Pleasures in Socialism: Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc

This book is a significant contribution to the studies of everyday life in Eastern Europe under communist rule. It is the third in a series of volumes edited and written with Susan E. Reid, which examine the material culture of the Eastern Bloc: see Style and Socialism (Berg, 2000) and Socialist Spaces (Berg, 2003). Reviewing these titles in the London Review of Books, Sheila Fitzpatrick credits Crowley and Reid as ‘two cultural historians who have played a leading role in the development of studies of the everyday in the former Soviet bloc’. The 14 essays explore how leisure and the consumption of luxury goods formed zones that communist states sought to shape, and thereby to extend the reach of their authority. Yet at the same time, they also presented opportunities for people to assert their individuality and enjoy unlicensed pleasures. This contrasts strongly with the conventional scholarship on the Soviet Bloc, which stresses poverty and repression. Crowley's contribution was to write, with Reid, a 21,000-word critical review of existing debates about leisure and luxury in the Bloc and make a number of propositions about the way in which these concepts and practices need to be further conceptualised and researched. This essay also functions as an introduction to the book. The origins of the book lie in a conference organised by Crowley and Reid at the V&A Museum in London in 2007. Following publication, Crowley was invited to talk about the themes in this volume at Södertörn University, Centre for Baltic and East European Studies in Stockholm (2012). A review of this book was published in Slavic Review (2011). Crowley and Reid were also interviewed about the volume in an hour-long podcast for New Books in Eastern Europe Studies (2012)

Circumference and Pathwidth of Highly Connected Graphs

Birmele [J. Graph Theory, 2003] proved that every graph with circumference t has treewidth at most t-1. Under the additional assumption of 2-connectivity, such graphs have bounded pathwidth, which is a qualitatively stronger result. Birmele's theorem was extended by Birmele, Bondy and Reed [Combinatorica, 2007] who showed that every graph without k disjoint cycles of length at least t has bounded treewidth (as a function of k and t). Our main result states that, under the additional assumption of (k + 1)- connectivity, such graphs have bounded pathwidth. In fact, they have pathwidth O(t^3 + tk^2). Moreover, examples show that (k + 1)-connectivity is required for bounded pathwidth to hold. These results suggest the following general question: for which values of k and graphs H does every k-connected H-minor-free graph have bounded pathwidth? We discuss this question and provide a few observations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Improving Fairness and Addressing Racial Disparities in the Delaware Criminal Justice System

This memorandum summarizes existing scholarly research on police stops; pretrial detention; charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing; and alternatives to incarceration. For each topic, the memo surveys the extent to which each of these contributes to racial disparities as well as inaccuracies in criminal justice; identifies reforms that have worked elsewhere to ameliorate these problems; and considers the extent to which these reforms are compatible with preserving and improving public safety. The memorandum concludes with a brief discussion of recent scholarship that both highlights larger social factors that contribute to disparity and identifies programs and initiatives outside of the criminal justice system that might reduce racial disparities within the system

Subfactors of index less than 5, part 2: triple points

We summarize the known obstructions to subfactors with principal graphs which begin with a triple point. One is based on Jones's quadratic tangles techniques, although we apply it in a novel way. The other two are based on connections techniques; one due to Ocneanu, and the other previously unpublished, although likely known to Haagerup. We then apply these obstructions to the classification of subfactors with index below 5. In particular, we eliminate three of the five families of possible principal graphs called "weeds" in the classification from arXiv:1007.1730.Comment: 28 pages, many figures. Completely revised from v1: many additional or stronger result

SNARE VTI13 plays a unique role in endosomal trafficking pathways associated with the vacuole and is essential for cell wall organization and root hair growth in arabidopsis

Background and Aims: Root hairs are responsible for water and nutrient uptake from the soil and their growth is responsive to biotic and abiotic changes in their environment. Root hair expansion is a polarized process requiring secretory and endosomal pathways that deliver and recycle plasma membrane and cell wall material to the growing root hair tip. In this paper, the role of VTI13 (AT3G29100), a member of the VTI vesicular soluble NSF attachment receptor (SNARE) gene family in Arabidopsis thaliana, in root hair growth is described.<p></p> Methods: Genetic analysis and complementation of the vti13 root hair phenotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana were first used to assess the role of VTI13 in root hair growth. Transgenic lines expressing a green fluorescent protein (GFP)–VTI13 construct were used to characterize the intracellular localization of VTI13 in root hairs using confocal microscopy and immunotransmission electron microscopy.<p></p> Key Results: VTI13 was characterized and genetic analysis used to show that its function is required for root hair growth. Expression of a GFP–VTI13 fusion in the vti13 mutant background was shown to complement the vti13 root hair phenotype. GFP–VTI13 localized to both the vacuole membrane and a mobile endosomal compartment. The function of VTI13 was also required for the localization of SYP41 to the trans-Golgi network. Immunohistochemical analysis indicated that cell wall organization is altered in vti13 root hairs and root epidermal cells.<p></p> Conclusions: These results show that VTI13 plays a unique role in endosomal trafficking pathways associated with the vacuole within root hairs and is essential for the maintenance of cell wall organization and root hair growth in arabidopsis