Reel wars: Cold War, civil rights and Hollywood's changing interpretation of the American Civil War 1945-75

This study is an examination of America's evolving sense of racial and national identity in the period from 1945 to the mid 1970s as refracted through Hollywood's representation of the American Civil War - a powerful event in American memory which still resonates today. Civil War films have been the subject of study by film studies specialists and historians but they have concentrated on the early years highlighting the iconic films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939). The period 1945-75 has not received similar systematic attention, yet it is highly significant in American history covering as it does the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. The aim of the study is to show that history films can be used to assist in a better understanding of the past - not the 'past' that the history film purports to represent but the past of the moment of its production. This approach sees Hollywood films as untapped sources of evidence of changes in public perception about the issues of the day. This differs from the approach of most film historians who seek to examine the past by using archival and printed sources, such as newspapers, magazines and biography. The study demonstrates the complex interaction of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement on Hollywood and how they influenced the discourse about race and national identity through popular culture. Ultimately it was the Civil Rights Movement that had the greater influence upon Civil War films. It also shows that Hollywood's presentation of the Civil War underwent a far more radical process of change than has hitherto been understood. By the late 1960s all of the early twentieth century myths had been questioned and overturned and African Americans had become part of mainstream America

The Doctrine of Equivalents: Rethinking the Balance Between Equity and Predictability

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is justifiably credited with the restoration of the prestige and enforceability of patents. However, in recent rulings regarding the doctrine of equivalents, it has returned to a realm of uncertainty which had once characterized the law of patents. In its current application, the doctrine of equivalents as a tool of equity is subject to inconsistent standards and rationales. Such inconsistency undermines the equitable underpinnings of the doctrine,· which themselves have for some time been involved in an ideological tug of war. The task of applying the doctrine of equivalents to determine patent infringement has presented the Federal Circuit with a dilemma by requiring it to ascertain the breadth of a given scientific and technological breakthrough while using a description which is mainly grammatical in form. Unfortunately, the doctrine lacks clear guidelines for implementation from either statutory or common law to overcome this dilemma

The Doctrine of Equivalents: Rethinking the Balance Between Equity and Predictability

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is justifiably credited with the restoration of the prestige and enforceability of patents. However, in recent rulings regarding the doctrine of equivalents, it has returned to a realm of uncertainty which had once characterized the law of patents. In its current application, the doctrine of equivalents as a tool of equity is subject to inconsistent standards and rationales. Such inconsistency undermines the equitable underpinnings of the doctrine,· which themselves have for some time been involved in an ideological tug of war. The task of applying the doctrine of equivalents to determine patent infringement has presented the Federal Circuit with a dilemma by requiring it to ascertain the breadth of a given scientific and technological breakthrough while using a description which is mainly grammatical in form. Unfortunately, the doctrine lacks clear guidelines for implementation from either statutory or common law to overcome this dilemma

On identifying the role of Sun and the El Niño Southern Oscillation on Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall

A solar influence on Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) rainfall, identified in previous studies using the method of solar peak year compositing, may not be robust and can be influenced by other factors such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and trends. Regression analysis, which takes into account variations across the whole solar cycle rather than just the minimum /maximum solar years, fails to detect any direct solar influence on the ISM during June–August. Regression suggests that the spatial pattern of ENSO, as imprinted in the sea level pressure in the Indian Ocean region, covering parts of Australia, has changed during the second half of last century. Thus ENSO impacts via variations in the local Hadley circulation may have played a role in modulating the ISM during that period. Finally, we discuss a possible indirect connection between the solar cycle and monsoon rainfall, which are different since the 1950s

ENSO teleconnections to the Indian summer monsoon in observations and models

The teleconnections of different types of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to the Indian summer monsoon are investigated in observations and models. We find that, not all regions in India are strongly affected by ENSO, so we focus on two regional teleconnections: (1) a negative rainfall signal around central north east (CNE) India and ‘hilly’ region during El Niño (and vice versa for La Niña) and (2) similar signal for parts of southern peninsular region. Using correlations, it is found that >50% of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Inter‐comparison Project models capture these two regional teleconnections, with first captured by >80% of models. Furthermore, using a compositing technique that may better capture asymmetries in response to warm and cold events, the authors find that most models again agree on the sign of regional teleconnection around the CNE and hilly region, suggesting the robustness of ENSO signal in that region. The peninsular teleconnection is less well simulated in models. We find a clear connection between the Walker circulation and Indian summer monsoon rainfall around central India in models

REPK: an analytical web server to select restriction endonucleases for terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis

Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis is a widespread technique for rapidly fingerprinting microbial communities. Users of T-RFLP frequently overlook the resolving power of well-chosen restriction endonucleases and often fail to report how they chose their enzymes. REPK (Restriction Endonuclease Picker) assists in the rational choice of restriction endonucleases for T-RFLP by finding sets of four restriction endonucleases that together uniquely differentiate user-designated sequence groups. With REPK, users can provide their own sequences (of any gene, not just 16S rRNA), specify the taxonomic rank of interest and choose from a number of filtering options to further narrow down the enzyme selection. Bug tracking is provided, and the source code is open and accessible under the GNU Public License v.2, at http://code.google.com/p/repk. The web server is available without access restrictions at http://rocaplab.ocean.washington.edu/tools/repk

On a possible manifestation of f_1 trajectory in J/psi photoproduction

We analyze a possible manifestation of f_1-trajectory in elastic J/psi photoproduction at high energy and large momentum transfer. Inspite of the small contribution of f_1-trajectory in total cross sections, it becomes significant in various spin observables. In particular, we show that the crucial test for f_1-exchange can be made by measuring the single beam- and double parity- and beam-target asymmetries at large momentum transfers, where a strong deviation from the exchange of conventional Pomerons is expected. This effect is caused by the interference of natural (Pomeron) and unnatural (f_1) parity exchange parts of amplitude in the region where their contributions become comparable to each other and might be interesting to observe in forthcoming experiments, if feasible. .Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures. To be published in PL

Parts of Quantum States

It is shown that generic N-party pure quantum states (with equidimensional subsystems) are uniquely determined by their reduced states of just over half the parties; in other words, all the information in almost all N-party pure states is in the set of reduced states of just over half the parties. For N even, the reduced states in fewer than N/2 parties are shown to be an insufficient description of almost all states (similar results hold when N is odd). It is noted that Real Algebraic Geometry is a natural framework for any analysis of parts of quantum states: two simple polynomials, a quadratic and a cubic, contain all of their structure. Algorithmic techniques are described which can provide conditions for sets of reduced states to belong to pure or mixed states.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur