical and photometric evolution treatment, based on simple stellar populations (SSP), and parameterized gas dynamics inside the model. The model reproduces observational data of a late-type spiral galaxy M33 reasonably well. Promising test results prove the applicability of the model and the adequate accuracy for the interpretation of disk galaxy properties.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure