72 research outputs found
Mischief Managed? The Unconstitutionality of SEC ALJs Under the Appointments Clause
This Note argues that SEC ALJs are inferior officers of the United States and, as a result, are unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause. Part I examines the current state of ALJs and the jurisprudence of the Appointments Clause. Part II provides an analysis of the circuit split between the Tenth and D.C. Circuits over the question of SEC ALJs and the Appointments Clause. Part III argues that the Tenth Circuit in Bandimere v. SEC correctly decided the question presented. This Part further urges the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit’s holding in Lucia and, in so doing, adhere to its correctly decided past doctrine, notwithstanding the potential ramifications for the administrative state
Religious Freedom and Recycled Tires: The Meaning and Implications of Trinity Lutheran
The Supreme Court\u27s decision in Trinity Lutheran clearly affirmed a First Amendment rule against anti-religious discrimination. At the same time, it raised or left open a number of important and interesting questions about education reform, the relevance of anti-Catholic bias to states\u27 so-called Blaine Amendments, and the sharpening tension between religious freedom and the application of antidiscrimination laws
Combined collider constraints on neutralinos and charginos
Searches for supersymmetric electroweakinos have entered a crucial phase, as the integrated luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider is now high enough to compensate for their weak production cross-sections. Working in a framework where the neutralinos and charginos are the only light sparticles in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, we use GAMBIT to perform a detailed likelihood analysis of the electroweakino sector. We focus on the impacts of recent ATLAS and CMS searches with Open image in new window of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data. We also include constraints from LEP and invisible decays of the Z and Higgs bosons. Under the background-only hypothesis, we show that current LHC searches do not robustly exclude any range of neutralino or chargino masses. However, a pattern of excesses in several LHC analyses points towards a possible signal, with neutralino masses of Open image in new window = (8–155, 103–260, 130–473, 219–502) GeV and chargino masses of Open image in new window = (104–259, 224–507) GeV at the 95% confidence level. The lightest neutralino is mostly bino, with a possible modest Higgsino or wino component. We find that this excess has a combined local significance of 3.3σ, subject to a number of cautions. If one includes LHC searches for charginos and neutralinos conducted with 8 TeV proton-proton collision data, the local significance is lowered to 2.9σ. We briefly consider the implications for dark matter, finding that the correct relic density can be obtained through the Higgs-funnel and Z-funnel mechanisms, even assuming that all other sparticles are decoupled. All samples, GAMBIT input files and best-fit models from this study are available on Zenodo.Peter Athron, Csaba Balázs, Andy Buckley, Jonathan M. Cornell, Matthias Danninger ... Abhishek Sharma ... et al. (GAMBIT Collaboration
The SWELLS survey. II. Breaking the disk-halo degeneracy in the spiral galaxy gravitational lens SDSS J2141-0001
The degeneracy among the disk, bulge and halo contributions to galaxy
rotation curves prevents an understanding of the distribution of baryons and
dark matter in disk galaxies. In an attempt to break this degeneracy, we
present an analysis of the spiral galaxy strong gravitational lens SDSS
J2141-0001, discovered as part of the SLACS survey. We present new Hubble Space
Telescope multicolor imaging, gas and stellar kinematics data derived from
long-slit spectroscopy, and K-band LGS adaptive optics imaging, both from the
Keck telescopes. We model the galaxy as a sum of concentric axisymmetric bulge,
disk and halo components and infer the contribution of each component, using
information from gravitational lensing and gas kinematics. This analysis yields
a best-fitting total (disk plus bulge) stellar mass of log_{10}(Mstar/Msun) =
10.99(+0.11,-0.25). The photometric data combined with stellar population
synthesis models yield log_{10}(Mstar/Msun) = 10.97\pm0.07, and 11.21\pm0.07
for the Chabrier and Salpeter IMFs, respectively. Accounting for the expected
gas fraction of \simeq 20% reduces the lensing plus kinematics stellar mass by
0.10\pm0.05 dex, resulting in a Bayes factor of 11.9 in favor of a Chabrier
IMF. The dark matter halo is roughly spherical, with minor to major axis ratio
q_{halo}=0.91(+0.15,-0.13). The dark matter halo has a maximum circular
velocity of V_{max}=276(+17,-18) km/s, and a central density parameter of
log_{10}\Delta_{V/2}=5.9(+0.9,-0.5). This is higher than predicted for
uncontracted dark matter haloes in LCDM cosmologies, log_{10}\Delta_{V/2}=5.2,
suggesting that either the halo has contracted in response to galaxy formation,
or that the halo has a higher than average concentration. At 2.2 disk scale
lengths the dark matter fraction is f_{DM}=0.55(+0.20,-0.15), suggesting that
SDSS J2141-0001 is sub-maximal.Comment: 24 pages, 20 figures, accepted to MNRAS, minor change
The importance of sedimenting organic matter, relative to oxygen and temperature, in structuring lake profundal macroinvertebrate assemblages
We quantified the role of a main food
resource, sedimenting organic matter (SOM), relative
to oxygen (DO) and temperature (TEMP) in structuring
profundal macroinvertebrate assemblages in
boreal lakes. SOM from 26 basins of 11 Finnish lakes
was analysed for quantity (sedimentation rates),
quality (C:N:P stoichiometry) and origin (carbon
stable isotopes, d13C). Hypolimnetic oxygen and
temperature were measured from each site during
summer stratification. Partial canonical correspondence
analysis (CCA) and partial regression analyses
were used to quantify contributions of SOM, DO and
TEMP to community composition and three macroinvertebrate
metrics. The results suggested a major
contribution of SOM in regulating the community
composition and total biomass. Oxygen best explained
the Shannon diversity, whereas TEMP had largest
contribution to the variation of Benthic Quality Index.
Community composition was most strongly related to d13C of SOM. Based on additional d13C and stoichiometric
analyses of chironomid taxa, marked differences
were apparent in their utilization of SOM and
body stoichiometry; taxa characteristic of oligotrophic
conditions exhibited higher C:N ratios and lower C:P
and N:P ratios compared to the species typical of
eutrophic lakes. The results highlight the role of SOM
in regulating benthic communities and the distributions
of individual species, particularly in oligotrophic
systems
Uncovering the Importance of Selenium in Muscle Disease
A connection between selenium bioavailability and development of muscular
disorders both in humans and livestock has been established for a long time.
With the development of genomics, the function of several selenoproteins was
shown to be involved in muscle activity, including SELENON, which was linked to
an inherited form of myopathy. Development of animal models has helped to dissect
the physiological dysfunction due to mutation in the SELENON gene; however the
molecular activity remains elusive and only recent analysis using both in vivo and
in vitro experiment provided hints toward its function in oxidative stress defence
and calcium transport control. This review sets out to summarise most recent findings
for the importance of selenium in muscle function and the contribution of this
information to the design of strategies to cure the diseases
The unfolded protein response in immunity and inflammation.
The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a highly conserved pathway that allows the cell to manage endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that is imposed by the secretory demands associated with environmental forces. In this role, the UPR has increasingly been shown to have crucial functions in immunity and inflammation. In this Review, we discuss the importance of the UPR in the development, differentiation, function and survival of immune cells in meeting the needs of an immune response. In addition, we review current insights into how the UPR is involved in complex chronic inflammatory diseases and, through its role in immune regulation, antitumour responses.This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research Rubicon grant 825.13.012 (J.G.); US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants DK044319, DK051362, DK053056 and DK088199, and the Harvard Digestive Diseases Center (HDDC) grant DK034854 (R.S.B.); National Institutes of Health grants DK042394, DK088227, DK103183 and CA128814 (R.J.K.); and European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant 260961, ERC Consolidator Grant 648889, and the Wellcome Trust Investigator award 106260/Z/14/Z (A.K.).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nri.2016.6
Clinical, humanistic, and economic burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Canada: a systematic review
Characterization of poly(ethylene glycol) esters using low energy collision-induced dissociation in electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
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