Single-Field Inflation and the Local Ansatz: Distinguishability and Consistency

The single-field consistency conditions and the local ansatz have played separate but important roles in characterizing the non-Gaussian signatures of single- and multifield inflation respectively. We explore the precise relationship between these two approaches and their predictions. We demonstrate that the predictions of the single-field consistency conditions can never be satisfied by a general local ansatz with deviations necessarily arising at order $(n_s-1)^2$. This implies that there is, in principle, a minimum difference between single- and (fully local) multifield inflation in observables sensitive to the squeezed limit such as scale-dependent halo bias. We also explore some potential observational implications of the consistency conditions and its relationship to the local ansatz. In particular, we propose a new scheme to test the consistency relations. In analogy with delensing of the cosmic microwave background, one can deproject the coupling of the long wavelength modes with the short wavelength modes and test for residual anomalous coupling.Comment: 17 page

Affordable Health Care Keeps Children and Families Healthy

The health of young children is negatively affected when parents have to forego health care for themselves or other adult members of the household or when parents have to forego payment of household expenses in order to pay for health care

Funding Shortfall for Housing Vouchers Could Have Serious Health Consequences for Children

In the fourth brief in its Policy Action series, Children's HealthWatch finds that unaffordable housing endangers the health and development of young children. Due to a federal funding shortfall, state and local housing agencies will be forced to reduce or eliminate rental assitance to thousands of families starting this month. Voucher cuts will push more families into the ranks of the "hidden homeless" -- families that move frequently, crowd into apartments that are too small, or live doubled up with other households when they cannot find affordable housing. Children in hidden homeless families are at increased risk for poor health, nutrition, and growth, as well as developmental delays. Timely Congressional action to protect the Housing Choice Voucher Program will ensure that families have stable, affordable housing essential to children's health

Singularities of Nonlinear Elliptic Systems

Through Morrey's spaces (plus Zorko's spaces) and their potentials/capacities as well as Hausdorff contents/dimensions, this paper estimates the singular sets of nonlinear elliptic systems of the even-ordered Meyers-Elcrat type and a class of quadratic functionals inducing harmonic maps.Comment: 18 pages Communications in Partial Differential Equation

Composing textual modelling languages in practice

This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Multi-Paradigm Modeling, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2508443.2508449Complex systems require descriptions using multiple modelling languages, or languages able to express different concerns, like timing or data dependencies. In this paper, we propose techniques for the modular definition and composition of languages, including their abstract, concrete syntax and semantics. These techniques are based on (meta-)model templates, where interface elements and requirements for their connection can be established. We illustrate the ideas using the MetaDepth textual meta-modelling tool

Dark Matter Interactions, Helium, and the Cosmic Microwave Background

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) places a variety of model-independent constraints on the strength interactions of the dominant component of dark matter with the standard model. Percent-level subcomponents of the dark matter can evade the most stringent CMB bounds by mimicking the behavior of baryons, allowing for larger couplings and novel experimental signatures. However, in this Letter, we will show that such tightly coupled subcomponents leave a measurable imprint on the CMB that is well approximated by a change to the helium fraction, Y_(He). Using the existing CMB constraint on Y_(He), we derive a new upper limit on the fraction of tightly coupled dark matter, f_(TCDM), of f_(TCDM) < 0.006 (95% C.I.). We show that future CMB experiments can reach f_(TCDM) < 0.001 (95% C.I.) and confirm that the bounds derived in this way agree with the results of a complete analysis. These bounds provide an example of how CMB constraints on Y_(He) have applications beyond studying big bang nucleosynthesis, since tightly coupled dark matter plays no direct role in the formation of light nuclei. We briefly comment on the implications for model building, including millicharged dark matter

Feeling, Knowledge, Self-Preservation: Audre Lorde’s Oppositional Agency and Some Implications for Ethics

Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lorde’s thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls “the erotic” within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the implications of taking seriously Lorde’s account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lorde’s account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes