Rejection of the Impossibility Theorem for Theory X

The principal aims of population axiology are to increase the wellbeing of everyone, to prevent the suffering of future generations, and to make everyone more equal in these respects. A crisis in the pursuit of these goals came when Derek Parfit (1984) suggested that they inevitably result in a repugnant conclusion, that for any happy world, a miserable world of people whose lives were just barely worth living would be better, were it sufficiently populous. Since then, Gustaf Arrhenius (2000) has shown that these same principles also lead to a sadistic conclusion, that it can be better to add people with negative welfare rather than positive welfare when adding people without affecting the original people’s welfare. What is more, he showed that there is no welfarist axiology that satisfies these three principles and yet avoids the repugnant conclusion. He called this the impossibility theorem for Theory X. This essay maintains that the ninth premiss of the impossibility theorem contains an invalid inference, and therefore presents a disproof of the theorem

Forest Charges and Trusts: Shared Benefits with Clear Responsibilities

This paper examines the Community-Based Forest Management Program (CBFM) and Industrial Forest Management Agreements (IFMA) within the context of efficient forest management. Investigation on ways of accomplishing the objectives of the agency, community and commercial forestry in decreased costs is conducted. Results show a need for DENR’s redirection of financial and human resources to focus on critical environmental tasks. Focus on higher-value timber opportunities can increase the potential for sustainable management and increase in the government revenue collection.forestry sector, rent and fee

Forest Charges and Trusts: Shared Benefits with Clear Responsibilities

This paper examines the Community-Based Forest Management Program (CBFM) and Industrial Forest Management Agreements (IFMA) within the context of efficient forest management. Investigation on ways of accomplishing the objectives of the agency, community and commercial forestry in decreased costs is conducted. Results show a need for DENR’s redirection of financial and human resources to focus on critical environmental tasks. Focus on higher-value timber opportunities can increase the potential for sustainable management and increase in the government revenue collection.forestry sector, rent and fee

Making Open Access Viable Economically

The Editors-in-Chief have decided that we will provide our much-cherished readers with an editorial every so often as a way of sharing insights from the “machine room” where so much of the thinking and work is done to publish the German Law Journal. We want to let you in on the ideas that are on our minds, share with you our observations, and include you in the conversations we are having that might be of interest to you. We begin this tradition with this issue, Volume 21 – Number 6. Andrew Hyde, a member of the editorial team with which the Journal has partnered at Cambridge University Press, as well as Russell A. Miller and Emanuel V. Towfigh, two of the Journal’s co-Editors-in-Chief, open our From the Headquarters Essay with a piece on the Journal’s experiences with and its further plans for making open-access (OA) publishing economically viable. Related to that theme, we also want to share news with you about the introduction of a voluntary article processing charge this fall. Finally, we want to draw your attention to a videos and podcasts service we will start to produce to accompany the scholarship published in the Journal as a way of promoting our authors’ work and expanding access to their ideas. If you are interested only in these latter initiatives, you can also read the short section in the GLJ Instructions for Authors

Determination of the levitation limits of dust particles within the sheath in complex plasma experiments

Experiments are performed in which dust particles are levitated at varying heights above the powered electrode in a RF plasma discharge by changing the discharge power. The trajectories of particles dropped from the top of the discharge chamber are used to reconstruct the vertical electric force acting on the particles. The resulting data, together with the results from a selfconsistent fluid model, are used to determine the lower levitation limit for dust particles in the discharge and the approximate height above the lower electrode where quasineutrality is attained, locating the sheath edge. These results are then compared with current sheath models. It is also shown that particles levitated within a few electron Debye lengths of the sheath edge are located outside the linearly increasing portion of the electric field

ESTIMATING THE VALUE OF BT CORN: A MULTI-STATE COMPARISON

Bt corn offers a powerful tool to control European corn borers and some other pests. Because pest infestations and farming practices differ across the Corn Belt, economic benefits also differ. This research estimates the value of Bt corn across the Corn Belt. Results identify areas where Bt adoption is economically justified.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Polarized light ions and spectator nucleon tagging at EIC

An Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with suitable forward detection capabilities would enable a unique experimental program of deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) from polarized light nuclei (deuterium 2H, helium 3He) with spectator nucleon tagging. Such measurements promise significant advances in several key areas of nuclear physics and QCD: (a) neutron spin structure, by using polarized deuterium and eliminating nuclear effects through on-shell extrapolation in the spectator proton momentum; (b) quark/gluon structure of the bound nucleon at x > 0.1 and the dynamical mechanisms acting on it, by measuring the spectator momentum dependence of nuclear structure functions; (c) coherent effects in QCD, by exploring shadowing in tagged DIS on deuterium at x << 0.1. The JLab MEIC design (CM energy sqrt{s} = 15-50 GeV/nucleon, luminosity ~ 10^{34} cm^{-2} s^{-1}) provides polarized deuterium beams and excellent coverage and resolution for forward spectator tagging. We summarize the physics topics, the detector and beam requirements for spectator tagging, and on-going R&D efforts.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Prepared for proceedings of DIS 2014, XXII. International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects, University of Warsaw, Poland, April 28 - May 2, 201

Wave Optics Approach to Solar Cell BRDF Modeling with Experimental Results

Light curve analysis is often used to discern information about satellites in geosynchronous orbits. Solar panels, comprising a large part of the satellite’s body, contribute significantly to these light curves. Historically, theoretical bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) have failed to capture key features in the scattered light from solar panels. In recently published work, a new solar cell BRDF was developed by combining specular microfacet and “two-slit” diffraction terms to capture specular and periodic/array scattering, respectively. This BRDF was experimentally motivated and predicted many features of the solar cell scattered irradiance. However, the experiments that informed the BRDF were limited to a single laser wavelength, single beam size, and single solar cell sample. In addition, the BRDF was not physics based and therefore, physical insight into what causes certain features in the scattered irradiance was not evident. In this work, we examine solar cell scattering from first principles and derive a simple physics-based expression for the scattered irradiance. We analyze this expression and physically link terms to important scattering features, e.g., out-of-plane phenomena. In addition, we compare our model with experimental data and find good agreement in the locations and behaviors of these features. Our new model, being more predictive by nature, will allow for greater flexibility and accuracy when modeling reflection from solar cells in both real-world and experimental situations

The norovirus NS3 protein is a dynamic lipid- and microtubule-associated protein involved in viral RNA replication

Norovirus (NoV) infections are a significant health burden to society, yet the lack of reliable tissue culture systems has hampered the development of appropriate antiviral therapies. Here we show that the NoV NS3 protein, derived from murine NoV (MNV), is intimately associated with the MNV replication complex and the viral replication intermediate double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). We observed that when expressed individually, MNV NS3 and NS3 encoded by human Norwalk virus (NV) induced the formation of distinct vesicle-like structures that did not colocalize with any particular protein markers to cellular organelles but localized to cellular membranes, in particular those with a high cholesterol content. Both proteins also showed some degree of colocalization with the cytoskeleton marker β-tubulin. Although the distribution of MNV and NV NS3s were similar, NV NS3 displayed a higher level of colocalization with the Golgi apparatus and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). However, we observed that although both proteins colocalized in membranes counterstained with filipin, an indicator of cholesterol content, MNV NS3 displayed a greater association with flotillin and stomatin, proteins known to associate with sphingolipid- and cholesterol-rich microdomains. Utilizing time-lapse epifluorescence microscopy, we observed that the membrane-derived vesicular structures induced by MNV NS3 were highly motile and dynamic in nature, and their movement was dependent on intact microtubules. These results begin to interrogate the functions of NoV proteins during virus replication and highlight the conserved properties of the NoV NS3 proteins among the seven Norovirus genogroups