Note and Comment

Boycott - Clayton Act - In Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering et al. (January 3, 192I) 41 S. Ct. 172, the facts were: The plaintiff, a Michigan corporation, manufactures at Battle Creek, and sells throughout the United States, especially in and around New York City, and abroad, very large, heavy and complicated newspaper printing presses. Purchasers furnish workmen, but ordinary mechanics alone are not competent to do this, and so they are supervised by specially skilled machinists furnished by plaintiffs. The plaintiffs have always operated on the open shop plan, without discrimination against union or non-union labor, either at its factory or at the place of installation of presses, but have not observed the eight-hour day nor the union scale of wages

Ghost Busting: PT-Symmetric Interpretation of the Lee Model

The Lee model was introduced in the 1950s as an elementary quantum field theory in which mass, wave function, and charge renormalization could be carried out exactly. In early studies of this model it was found that there is a critical value of g^2, the square of the renormalized coupling constant, above which g_0^2, the square of the unrenormalized coupling constant, is negative. Thus, for g^2 larger than this critical value, the Hamiltonian of the Lee model becomes non-Hermitian. It was also discovered that in this non-Hermitian regime a new state appears whose norm is negative. This state is called a ghost state. It has always been assumed that in this ghost regime the Lee model is an unacceptable quantum theory because unitarity appears to be violated. However, in this regime while the Hamiltonian is not Hermitian, it does possess PT symmetry. It has recently been discovered that a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian having PT symmetry may define a quantum theory that is unitary. The proof of unitarity requires the construction of a new time-independent operator called C. In terms of C one can define a new inner product with respect to which the norms of the states in the Hilbert space are positive. Furthermore, it has been shown that time evolution in such a theory is unitary. In this paper the C operator for the Lee model in the ghost regime is constructed exactly in the V/N-theta sector. It is then shown that the ghost state has a positive norm and that the Lee model is an acceptable unitary quantum field theory for all values of g^2.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

Efficacy of a web-based healthcare innovation to advance the quality of life and care of patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ACQUIRE-ICD): a randomized controlled trial

AIMS: Modern clinical management of patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) largely consists of remote device monitoring, although a subset is at risk of mental health issues post-implantation. We compared a 12-month web-based intervention consisting of goal setting, monitoring of patients' mental health-with a psychological intervention if needed-psychoeducational support from a nurse, and an online patient forum, with usual care on participants' device acceptance 12 months after implantation.METHODS AND RESULTS: This national, multi-site, two-arm, non-blinded, randomized, controlled, superiority trial enrolled 478 first-time ICD recipients from all 6 implantation centres in Denmark. The primary endpoint was patient device acceptance measured by the Florida Patient Acceptance Survey (FPAS; general score range = 0-100, with higher scores indicating higher device acceptance) 12 months after implantation. Secondary endpoints included symptoms of depression and anxiety. The primary endpoint of device acceptance was not different between groups at 12 months [B = -2.67, 95% confidence interval (CI) (-5.62, 0.29), P = 0.08]. Furthermore, the secondary endpoint analyses showed no significant treatment effect on either depressive [B = -0.49, 95% CI (-1.19; 0.21), P = 0.17] or anxiety symptoms [B = -0.39, 95% CI (-0.96; 0.18), P = 0.18].CONCLUSION: The web-based intervention as supplement to usual care did not improve patient device acceptance nor symptoms of anxiety and depression compared with usual care. This specific web-based intervention thus cannot be recommended as a standardized intervention in ICD patients.</p

Immunolocalization of sarcolemmal dihydropyridine receptor and sarcoplasmic reticular triadin and ryanodine receptor in rabbit ventricle and atrium

The subcellular distribution of sarcolemmal dihydropyridine receptor (DHPR) and sarcoplasmic reticular triadin and Ca2+ release channel/ryanodine receptor (RyR) was determined in adult rabbit ventricle and atrium by double labeling immunofluorescence and laser scanning confocal microscopy. In ventricular muscle cells the immunostaining was observed primarily as transversely oriented punctate bands spaced at approximately 2-micron intervals along the whole length of the muscle fibers. Image analysis demonstrated a virtually complete overlap of the staining patterns of the three proteins, suggesting their close association at or near dyadic couplings that are formed where the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is apposed to the surface membrane or its infoldings, the transverse (T-) tubules. In rabbit atrial cells, which lack an extensive T-tubular system, DHPR-specific staining was observed to form discrete spots along the sarcolemma but was absent from the interior of the fibers. In atrium, punctate triadin- and RyR-specific staining was also observed as spots at the cell periphery and image analysis indicated that the three proteins were co- localized at, or just below, the sarcolemma. In addition, in the atrial cells triadin- and RyR-specific staining was observed to form transverse bands in the interior cytoplasm at regularly spaced intervals of approximately 2 micron. Electron microscopy suggested that this cytoplasmic staining was occurring in regions where substantial amounts of extended junctional SR were present. These data indicate that the DHPR codistributes with triadin and the RyR in rabbit ventricle and atrium, and furthermore suggest that some of the SR Ca2+ release channels in atrium may be activated in the absence of a close association with the DHPR

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure