Solid, Ductile and Liquid: Changing Notions of Homeland and Home in Diaspora Studies

Does diaspora imply a homeland? For a number of scholars who pioneered the growth of diasporic studies in the 1990s this was the sine qua non of the concept. Under the weight of social constructionist critics, who sought to deconstruct the foundational ideas of homeland and community, more complex and vaguer ideas of homeland and home emerged. These are characterized here as 'solid', 'ductile' and 'liquid', on a diminishing scale from historical reality to postmodern virtuality. I show that all three versions of home/homeland have some historical and empirical support, though resist pure social constructivism. There is also some evidence that solid notions homeland are gaining increasing attention

Modern Statistical Methods for GLAST Event Analysis

We describe a statistical reconstruction methodology for the GLAST LAT. The methodology incorporates in detail the statistics of the interactions of photons and charged particles with the tungsten layers in the LAT, and uses the scattering distributions to compute the full probability distribution over the energy and direction of the incident photons. It uses model selection methods to estimate the probabilities of the possible geometrical configurations of the particles produced in the detector, and numerical marginalization over the energy loss and scattering angles at each layer. Preliminary results show that it can improve on the tracker-only energy estimates for muons and electrons incident on the LAT.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the First GLAST Symposium (held at Stanford University, 5-8 February 2007

A homotopy-theoretic view of Bott-Taubes integrals and knot spaces

We construct cohomology classes in the space of knots by considering a bundle over this space and "integrating along the fiber" classes coming from the cohomology of configuration spaces using a Pontrjagin-Thom construction. The bundle we consider is essentially the one considered by Bott and Taubes, who integrated differential forms along the fiber to get knot invariants. By doing this "integration" homotopy-theoretically, we are able to produce integral cohomology classes. We then show how this integration is compatible with the homology operations on the space of long knots, as studied by Budney and Cohen. In particular we derive a product formula for evaluations of cohomology classes on homology classes, with respect to connect-sum of knots.Comment: 32 page

Absorption and emission spectroscopies of homogeneous and inhomogeneously broadened multilevel systems in strong light fields

A method is introduced to calc., for a model set of mol. levels, the spectral line shapes expected for a variety of conventional laser expts. including absorption, hole burning, fluorescence line narrowing, and Raman scattering. The method allows the incident laser field to have arbitrary intensity. Furthermore, the effects of model gaussian or lorenzian inhomogeneous distributions are readily incorporated. Earlier results for a 2-level system are easily obtained and new results are presented for inhomogeneously broadened 2- and 3-level systems, and for the effects of pure dephasing on the strong field spectra. The differences between fluorescence and Raman in strong fields, and the effect of strong fields on the spontaneous emission of inhomogeneously broadened transitions were described. Some predictions are made regarding line narrowing expts. in the strong-field limit

The free movement of money and people: debates before and after ‘9/11’

In this paper I review the ethical, theoretical and practical cases for the free movement of people and money. I provide a commentary on the debates before and after the events of ‘9/11’, noting how the self-limiting conditions in historical debates on the free movement of labour contrast with neo-liberal demands for the unfettered market in the case of the free movement of money. Extensive restrictions on the movement of both money and people have been made in the post-‘9/11’ period, either in the name of cultural nationalism or the threat of terrorism. I examine whether these further measures are working or can be justified by reference to ‘the harm principle’ and to general concepts of social justice and the public good

Determining Income Eligibility in Children's Health Coverage Programs: How States Use Disregards in Children's Medicaid and SCHIP

Outlines how and why states disregard or deduct certain earnings and expenses in determining eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program to help cover low-income working families. Summarizes a survey of state policies