Structural Analogs of the Milky Way Galaxy: Stellar Populations in the Boxy Bulges of NGC 4565 and NGC 5746

We present NGC 4565 and NGC 5746 as structural analogs of our Milky Way. All three are giant, SBb - SBbc galaxies with two pseudobulges, i. e., a compact, disky, star-forming pseudobulge embedded in a vertically thick, "red and dead", boxy pseudobulge that really is a bar seen almost end-on. The stars in the boxy bulge of our Milky Way are old and enhanced in alpha elements, indicating that star formation finished within ~ 1 Gyr of when it started. Here, we present Hobby-Eberly Telescope spectroscopy of the boxy pseudobulges of NGC 4565 and NGC 5746 and show that they also are made of old and alpha-element-enhanced stars. Evidently it is not rare that the formation of stars that now live in bars finished quickly and early, even in galaxies of intermediate Hubble types whose disks still form stars now. Comparison of structural component parameters leads us to suggest that NGC 4565 and NGC 5746 are suitable analogs of the Milky Way, because they show signatures of similar evolution processes.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 postscript table, accepted by ApJ after tweaks in response to referee and after improving notation in figures; no conclusions change

Visual stimulation of saccades in magnetically tethered Drosophila

Flying fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, perform `body saccades', in which they change heading by about 90° in roughly 70 ms. In free flight, visual expansion can evoke saccades, and saccade-like turns are triggered by similar stimuli in tethered flies. However, because the fictive turns in rigidly tethered flies follow a much longer time course, the extent to which these two behaviors share a common neural basis is unknown. A key difference between tethered and free flight conditions is the presence of additional sensory cues in the latter, which might serve to modify the time course of the saccade motor program. To study the role of sensory feedback in saccades, we have developed a new preparation in which a fly is tethered to a fine steel pin that is aligned within a vertically oriented magnetic field, allowing it to rotate freely around its yaw axis. In this experimental paradigm, flies perform rapid turns averaging 35° in 80 ms, similar to the kinematics of free flight saccades. Our results indicate that tethered and free flight saccades share a common neural basis, but that the lack of appropriate feedback signals distorts the behavior performed by rigidly fixed flies. Using our new paradigm, we also investigated the features of visual stimuli that elicit saccades. Our data suggest that saccades are triggered when expanding objects reach a critical threshold size, but that their timing depends little on the precise time course of expansion. These results are consistent with expansion detection circuits studied in other insects, but do not exclude other models based on the integration of local movement detectors

Educational Mismatch Among Ph.D.s: Determinants and Consequences

Using the Survey of Doctoral Recipients, the magnitude and consequences of job mismatch are estimated for Ph.D.s in science. Approximately one-sixth of academics and nearly one-half of nonacademics report some degree of mismatch. The influence of job mismatch is estimated for three job outcomes: earnings, job satisfaction and turnover. Surprisingly large and robust influences emerge. Mismatch is associated with substantially lower earnings, lower job satisfaction and a higher rate of turnover. These results persist across a variety of specifications and hold for both academics and nonacademics. Estimates of the determinants of mismatch indicate that older workers and those in rapidly changing disciplines are more likely to be mismatched and there is a suggestion that women are more likely to be mismatched.

Dual representations for general multiple stopping problems

In this paper, we study the dual representation for generalized multiple stopping problems, hence the pricing problem of general multiple exercise options. We derive a dual representation which allows for cashflows which are subject to volume constraints modeled by integer valued adapted processes and refraction periods modeled by stopping times. As such, this extends the works by Schoenmakers (2010), Bender (2011a), Bender (2011b), Aleksandrov and Hambly (2010), and Meinshausen and Hambly (2004) on multiple exercise options, which either take into consideration a refraction period or volume constraints, but not both simultaneously. We also allow more flexible cashflow structures than the additive structure in the above references. For example some exponential utility problems are covered by our setting. We supplement the theoretical results with an explicit Monte Carlo algorithm for constructing confidence intervals for the price of multiple exercise options and exemplify it by a numerical study on the pricing of a swing option in an electricity market.Comment: This is an updated version of WIAS preprint 1665, 23 November 201

Bulgeless Giant Galaxies Challenge our Picture of Galaxy Formation by Hierarchical Clustering

We dissect giant Sc-Scd galaxies with Hubble Space Telescope photometry and Hobby-Eberly Telescope spectroscopy. We use HET's High Resolution Spectrograph (resolution = 15,000) to measure stellar velocity dispersions in the nuclear star clusters and pseudobulges of the pure-disk galaxies M33, M101, NGC 3338, NGC 3810, NGC 6503, and NGC 6946. We conclude: (1) Upper limits on the masses of any supermassive black holes are MBH <= (2.6+-0.5) * 10**6 M_Sun in M101 and MBH <= (2.0+-0.6) * 10**6 M_Sun in NGC 6503. (2) HST photometry shows that the above galaxies contain tiny pseudobulges that make up <~ 3 % of the stellar mass but no classical bulges. We inventory a sphere of radius 8 Mpc centered on our Galaxy to see whether giant, pure-disk galaxies are common or rare. In this volume, 11 of 19 galaxies with rotation velocity > 150 km/s show no evidence for a classical bulge. Four may contain small classical bulges that contribute 5-12% of the galaxy light. Only 4 of the 19 giant galaxies are ellipticals or have classical bulges that contribute 1/3 of the galaxy light. So pure-disk galaxies are far from rare. It is hard to understand how they could form as the quiescent tail of a distribution of merger histories. Recognition of pseudobulges makes the biggest problem with cold dark matter galaxy formation more acute: How can hierarchical clustering make so many giant, pure-disk galaxies with no evidence for merger-built bulges? This problem depends strongly on environment: the Virgo cluster is not a puzzle, because >2/3 of its stellar mass is in merger remnants.Comment: 28 pages, 16 Postscript figures, 2 tables; requires emulateapj.sty and apjfonts.sty; accepted for publication in ApJ; for a version with full resolution figures, see http://chandra.as.utexas.edu/~kormendy/kdbc.pd

State Crypto Regulation: Competing Priorities Shaping Different Outcomes

“Cryptomania” is approaching fever pitch. Public officials, practitioners, and investors alike are becoming convinced that what began as a thought experiment has given rise to a full-fledged movement that is here to stay. This movement could potentially transform the modern financial system as we know it. Today, crypto assets and related platforms are increasingly being adopted to store, secure, and transmit massive amounts of monetary value worldwide. Enforcement agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission have ventured into the fray by employing existing legal regimes to regulate in this new frontier. At the same time, individual states have been at the forefront of enacting new laws to address crypto and blockchain technology. Regulation can shape outcomes for any new industry. This article focuses on legislation in three states at the forefront of regulating digital assets—New York, Washington, and Wyoming. Each state has adopted different approaches ranging from liberal to stringent. Examining each approach can help facilitate an informed discussion about the best way to regulate the area in the future

Performance-Related Pay : The Expected and the Unexpected

Acknowledgement Responsible Section Editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann. The article has benefitted from valuable comments of the editors and anonymous referees. Financial support by the UK ESRC (Grant ES/R01163X/1) for related research for Professor Bender is gratefully noted. There is no conflict of interest.Postprin

A New Approach to Numerical Quantum Field Theory

In this note we present a new numerical method for solving Lattice Quantum Field Theory. This Source Galerkin Method is fundamentally different in concept and application from Monte Carlo based methods which have been the primary mode of numerical solution in Quantum Field Theory. Source Galerkin is not probabilistic and treats fermions and bosons in an equivalent manner.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, BROWN-HET-908([email protected]), ([email protected]), ([email protected]