\u3cem\u3eFait Accompli\u3c/em\u3e?: Where the Supreme Court and Equal Pay Meet a Narrow Legislative Override under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

This Comment argues the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act’s consequences will be minimally felt, so long as the Act is narrowly construed. The Comment suggests congressional action was appropriate after the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision and discusses the political and legislative debate leading to the Act. In addition, the Comment analyzes the Act in application, exploring its meaning, implications, and function. The Comment argues that the concerns and consequences arising from the enactment of the Act can be alleviated and avoided by a narrow interpretation of its amendment to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Finally, the Comment recommends a narrow interpretation of the Act that will ensure that employment-litigation rates will not drastically increase, will solve the problems posed by current paycheck schemes, and will finally realize fair pay for all Americans

Vector-like quarks with a scalar triplet

We study a minimal extension to the Standard Model with an additional real scalar triplet, $\Sigma$, and a single vector-like quark, $T$. This class of models appear naturally in extensions of the Littlest Higgs model that incorporate dark matter without the need of $T$-parity. We assume the limit that the triplet does not develop a vacuum expectation value and that all dimension five operators coupling the triplet to Standard Model fields and the vector-like quarks are characterized by the scale $\Lambda$ at which we expect new physics to arise. We introduce new non-renormalizable interactions between the new scalar sector and fermion sector that allow mixing between the Standard Model third generation up-type quark and the vector-like quark in a way that leads to the cancellation of the leading quadratic divergences to the one-loop corrections from the top quark to the mass of the Higgs boson. Within this framework, new decay modes of the vector-like quark to the real scalar triplet and SM particles arise and bring forth an opportunity to probe this model with existing and future LHC data. We contrast constraints from direct colliders searches with low energy precision measurements and find that heavy vector-like top quarks with a mass as low as $650$ GeV are consistent with current experimental constraints in models where new physics arises at scales below $2$ TeV

Behind the Smoke Screen: A History of Conspiracy Theories and Why They Are So Pervasive

Conspiracy theories are commonly defined as attempts to explain notable social and political events as the result of secret plots conducted by high-powered, sinister individuals or groups. They offer simple solutions to the often-complex question of why certain events occur by conferring blame upon hidden evil cabals that place their own malevolent interests above those of the rest of society. Conspiracy theories feature prominently in the current social climate in the United States, yet despite their prevalence, they continue to be shrouded with misconceptions. Many Americans misconstrue the sheer magnitude of conspiracy theories currently in circulation as evidence of a distinct and unprecedented phenomenon, an “age of conspiracism.” Conspiracy theorists have been falsely cast as members of a small minority characterized by delusion, irrationality, and extreme paranoia. These faulty assumptions have given the public a very distorted picture of what conspiracy theories are and how they function. American conspiracy theories are older than our country itself, and throughout our history they have been touted by masses of people that cross political, economic, social, and cultural lines. Rather than being characteristic of a delusional minority, conspiracy theories are normal manifestations of natural psychological processes and motivations, and modern media have only magnified their appeal and pervasiveness

Leptonic Monotops at LHC

We study the possibility of detecting New Physics (NP) phenomena at the LHC through a new search strategy looking at the monotop (top plus missing energy) signature which is common to a variety of NP models. We focus on the leptonic top decay mode and study the discovery or exclusion reach of the 2012 LHC data for three example models. Contrary to the hadronic mode, in this case the problematic QCD multijet background can be safely neglected. We find that the key kinematic variable to suppress most of the remaining SM backgrounds is the transverse mass of the charged lepton and missing energy. In fact, one could expect that the single-top production measurements already address the monotop signature in this mode. This is however not the case because in the SM single-top production the transverse mass has an end point determined by the W mass, while the NP signals typically have an additional source of missing energy. We compare, under the same conditions, our monotop search strategy with existing single-top measurements and find a considerable improvement in the monotop signature reach.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

Modification of Loop 1 Affects the Nucleotide Binding Properties of Myo1c, the Adaptation Motor in the Inner Ear

Myo1c is one of eight members of the mammalian myosin I family of actin-associated molecular motors. In stereocilia of the hair cells in the inner ear, Myo1c presumably serves as the adaptation motor, which regulates the opening and closing of transduction channels. Although there is conservation of sequence and structure among all myosins in the N-terminal motor domain, which contains the nucleotide- and actin-binding sites, some differences include the length and composition of surface loops, including loop 1, which lies near the nucleotide-binding domain. To investigate the role of loop 1, we expressed in insect cells mutants of a truncated form of Myo1c, Myo1c1IQ, as well as chimeras of Myo1c1IQ with the analogous loop from other myosins. We found that replacement of the charged residues in loop 1 with alanines or the whole loop with a series of alanines did not alter the ATPase activity, transient kinetics properties, or Ca2+ sensitivity of Myo1c1IQ. Substitution of loop 1 with that of the corresponding region from tonic smooth muscle myosin II (Myo1c1IQ-tonic) or replacement with a single glycine (Myo1c1IQ-G) accelerated the release of ADP from A.M 2?3-fold in Ca2+, whereas substitution with loop 1 from phasic muscle myosin II (Myo1c1IQ-phasic) accelerated the release of ADP 35-fold. Motility assays with chimeras containing a single ?-helix, or SAH, domain showed that Myo1cSAH-tonic translocated actin in vitro twice as fast as Myo1cSAH-WT and 3-fold faster than Myo1cSAH-G. The studies show that changes induced in Myo1c via modification of loop 1 showed no resemblance to the behavior of the loop donor myosins or to the changes previously observed with similar Myo1b chimeras

Efficacy of Prucalopride in bowel cleansing before colonoscopy. Results of a pilot study

Colonoscopy is a crucial diagnostic instrument for colorectal cancer screening and an adequate bowel preparation is definitely decisive for the success of the procedure. Especially in elderly patients, bowel cleansing is considered a big issue, because it is often poorly tolerated for many reasons (like inability to swallow large volume of liquids or unlikable taste); this can cause a suboptimal preparation that may lead to miss a neoplastic lesion. There is relatively little data about how to improve preparation tolerability. The purpose of our pilot study was to analyze the effect of prucalopride (Resolor®), a highly selective serotonin 5HT4 receptor agonist used for chronic constipation for its ability to stimulate gastrointestinal peristalsis, undertaken the day before colonoscopy, followed by half volume of polyethylene glycol solution. We found that this can be a good and safe method to achieve an adequate and better-tolerated colon cleansing

SERVQUAL Model with Interrelated Dimensions. The Case of The Pharmacy in Mexico

This research is focused on understanding the interrelation between the different dimen- sions of the SERVQUAL model in the pharmaceutical area, which have differences in per- ceptions of service domains depending on the cultures in which they are immersed. To study the proposed relationships, we collect data of 100 pharmacy customers of Mex- ico and use SEM to test the relationship between SERVQUAL dimensions, purchase fre- quency, gender, and quality perception. Our results show that the SERVQUAL dimensions are interrelated, SERVQUAL dimen- sions and gender predict the perception of quality but not the purchase frequency. These results provide key information in order to understand in a better way the service quality in the pharmaceutical area. We develop a theoretical framework that is based on interrelationships between the dif- ferent dimensions of SERVQUAL, assuming that they are not independent of each other. This way of understanding SERVQUAL dimensions can provide relevant information to un- derstand better how individual perceptions affect the service quality in the pharmaceutical area.Esta investigación se centra en comprender la interrelación entre las diferentes dimensiones del modelo SERVQUAL en el área farmacéutica, que presentan diferencias en las percepciones de los dominios de servicio en función de las culturas en las que se encuentran inmersas. Para estudiar las relaciones propuestas, recopilamos datos de 100 clientes de farmacia de México y usamos SEM para probar la relación entre las dimensiones de SERVQUAL, la frecuencia de compra, el género y la percepción de calidad. Nuestros resultados muestran que las dimensiones de SERVQUAL están interrelacionadas, las dimensiones de SERVQUAL y el género predicen la percepción de calidad pero no la frecuencia de compra. Estos resultados brindan información clave para comprender de mejor manera la calidad del servicio en el área farmacéutica. Desarrollamos un marco teórico que se basa en las interrelaciones entre las diferentes dimensiones de SERVQUAL, asumiendo que no son independientes entre sí. Esta forma de entender las dimensiones de SERVQUAL puede proporcionar información relevante para comprender mejor cómo las percepciones individuales afectan la calidad del servicio en el área farmacéutica

Gauss–Lobatto to Bernstein polynomials transformation

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to transform a polynomial expressed as a weighted sum of discrete orthogonal polynomials on Gauss–Lobatto nodes into Bernstein form and vice versa. Explicit formulas and recursion expressions are derived. Moreover, an efficient algorithm for the transformation from Gauss–Lobatto to Bernstein is proposed. Finally, in order to show the robustness of the proposed algorithm, experimental results are reported