Review of \u3ci\u3ePlains Indian Studies: A Collection of Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers and Waldo R. Wedel\u3c/i\u3e Edited by Douglas H. ubelaker and Herman J. Viola

A dual Festschrift is unusual, but here we have one celebrating a collective century of achievement by John Ewers and Waldo Wedel, two scholars of the first rank. Ewers and Wedel, long-time colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution, are well known to historians and anthropologists with special interests in the plains of North America. Indeed, each has contributed to the basic structure of their respective disciplines: Ewers essentially to ethnology and Wedel to archeology. Neither scholar worked within a strictly academic setting and thus, neither had students in the usual sense, yet Ewers and Wedel have been remarkably influential and are revered by scholars for their consistent excellence and originality. The papers presented here resulted from a celebratory symposium held at the Smithsonian Institution on 25 April 1980. The collection is introduced by informative (and evocative) biographies of Ewers and Wedel, the former by William N. Fenton, a long-time associate, and the latter by James H. Gunnerson, who shares continuing concerns in the archeology of the southwestern plains. Other contributions range from Reminiscences by T. Dale Stewart, now retired from a distinguished career at the Smithsonian, through Arikara and Pawnee folklore, to such recondite considerations as Bias in the Zooarcheological Record, with waystops at intercultural clothing exchange and the identification of Blood bands. The editors note that each paper focuses on some aspect of Plains Indian anthropology, but the approaches, topics, and problem-levels vary considerably .... The essays are not designed to follow a particular theme or to cover any assigned area .... the authors were asked to provide new original data in a manner that would admirably complement the career interests and accomplishments of the two great scholars (p. 3). Yet as frequently happens in symposium volumes, scholarly levels vary, although none of the papers descend to the totally trivial. In total they are informative and quite satisfying to the reader and, I suspect, to the honorees. The volume was worth the effort

Review of \u3ci\u3eOwning Western History: A Guide to Collecting Rare Documents, Historical Letters, and Valuable Photographs from the Old West\u3c/i\u3e By Warren B. Anderson

As the reader will have surmised, this volume is about collecting. It might well have been titled, Western History: Via Waste Paper, Photographs and Other Ephemera. Be warned, it is not concerned with literary debris, but rather the remains of defunct stock companies, failed businesses, wanted posters, and seemingly an infinity of other secular paper. There is little to review here. The book is unabashedly descriptive, anecdotal, and largely non-critical. None the less, it has the virtue of directing the scholar to many documents of western society that otherwise might be neglected, and the pay-off can be interesting

Review of \u3ci\u3eOwning Western History: A Guide to Collecting Rare Documents, Historical Letters, and Valuable Photographs from the Old West\u3c/i\u3e By Warren B. Anderson

As the reader will have surmised, this volume is about collecting. It might well have been titled, Western History: Via Waste Paper, Photographs and Other Ephemera. Be warned, it is not concerned with literary debris, but rather the remains of defunct stock companies, failed businesses, wanted posters, and seemingly an infinity of other secular paper. There is little to review here. The book is unabashedly descriptive, anecdotal, and largely non-critical. None the less, it has the virtue of directing the scholar to many documents of western society that otherwise might be neglected, and the pay-off can be interesting

Kepler-16: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet

We report the detection of a planet whose orbit surrounds a pair of low-mass stars. Data from the Kepler spacecraft reveal transits of the planet across both stars, in addition to the mutual eclipses of the stars, giving precise constraints on the absolute dimensions of all three bodies. The planet is comparable to Saturn in mass and size, and is on a nearly circular 229-day orbit around its two parent stars. The eclipsing stars are 20% and 69% as massive as the sun, and have an eccentric 41-day orbit. The motions of all three bodies are confined to within 0.5 degree of a single plane, suggesting that the planet formed within a circumbinary disk.Comment: Science, in press; for supplemental material see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2011/09/14/333.6049.1602.DC1/1210923.Doyle.SOM.pd

Joint Cosmological Formation of QSOs and Bulge-dominated Galaxies

Older and more recent pieces of observational evidence suggest a strong connection between QSOs and galaxies; in particular, the recently discovered correlation between black hole and galactic bulge masses suggests that QSO activity is directly connected to the formation of galactic bulges. The cosmological problem of QSO formation is analyzed in the framework of an analytical model for galaxy formation; for the first time a joint comparison with galaxy and QSO observables is performed. In this model it is assumed that the same physical variable which determines galaxy morphology is able to modulate the mass of the black hole responsible for QSO activity. Both halo spin and the occurence of a major merger are considered as candidates to this role. The predictions of the model are compared to available data for the type-dependent galaxy mass functions, the star-formation history of elliptical galaxies, the QSO luminosity function and its evolution (including the obscured objects contributing to the hard-X-ray background), the mass function of dormant black holes and the distribution of black-hole -- bulge mass ratios. A good agreement with observations is obtained if the halo spin modulates the efficiency of black-hole formation, and if the galactic halos at $z=0$ have shone in an inverted order with respect to the hierarchical one (i.e., stars and black holes in bigger galactic halos have formed before those in smaller ones). This inversion of hierarchical order for galaxy formation, which reconciles galaxy formation with QSO evolution, is consistent with many pieces of observational evidence.Comment: 20 pages, figures included, mn.sty, in press on MNRAS, fig 6 changed (new data added at z=4.4

UBVRI Light Curves of 44 Type Ia Supernovae

We present UBVRI photometry of 44 type-Ia supernovae (SN Ia) observed from 1997 to 2001 as part of a continuing monitoring campaign at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The data set comprises 2190 observations and is the largest homogeneously observed and reduced sample of SN Ia to date, nearly doubling the number of well-observed, nearby SN Ia with published multicolor CCD light curves. The large sample of U-band photometry is a unique addition, with important connections to SN Ia observed at high redshift. The decline rate of SN Ia U-band light curves correlates well with the decline rate in other bands, as does the U-B color at maximum light. However, the U-band peak magnitudes show an increased dispersion relative to other bands even after accounting for extinction and decline rate, amounting to an additional ~40% intrinsic scatter compared to B-band.Comment: 84 authors, 71 pages, 51 tables, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. Version with high-res figures and electronic data at http://astron.berkeley.edu/~saurabh/cfa2snIa

Guidelines for reporting embedded recruitment trials

Background: Recruitment to clinical trials is difficult with many trials failing to recruit to target and within time. Embedding trials of recruitment interventions within host trials may provide a successful way to improve this. There are no guidelines for reporting such embedded methodology trials. As part of the Medical Research Council funded Systematic Techniques for Assisting Recruitment to Trials (MRC START) programme designed to test interventions to improve recruitment to trials, we developed guidelines for reporting embedded trials. Methods: We followed a three-phase guideline development process: (1) pre-meeting literature review to generate items for the reporting guidelines; (2) face-to-face consensus meetings to draft the reporting guidelines; and (3)post-meeting feedback review, and pilot testing, followed by finalisation of the reporting guidelines. Results: We developed a reporting checklist based on the Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement 2010. Embedded trials evaluating recruitment interventions should follow the CONSORT statement 2010 and report all items listed as essential. We used a number of examples to illustrate key issues that arise in embedded trials and how best to report them, including (a) how to deal with description of the host trial; (b) the importance of describing items that may differ in the host and embedded trials (such as the setting and the eligible population); and (c) the importance of identifying clearly the point at which the recruitment interventions were embedded in the host trial. Conclusions: Implementation of these guidelines will improve the quality of reports of embedded recruitment trials while advancing the science, design and conduct of embedded trials as a whole

Building a Field: The Future of Astronomy with Gravitational Waves

Harnessing the sheer discovery potential of GW Astronomy will require bold, deliberate,and sustained efforts to train and develop the requisite workforce. The next decaderequires a strategic plan to build - from the ground up - a robust, open, andwell-connected GW Astronomy community with deep participation from traditionalastronomers, physicists, data scientists, and instrumentalists. This basic infrastructure issorely needed as an enabling foundation for research. We outline a set ofrecommendations for funding agencies, universities, and professional societies to helpbuild a thriving, diverse, and inclusive new field

Constraints on modified gravity from the observed X-ray luminosity function of galaxy clusters

We use measurements of the growth of cosmic structure, as inferred from the observed evolution of the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of galaxy clusters, to constrain departures from General Relativity (GR) on cosmological scales. We employ the popular growth rate parameterization, Omega_m(z)^gamma, for which GR predicts a growth index gamma~0.55. We use observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), type Ia supernovae (SNIa), and X-ray cluster gas-mass fractions (fgas), to simultaneously constrain the expansion history and energy content of the Universe, as described by the background model parameters: Omega_m, w, and Omega_k, i.e., the mean matter density, the dark energy equation of state parameter, and the mean curvature, respectively. Using conservative allowances for systematic uncertainties, in particular for the evolution of the mass-luminosity scaling relation in the XLF analysis, we find gamma=0.51+0.16-0.15 and Omega_m=0.27+-0.02 (68.3 per cent confidence limits), for a flat cosmological constant (LCDM) background model. Allowing w to be a free parameter, we find gamma=0.44+0.17-0.15. Relaxing the flatness prior in the LCDM model, we obtain gamma=0.51+0.19-0.16. When in addition to the XLF data we use the CMB data to constrain gamma through the ISW effect, we obtain a combined constraint of gamma=0.45+0.14-0.12 for the flat LCDM model. Our analysis provides the tightest constraints to date on the growth index. We find no evidence for departures from General Relativity on cosmological scales.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Minor improvements. Conclusions unchange