Egoism and the Repugnant Conclusion

The Repugnant Conclusion is the conclusion that for any world of people living moderately good lives, there exists another, better, world of far more people living far worse lives. This thesis examines a number of proposed solutions to the repugnant conclusion and comes to the conclusion that none of them are satisfactory. Instead, it proposes that the repugnant conclusion may be true in value theoretic terms, but might not be repugnant if it does not underlie any significant ethical implications. Ethical egoism is defended as an ethical system under which the ethical implications of the repugnant conclusion are successfully minimized. A number of objections to ethical egoism, including objections from the failure to solve collective action dilemmas and the limitation of autonomy, are considered in order to establish that ethical egoism is sufficiently reasonable to serve as an avenue to attack the repugnance of the repugnant conclusion

Intercalated Rare-Earth Metals under Graphene on SiC

Intercalation of rare earth metals ($RE$ = Eu, Dy, and Gd) is achieved by depositing the $RE$ metal on graphene that is grown on silicon-carbide (SiC) and by subsequent annealing at high temperatures to promote intercalation. STM images of the films reveal that the graphene layer is defect free and that each of the intercalated metals has a distinct nucleation pattern. Intercalated Eu forms nano-clusters that are situated on the vertices of a Moir{\`e} pattern, while Dy and Gd form randomly distributed nano-clusters. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements of intercalated films reveal the magnetic properties of these $RE$'s nano-clusters. Furthermore, field dependence and temperature dependence of the magnetic moments extracted from the XMCD show paramagnetic-like behaviors with moments that are generally smaller than those predicted by the Brillouin function. XMCD measurements of $RE$-oxides compared with those of the intercalated $RE$'s under graphene after exposure to air for months indicate that the graphene membranes protect these intercalants against oxidation.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Can Neuroscience Help Predict Future Antisocial Behavior?

Part I of this Article reviews the tools currently available to predict antisocial behavior. Part II discusses legal precedent regarding the use of, and challenges to, various prediction methods. Part III introduces recent neuroscience work in this area and reviews two studies that have successfully used neuroimaging techniques to predict recidivism. Part IV discusses some criticisms that are commonly levied against the various prediction methods and highlights the disparity between the attitudes of the scientific and legal communities toward risk assessment generally and neuroscience specifically. Lastly, Part V explains why neuroscience methods will likely continue to help inform and, ideally, improve the tools we use to help assess, understand, and predict human behavior

Intercalated europium metal in epitaxial graphene on SiC

X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) reveal the magnetic properties of intercalated europium metal under graphene on SiC(0001). Intercalation of Eu nano-clusters (average size 2.5 nm) between graphene and SiC substate are formed by deposition of Eu on epitaxially grown graphene that is subsequently annealed at various temperatures while keeping the integrity of the graphene layer. Using sum-rules analysis of the XMCD of Eu M$_{4,5}$ edges at $T = 15$ K, our samples show paramagnetic-like behavior with distinct anomaly at T $\approx$ 90 K which may be related to the N{\`e}el transition, T$_N$ = 91 K, of bulk metal Eu. We find no evidence of ferromagnetism due to EuO or antiferromagnetism due to Eu$_2$O$_3$ indicating that the graphene layer protects the intercalated metallic Eu against oxidation over months of exposure to atmospheric environment.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Regulating Democracy Through Democracy: The Use of Direct Legislation in Election Law Reform

The study examines a wealth of election law reforms - term limits (for governor and state legislators), campaign finance reform (contribution limits and public funding), redistricting (pre-Baker v. Carr and creation of commissions), creation and regulation of primaries, and women\u27s suffrage - to figure out whether differences exist between the election law regimes in initiative and non-initiative states and whether these differences (if any) might be attributed to the use of the initiative process. We find that in very few cases - legislative term limits and perhaps redistricting commissions - do initiative states differ noticeably from non-initiative states, and in most initiative states election reforms pass through normal legislative means. However, in some cases,such as with contribution limits, laws passed through the initiative process differ in character from those passed through the legislature

Regulating Democracy Through Democracy: The Use of Direct Legislation in Election Law Reform

The study examines a wealth of election law reforms - term limits (for governor and state legislators), campaign finance reform (contribution limits and public funding), redistricting (pre-Baker v. Carr and creation of commissions), creation and regulation of primaries, and women\u27s suffrage - to figure out whether differences exist between the election law regimes in initiative and non-initiative states and whether these differences (if any) might be attributed to the use of the initiative process. We find that in very few cases - legislative term limits and perhaps redistricting commissions - do initiative states differ noticeably from non-initiative states, and in most initiative states election reforms pass through normal legislative means. However, in some cases,such as with contribution limits, laws passed through the initiative process differ in character from those passed through the legislature

Quantifying Similarity in Reliability Surfaces Using the Probability of Agreement

When separate populations exhibit similar reliability as a function of multiple explanatory variables, combining them into a single population is tempting. This can simplify future predictions and reduce uncertainty associated with estimation. However, combining these populations may introduce bias if the underlying relationships are in fact different. The probability of agreement formally and intuitively quantifies the similarity of estimated reliability surfaces across a two-factor input space. An example from the reliability literature demonstrates the utility of the approach when deciding whether to combine two populations or to keep them as distinct. New graphical summaries provide strategies for visualizing the results

Improving Health Outcomes for Children (IHOC): Summary of Pediatric Quality Measures for Children Enrolled in MaineCare FFY 2009 - FFY 2012

his report, authored by USM Muskie School research staff, presents the results of the 16 CHIPRA Core Measures that were collected using MaineCare claims or Vital Statistics data and reported in the State of Maine’s FFY 2012 CHIP Annual Report to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Also included in this report are an additional three measures from the Improving Health Outcomes for Children (IHOC) project’s Master List of Pediatric Measures. In addition to presenting results in graphs and narrative, this report also provides measure definitions and background information about each measure topic. The goal of this document is to present the claims- and vital statistics-based CHIPRA and IHOC measure results in a user-friendly format for IHOC project stakeholders. Measures are grouped by topic. For each topic, a Background section provides a brief description and rationale for collection. (The background discussion for CHIPRA Core Measures is drawn from the Background Report for the Initial, Recommended Core Set of Children’s Healthcare Quality Measures for Voluntary Use by Medicaid and CHIP Programs