Confinement resonances in photoionization of endohedral atoms: a myth or reality?

We demonstrate that the structure of confinement resonances in the photoionization cross section of an endohedral atom is very sensitive to the mean displacement of the atom from the cage center. The resonances are strongly suppressed if 2 exceeds the photoelectron half-wavelength. We explain the results of recent experiments which contradict the earlier theoretical predictions on the existence of confinement resonances in particular endohedral systems.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, RevTe

Cosmology with Photometric Surveys of Type Ia Supernovae

We discuss the extent to which photometric measurements alone can be used to identify Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) and to determine redshift and other parameters of interest for cosmological studies. We fit the light curve data of the type expected from a survey such as the one planned with Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and also to remove the contamination from the core-collapse supernovae to SNIa samples. We generate 1000 SNIa mock flux data for each of the LSST filters based on existing design parameters, then use a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) analysis to fit for the redshift, apparent magnitude, stretch factor and the phase of the SNIa. We find that the model fitting works adequately well when the true SNe redshift is below 0.5, while at $z < 0.2$ the accuracy of the photometric data is almost comparable with spectroscopic measurements of the same sample. We discuss the contamination of Type Ib/c (SNIb/c) and Type II supernova (SNII) on the SNIa data set. We find it is easy to distinguish the SNII through the large $\chi^2$ mismatch when fitting to photometric data with Ia light curves. This is not the case for SNIb/c. We implement a statistical method based on the Bayesian estimation in order to statistically reduce the contamination from SNIb/c for cosmological parameter measurements from the whole SNe sample. The proposed statistical method also evaluate the fraction of the SNIa in the total SNe data set, which provides a valuable guide to establish the degree of contamination.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, published in Ap

The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back

Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take their toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the United Kingdom maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UK’s interests with the imperial “common good” continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islanders’ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossians’ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossians’ interests

Turning Passion Into Profit: When Leisure Becomes Work In Modern Roller Derby

Modern roller derby operates as a “by the skater, for the skater” business model, where participants are not paid but must devote a certain amount of time, effort, and money to sustaining their sport and respective organizations. At the same time, while derby is grounded in anti-corporate values, a growing industry has sprouted to support the sport, the larger share of which consists of small business retailers selling gear, apparel, and other accessories. I use the context of modern roller derby to examine the changing natures of work and leisure, specifically how they operate as greedy institutions and emphasizing the lack of boundaries between them. Simply put, what happens when a leisure activity intended to be done “for fun” becomes more like work? I answer the following research questions: How do roller derby participants make sense of their everyday experiences performing paid and unpaid labor for the sport? As derby is currently dominated by women (a rarity within other alternative sports subcultures), how are these experiences gendered? I draw on interviews conducted between 2016-2018 with 51 total participants across two sub-groups: 23 leaders of derby leagues and governing bodies, 23 derby-related entrepreneurs, and 5 who serve in both roles. I find that first, both leaders and entrepreneurs perform their derby labors out of passion for the sport. However, for entrepreneurs, working for derby (and therefore for passion) is precarious work that requires certain societal privileges in order to have this career option in the first place. Second, passion for derby and the ideal worker norm can lead to the expectation that derby participants give all of themselves to the sport, making derby a greedy institution in itself. Leaders experience fatigue, guilt, and obligation as they attempt to carve out non-derby boundaries for themselves. Finally, derby’s foundational values such as autonomy, anti-corporatism, do-it-yourself (DIY), and serving the collective may actually hinder the sport’s sustainability and growth. I conclude that derby and sport in general is a vantage point from which to examine overwork, the speedup of work, the dangers of passion work as exploitative, and the creep of work-like productivity and labor into leisure

there\u27s So Many Fabulous Butts In Derby : The Skating Body In Women\u27s Flat Track Roller Derby

Women\u27s flat track roller derby is a growing niche sport that has gathered much attention from media and academics alike. Previous research has analyzed the sport from a gendered view with limited focus on bodies in the broader sense. I attempt to fill this gap in the literature by asking: How do derby skaters define the derby body? In what ways do skaters resist and/or accommodate conventional bodily norms and those within derby? Utilizing an ethnographic repertoire of observation, interviews, and autoethnography, I examine the experiences of women derby skaters for a local flat track league located in the Midwest. Drawing from literature on gender and sport, resistance, and embodiment, I argue that skaters engage with a series of tensions and contradictions between societal norms and derby values, specifically those related to body size, athleticism, public versus private spaces, and the role of non-(born) women in the sport

Pacemakers, Fitbits, and the Fourth Amendment: Privacy Implications for Medical Implants and Wearable Technology

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Developmental Bias in Cleavage-Stage Mouse Blastomeres

BACKGROUND: The cleavage-stage mouse embryo is composed of superficially equivalent blastomeres that will generate both the embryonic inner cell mass (ICM) and the supportive trophectoderm (TE). However, it remains unsettled whether the contribution of each blastomere to these two lineages can be accounted for by chance. Addressing the question of blastomere cell fate may be of practical importance, because preimplantation genetic diagnosis requires removal of blastomeres from the early human embryo. To determine whether blastomere allocation to the two earliest lineages is random, we developed and utilized a recombination-mediated, noninvasive combinatorial fluorescent labeling method for embryonic lineage tracing. RESULTS: When we induced recombination at cleavage stages, we observed a statistically significant bias in the contribution of the resulting labeled clones to the trophectoderm or the inner cell mass in a subset of embryos. Surprisingly, we did not find a correlation between localization of clones in the embryonic and abembryonic hemispheres of the late blastocyst and their allocation to the TE and ICM, suggesting that TE-ICM bias arises separately from embryonic-abembryonic bias. Rainbow lineage tracing also allowed us to demonstrate that the bias observed in the blastocyst persists into postimplantation stages and therefore has relevance for subsequent development. CONCLUSIONS: The Rainbow transgenic mice that we describe here have allowed us to detect lineage-dependent bias in early development. They should also enable assessment of the developmental equivalence of mammalian progenitor cells in a variety of tissues.Molecular and Cellular Biolog