I Return My Ticket

This project serves to open up an accessible way to introduce people to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Questions around human nature and the problem of evil are enduring and I have found more peace in the works of Dostoevsky than anywhere else. I know, however, that Russian literature and long novels in general are incredibly intimidating, so I chose to follow in the footsteps of Dave Malloy and his work Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 to create an approachable and engaging avenue to consume Dostoevsky in a more palatable fashion. Knowledge of other cultures is incredibly important for a nuanced worldview, and understanding Russian and Eastern European culture in particular is helpful at this time. I hope that my project brings hope and resources to those grappling with the major issues of the problem of evil, human nature, and family through diving into the world of Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov

A Study of the Feasibility of a Transfer of Development Rights Program in Lewiston, Maine

This project was conducted in collaboration with David Hedinger in Lewiston’s City Planning Office in order to assess the feasibility of a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) Program in Lewiston. The overall aim of this project was to apply scholarly literature, findings from case studies, and input from experienced professionals to determine what successful TDR programs look like, the factors they possess, and the conditions present. The primary problem that TDR programs seek to address is urban sprawl, or the slow spread of development outside of the urban centers into the rural fringes. Urban sprawl has two chief components: 1) it leads to the loss of valuable environmental assets, open space, and potential agricultural land to development; and 2) it pulls money and investment outside of urban centers and leaves them economically depressed and sometimes even blighted (Bruegmann 2005, 160). In terms of Lewiston, while on a smaller scale than many other cities across the country, the problems of urban sprawl are still being felt. A TDR program, which allows a landowner to voluntarily relinquish their right to develop on their rural land and sell that right to a developer looking to increase density in the urban or suburban growth zones, has been a proven to be a reasonable and cost effective way to mitigate the problems of sprawl. A successful TDR program, however, requires certain conditions and factors to be present. Many TDR programs across the country and even in Maine have failed because they were either improperly designed or under-stimulated by market conditions. The leading cause of failure in a TDR program is a lack of demand for high density development (Pruetz & Standridge 2009, 80). Without this necessary demand there is no driving force that will spur a TDR program into motion. Additionally, we found that the most effective TDR programs at preserving land are those administered at the county, regional, or state level (King County 2014; Montgomery County 2008; Pinelands 2009). Our primary findings show that there are many factors that lead to successful TDR programs. And while Lewiston may possess the physical makeup of a successful TDR program: designated urban growth zones and large tracts of rural and agricultural land, it still lacks many factors that may be difficult to stimulate in the short term. We conclude with these remarks and offer a few alternatives to traditional TDR programs that could also be used to preserve land and promote smart growth

Revisiting rho 1 Cancri e: A New Mass Determination Of The Transiting super-Earth

We present a mass determination for the transiting super-Earth rho 1 Cancri e based on nearly 700 precise radial velocity (RV) measurements. This extensive RV data set consists of data collected by the McDonald Observatory planet search and published data from Lick and Keck observatories (Fischer et al. 2008). We obtained 212 RV measurements with the Tull Coude Spectrograph at the Harlan J. Smith 2.7 m Telescope and combined them with a new Doppler reduction of the 131 spectra that we have taken in 2003-2004 with the High-Resolution-Spectrograph (HRS) at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) for the original discovery of rho 1 Cancri e. Using this large data set we obtain a 5-planet Keplerian orbital solution for the system and measure an RV semi-amplitude of K = 6.29 +/- 0.21 m/s for rho 1 Cnc e and determine a mass of 8.37 +/- 0.38 M_Earth. The uncertainty in mass is thus less than 5%. This planet was previously found to transit its parent star (Winn et al. 2011, Demory et al. 2011), which allowed them to estimate its radius. Combined with the latest radius estimate from Gillon et al. (2012), we obtain a mean density of rho = 4.50 +/- 0.20 g/cm^3. The location of rho 1 Cnc e in the mass-radius diagram suggests that the planet contains a significant amount of volitales, possibly a water-rich envelope surrounding a rocky core.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (the 300+ RV measurements will be published as online tables or can be obtained from the author

The impact of family and budget structure onhealth treatment in Nigeria

Health-treatment decisions, in much of the world, are affected by the family’s ability to meet thecost. In West Africa the situation is more complex because husbands and wives typically haveseparate budgets. This article reports an exploration of the impact on treatment of divided familybudgets in Nigeria where health services now charge for prescribed drugs. It was found that mostchild treatment is paid for by one person only, usually a parent, and that the treatment chosen isdecided by the person meeting the cost. Mothers are most likely to pay for minor illnesses but thefather’s role becomes more important as the cost rises. Because the type, and even fact, oftreatment depends on the ability to pay, and because the family is not a unity in these decisions,the health system may have to devise charging procedures that make both parents responsible,possibly with community involvement in securing paymen

A Search for Exozodiacal Clouds with Kepler

Planets embedded within dust disks may drive the formation of large scale clumpy dust structures by trapping dust into resonant orbits. Detection and subsequent modeling of the dust structures would help constrain the mass and orbit of the planet and the disk architecture, give clues to the history of the planetary system, and provide a statistical estimate of disk asymmetry for future exoEarth-imaging missions. Here we present the first search for these resonant structures in the inner regions of planetary systems by analyzing the light curves of hot Jupiter planetary candidates identified by the Kepler mission. We detect only one candidate disk structure associated with KOI 838.01 at the 3-sigma confidence level, but subsequent radial velocity measurements reveal that KOI 838.01 is a grazing eclipsing binary and the candidate disk structure is a false positive. Using our null result, we place an upper limit on the frequency of dense exozodi structures created by hot Jupiters. We find that at the 90% confidence level, less than 21% of Kepler hot Jupiters create resonant dust clumps that lead and trail the planet by ~90 degrees with optical depths >~5*10^-6, which corresponds to the resonant structure expected for a lone hot Jupiter perturbing a dynamically cold dust disk 50 times as dense as the zodiacal cloud.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Effects of Non-Pharmacological Interventions as Vaccine Adjuvants in Humans:a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Declaration of interest: We have read and understood the policy on declaration of interests and declare that CMT has received funding from Nestle Nutrition for projects unconnected with this study. All other authors do not have any conflicting interests

A Second Giant Planet in 3:2 Mean-Motion Resonance in the HD 204313 System

We present 8 years of high-precision radial velocity (RV) data for HD 204313 from the 2.7 m Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory. The star is known to have a giant planet (M sin i = 3.5 M_J) on a ~1900-day orbit, and a Neptune-mass planet at 0.2 AU. Using our own data in combination with the published CORALIE RVs of Segransan et al. (2010), we discover an outer Jovian (M sin i = 1.6 M_J) planet with P ~ 2800 days. Our orbital fit suggests the planets are in a 3:2 mean motion resonance, which would potentially affect their stability. We perform a detailed stability analysis, and verify the planets must be in resonance.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The McDonald Observatory Planet Search: New Long-Period Giant Planets, and Two Interacting Jupiters in the HD 155358 System

We present high-precision radial velocity (RV) observations of four solar-type (F7-G5) stars - HD 79498, HD 155358, HD 197037, and HD 220773 - taken as part of the McDonald Observatory Planet Search Program. For each of these stars, we see evidence of Keplerian motion caused by the presence of one or more gas giant planets in long-period orbits. We derive orbital parameters for each system, and note the properties (composition, activity, etc.) of the host stars. While we have previously announced the two-gas-giant HD 155358 system, we now report a shorter period for planet c. This new period is consistent with the planets being trapped in mutual 2:1 mean-motion resonance. We therefore perform an in-depth stability analysis, placing additional constraints on the orbital parameters of the planets. These results demonstrate the excellent long-term RV stability of the spectrometers on both the Harlan J. Smith 2.7 m telescope and the Hobby-Eberly telescope.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

A 12-year activity cycle for the nearby planet host star HD 219134

The nearby (6.5 pc) star HD 219134 was recently shown by Motalebi et al. and Vogt et al. to host several planets, the innermost of which is transiting. We present 27 years of radial velocity (RV) observations of this star from the McDonald Observatory Planet Search program, and 19 years of stellar activity data. We detect a long-period activity cycle measured in the Ca II SHK index, with a period of 4230±100 days (11.7 years), very similar to the 11 year solar activity cycle. Although the period of the Saturn-mass planet HD 219134 h is close to half that of the activity cycle, we argue that it is not an artifact due to stellar activity. We also find a significant periodicity in the SHK data due to stellar rotation with a period of 22.8 days. This is identical to the period of planet f identified by Vogt et al., suggesting that this RV signal might be caused by rotational modulation of stellar activity rather than a planet. Analysis of our RVs allows us to detect the long-period planet HD 219134 h and the transiting super-Earth HD 219134 b. Finally, we use our long time baseline to constrain the presence of longer period planets in the system, excluding to 1s objects with M sin i > 0.36MJ at 12 years (corresponding to the orbital period of Jupiter) and M sin i > 0.72MJ at a period of 16.4 years (assuming a circular orbit for an outer companion)