5,421 research outputs found
Hunt V. Kenai Peninsula Borough: The Search For Clarity In Legislative Prayer Speaker Selection
In 2016, three residents of the Kenai Peninsula Borough were prevented from delivering an invocation at a Borough Assembly meeting because they were neither borough chaplains nor members of a qualifying religious association. These three residents sued the borough, claiming that the Borough Assemblyâs speaker selection policy violated the Alaska Constitutionâs Establishment Clause. The superior court ruled for the plaintiffs, holding that the selection policy constituted a step towards the establishment of a state religion. Applying Supreme Court precedent, the superior court reached the correct result. However, the limited amount of federal precedent on the principles guiding speaker selection policies has led to significant variance of application in different jurisdictions. Important questions remain regarding the scope of legislative prayer doctrine in Alaska, which still need to be addressed
CAPITAL TAXATION IN A SIMPLE FINITE-HORIZON OLG MODEL
In a simple finite-horizon overlapping-generations model where the government has the power to levy commodity taxes and to implement uniform lump-sum transfers, and individuals as well as the government can purchase units of a storable good in order to transfer resources from the present to the future, we derive the equations that implicitly define the taxes and subsidies that are part of the second-best Pareto optima. In this context we first show that there is production efficiency. We then show that taxes on capital income/savings are required at almost all Pareto optima. Finally we show that there are no restriction on preferences or technologies that are consistent with a general exemption of capital income/savings from the tax base.overlapping generations ; capital taxes ; tax-reform
The Distribution of Exchange Rates in the EMS
Exchange rates of currencies in the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS are characterized by long periods of stability interrupted by periods of extreme volatility. The periods of volatility appear at times of realignments of the central parities and at times when the exchange rate is within the ERM bands. We begin by considering a procedure for finding outliers based on measuring distance as a quadratic form. The evidence suggests that the exchange rates of the EMS can be described by a mixture of two distributions. We therefore model the exchange rate as switching between two distributions--one that holds in stable times and the other that holds in volatile times. In particular, we use Hamilton's Markov-switching model. In addition, we extend Hamilton's model by allowing the probability of switching from one state to another to depend on the position of the exchange rate within its EMS band. This model has the interesting implication that near the edge of the band, large movements--either realignments or large jumps to the center of the band--are more likely if the move to the edge of the band has been precipitous.
Fast Differential Emission Measure Inversion of Solar Coronal Data
We present a fast method for reconstructing Differential Emission Measures
(DEMs) using solar coronal data. On average, the method computes over 1000 DEMs
per second for a sample active region observed by the Atmospheric Imaging
Assembly (AIA) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and achieves reduced
chi-squared of order unity with no negative emission in all but a few test
cases. The high performance of this method is especially relevant in the
context of AIA, which images of order one million solar pixels per second. This
paper describes the method, analyzes its fidelity, compares its performance and
results with other DEM methods, and applies it to an active region and loop
observed by AIA and by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on
Hinode.Comment: 22 Pages, 11 Figures; submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. This
version (2) includes clarifications in the text and reflects improvements to
the DEM cod
Evidence of global-scale aeolian dispersal and endemism in isolated geothermal microbial communities of Antarctica
New evidence in aerobiology challenges the assumption that geographical isolation is an effective barrier to microbial transport. However, given the uncertainty with which aerobiological organisms are recruited into existing communities, the ultimate impact of microbial dispersal is difficult to assess. To evaluate the ecological significance of global-scale microbial dispersal, molecular genetic approaches were used to examine microbial communities inhabiting fumarolic soils on Mt. Erebus, the southernmost geothermal site on Earth. There, hot, fumarolic soils provide an effective environmental filter to test the viability of organisms that have been distributed via aeolian transport over geological time. We find that cosmopolitan thermophiles dominate the surface, whereas endemic Archaea and members of poorly understood Bacterial candidate divisions dominate the immediate subsurface. These results imply that aeolian processes readily disperse viable organisms globally, where they are incorporated into pre-existing complex communities of endemic and cosmopolitan taxa
Framing audience prefigurations of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: The roles of fandom, politics and idealised intertexts
Audiences for blockbuster event-film sequels and adaptations often formulate highly developed expectations, motivations, understandings and opinions well before the films are released. A range of intertextual and paratextual influences inform these audience prefigurations, and are believed to frame subsequent audience engagement and response. In our study of prefigurative engagements with Peter Jacksonâs 2012 film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, we used Q methodology to identify five distinct subjective orientations within the filmâs global audience. As this paper illustrates, each group privileges a different set of extratextual referents â notably J.R.R. Tolkienâs original novels, Peter Jacksonâs The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, highly localised political debates relating to the filmâs production, and the previous associations of the filmâs various stars. These interpretive frames, we suggest, competed for ascendancy within public and private discourse in the lead up to The Hobbitâs international debut, effectively fragmenting and indeed polarising the filmâs prospective global audience
Comparison of reduced models for blood flow using Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin methods
One-dimensional blood flow models take the general form of nonlinear
hyperbolic systems but differ greatly in their formulation. One class of models
considers the physically conserved quantities of mass and momentum, while
another class describes mass and velocity. Further, the averaging process
employed in the model derivation requires the specification of the axial
velocity profile; this choice differentiates models within each class.
Discrepancies among differing models have yet to be investigated. In this
paper, we systematically compare several reduced models of blood flow for
physiologically relevant vessel parameters, network topology, and boundary
data. The models are discretized by a class of Runge-Kutta discontinuous
Galerkin methods
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