S03RS SGB No. 32 (Election Code Committee)

A BILL To form an Election Code Revision Committee that will research and write a new election code including online voting to be completed and presented to the LSU Student Senate as a bill for first reading at the first meeting of the Fall 2003 semester

Iron Curtain Statutes - What Is the Standard of Constitutionality?

The epic decision of the United States Supreme Court in Zschernig v. Miller has raised much controversy regarding Iron Curtain Statutes. As a consequence, probate courts are scrutinizing the legislation of their own states which control the devolution of property to nonresident aliens. The Zschernig decision has jeopardized the constitutionality of all probate statutes. This article will proceed to analyze the probate statutes and decisions, prior and subsequent to Zschernig, with an eye toward showing that the state courts have overreacted to the decision, and in many instances are applying it indiscriminately

Zoning - Authority to Determine Situs of Schools

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that a statute investing school districts with the power to choose location of schools precludes townships from applying their zoning regulations to restrict construction of a school on a tract chosen by the school directors. Pernberton Appeal, 439 Pa. 249, 252 A.2d 597 (1969)

Simulating Binary Neutron Stars with Hybrid Equation of States: Gravitational Waves, Electromagnetic Signatures, and Challenges for Numerical Relativity

The gravitational wave and electromagnetic signatures connected to the merger of two neutron stars allow us to test the nature of matter at supranuclear densities. Since the Equation of State governing the interior of neutron stars is only loosely constrained, there is even the possibility that strange quark matter exists inside the core of neutron stars. We investigate how strange quark matter cores affect the binary neutron star coalescence by performing numerical relativity simulations. Interestingly, the strong phase transition can cause a reduction of the convergence order of the numerical schemes to first order if the numerical resolution is not high enough. Therefore, an additional challenge is added in producing high-quality gravitational wave templates for Equation of States with a strong phase transition. Focusing on one particular configuration of an equal mass configuration consistent with GW170817, we compute and discuss the associated gravitational wave signal and some of the electromagnetic counterparts connected to the merger of the two stars. We find that existing waveform approximants employed for the analysis of GW170817 allow describing this kind of systems within the numerical uncertainties, which, however, are several times larger than for pure hadronic Equation of States, which means that even higher resolutions have been employed for an accurate gravitational wave model comparison. We also show that for the chosen Equation of State, quasi-universal relations describing the gravitational wave emission after the moment of merger seem to hold and that the electromagnetic signatures connected to our chosen setup would not be bright enough to explain the kilonova associated to GW170817

Incorporating a radiative hydrodynamics scheme in the numerical-relativity code BAM

To study binary neutron star systems and to interpret observational data such as gravitational-wave and kilonova signals, one needs an accurate description of the processes that take place during the final stages of the coalescence, e.g., through numerical-relativity simulations. In this work, we present an updated version of the numerical-relativity code BAM in order to incorporate nuclear-theory based Equations of State and a simple description of neutrino interactions through a Neutrino Leakage Scheme. Different test simulations, for stars undergoing a neutrino-induced gravitational collapse and for binary neutron stars systems, validate our new implementation. For the binary neutron stars systems, we show that we can evolve stably and accurately distinct microphysical models employing the different equations of state: SFHo, DD2, and the hyperonic BHB$\Lambda \phi$. Overall, our test simulations have good agreement with those reported in the literature

Reducing the use of complex words and reducing sentence length to < 15 words improves readability of patient education materials regarding sports medicine knee injuries

"Sports-related knee injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) or meniscus tears are very common. Approximately 50% of internet users have reported using the internet to learn more information about a specific medical treatment or procedure. The internet’s usefulness is dependent not only on the content available to patients, but also the health literacy of the patient consuming the information. Poor health literacy is associated with poor outcomes. The NIH and AMA recommend that online patient resources be written at or below the sixth-grade reading level. Online PEMs in Orthopaedics have consistently been shown to be written above the NIH-recommended sixth-grade reading level to the detriment of patient health literacy. “A 2018 analysis of the readability of 39 AAOS Sports Med PEMs found that all PEMs were written above the 6th-grade reading level with 36% written above a 12th-grade reading level.” (PMID: 30480008) While many studies have suggested strategies to improve the readability of PEMs, literature describing the benefit of these proposed changes is scarce. The purpose of this study is to develop a standardized method to improve readability of Orthopaedic PEMs without diluting their critical content by reducing the use of complex words (> 3 syllables) and shortening sentence length to [less than] 15 words."--Introduction

High-accuracy high-mass ratio simulations for binary neutron stars and their comparison to existing waveform models

The subsequent observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network will likely provide us with various gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star systems. For an accurate interpretation of these detections, we need reliable gravitational-wave models. To test and to point out how existing models could be improved, we perform a set of high-resolution numerical-relativity simulations for four different physical setups with mass ratios $q$ = $1.25$, $1.50$, $1.75$, $2.00$, and total gravitational mass $M = 2.7M_\odot$ . Each configuration is simulated with five different resolutions to allow a proper error assessment. Overall, we find approximately 2nd order converging results for the dominant $(2,2)$, but also subdominant $(2,1)$, $(3,3)$, $(4,4)$ modes, while, generally, the convergence order reduces slightly for an increasing mass ratio. Our simulations allow us to validate waveform models, where we find generally good agreement between state-of-the-art models and our data, and to prove that scaling relations for higher modes currently employed for binary black hole waveform modeling also apply for the tidal contribution. Finally, we also test if the current NRTidal model to describe tidal effects is a valid description for high-mass ratio systems. We hope that our simulation results can be used to further improve and test waveform models in preparation for the next observing runs

Black-hole formation in binary neutron star mergers: The impact of spin on the prompt-collapse scenario

Accurate modeling of the multi-messenger signatures connected to binary neutron star mergers requires proper knowledge on the final remnant's fate and the conditions under which black holes (BHs) can form in such mergers. In this article, we use a suite of 84 numerical-relativity simulations in 28 different physical setups to explore the impact of the individual stars' spin on the merger outcome and on the early postmerger dynamics. We find that for setups close to the prompt-collapse threshold, the stars' intrinsic spin significantly changes the lifespan of the remnant before collapse and that the mass of the debris disk surrounding the BH is also altered. To enable a better understanding of BH formation, we check if there is at least a theoretical chance of observing densities that are above the maximum density allowed in a stable isolated neutron star, and we investigate the importance of different pressure contributions on the evolution of the postmerger remnant and BH formation

Back and Forth: Reverse Phase Transitions in Numerical Relativity Simulations

Multi-messenger observations of binary neutron star mergers provide a uniqueopportunity to constrain the dense-matter equation of state. Although it isknown from quantum chromodynamics that hadronic matter will undergo a phasetransition to exotic forms of matter, e.g., quark matter, the onset density ofsuch a phase transition cannot be computed from first principles. Hence, itremains an open question if such phase transitions occur inside isolatedneutron stars or during binary neutron star mergers, or if they appear at evenhigher densities that are not realized in the Cosmos. In this article, weperform numerical-relativity simulations of neutron-star mergers andinvestigate scenarios in which the onset density of such a phase transition isexceeded in at least one inspiralling binary component. Our simulations revealthat shortly before the merger it is possible that such stars undergo a"reverse phase transition", i.e., densities decrease and the quark core insidethe star disappears leaving a purely hadronic star at merger. After the merger,when densities increase once more, the phase transition occurs again and leads,in the cases considered in this work, to a rapid formation of a black hole. Wecompute the gravitational-wave signal and the mass ejection for our simulationsof such scenarios and find clear signatures that are related to the postmergerphase transition, e.g., smaller ejecta masses due to the softening of theequation of state through the quark core formation. Unfortunately, we do notfind measurable imprints of the reverse phase transition.<br