REVERSAL OF POLICY: THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE AND DEFENSE, AND THE ARMING OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, 1946-1955

Between 1946 and 1950, the U.S. State Department repeatedly expressed its determination to keep Germany disarmed and demilitarized and offered pledges regarding the extended presence of U.S. troops in Western Europe. At the same time, and initially unbeknownst to the State Department, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were making plans to arm Germany in response to the growing Soviet threat to Western Europe. In September 1950, in reaction to the communist invasion of South Korea that had prompted fears the same would happen in Germany, the United States decided to arm the Federal Republic of Germany. Although coupled with a pledge to increase the number of U.S. troops in Europe, the U.S. decision resulted in a number of unintended consequences including a Congressional challenge to Presidential power, opposition by and discord among U.S. Allies, loss of control over the rearmament process, and the establishment of a new set of relations with its erstwhile enemy. While the actual outcome of that 1950 decision was positive, i.e., the arming of the Federal Republic of Germany was approved, the creation of a national German army was not what official U.S. policy had intended

Shape, shear and flexion II - Quantifying the flexion formalism for extended sources with the ray-bundle method

Flexion-based weak gravitational lensing analysis is proving to be a useful adjunct to traditional shear-based techniques. As flexion arises from gradients across an image, analytic and numerical techniques are required to investigate flexion predictions for extended image/source pairs. Using the Schwarzschild lens model, we demonstrate that the ray-bundle method for gravitational lensing can be used to accurately recover second flexion, and is consistent with recovery of zero first flexion. Using lens plane to source plane bundle propagation, we find that second flexion can be recovered with an error no worse than 1% for bundle radii smaller than {\Delta}{\theta} = 0.01 {\theta}_E and lens plane impact pararameters greater than {\theta}_E + {\Delta}{\theta}, where {\theta}_E is the angular Einstein radius. Using source plane to lens plane bundle propagation, we demonstrate the existence of a preferred flexion zone. For images at radii closer to the lens than the inner boundary of this zone, indicative of the true strong lensing regime, the flexion formalism should be used with caution (errors greater than 5% for extended image/source pairs). We also define a shear zone boundary, beyond which image shapes are essentially indistinguishable from ellipses (1% error in ellipticity). While suggestive that a traditional weak lensing analysis is satisfactory beyond this boundary, a potentially detectable non-zero flexion signal remains.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

A 3-player protocol preventing persistence in strategic contention with limited feedback

In this paper, we study contention resolution protocols from a game-theoretic perspective. In a recent work, we considered acknowledgment-based protocols, where a user gets feedback from the channel only when she attempts transmission. In this case she will learn whether her transmission was successful or not. One of the main results of ESA2016 was that no acknowledgment-based protocol can be in equilibrium. In fact, it seems that many natural acknowledgment-based protocols fail to prevent users from unilaterally switching to persistent protocols that always transmit with probability 1. It is therefore natural to ask how powerful a protocol must be so that it can beat persistent deviators. In this paper we consider age-based protocols, which can be described by a sequence of probabilities of transmitting in each time step. Those probabilities are given beforehand and do not change based on the transmission history. We present a 3-player age-based protocol that can prevent users from unilaterally deviating to a persistent protocol in order to decrease their expected transmission time. It is worth noting that the answer to this question does not follow from the results and proof ideas of ESA2016. Our protocol is non-trivial, in the sense that, when all players use it, finite expected transmission time is guaranteed. In fact, we show that this protocol is preferable to any deadline protocol in which, after some fixed time, attempt transmission with probability 1 in every subsequent step. An advantage of our protocol is that it is very simple to describe, and users only need a counter to keep track of time. Whether there exist $n$-player age-based protocols that do not use counters and can prevent persistence is left as an open problem for future research.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1606.0658

Fate of lesion-related side branches after coronary artery stenting

AbstractObjectives. The aim of this study was to assess the immediate and long-term patency of lesion-associated side branches after coronary artery stenting.Background. The possible adverse effects related to implantation of coronary stents are not completely known. An important potential complication of stenting is side branch occlusion due to mechanical obstruction or thrombosis.Methods. Serial coronary angiography was performed in 153 patients (167 lesions) at baseline, after conventional balloon angioplasty, immediately after Palmaz-Schatz stent placement and at 6 months. The patency of side branches, where present, was analysed at each of these points.Results. Of 167 lesions stented, 57 stent placements spanned 66 side branches with a diameter ≥1 mm. Twenty-seven (41%) of these side branches had ≥50% ostial stenosis before standard balloon angioplasty. Six side branches became occluded after standard balloon angioplasty and remained occluded after stenting. Of the 60 side branches patent after conventional angioplasty, 57 (95%) remained patent immediately after stenting. All three side branches that became occluded after stenting had ≥50% ostial stenosis at baseline. All 60 side branches, including the 3 initially occluded after stenting, were patent at 6-month follow-up.Conclusions. These findings demonstrate that 1) acute side branch occlusion due to coronary stenting occurs infrequently; 2) when side branch occlusion occurs, it is associated with intrinsic ostial disease; and 3) the patency of side branch ostia is well maintained at long-term follow-up

Measurement of halo properties with weak lensing shear and flexion

We constrain properties of cluster haloes by performing likelihood analysis using lensing shear and flexion data. We test our analysis using two mock cluster haloes: an isothermal ellipsoid (SIE) model and a more realistic elliptical Navarro-Frenk-White (eNFW) model. For both haloes, we find that flexion is more sensitive to the halo ellipticity than shear. The introduction of flexion information significantly improves the constraints on halo ellipticity, orientation and mass. We also point out that there is a degeneracy between the mass and the ellipticity of SIE models in the lensing signal.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, MNRAS accepte

Analytic models of plausible gravitational lens potentials

Gravitational lenses on galaxy scales are plausibly modelled as having ellipsoidal symmetry and a universal dark matter density profile, with a Sersic profile to describe the distribution of baryonic matter. Predicting all lensing effects requires knowledge of the total lens potential: in this work we give analytic forms for that of the above hybrid model. Emphasising that complex lens potentials can be constructed from simpler components in linear combination, we provide a recipe for attaining elliptical symmetry in either projected mass or lens potential. We also provide analytic formulae for the lens potentials of Sersic profiles for integer and half-integer index. We then present formulae describing the gravitational lensing effects due to smoothly-truncated universal density profiles in cold dark matter model. For our isolated haloes the density profile falls off as radius to the minus fifth or seventh power beyond the tidal radius, functional forms that allow all orders of lens potential derivatives to be calculated analytically, while ensuring a non-divergent total mass. We show how the observables predicted by this profile differ from that of the original infinite-mass NFW profile. Expressions for the gravitational flexion are highlighted. We show how decreasing the tidal radius allows stripped haloes to be modelled, providing a framework for a fuller investigation of dark matter substructure in galaxies and clusters. Finally we remark on the need for finite mass halo profiles when doing cosmological ray-tracing simulations, and the need for readily-calculable higher order derivatives of the lens potential when studying catastrophes in strong lenses.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, matches published versio

Gravitational Lensing

Gravitational lensing has developed into one of the most powerful tools for the analysis of the dark universe. This review summarises the theory of gravitational lensing, its main current applications and representative results achieved so far. It has two parts. In the first, starting from the equation of geodesic deviation, the equations of thin and extended gravitational lensing are derived. In the second, gravitational lensing by stars and planets, galaxies, galaxy clusters and large-scale structures is discussed and summarised.Comment: Invited review article to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity, 85 pages, 15 figure

Results of Prevention of REStenosis with Tranilast and its Outcomes (PRESTO) trial

BACKGROUND: Restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a major problem affecting 15% to 30% of patients after stent placement. No oral agent has shown a beneficial effect on restenosis or on associated major adverse cardiovascular events. In limited trials, the oral agent tranilast has been shown to decrease the frequency of angiographic restenosis after PCI. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of tranilast (300 and 450 mg BID for 1 or 3 months), 11 484 patients were enrolled. Enrollment and drug were initiated within 4 hours after successful PCI of at least 1 vessel. The primary end point was the first occurrence of death, myocardial infarction, or ischemia-driven target vessel revascularization within 9 months and was 15.8% in the placebo group and 15.5% to 16.1% in the tranilast groups (P=0.77 to 0.81). Myocardial infarction was the only component of major adverse cardiovascular events to show some evidence of a reduction with tranilast (450 mg BID for 3 months): 1.1% versus 1.8% with placebo (P=0.061 for intent-to-treat population). The primary reason for not completing treatment was > or =1 hepatic laboratory test abnormality (11.4% versus 0.2% with placebo, P<0.01). In the angiographic substudy composed of 2018 patients, minimal lumen diameter (MLD) was measured by quantitative coronary angiography. At follow-up, MLD was 1.76+/-0.77 mm in the placebo group, which was not different from MLD in the tranilast groups (1.72 to 1.78+/-0.76 to 80 mm, P=0.49 to 0.89). In a subset of these patients (n=1107), intravascular ultrasound was performed at follow-up. Plaque volume was not different between the placebo and tranilast groups (39.3 versus 37.5 to 46.1 mm(3), respectively; P=0.16 to 0.72). CONCLUSIONS: Tranilast does not improve the quantitative measures of restenosis (angiographic and intravascular ultrasound) or its clinical sequelae

Personality Traits and Personal Values:A Meta-Analysis

Personality traits and personal values are important psychological characteristics, serving as important predictors of many outcomes. Yet, they are frequently studied separately, leaving the field with a limited understanding of their relationships. We review existing perspectives regarding the nature of the relationships between traits and values and provide a conceptual underpinning for understanding the strength of these relationships. Using 60 studies, we present a meta-analysis of the relationships between the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits and the Schwartz values, and demonstrate consistent and theoretically meaningful relationships. However, these relationships were not generally large, demonstrating that traits and values are distinct constructs. We find support for our premise that more cognitively based traits are more strongly related to values and more emotionally based traits are less strongly related to values. Findings also suggest that controlling for personal scale-use tendencies in values is advisable