[Review of] Francis Paul Prucha, Indian-White Relations in the United States: A Bibliography of Works Published, 1975-1980

This volume is the long-awaited supplement to Francis Paul Prucha\u27s Bibliographical Guide to the History of Indian-White Relations in the United States, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1977. That work, which contained 9705 items, was complete to 1975. The supplement, with 3400 titles, covers the historical literature made available between 1975 and 1980. Organized into fifteen subject divisions and excellently cross-referenced with a thirty-six page index, the supplement continues the same high quality of Prucha\u27s previous efforts to bring some useable order to the bewildering complexity of American Indian historiography

Small representations, string instantons, and Fourier modes of Eisenstein series (with an appendix by D. Ciubotaru and P. Trapa)

This paper concerns some novel features of maximal parabolic Eisenstein series at certain special values of their analytic parameter s. These series arise as coefficients in the R4 and D4R4 interactions in the low energy expansion of scattering amplitudes in maximally supersymmetric string theory reduced to D=10-d dimensions on a torus T^d, d<8. For each d these amplitudes are automorphic functions on the rank d+1 symmetry group E_d+1. Of particular significance is the orbit content of the Fourier modes of these series when expanded in three different parabolic subgroups, corresponding to certain limits of string theory. This is of interest in the classification of a variety of instantons that correspond to minimal or next-to-minimal BPS orbits. In the limit of decompactification from D to D+1 dimensions many such instantons are related to charged 1/2-BPS or 1/4-BPS black holes with euclidean world-lines wrapped around the large dimension. In a different limit the instantons give nonperturbative corrections to string perturbation theory, while in a third limit they describe nonperturbative contributions in eleven-dimensional supergravity. A proof is given that these three distinct Fourier expansions have certain vanishing coefficients that are expected from string theory. In particular, the Eisenstein series for these special values of s have markedly fewer Fourier coefficients than typical ones. The corresponding mathematics involves showing that the wavefront sets of the Eisenstein series are supported on only certain coadjoint nilpotent orbits - just the minimal and trivial orbits in the 1/2-BPS case, and just the next-to-minimal, minimal and trivial orbits in the 1/4-BPS case. Thus as a byproduct we demonstrate that the next-to-minimal representations occur automorphically for E6, E7, and E8, and hence the first two nontrivial low energy coefficients are exotic theta-functions.Comment: v3: 127 pp. Minor changes. Final version to appear in the Special Issue in honor of Professor Steve Ralli

The Schizophrenia of Risk-Benefit Analysis in Design Defect Litigation

To employ a well-worn, but nevertheless appropriate cliche, it is a genuine honor to participate in the Vanderbilt Law Review\u27s memorial to Dean John Wade. Wade stands tall as a leading figure of legal academe in the twentieth century. While I have profited from many illuminating hours with his scholarship, I regret that my association with him personally was limited to one lengthy luncheon meeting, still vivid, despite the passage of many years. I still recall his kindliness and gentility, his dry, but very real sense of humor, his humility and vigilance in avoiding taking himself too seriously, his thoughtfulness and deliberation in making judgments, his care and rigor in the process, but always accompanied by an overarching civility. When I discovered the epigraph above-in a tribute penned by Wade himself---it reflected the impression I had formed of this great man. He loved trouthe, honour, fredon, and curteisie. Worthy and wys, yet meeke as a mayde seem to capture exactly the right image. Dean John Wade was a verray, parfit gentil knyght