Remote Sensing of Giant Reed with QuickBird Satellite Imagery

QuickBird high resolution (2.8 m) satellite imagery was evaluated for distinguishing giant reed ( Arundo donax L.) infestations along the Rio Grande in southwest Texas. (PDF has 5 pages.

Commentary: Challenging Three Electoral College Indictments

On the day the Electoral College met and elected Donald J. Trump the 45th president of the United States, the New York Times editorial board published a scathing attack on the Electoral College as an antiquated mechanism which overwhelming majorities of Americans would prefer to eliminate in favor of a direct national popular vote. [excerpt

Strong-coupling scales and the graph structure of multi-gravity theories

In this paper we consider how the strong-coupling scale, or perturbative cutoff, in a multi-gravity theory depends upon the presence and structure of interactions between the different fields. This can elegantly be rephrased in terms of the size and structure of the `theory graph' which depicts the interactions in a given theory. We show that the question can be answered in terms of the properties of various graph-theoretical matrices, affording an efficient way to estimate and place bounds on the strong-coupling scale of a given theory. In light of this we also consider the problem of relating a given theory graph to a discretised higher dimensional theory, a la dimensional deconstruction.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures; v2: additional references included, and minor typos corrected; version published in JHE

Commentary: California Secessionists Channel Logic of Southern Slaveholders

\u27Thursday night the streets were filled with excited crowds. No one talks of anything but the necessity for prompt action. . . . It is hardly prudent for any man to express his opinion adverse to immediate secession, so heated are the public passions, so intolerant of restraint is the popular will. You would probably assume that this report came from California in the wake of the 2016 election, right? After all, Alex Padilla, the California secretary of state, has now authorized the Yes California Independence Campaign to begin collecting signatures for a state referendum on California\u27s secession from the United States. [excerpt

The decoupling limit of Multi-Gravity: Multi-Galileons, Dualities and More

In this paper we investigate the decoupling limit of a particular class of multi-gravity theories, i.e. of theories of interacting spin-2 fields. We explicitly compute the interactions of helicity-0 modes in this limit, showing that they take on the form of multi-Galileons and dual forms. In the process we extend the recently discovered Galileon dualities, deriving a set of new multi-Galileon dualities. These are also intrinsically connected to healthy, but higher-derivative, multi-scalar field theories akin to `beyond Horndeski' models.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figure

In Defense of the Electoral College

There is hardly anything in the Constitution harder to explain, or easier to misunderstand, than the Electoral College. And when a presidential election hands the palm to a candidate who comes in second in the popular vote but first in the Electoral College tally, something deep in our democratic viscera balks and asks why the Electoral College shouldn’t be dumped as a useless relic of 18th century white, gentry privilege. Actually, there have been only five occasions when a closely divided popular vote and the electoral vote have failed to point in the same direction. No matter. After last week’s results, we’re hearing a litany of complaints: the Electoral College is undemocratic, the Electoral College is unnecessary, the Electoral College was invented to protect slavery — and the demand to push it down the memory hole. (excerpt

Commentary: Will the Courts Make Trump\u27s Presidency Less Imperial?

Nearly three months ago, Donald Trump assumed a presidency that, for more than a century, had grown seemingly endless discretionary powers. And he did so in company with Republican majorities in Congress and in 32 state legislatures -- all of which should have made his decisions unassailable. Instead, he has been stymied and embarrassed by resistance from a federal judiciary that has twice halted executive orders on the most prominent issue of his presidential campaign. So, will the federal judiciary become the wall against which Trump bleeds away the power not just of his own presidency but of the “imperial presidency” we have watched a-building since the days of Teddy Roosevelt? [excerpt

Probing the environment of emerin by Enhanced ascorbate peroxidase 2 (APEX2)-mediated proximity labeling.

Emerin is one of the best characterized proteins of the inner nuclear membrane, but can also occur at the level of the endoplasmic reticulum. We now use enhanced ascorbate peroxidase 2 (APEX2) to probe the environment of emerin. APEX2 can be used as a genetic tag that produces short-lived yet highly reactive biotin species, allowing the modification of proteins that interact with or are in very close proximity to the tagged protein. Biotinylated proteins can be isolated using immobilized streptavidin and analyzed by mass spectrometry. As an alternative to the standard approach with a genetic fusion of APEX2 to emerin, we also used RAPIDS (rapamycin- and APEX-dependent identification of proteins by SILAC), a method with improved specificity, where the peroxidase interacts with the protein of interest (i.e., emerin) only upon addition of rapamycin to the cells. We compare these different approaches, which, together, identify well-known interaction partners of emerin like lamin A and the lamina associated polypeptide 1 (LAP1), as well as novel proximity partners