Wealth, families and death: socio-legal perspectives on wills and inheritance: introduction

Inheritance as both a concept and a practice is of deep significance within all societies and jurisdictions. Located at the intersection between economics, family relations and the end of life, it offers a unique perspective on a variety of contemporary socio-legal debates. Yet the socio-legal phenomenon of inheritance has attracted relatively little scholastic attention. This special issue, which brings together eight papers coming from six different countries (and eight different jurisdictions): Belgium, England and Wales, Israel, Spain (Catalonia and the Basque Country), Switzerland and the USA, demonstrates the breadth of inheritance as a field of study in a number of ways and at the same time opens up important new lines of enquiry. This international breadth serves to foreground the significance of both national and regional political culture on inheritance law. Most significant in this respect is the fact that the authors are evenly split between those commentating on civil legal systems and those on common-law systems; for traditionally the two systems have adopted highly distinct responses to the principles of testamentary freedom and forced heirship. All the articles in this collection provide insight into this fundamental distinction but at the same time demonstrate its limits in practice

Two dimensional eye tracking: Sampling rate of forcing function

A study was conducted to determine the minimum update rate of a forcing function display required for the operator to approximate the tracking performance obtained on a continuous display. In this study, frequency analysis was used to determine whether there was an associated change in the transfer function characteristics of the operator. It was expected that as the forcing function display update rate was reduced, from 120 to 15 samples per second, the operator's response to the high frequency components of the forcing function would show a decrease in gain, an increase in phase lag, and a decrease in coherence

Head tracking at large angles from the straight ahead position

One of the big advantages of a helmet sight in a high performance aircraft is its off-boresight capability in aiming a fire control system. However, tracking data using a target that is moving rapidly and randomly for an extended period of time is missing. This study is intended to provide data in this area that will be of value to engineers in designing head control systems

A comparison of head and manual control for a position-control pursuit tracking task

Head control was compared with manual control in a pursuit tracking task involving proportional controlled-element dynamics. An integrated control/display system was used to explore tracking effectiveness in horizontal and vertical axes tracked singly and concurrently. Compared with manual tracking, head tracking resulted in a 50 percent greater rms error score, lower pilot gain, greater high-frequency phase lag and greater low-frequency remnant. These differences were statistically significant, but differences between horizontal- and vertical-axis tracking and between 1- and 2-axis tracking were generally small and not highly significant. Manual tracking results were matched with the optimal control model using pilot-related parameters typical of those found in previous manual control studies. Head tracking performance was predicted with good accuracy using the manual tracking model plus a model for head/neck response dynamics obtained from the literature

Rap Music: Gender Difference in Derogatory Word Use

Much of the literature relating to rap assumes such music contains violent and misogynic lyrics. Before exploring the possible deleterious effects of rap lyrics, it is critical to go back to the source and listen to the music. Our work examines the frequency of six profane words in randomly drawn rap music and how this differs between female and male artists. A content analysis of 180 randomly drawn songs from 18 randomly drawn artists was conducted. We expected that male artists would use more profane words compared to female artists. We also expected more profanity, by both male and female artists, to be directed at women. Our data show that the use of general profanity is most common in rap lyrics followed by profane words aimed at men. Male artists are significantly more likely than female artists to use profanity in their lyrics

Progress Towards Modeling the Ablation Response of NuSil-Coated PICA

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Entry, Descent and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI) collected in-flight data largely used by the ablation community to verify and validate physics-based models for the response of the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) material [1-4]. MEDLI data were recently used to guide the development of NASAs high-fidelity material response models for PICA, implemented in the Porous material Analysis Toolbox based on OpenFOAM (PATO) software [5-6]. A follow-up instrumentation suite, MEDLI2, is planned for the upcoming Mars 2020 mission [7] after the large scientific impact of MEDLI. Recent analyses performed as part of MEDLI2 development draw the attention to significant effects of a protective coating to the aerothermal response of PICA. NuSil, a silicone-based overcoat sprayed onto the MSL heatshield as contamination control, is currently neglected in PICA ablation models. To mitigate the spread of phenolic dust from PICA, NuSil was applied to the entire MSL heatshield, including the MEDLI plugs. NuSil is a space grade designation of the siloxane copolymer, primarily used to protect against atomic oxygen erosion in the Low Earth Orbit environment. Ground testing of PICA-NuSil (PICA-N) models all exhibited surface temperature jumps of the order of 200 K due to oxide scale formation and subsequent NuSil burn-off. It is therefore critical to include a model for the aerothermal response of the coating in ongoing code development and validation efforts

A description of n-ary semigroups polynomial-derived from integral domains

We provide a complete classification of the n-ary semigroup structures defined by polynomial functions over infinite commutative integral domains with identity, thus generalizing G{\l}azek and Gleichgewicht's classification of the corresponding ternary semigroups