Automobile Accident Costs and Payments: Studies in the Economics of Injury Reparation

The report is presented as a pool of data which will serve many purposes. First of all, the report furnishes a perspective on the largeness and the smallness of the reparation process, and of its many parts. Second, the report supplies much more specific information than has ever before been available on many points, such as the high or low level of reparation in relation to losses; the number of people who get paid, and those who receive nothing; the levels of legal expense, including attorneys\u27 fees. Third, it will furnish a guide for future research directed to narrower questions, by disclosing what are the kinds and approximate dimensions of the phenomena which call for further examination. In order to suggest what sorts of information the report contains, and what conclusions may be drawn from it, a few of its findings are sketched in the following paragraphs. These findings have been selected from among many others as the ones most likely to be meaningful in the eyes of readers of many different kinds. Most of this summary relates to the survey of Michigan automobile accidents, which forms the major portion of this study.https://repository.law.umich.edu/michigan_legal_studies/1004/thumbnail.jp

The Solar Neighborhood. XXXIX. Parallax Results from the CTIOPI and NOFS Programs: 50 New Members of the 25 Parsec White Dwarf Sample

We present 114 trigonometric parallaxes for 107 nearby white dwarf (WD) systems from both the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Parallax Investigation (CTIOPI) and the U. S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS) parallax programs. Of these, 76 parallaxes for 69 systems were measured by the CTIOPI program and 38 parallaxes for as many systems were measured by the NOFS program. A total of 50 systems are confirmed to be within the 25 pc horizon of interest. Coupled with a spectroscopic confirmation of a common proper motion companion to a Hipparcos star within 25 pc as well as confirmation parallax determinations for two WD systems included in the recently released Tycho Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) catalog, we add 53 new systems to the 25 pc WD sample $-$ a 42% increase. Our sample presented here includes four strong candidate halo systems, a new metal-rich DAZ WD, a confirmation of a recently discovered nearby short-period (P = 2.85 hr) double degenerate, a WD with a new astrometric pertubation (long period, unconstrained with our data), and a new triple system where the WD companion main-sequence star has an astrometric perturbation (P $\sim$ 1.6 yr).Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures. Figure 4 in the manuscript is a representative set of plots - plots for all WDs presented here are available (allfits_photo.pdf, allfits_photo_DQ.pdf, and allfits_photo_DZ.pdf). Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Case Report Novel Mutation in a Patient with Cholesterol Ester Storage Disease

Cholesterol ester storage disease (CESD) is a chronic liver disease that typically presents with hepatomegaly. It is characterized by hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, high-density lipoprotein deficiency, and abnormal lipid deposition within multiple organs. It is an autosomal recessive disease that is due to a deficiency in lysosomal acid lipase (LAL) activity, which is coded by the lysosomal acid lipase gene (LIPA). We describe the case of a 5-year-old south Asian female incidentally found to have hepatomegaly, and subsequent workup confirmed the diagnosis of CESD. DNA sequencing confirmed the presence of a novel hepatic mutation. It is a four-nucleotide deletion c.57 60delTGAG in exon 2 of the LIPA gene. This mutation is predicted to result in a premature translation stop downstream of the deletion (p.E20fs) and, therefore, is felt to be a disease-causing mutation

The Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership: An Example of Science Applied to Societal Needs

Northern Eurasia, the largest landmass in the northern extratropics, accounts for ~20% of the global land area. However, little is known about how the biogeochemical cycles, energy and water cycles, and human activities specific to this carbon-rich, cold region interact with global climate. A major concern is that changes in the distribution of land-based life, as well as its interactions with the environment, may lead to a self-reinforcing cycle of accelerated regional and global warming. With this as its motivation, the Northern Eurasian Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) was formed in 2004 to better understand and quantify feedbacks between northern Eurasian and global climates. The first group of NEESPI projects has mostly focused on assembling regional databases, organizing improved environmental monitoring of the region, and studying individual environmental processes. That was a starting point to addressing emerging challenges in the region related to rapidly and simultaneously changing climate, environmental, and societal systems. More recently, the NEESPI research focus has been moving toward integrative studies, including the development of modeling capabilities to project the future state of climate, environment, and societies in the NEESPI domain. This effort will require a high level of integration of observation programs, process studies, and modeling across disciplines

Discovery of a Brown Dwarf Companion to Gliese 570ABC: A 2MASS T Dwarf Significantly Cooler than Gliese 229B

We report the discovery of a widely separated (258\farcs3\pm0\farcs4) T dwarf companion to the Gl 570ABC system. This new component, Gl 570D, was initially identified from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Its near-infrared spectrum shows the 1.6 and 2.2 \micron CH$_4$ absorption bands characteristic of T dwarfs, while its common proper motion with the Gl 570ABC system confirms companionship. Gl 570D (M$_J$ = 16.47$\pm$0.07) is nearly a full magnitude dimmer than the only other known T dwarf companion, Gl 229B, and estimates of L = (2.8$\pm$0.3)x10$^{-6}$ L_{\sun} and T$_{eff}$ = 750$\pm$50 K make it significantly cooler and less luminous than any other known brown dwarf companion. Using evolutionary models by Burrows et al. and an adopted age of 2-10 Gyr, we derive a mass estimate of 50$\pm$20 M$_{Jup}$ for this object.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, accepted by ApJ

The Spectra of T Dwarfs I: Near-Infrared Data and Spectral Classification

We present near-infrared spectra for a sample of T dwarfs, including eleven new discoveries made using the Two Micron All Sky Survey. These objects are distinguished from warmer (L-type) brown dwarfs by the presence of methane absorption bands in the 1--2.5 \micron spectral region. A first attempt at a near-infrared classification scheme for T dwarfs is made, based on the strengths of CH$_4$ and H$_2$O bands and the shapes of the 1.25, 1.6, and 2.1 \micron flux peaks. Subtypes T1 V through T8 V are defined, and spectral indices useful for classification are presented. The subclasses appear to follow a decreasing T$_{eff}$ scale, based on the evolution of CH$_4$ and H$_2$O bands and the properties of L and T dwarfs with known distances. However, we speculate that this scale is not linear with spectral type for cool dwarfs, due to the settling of dust layers below the photosphere and subsequent rapid evolution of spectral morphology around T$_{eff}$ $\sim$ 1300--1500 K. Similarities in near-infrared colors and continuity of spectral features suggest that the gap between the latest L dwarfs and earliest T dwarfs has been nearly bridged. This argument is strengthened by the possible role of CH$_4$ as a minor absorber shaping the K-band spectra of the latest L dwarfs. Finally, we discuss one peculiar T dwarf, 2MASS 0937+2931, which has very blue near-infrared colors (J-K$_s$ = $-0.89\pm$0.24) due to suppression of the 2.1 \micron peak. The feature is likely caused by enhanced collision-induced H$_2$ absorption in a high pressure or low metallicity photosphere.Comment: 74 pages including 26 figures, accepted by ApJ v563 December 2001; full paper including all of Table 3 may be downloaded from http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~pa/adam/classification ;also see submission 010844

Overview of the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Mission

The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer satellite observes light in the far-ultraviolet spectral region, 905 - 1187 A with high spectral resolution. The instrument consists of four coaligned prime-focus telescopes and Rowland spectrographs with microchannel plate detectors. Two of the telescope channels use Al:LiF coatings for optimum reflectivity from approximately 1000 to 1187 A and the other two use SiC coatings for optimized throughput between 905 and 1105 A. The gratings are holographically ruled to largely correct for astigmatism and to minimize scattered light. The microchannel plate detectors have KBr photocathodes and use photon counting to achieve good quantum efficiency with low background signal. The sensitivity is sufficient to examine reddened lines of sight within the Milky Way as well as active galactic nuclei and QSOs for absorption line studies of both Milky Way and extra-galactic gas clouds. This spectral region contains a number of key scientific diagnostics, including O VI, H I, D I and the strong electronic transitions of H2 and HD.Comment: To appear in FUSE special issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. 6 pages + 4 figure

Nuclear DNA from two early Neandertals reveals 80,000 years of genetic continuity in Europe

Little is known about the population history of Neandertals over the hundreds of thousands of years of their existence. We retrieved nuclear genomic sequences from two Neandertals, one from Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany and the other from Scladina Cave in Belgium, who lived around 120,000 years ago. Despite the deeply divergent mitochondrial lineage present in the former individual, both Neandertals are genetically closer to later Neandertals from Europe than to a roughly contemporaneous individual from Siberia. That the Hohlenstein-Stadel and Scladina individuals lived around the time of their most recent common ancestor with later Neandertals suggests that all later Neandertals trace at least part of their ancestry back to these early European Neandertals

Microstratigraphic preservation of ancient faunal and hominin DNA in Pleistocene cave sediments

Ancient DNA recovered from Pleistocene sediments represents a rich resource for the study of past hominin and environmental diversity. However, little is known about how DNA is preserved in sediments and the extent to which it may be translocated between archaeological strata. Here, we investigate DNA preservation in 47 blocks of resin-impregnated archaeological sediment collected over the last four decades for micromorphological analyses at 13 prehistoric sites in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and show that such blocks can preserve DNA of hominins and other mammals. Extensive microsampling of sediment blocks from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains reveals that the taxonomic composition of mammalian DNA differs drastically at the millimeter-scale and that DNA is concentrated in small particles, especially in fragments of bone and feces (coprolites), suggesting that these are substantial sources of DNA in sediments. Three microsamples taken in close proximity in one of the blocks yielded Neanderthal DNA from at least two male individuals closely related to Denisova 5, a Neanderthal toe bone previously recovered from the same layer. Our work indicates that DNA can remain stably localized in sediments over time and provides a means of linking genetic information to the archaeological and ecological records on a microstratigraphic scale