The Convention on Nuclear Safety: A Closer Look at Nuclear Accidents and Policy Decisions

The Convention on Nuclear Safety (CNS) proposed safety standards for land based nuclear power plants in response to widespread demand for standardized rules in the wake of the Chernobyl accident. This paper aims to analyze the determinants of countries’ ratification delay for the CNS using non-parametric estimates of the survival function. The current body of literature addresses either determinants of ratification of a multilateral environmental treaty, or an examination of the effectiveness of the CNS itself. However, there is little research done on the ratification delay of multilateral environmental treaties. This presentation will present these findings along with possible policy implications of the findings

Does Reading-While-Listening Enhance Students' Reading Fluency? Preliminary Results from School Experiments in Rural Uganda

Although studies on the effects of Reading While Listening (RWL) to audiobooks on students' reading fluency is limited, the available emerging literature consistently demonstrates its favourable contribution to improve reading fluency. Since improving fluency is an important instructional goal of primary schools, understanding the role of RWL to audiobooks in improving reading fluency is essential. The goal of the study was to assess the impact of RWL to audiobooks on reading fluency. To achieve this goal, we conducted a randomized controlled experiment using forty six students enrolled in grade 3 at Hadassa Primary School in rural Mbale, Uganda.The significance of the study underscores the current inefficiencies within classrooms globally and the ease with which simple interventions can be implemented to improve fluency.  Limitations of the study are discussed. Keywords: Reading While Listening (RWL); reading fluency; randomized control trial; The Walking School Bus; Uganda; audioboo

Ariel - Volume 9 Number 6

Executive Editor Seth B. Paul Associate Editor Warren J. Ventriglia Business Manager Fredric Jay Matlin University News John Patrick Welch World News George Robert Coar Editorials Editor Steve Levine Features Mark Rubin Sports Editor Eli Saleeby Photo Editor Ken Buckwalter Circulation Victor Onufreiczuk Lee Wugofski Graphics and Art Steve Hulkower Commons Editor Brenda Peterso

\u3cem\u3eDrosophila Unpaired\u3c/em\u3e Encodes a Secreted Protein that Activates the JAK Signaling Pathway

In vertebrates, many cytokines and growth factors have been identified as activators of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway. In Drosophila, JAK and STAT molecules have been isolated, but no ligands or receptors capable of activating the pathway have been described. We have characterized the unpaired (upd) gene, which displays the same distinctive embryonic mutant defects as mutations in the Drosophila JAK (hopscotch) and STAT (stat92E) genes. Upd is a secreted protein, associated with the extracellular matrix, that activates the JAK pathway. We propose that Upd is a ligand that relies on JAK signaling to stimulate transcription of pair-rule genes in a segmentally restricted manner in the early Drosophila embryo

Comment on studying the corrections to factorization in B -> D(*) X

We propose studying the mechanism of factorization in exclusive decays of the form B->D(*)X by examining the differential decay rate as a function of the invariant mass of the light hadronic state X. If factorization works primarily due to the large N_c limit then its accuracy is not expected to decrease as the X invariant mass increases. However, if factorization is mostly a consequence of perturbative QCD then the corrections should grow with the X invariant mass. Combining data for hadronic tau decays and semileptonic B decays allows tests of factorization to be made for a variety of final states. We discuss the examples of B->D^*\pi^+\pi^-\pi^-\pi^0 and B->D^*\omega\pi^-. The mode B->D^*\omega\pi^- will allow a precision study of the dependence of the corrections to factorization on the invariant mass of the light hadronic state.Comment: 7 pages, minor clarifications to tex

Ever Green: An Enduring System of Parks and Greenways in Detroit

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110956/1/ever_green.pd

Determining the Weak Phase γ\gamma From Charged BB Decays

A quadrangle relation is shown to be satisfied by the amplitudes for $B^+ \to \pi^0 K^+,~\pi^+ K^0,~\eta K^+$, and $\eta' K^+$. By comparison with the corresponding relation satisfied by $B^-$ decay amplitudes, it is shown that the relative phases of all the amplitudes can be determined up to discrete ambiguities. Making use of an SU(3) relation between amplitudes contributing to the above decays and those contributing to $B^{\pm} \to \pi^{\pm} \pi^0$, it is then shown that one can determine the weak phase $\gamma \equiv {\rm Arg} (V_{ub}^* V_{cb}/V_{us}^* V_{cs})$, where $V$ is the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix describing the charge-changing weak interactions between the quarks $(u,c,t)$ and $(d,s,b)$.Comment: 16 pages, latex, 7 uuencoded figure

Amplitude relations for BB decays involving η\eta and η′\eta'

A class of amplitude relations for decays of $B$ mesons is discussed. Processes involving $\eta$ and $\eta'$ in the final state are shown to provide useful information about weak phases in some cases even in the presence of octet-singlet mixing in these states. Some of the relations are unaffected by first-order SU(3) breaking.Comment: 7 pages, latex, 1 uuencoded figur

What is Microbial Dormancy?

Life can be stressful. One way to deal with stress is to simply wait it out. Microbes do this by entering a state of reduced activity and increased resistance commonly called ‘dormancy’. But what is dormancy? Different scientific disciplines emphasize distinct traits and phenotypic ranges in defining dormancy for their microbial species and system-specific questions of interest. Here, we propose a unified definition of microbial dormancy, using a broad framework to place earlier discipline-specific definitions in a new context. We then discuss how this new definition and framework may improve our ability to investigate dormancy using multi-omics tools. Finally, we leverage our framework to discuss the diversity of genomic mechanisms for dormancy in an extreme environment that challenges easy definitions – the permafrost