The Cut : an Artist's Film (3 mins.)

The Cut (2010) is a short film by Kate Davis and David Moore, produced in conjunction with UK: ME/WE Productions. It was commissioned by the Bristol based artist and curator Louise Short for the exhibition Super8station3 and screened at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, during the Old Media season (25 Sept - 21 Nov 2010). Continuing her exploitations of surrealist tropes and methods, Davis & Moore, used machinic framing, chance encounter and the time it takes to boil an egg to construct the film narrative. The film was shot on a single reel of three minute super-8 film, edited in camera and sent un-seen to the exhibition. There is a direct correlation between the chosen subject, the apparently benign act of boiling an egg, and the short time limit of the film reel. Davis and Moore elaborate the surrealist concerns of the relationship between sexuality and violence and cycles of birth and death such as seen in the work of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou. The Cut was shortlisted for the Swedenborg Short Film award, 2011, and screened along with the works of international filmmakers at the Swedenborg Institute, London (Dec 2011). It was included in the exhibitions: Mrs Darling’s Kiss at Arch 402, London (8 July - 5 Aug 2011); You Are Ok at De Toekomst, Amsterdam (5-15 July 2012)

The Abundance Pattern in the Hot ISM of NGC 4472: Insights and Anomalies

Important clues to the chemical and dynamical history of elliptical galaxies are encoded in the abundances of heavy elements in the X-ray emitting plasma. We derive the hot ISM abundance pattern in inner and outer regions of NGC 4472 from analysis of Suzaku spectra, supported by analysis of co-spatial XMM-Newton spectra. The low background and relatively sharp spectral resolution of the Suzaku XIS detectors, combined with the high luminosity and temperature in NGC 4472, enable us to derive a particularly extensive abundance pattern that encompasses O, Ne, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Fe, and Ni in both regions. We apply simple chemical evolution models to these data, and conclude that the abundances are best explained by a combination of alpha-element enhanced stellar mass loss and direct injection of Type Ia supernova (SNIa) ejecta. We thus confirm the inference, based on optical data, that the stars in elliptical galaxies have supersolar alpha/Fe ratios, but find that that the present-day SNIa rate is 4-6 times lower than the standard value. We find SNIa yield sets that reproduce Ca and Ar, or Ni, but not all three simultaneously. The low abundance of O relative to Ne and Mg implies that standard core collapse nucleosynthesis models overproduce O by a factor of 2.Comment: 37 pages, including 23 figures, uses aastex.cls; accepted for publication in Ap

Does Top of the Market Pricing Facilitate Oligopsony Coordination?

This paper suggests how a particular vertical arrangement, Top of the Market Pricing (TOMP), can have horizontal anti-competitive effects. The theory is also applicable to other vertical arrangements in use in the fed cattle market. The theory changes the theoretical backdrop for examining captive supplies. Until now, a negative correlation between prices and captive supplies was theorized to result from a reduction in bidding aggressiveness on behalf of packers. The theory presented suggests why bidders maybe less aggressively when captive supplies are high. Furthermore, it eliminates debates over the appropriate time span over which to define captive supplies and whether feedlots or packers control delivery. Delivery control and delivery timing matter in the theory above only in the respect that packers must know cattle are committed prior to price being determined. In short, this theory represents a dramatically new way to examine the theoretical consequences of captive supplies.Captive supply, Oligopsony, cattle markets, grid pricing

Race and Policing: An Agenda for Action

This paper is organized into two parts -- Strategic Voice and Tactical Agency. Strategic Voice argues that problems of race in policing cannot be resolved by the police alone. Other people must help by understanding and ameliorating the social conditions that cause race to be associated with crime and hence become a dilemma for American policing. Rather than accepting these conditions as givens, police leaders with their powerful collective voice should actively call attention to what needs to be changed. Tactical Agency outlines what the police can do on their own initiative to deal with the operational dilemmas of race -- in the communities they serve and in their own organizations

Can enlightenment be traced to specific neural correlates, cognition, or behavior? No, and (a qualified) Yes

The field of contemplative science is rapidly growing and integrating into the basic neurosciences, psychology, clinical sciences, and society-at-large. Yet the majority of current research in the contemplative sciences has been divorced from the soteriological context from which these meditative practices originate and has focused instead on clinical applications with goals of stress reduction and psychotherapeutic health. In the existing research on health outcomes of mindfulness-based clinical interventions, for example, there have been almost no attempts to scientifically investigate the goal of enlightenment. This is a serious oversight, given that such profound transformation across ethical, perceptual, emotional, and cognitive domains are taken to be the natural outcome and principle aim of mindfulness practice in the traditional Buddhist contexts from which these practices are derived. If short-term interventions as short as a few sessions are now beginning to produce neuroplastic changes, it may be that even in secular contexts, practitioners are already developing states and traits that are associated with progress toward enlightenment. In order to carefully assess the potential effects of meditative interventions it is of singular importance to ask whether enlightenment can be traced to specific neural correlates, cognition, or behavior

Resource allocation in a university environment : a test of the Ruefli, Freeland, and Davis goal programming decomposition algorithms / BEBR No. 735

Bibliography: p. 20-22

Price Dispersion and Accessibility: A Case study of Fast Food

This study examines spatial variation in the price and accessibility of fast food across a major urban area. We use novel data on the price of a representative fast food meal and the location of fast food restaurants belonging to one of three major chains in the District of Columbia and its surrounding suburbs. These data are used to test a structural model of spatial competition. The results of this study are easily interpreted and compared with a past analysis. We find that spatial differences in costs and demand conditions drive variation in the number of firms operating in a market, which in turn affects prices.food prices, food accessibility, spatial competition, price dispersion, fast food

Recent Trends and Economic Issues in the WIC Infant Formula Rebate Program

Over half of all infant formula sold in the United States is purchased through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Typically, WIC State agencies obtain substantial discounts in the form of rebates from infant formula manufacturers for each can of formula purchased through the program. The cost to WIC for each can of formula provided through the program has two components: (1) net wholesale price, which is equal to the wholesale price of formula minus the amount of the rebate; and (2) retail markup, which is equal to the retail price minus the wholesale price. This analysis suggests that retail markup accounts for most of the cost to WIC of infant formula in most States. However, both cost components have increased over time. The recent increase in both net wholesale price and retail markup coincides with the introduction of higher priced supplemented infant formulas. Conditions may change after the market adjusts to these new formulas.WIC; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; infant formula; rebates; net wholesale price; retail markup; wholesale price, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program, FANRP