Affective Trust and the Role of Social Norms in Constructing Faith in Others.

This dissertation introduces the concept of affective trust to complement the extant notions of particular and general trust in political science. While particular trust comes to explain how people generate localized expectations of others that vary across different contexts, general trust accounts for one’s default context-invariant expectation that others will act cooperatively. This project comes to explain trust in the intermediate case, in which our expectations vary across contexts, even though we lack individuated information regarding a specific agent. I argue that affective trust is a warm expectation that others are likely to act cooperatively, generated in light of social norms or institutional regularities. Social norms are the right kind of contextual feature to generate trust, since they construct both conditional preferences to act as well as first and higher order expectations that others can be expected to conform too, eliciting blame and reactive attitudes when this sort of expectation is upset. I build this account over four substantive chapters. In the first I use Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man to demonstrate the shortcomings of extant understandings of trust, while also indicating the need to rely on social conventions in order to construct trust. The second chapter offers a conceptual analysis, building conceptual intuitions by using a series of simple 2 by 2 games that come to identify trust squarely in situations of motivational uncertainty. The third chapter looks toward traditional political theory to claim that affective trust has political efficacy. Building on the recent literature on sentimental political theory, I claim that trust is the sort of epistemic feature that can explain political motivations. Using Smith, Machiavelli, and Hobbes I show the distinctly political character affective trust can take. Finally, in the fourth chapter I reflect on interviews I conducted with U.S. Christian Missionaries serving abroad to illustrate and demonstrate the plausibility of this theory. These individuals operate in environments where they lack information about the people to whom they reach out. I find that the identification of and with social norms facilitates their ability to trust others and is resonant with their experience of faith in God.PhDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116683/1/zberger_1.pd

Analysis of intrapulse chirp in CO2 oscillators

Pulsed single-frequency CO2 laser oscillators are often used as transmitters for coherent lidar applications. These oscillators suffer from intrapulse chirp, or dynamic frequency shifting. If excessive, such chirp can limit the signal-to-noise ratio of the lidar (by generating excess bandwidth), or limit the velocity resolution if the lidar is of the Doppler type. This paper describes a detailed numerical model that considers all known sources of intrapulse chirp. Some typical predictions of the model are shown, and simple design rules to minimize chirp are proposed

Hard-wall and non-uniform lattice Monte Carlo approaches to one-dimensional Fermi gases in a harmonic trap

We present in detail two variants of the lattice Monte Carlo method aimed at tackling systems in external trapping potentials: a uniform-lattice approach with hard-wall boundary conditions, and a non-uniform Gauss-Hermite lattice approach. Using those two methods, we compute the ground-state energy and spatial density profile for systems of N=4 - 8 harmonically trapped fermions in one dimension. From the favorable comparison of both energies and density profiles (particularly in regions of low density), we conclude that the trapping potential is properly resolved by the hard-wall basis. Our work paves the way to higher dimensions and finite temperature analyses, as calculations with the hard-wall basis can be accelerated via fast Fourier transforms, the cost of unaccelerated methods is otherwise prohibitive due to the unfavorable scaling with system size

International guidelines for the management and treatment of Morquio A syndrome.

Morquio A syndrome (mucopolysaccharidosis IVA) is a lysosomal storage disorder associated with skeletal and joint abnormalities and significant non-skeletal manifestations including respiratory disease, spinal cord compression, cardiac disease, impaired vision, hearing loss, and dental problems. The clinical presentation, onset, severity and progression rate of clinical manifestations of Morquio A syndrome vary widely between patients. Because of the heterogeneous and progressive nature of the disease, the management of patients with Morquio A syndrome is challenging and requires a multidisciplinary approach, involving an array of specialists. The current paper presents international guidelines for the evaluation, treatment and symptom-based management of Morquio A syndrome. These guidelines were developed during two expert meetings by an international panel of specialists in pediatrics, genetics, orthopedics, pulmonology, cardiology, and anesthesia with extensive experience in managing Morquio A syndrome

Linked and knotted beams of light, conservation of helicity and the flow of null electromagnetic fields

Maxwell's equations allow for some remarkable solutions consisting of pulsed beams of light which have linked and knotted field lines. The preservation of the topological structure of the field lines in these solutions has previously been ascribed to the fact that the electric and magnetic helicity, a measure of the degree of linking and knotting between field lines, are conserved. Here we show that the elegant evolution of the field is due to the stricter condition that the electric and magnetic fields be everywhere orthogonal. The field lines then satisfy a `frozen field' condition and evolve as if they were unbreakable filaments embedded in a fluid. The preservation of the orthogonality of the electric and magnetic field lines is guaranteed for null, shear-free fields such as the ones considered here by a theorem of Robinson. We calculate the flow field of a particular solution and find it to have the form of a Hopf fibration moving at the speed of light in a direction opposite to the propagation of the pulsed light beam, a familiar structure in this type of solution. The difference between smooth evolution of individual field lines and conservation of electric and magnetic helicity is illustrated by considering a further example in which the helicities are conserved, but the field lines are not everywhere orthogonal. The field line configuration at time t=0 corresponds to a nested family of torus knots but unravels upon evolution

STITCHER: Dynamic assembly of likely amyloid and prion β-structures from secondary structure predictions

The supersecondary structure of amyloids and prions, proteins of intense clinical and biological interest, are difficult to determine by standard experimental or computational means. In addition, significant conformational heterogeneity is known or suspected to exist in many amyloid fibrils. Previous work has demonstrated that probability-based prediction of discrete β-strand pairs can offer insight into these structures. Here, we devise a system of energetic rules that can be used to dynamically assemble these discrete β-strand pairs into complete amyloid β-structures. The STITCHER algorithm progressively ‘stitches’ strand-pairs into full β-sheets based on a novel free-energy model, incorporating experimentally observed amino-acid side-chain stacking contributions, entropic estimates, and steric restrictions for amyloidal parallel β-sheet construction. A dynamic program computes the top 50 structures and returns both the highest scoring structure and a consensus structure taken by polling this list for common discrete elements. Putative structural heterogeneity can be inferred from sequence regions that compose poorly. Predictions show agreement with experimental models of Alzheimer's amyloid beta peptide and the Podospora anserina Het-s prion. Predictions of the HET-s homolog HET-S also reflect experimental observations of poor amyloid formation. We put forward predicted structures for the yeast prion Sup35, suggesting N-terminal structural stability enabled by tyrosine ladders, and C-terminal heterogeneity. Predictions for the Rnq1 prion and alpha-synuclein are also given, identifying a similar mix of homogenous and heterogeneous secondary structure elements. STITCHER provides novel insight into the energetic basis of amyloid structure, provides accurate structure predictions, and can help guide future experimental studies. Proteins 2011