Vacation of Awards for Fraud, Bias, Misconduct and Partiality

The role of the arbitration process in today\u27s society is to supplant the often laborious and time consuming procedures of the courts with a more informal process wherein the parties to a controversy, by agreement, give one or more individuals effective power to render a decision on a particular matter, or on future controversies as they arise. In order that the grant of the power be effective, and that a resulting award be obeyed, the courts will generally enforce a properly made award without examination of the underlying issues or evidence of the controversy developed during the arbitration. Judicial prescriptions originally and, more recently, legislative prescriptions, have established limitations on the degree of informality with which an arbitration can be carried out. Minimum procedural safeguards have been established which must be followed in order for an arbitration to be valid. However, the parties may still alter these limits under the terms of the agreement, or by waiver while the arbitration is proceeding. The validity of an arbitration may be attacked at various stages of the proceedings by different methods. After an award is granted by the arbitrators it can be avoided on a number of grounds. This article deals with some of those grounds, namely fraud, bias, misconduct, and partiality

Factorization, Power Corrections, and the Pion Form Factor

This letter is an investigation of the pion form factor utilizing recently developed effective field theory techniques. The primary results reported are: Both the transition and electromagnetic form factors are corrected at order $\Lambda/Q$. However, these corrections only arise due to time ordered products which are sensitive to soft components of the pion. The usual higher twist wave function corrections contribute only at order $\Lambda^2/Q^2$, when the quark mass vanishes. In the case of the electromagnetic form factor the $\Lambda/Q$ power correction is enhanced by a power of $1/\alpha_s(Q)$ relative to the leading order result of Brodsky and Lepage, if the scale $\sqrt{\Lambda Q}$ is non-perturbative. This enhanced correction could explain the discrepancy with the data.Comment: Published, extended, versio

Noise spectra of an interacting quantum dot

We study the noise spectra of a many-level quantum dot coupled to two electron reservoirs, when interactions are taken into account only on the dot within the Hartree-Fock approximation. The dependence of the noise spectra on the interaction strength, the coupling to the leads, and the chemical potential is derived. For zero bias and zero temperature, we find that as a function of the (external) frequency, the noise exhibits steps and dips at frequencies reflecting the internal structure of the energy levels on the dot. Modifications due to a finite bias and finite temperatures are investigated for a non-interacting two-level dot. Possible relations to experiments are pointed out.Comment: Added reference

Affirmative Action in Law School Admissions: What Do Racial Preferences Do?

The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that race-based preferences in public university admissions are constitutional. But debates over the wisdom of affirmative action continue. Opponents of these policies argue that preferences are detrimental to minority students -- that by placing these students in environments that are too competitive, affirmative action hurts their academic and career outcomes. This article examines the so-called "mismatch" hypothesis in the context of law school admissions. We discuss the existing scholarship on mismatch, identifying methodological limitations of earlier attempts to measure the effects of affirmative action. Using a simpler, more robust analytical strategy, we find that the data are inconsistent with large mismatch effects, particularly with respect to employment outcomes. While moderate mismatch effects are possible, they are concentrated among the students with the weakest entering academic credentials. To put our estimates in context, we simulate admissions under race-blind rules. Eliminating affirmative action would dramatically reduce the number of black law students, particularly at the most selective schools. Many potentially successful black law students would be excluded, far more than the number who would be induced to pass the bar exam by the elimination of mismatch effects. Accordingly, we find that eliminating affirmative action would dramatically reduce the production of black lawyers.

Effective field theory approach to Casimir interactions on soft matter surfaces

We utilize an effective field theory approach to calculate Casimir interactions between objects bound to thermally fluctuating fluid surfaces or interfaces. This approach circumvents the complicated constraints imposed by such objects on the functional integration measure by reverting to a point particle representation. To capture the finite size effects, we perturb the Hamiltonian by DH that encapsulates the particles' response to external fields. DH is systematically expanded in a series of terms, each of which scales homogeneously in the two power counting parameters: \lambda \equiv R/r, the ratio of the typical object size (R) to the typical distance between them (r), and delta=kB T/k, where k is the modulus characterizing the surface energy. The coefficients of the terms in DH correspond to generalized polarizabilities and thus the formalism applies to rigid as well as deformable objects. Singularities induced by the point particle description can be dealt with using standard renormalization techniques. We first illustrate and verify our approach by re-deriving known pair forces between circular objects bound to films or membranes. To demonstrate its efficiency and versatility, we then derive a number of new results: The triplet interactions present in these systems, a higher order correction to the film interaction, and general scaling laws for the leading order interaction valid for objects of arbitrary shape and internal flexibility.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Towers of Gravitational Theories

In this essay we introduce a theoretical framework designed to describe black hole dynamics. The difficulties in understanding such dynamics stems from the proliferation of scales involved when one attempts to simultaneously describe all of the relevant dynamical degrees of freedom. These range from the modes that describe the black hole horizon, which are responsible for dissipative effects, to the long wavelength gravitational radiation that drains mechanical energy from macroscopic black hole bound states. We approach the problem from a Wilsonian point of view, by building a tower of theories of gravity each of which is valid at different scales. The methodology leads to multiple new results in diverse topics including phase transitions of Kaluza-Klein black holes and the interactions of spinning black hole in non-relativistic orbits. Moreover, our methods tie together speculative ideas regarding dualities for black hole horizons to real physical measurements in gravitational wave detectors.Comment: Awarded second prize for 2006 Gravity Research Foundation essay contes

Degeneration and impaired regeneration of gray matter oligodendrocytes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Oligodendrocytes associate with axons to establish myelin and provide metabolic support to neurons. In the spinal cord of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mice, oligodendrocytes downregulate transporters that transfer glycolytic substrates to neurons and oligodendrocyte progenitors (NG2(+) cells) exhibit enhanced proliferation and differentiation, although the cause of these changes in oligodendroglia is unknown. We found extensive degeneration of gray matter oligodendrocytes in the spinal cord of SOD1 (G93A) ALS mice prior to disease onset. Although new oligodendrocytes were formed, they failed to mature, resulting in progressive demyelination. Oligodendrocyte dysfunction was also prevalent in human ALS, as gray matter demyelination and reactive changes in NG2(+) cells were observed in motor cortex and spinal cord of ALS patients. Selective removal of mutant SOD1 from oligodendroglia substantially delayed disease onset and prolonged survival in ALS mice, suggesting that ALS-linked genes enhance the vulnerability of motor neurons and accelerate disease by directly impairing the function of oligodendrocytes