Altruism, Markets, and Organ Procurement

For decades, the dominant view among biomedical ethicists, transplantation professionals, and the public at large has been that altruism, not financial considerations, should motivate organ donors. Proposals to compensate sources of transplantable organs or their survivors, although endorsed by a number of economists and legal scholars, have been denounced as unethical and impracticable. Organ transplantation is said to belong to the world of gift, as distinct from the market realm. Paying for organs would inject commerce into a sphere where market values have no place and would transform a system based on generosity and civic spirit into one of antiseptic, bargained-for exchanges. Here, Mahoney discusses a brief history of the restriction on payments to sources of transplantable organs. She then turn to the arguments commonly advanced against compensating organ sources and explain how they are grounded in beliefs that range from the highly contestable to the demonstrably wrong. Furthermore, she examines the most popular compensation proposals, and offering preliminary assessments of their promise and feasibility. She also concludes with some thoughts about the relationship between altruism and self-interest

MS-136: Temma Berg Collection

This collection contains 107 letters, postcards and telegrams from Temma Berg in Europe, to her parents, Selma and Charles Silverstein, in Philadelphia. While the majority of the letters are sent from her home in Baarn, Holland, a few were sent from London. The postcards were sent from places they visited during their travels, including Amsterdam, Belgium, Germany, London, Paris and Israel. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website https://www.gettysburg.edu/special-collections/collections/https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1150/thumbnail.jp

Just Another Girl

A non-fiction piece that explores the causes of the author’s depression while in college. While she is able to pinpoint specific events that have led to her unhappiness, she realizes that accepting her life in spite of these obstacles will allow her to move forward

MS-133: John F. Kent Collection, Company D, New York First Cavalry Regiment

The John F. Kent Collection contains two manuscript diaries of his experiences during the Civil War. The first was written in 1862, the second in 1863. The entries are brief and mention battles in passing, casualties and skirmishes with the rebels. There are 16 letters, one to his parents during the war, 9 between Helen Lund and her sister Francesca, and six between John Kent and Caroline Kitchel about purchasing plots of land in a cemetery. There are assorted documents, ranging from Kent’s father’s naturalization certificate, to recipes, to pension certificates. There are nine photographs, six that are mounted, and three that are in small cases, ranging from portraits to group photos. It also contains Kent’s Grand Army of the Republic Veteran kerchief. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website http://www.gettysburg.edu/special?collections/collections/.”https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1160/thumbnail.jp

Optimal mean value estimates beyond Vinogradov's mean value theorem

We establish improved mean value estimates associated with the number of integer solutions of certain systems of diagonal equations, in some instances attaining the sharpest conjectured conclusions. This is the first occasion on which bounds of this quality have been attained for Diophantine systems not of Vinogradov type. As a consequence of this progress, whenever $u \ge 3v$ we obtain the Hasse principle for systems consisting of $v$ cubic and $u$ quadratic diagonal equations in $6v+4u+1$ variables, thus attaining the convexity barrier for this problem.Comment: Our original treatment of systems with degrees $k \ge 4$ contained a fatal flaw (thanks to S. T. Parsell for alerting us to this). The revised version gives an adapted treatment, leading to different results for $k \ge 4$. All results involving only quadratic and cubic equations remain unaffecte

Vinogradov systems with a slice off

Let $I_{s,k,r}(X)$ denote the number of integral solutions of the modified Vinogradov system of equations $$x_1^j+\ldots +x_s^j=y_1^j+\ldots +y_s^j\quad (\text{$1\le j\le k$, $j\ne r$}),$$ with $1\le x_i,y_i\le X$ $(1\le i\le s)$. By exploiting sharp estimates for an auxiliary mean value, we obtain bounds for $I_{s,k,r}(X)$ for $1\le r\le k-1$. In particular, when $s,k\in \mathbb N$ satisfy $k\ge 3$ and $1\le s\le (k^2-1)/2$, we establish the essentially diagonal behaviour $I_{s,k,1}(X)\ll X^{s+\epsilon}$.Comment: 19 page

Nanoscale gold pillars strengthened through dislocation starvation

It has been known for more than half a century that crystals can be made stronger by introducing defects into them, i.e., by strain-hardening. As the number of defects increases, their movement and multiplication is impeded, thus strengthening the material. In the present work we show hardening by dislocation starvation, a fundamentally different strengthening mechanism based on the elimination of defects from the crystal. We demonstrate that submicrometer sized gold crystals can be 50 times stronger than their bulk counterparts due to the elimination of defects from the crystal in the course of deformation