Front progression for the East model

The East model is a one-dimensional, non-attractive interacting particle system with Glauber dynamics, in which a flip is prohibited at a site $x$ if the right neighbour $x+1$ is occupied. Starting from a configuration entirely occupied on the left half-line, we prove a law of large numbers for the position of the left-most zero (the front), as well as ergodicity of the process seen from the front. For want of attractiveness, the one-dimensional shape theorem is not derived by the usual coupling arguments, but instead by quantifying the local relaxation to the non-equilibrium invariant measure for the process seen from the front. This is the first proof of a shape theorem for a kinetically constrained spin model.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures; typos corrected and some details added since the first versio

Victims’ Rights in an Adversary System

The victims\u27 rights movement argues that because the outcome of criminal prosecutions affects crime victims, the justice system should consider their interests during proceedings. In 2004, Congress passed the Crime Victims\u27 Rights Act (CVRA), giving victims some rights to participate in the federal criminal justice system. This Note probes both the theoretical assumptions and practical implications of the CVRA. It demonstrates that the victims\u27 rights movement revisits a long-acknowledged tension between adversary adjudication and third-party interests. It shows, however, that American law has resolved this tension by conferring party or quasi-party status on third parties. Despite some pro-victims rhetoric, Congress reaffirmed the public-prosecution model when it passed the CVRA. Instead of making victims parties or intervenors in criminal prosecutions, the CVRA asks courts and prosecutors to vindicate victims\u27 interests. This unusual posture creates substantial conflicts for courts and prosecutors and undermines defendants\u27 rights. To avoid these consequences, this Note argues, courts can interpret the CVRA\u27s substantive rights narrowly. Rather than reading the CVRA as conferring broad rights on crime victims, courts should interpret the statute to simply require institutional courtesy toward crime victims. This interpretation reflects victims\u27 nonparty status and preserves the rights and responsibilities of courts, prosecutors, and defendants

Observable Graphs

An edge-colored directed graph is \emph{observable} if an agent that moves along its edges is able to determine his position in the graph after a sufficiently long observation of the edge colors. When the agent is able to determine his position only from time to time, the graph is said to be \emph{partly observable}. Observability in graphs is desirable in situations where autonomous agents are moving on a network and one wants to localize them (or the agent wants to localize himself) with limited information. In this paper, we completely characterize observable and partly observable graphs and show how these concepts relate to observable discrete event systems and to local automata. Based on these characterizations, we provide polynomial time algorithms to decide observability, to decide partial observability, and to compute the minimal number of observations necessary for finding the position of an agent. In particular we prove that in the worst case this minimal number of observations increases quadratically with the number of nodes in the graph. From this it follows that it may be necessary for an agent to pass through the same node several times before he is finally able to determine his position in the graph. We then consider the more difficult question of assigning colors to a graph so as to make it observable and we prove that two different versions of this problem are NP-complete.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Federalism, Liberty, and Equality in United States v. Windsor

This essay argues that federalism played a profoundly important role in the Supreme Court\u27s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Arguments to the contrary have failed to appreciate how Justice Kennedy\u27s opinion employed federalism not as a freestanding argument but as an essential component of his rights analysis. Far from being a muddle, as many have claimed, Justice Kennedy\u27s analysis offered one of the most sophisticated examples to date of the interconnections between federalism, liberty, and equality

Future neutrino oscillation facilities: physics priorities and open issues

The recent discovery that neutrinos have mass opens a wide new field of experimentation. Accelerator-made neutrinos are essential. Ideas for future facilities include superbeams beta-beams and neutrino factories, each associated with one or several options for detector systems. A summary of the perceived virtues and shortcomings of these options, and a number of open questions, are presented.Comment: based on an Invited plenary presentation at NUFACT05, Frascati, June 200