Crisis Bureaucracy: Homeland Security and the Political Design of Legal Mandates

Policymakers fight over bureaucratic structure because it helps shape the legal interpretations and regulatory decisions of agencies through which modern governments operate. In this article, we update positive political theories of bureaucratic structure to encompass two new issues with important implications for lawyers and political scientists: the significance of legislative responses to a crisis, and the uncertainty surrounding major bureaucratic reorganizations. The resulting perspective affords a better understanding of how agencies interpret their legal mandates and deploy their administrative discretion. We apply the theory to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two principal questions surrounding this creation are: (1) why the President changed from opposing the creation of a new department to supporting it and (2) why his plan for such a department was far beyond the scope of any other existing proposal. We argue that the President changed his mind in part because he did not want to be on the losing side of a major legislative battle. But more significantly, the President supported the massive new department in part to further domestic policy priorities unrelated to homeland security. By moving a large set of agencies within the department and instilling them with new homeland security responsibilities without additional budgets, the president forced these agencies to move resources out of their legacy mandates. Perversely, these goals appear to have been accomplished at the expense of homeland security. Finally, we briefly discuss more general implications of our perspective: first, previous reorganizations (such as FDR's creation of a Federal Security Agency and Carter's creation of an Energy Department) also seem to reflect presidential efforts to enhance their control of administrative functions, including some not directly related to the stated purpose of the reorganization; and, second, our analysis raises questions about some of the most often-asserted justifications for judicial deference to agency legal interpretations.

NASTRAN Modeling of Flight Test Components for UH-60A Airloads Program Test Configuration

Based upon the recommendations of the UH-60A Airloads Program Review Committee, work towards a NASTRAN remodeling effort has been conducted. This effort modeled and added the necessary structural/mass components to the existing UH-60A baseline NASTRAN model to reflect the addition of flight test components currently in place on the UH-60A Airloads Program Test Configuration used in NASA-Ames Research Center's Modern Technology Rotor Airloads Program. These components include necessary flight hardware such as instrument booms, movable ballast cart, equipment mounting racks, etc. Recent modeling revisions have also been included in the analyses to reflect the inclusion of new and updated primary and secondary structural components (i.e., tail rotor shaft service cover, tail rotor pylon) and improvements to the existing finite element mesh (i.e., revisions of material property estimates). Mode frequency and shape results have shown that components such as the Trimmable Ballast System baseplate and its respective payload ballast have caused a significant frequency change in a limited number of modes while only small percent changes in mode frequency are brought about with the addition of the other MTRAP flight components. With the addition of the MTRAP flight components, update of the primary and secondary structural model, and imposition of the final MTRAP weight distribution, modal results are computed representative of the 'best' model presently available

Quantum manifestations of chaos in elastic atom-surface scattering

Quantum manifestations of chaos in the diffraction of atoms from corrugated surfaces, for a range of initial conditions easily attainable in scattering experiments, are presented and discussed. The appearance of strong oscillations in diffraction patterns is shown to be directly related to the presence of classical chaos and threshold effects. We also show that the autocorrelation function for some of the collision S-matrix elements over incident angles is sensitive to the character, hyperbolic or nonhyperbolic, of the underlying chaotic dynamics, in agreement with general semiclassical arguments for unbound chaotic systems. © 2001 The American Physical SocietyThis work was supported by DGES (Spain) under Contract Nos. PB95-71 and PB98-115 and the European Contract No. HPRN-CT-1999-00005. R.G. acknowledges financial support from CAM (Spain).Peer Reviewe

Correspondence between classical and quantum resonances

Bifurcations take place in molecular Hamiltonian nonlinear systems as the excitation energy increases, leading to the appearance of different classical resonances. In this paper, we study the quantum manifestations of these classical resonances in the isomerizing system CN-Li Li-CN. By using a correlation diagram of eigenenergies versus Planck constant, we show the existence of different series of avoided crossings, leading to the corresponding series of quantum resonances, which represent the quantum manifestations of the classical resonances. Moreover, the extrapolation of these series to h = 0 unveils the correspondence between the bifurcation energy of classical resonances and the energy of the series of quantum resonances in the semiclassical limit → 0. Additionally, in order to obtain analytical expressions for our results, a semiclassical theory is develope

The Topology of Parabolic Character Varieties of Free Groups

Let G be a complex affine algebraic reductive group, and let K be a maximal compact subgroup of G. Fix elements h_1,...,h_m in K. For n greater than or equal to 0, let X (respectively, Y) be the space of equivalence classes of representations of the free group of m+n generators in G (respectively, K) such that for each i between 1 and m, the image of the i-th free generator is conjugate to h_i. These spaces are parabolic analogues of character varieties of free groups. We prove that Y is a strong deformation retraction of X. In particular, X and Y are homotopy equivalent. We also describe explicit examples relating X to relative character varieties.Comment: 16 pages, version 2 includes minor revisions and some modified proofs, accepted for publication in Geometriae Dedicat

Off diagonal charged scalar couplings with the Z boson: the Zee model as an example

Models with scalar doublets and charged scalar singlets have the interesting property that they have couplings between one $Z$ boson and two charged scalars of different masses. This property is often ignored in phenomenological analysis, as it is absent from models with only extra scalar doublets. We explore this issue in detail, considering $h \rightarrow Z \gamma$, $B \to X_s \gamma$, and the decay of a heavy charged scalar into a lighter one and a $Z$ boson. We propose that the latter be actively searched for at the LHC, using the scalar sector of the Zee model as a prototype and proposing benchmark points which obey all current experimental data and could be within reach of the LHC.Comment: 40 pages, 28 Figures in PD

Using basis sets of scar functions

We present a method to efficiently compute the eigenfunctions of classically chaotic systems. The key point is the definition of a modified Gram-Schmidt procedure which selects the most suitable elements from a basis set of scar functions localized along the shortest periodic orbits of the system. In this way, one benefits from the semiclassical dynamical properties of such functions. The performance of the method is assessed by presenting an application to a quartic two-dimensional oscillator whose classical dynamics are highly chaotic. We have been able to compute the eigenfunctions of the system using a small basis set. An estimate of the basis size is obtained from the mean participation ratio. A thorough analysis of the results using different indicators, such as eigenstate reconstruction in the local representation, scar intensities, participation ratios, and error bounds, is also presentedThis work was supported by MINECO (Spain), under projects MTM2009-14621 and ICMAT Severo Ochoa SEV-2011-0087, and by CEAL Banco de Santander–UAM. F.R. is grateful for the support from a doctoral fellowship from UPM and the hospitality of the members of the Departamento de Física in the Laboratorio TANDAR–Comisión Nacional de la Energía Atómica, where part of this work was don

Unraveling the highly nonlinear dynamics of KCN molecular system using Lagrangian descriptors

In this work, we identify the phase-space structures which are responsible for the chaotic dynamics observed in KCN molecular system using the Lagrangian descriptors. We show that the vibrational dynamics of this molecule is strongly determined by the invariant manifolds associated with a particular stretching periodic orbit previously described (Párraga et al., 2018). Likewise, the representation of these invariant manifolds on a Poincaré surface of section is also studied, concluding that the intricate depiction that is observed has its origin in the complex behavior of the manifolds, which is a consequence of the strong anharmonicities in the potential energy surfaceThis work has been partially supported by the Grants PID2021-122711NB-C21 and CEX2019-000904-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, by the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant No. 734557, and by the Comunidad de Madrid, Spain under the Grant APOYO-JOVENES-4L2UB6-53-29443N (GeoCoSiM) financed within the Plurianual Agreement with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain in the line to improve the research of young doctor

Utilización del agua caliente residual de la central térmica de Castellón para el calentamiento del suelo en invernaderos

En este trabajo se ha estudiado el aprovechamiento agrícola del agua caliente residual procedente de la Central Térmica de Castellón. El calentamiento del suelo se realiza mediante un sistema de tuberías enterradas por las que circula el agua caliente y sus efectos se han medido sobre la precocidad y producción de algunos cultivos hortícolas. Además de estos efectos sobre el cultivo se ha estudiado la transmisión de calor en el suelo con tuberías enterradas y superficiales y la influencia de la temperatura del agua, caudal y distribución de tubos. Los resultados obtenidos sobre tomate y fresas indican un adelanto en la producción de fresas de unos 20 días y un aumento del desarrollo y producción en ambos cultivos de un 20-30%. Para el estudio de la transmisión de calor en el suelo se han desarrollado dos modelos teóricos y comprobado sus resultados con los datos experimentales obtenidos en unas bancadas de suel

Exposure to PM2.5 and cardiovascular diseases in Portugal: the contribute of PMCardImpact project

Particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) is one of the air pollutants more detrimental to human health, being responsible for around 400 000 premature deaths in Europe every year. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and air pollution are linked, with existing evidence of a causal relationship between exposure to particulate matter and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Under the scope of PMCardImpact, a nationally funded project, data collected from the Portuguese air monitoring platform (2005-2021) (>60 stations) was used to estimate the attributable number of cases of acute myocardial infarction. The air monitoring data and parameters such as exposure-response factors will support the risk assessment in AirQ+ software (WHO Regional Office for Europe). Preliminary results showed that exceedances of the Air Quality Directive in Portugal ranged between 0.1 % and 10.2% for PM10 and PM2.5 in 2019. Results obtained will include the number of cases of CVD attributable to exposure to PM2.5 in the Portuguese population. Four scenarios of exposure will be considered for presenting the results: the current scenario of exposure, new WHO Air Quality guidelines, the European Commission Air Quality Directive, and lastly, a worst-case scenario. This assessment will be the starting point for calculating the burden of the disease of CVD that exposure to PM2.5 represents in Portugal. With a view to promoting the science-to-policy interface, the PMCardImpact project will make available to policymakers the needed supporting information to act, including actionable knowledge on air pollution trends and related health effects, to implement reducing air pollution policies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio