Chicano Ethnicity and Aging

In an insightful article published a decade ago, The Chicano Aged, David Maldonado offers some comments that are germane to this presentation. In summing up the dilemma of the Chicano elderly, he asserts: The aged person in the extended family holds high status and commands the respect and obedience of the younger family members. Within the extended family structure. the aging person grows in prestige and respect. The individual holds high rank and has influence in the life of the group.[1] This is the position afforded the aged in many societies as long as the elderly are able to function and contribute in a meaningful way. Prestige, respect, and influence are important parts of their role so long as the aged are not perceived as being a burden. There is, however, a stigma attached to aging in the United States because of the emphasis upon youth and a mind set which does not view aging as a positive process

A DIRECTOR LOOKS AT AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT AT STATE AND COUNTY LEVELS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Tax Shelters and the Search for the Silver Bullet

This article describes the ongoing legislative and administrative efforts to curtail tax shelters. It concludes that these efforts, which rely largely on disclosure requirements and penalties, cannot succeed as long as taxpayers continue to win many of the litigated shelter cases. It also concludes that the recent proposal of the Joint Committee on Taxation, to codify the economic substance doctrine, is unlikely to solve the problem. Although the proposal would have the salutary effect of preventing courts from deciding that the economic substance doctrine does not exist, courts would remain free to conclude that the doctrine is not applicable in particular situations, or to find that the doctrine is satisfied in highly dubious circumstances. Narrowly tailored legislative responses to particular types of shelters are also not adequate as a solution to the overall shelter problem; since the legislative fixes are prospective only, taxpayers merely move on to new types of shelters not yet legislated against. Accordingly, the article suggests a new approach to the shelter problem, based on the general disallowance of noneconomic losses. This could be accomplished by either (1) the enactment of a Code provision flatly disallowing noneconomic losses, subject to an exception for noneconomic losses the deduction of which is clearly contemplated by Congress, or (2) a legislative grant of authority to the Treasury to promulgate regulations retroactively disallowing noneconomic losses, as necessary to prevent abuse

Promotion of Cooperation by Selective Group Extinction

Multilevel selection is an important organizing principle that crucially underlies evolutionary processes from the emergence of cells to eusociality and the economics of nations. Previous studies on multilevel selection assumed that the effective higher-level selection emerges from lower-level reproduction. This leads to selection among groups, although only individuals reproduce. We introduce selective group extinction, where groups die with a probability inversely proportional to their group fitness. When accounting for this the critical benefit-to-cost ratio is substantially lowered. Because in game theory and evolutionary dynamics the degree of cooperation crucially depends on this ratio above which cooperation emerges previous studies may have substantially underestimated the establishment and maintenance of cooperation.Comment: Accepted for publication in New Journal of Physic

Tax Shelters and the Search for the Silver Bullet

This article describes the ongoing legislative and administrative efforts to curtail tax shelters. It concludes that these efforts, which rely largely on disclosure requirements and penalties, cannot succeed as long as taxpayers continue to win many of the litigated shelter cases. It also concludes that the recent proposal of the Joint Committee on Taxation, to codify the economic substance doctrine, is unlikely to solve the problem. Although the proposal would have the salutary effect of preventing courts from deciding that the economic substance doctrine does not exist, courts would remain free to conclude that the doctrine is not applicable in particular situations, or to find that the doctrine is satisfied in highly dubious circumstances. Narrowly tailored legislative responses to particular types of shelters are also not adequate as a solution to the overall shelter problem; since the legislative fixes are prospective only, taxpayers merely move on to new types of shelters not yet legislated against. Accordingly, the article suggests a new approach to the shelter problem, based on the general disallowance of noneconomic losses. This could be accomplished by either (1) the enactment of a Code provision flatly disallowing noneconomic losses, subject to an exception for noneconomic losses the deduction of which is clearly contemplated by Congress, or (2) a legislative grant of authority to the Treasury to promulgate regulations retroactively disallowing noneconomic losses, as necessary to prevent abuse

Antineutrino Physics at MINOS

We present two new measurements of antineutrino properties based on a data sample corresponding to 3.2×10^(20) protons-on-target, exploiting MINOS' unique ability to distinguish positive and negative muons and thus separate charged current neutrino and antineutrino interactions event-by-event. The first measurement takes advantage of the 6% antineutrino component of the NuMI neutrino beam to measure antineutrino oscillations between the near and far detectors. We observe 42 events at the far detector with an expectation of 58.3±7.6(stat.)±3.6(syst.) assuming CPT-conserving oscillations, excluding (5.0<Δm(overbar)^2<81)×10^(−3)eV^2 at 90% confidence at maximal mixing. We also present a search for neutrino-antineutrino transitions ν_μ → ν(overbar)_μ, which would result in an excess of antineutrino events in the Far Detector relative to the rate expected from the intrinsic antineutrino component in the neutrino beam. We observe no excess and set a limit of 0.026 on the transition probability at 90% confidence

B+ and Ds+ Decay Constants from Belle and Babar

The Belle and Babar experiments have measured the branching fractions for B+ -> tau+ nu and Ds+ -> mu+ nu decays. From these measurements one can extract the B+ and Ds+ decay constants, which can be compared to lattice QCD calculations. For the Ds+ decay constant, there is currently a 2.1 sigma difference between the calculated value and the measured value.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, contribution to the Tenth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2009), San Diego, Californi

The measurement of alpha from the B-factories

Significant progress toward measuring the CKM angle alpha has been made by the B-factories over the past decade. This work has culminated in a constraint on alpha with a precision of less than 4 degrees.Comment: Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, San Diego, California, May 2009 (4 pages