Juries and Justice: Are Malpractice and Other Personal Injuries Created Equal?

A study analyzed the civil jury system and the difference in personal injury awards between automobile and deep-pocket defendants, especially in medical malpractice cases. Six conclusions were reached, including the finding that juries sometimes respond emotionally and award some objectively similar cases higher damages than others

Self-Consistent Field Theory of Brushes of Neutral Water-Soluble Polymers

The Self-Consistent Field theory of brushes of neutral water-soluble polymers described by two-state models is formulated in terms of the effective Flory interaction parameter $\chi_{eff}(T,\phi)$ that depends on both temperature, T and the monomer volume fraction, $\phi$. The concentration profiles, distribution of free ends and compression force profiles are obtained in the presence and in the absence of a vertical phase separation. A vertical phase separation within the layer leads to a distinctive compression force profile and a minimum in the plot of the moments of the concentration profile vs. the grafting density. The analysis is applied explicitly to the Karalstrom model. The relevance to brushes of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)(PNIPAM) is discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physic

Quantum lithography by coherent control of classical light pulses

The smallest spot in optical lithography and microscopy is generally limited by diffraction. Quantum lithography, which utilizes interference between groups of N entangled photons, was recently proposed to beat the diffraction limit by a factor N. Here we propose a simple method to obtain N photons interference with classical pulses that excite a narrow multiphoton transition, thus shifting the "quantum weight" from the electromagnetic field to the lithographic material. We show how a practical complete lithographic scheme can be developed and demonstrate the underlying principles experimentally by two-photon interference in atomic Rubidium, to obtain focal spots that beat the diffraction limit by a factor of 2.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Opt. Expres

Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multiplanet System

We report the detection of Kepler-47, a system consisting of two planets orbiting around an eclipsing pair of stars. The inner and outer planets have radii 3.0 and 4.6 times that of Earth, respectively. The binary star consists of a Sun-like star and a companion roughly one-third its size, orbiting each other every 7.45 days. With an orbital period of 49.5 days, 18 transits of the inner planet have been observed, allowing a detailed characterization of its orbit and those of the stars. The outer planet’s orbital period is 303.2 days, and although the planet is not Earth-like, it resides within the classical "habitable zone," where liquid water could exist on an Earth-like planet. With its two known planets, Kepler-47 establishes that close binary stars can host complete planetary systems

Nonlinear interactions with an ultrahigh flux of broadband entangled photons

We experimentally demonstrate sum-frequency generation (SFG) with entangled photon-pairs, generating as many as 40,000 SFG photons per second, visible even to the naked eye. The nonclassical nature of the interaction is exhibited by a linear intensity-dependence of the nonlinear process. The key element in our scheme is the generation of an ultrahigh flux of entangled photons while maintaining their nonclassical properties. This is made possible by generating the down-converted photons as broadband as possible, orders of magnitude wider than the pump. This approach is readily applicable for other nonlinear interactions, and may be applicable for various quantum-measurement tasks.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Accepted to Phys. Rev. Let