An Evaluation of the Cost of Family Law Disputes: Measuring the Cost Implication of Various Dispute Resolution Methods

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice contracted the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family to conduct a project measuring the cost implications of various dispute resolution methods for resolving family law disputes. Despite the greater emphasis in recent years on the importance of access to justice and the need to resolve family matters outside the court, there is little research on the effectiveness of various dispute resolution methods, and even less on the cost of the different approaches

Marine-derived C-14 calibration and activity record for the past 50,000 years updated from the Cariaco Basin

Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Quaternary Science Reviews 25 (2006): 3216-3227, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.03.014.An expanded Cariaco Basin 14C chronology is tied to 230Th-dated Hulu Cave speleothem records in order to provide detailed marine-based 14C calibration for the past 50,000 years. The revised, high resolution Cariaco 14C calibration record agrees well with data from 230Th-dated fossil corals back to 33 ka, with continued agreement despite increased scatter back to 50 ka, suggesting that the record provides accurate calibration back to the limits of radiocarbon dating. The calibration data document highly elevated Δ14C during the Glacial period. Carbon cycle box model simulations show that the majority of observed Δ14C change can be explained by increased 14C production. However, from 45 to 15 ka, Δ14C remains anomalously high, indicating that the distribution of radiocarbon between surface and deep ocean reservoirs was different than it is today. Additional observations of the magnitude, spatial extent and timing of deep ocean Δ14C shifts are critical for a complete understanding of observed Glacial Δ14C variability

RIPK1 protects from TNF-α-mediated liver damage during hepatitis

Cell death of hepatocytes is a prominent characteristic in the pathogenesis of liver disease, while hepatolysis is a starting point of inflammation in hepatitis and loss of hepatic function. However, the precise molecular mechanisms of hepatocyte cell death, the role of the cytokines of hepatic microenvironment and the involvement of intracellular kinases, remain unclear. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) is a key cytokine involved in cell death or survival pathways and the role of RIPK1 has been associated to the TNF-alpha-dependent signaling pathway. We took advantage of two different deficient mouse lines, the RIPK1 kinase dead knock-in mice (Ripk1K45A) and the conditional knockout mice lacking RIPK1 only in liver parenchymal cells (Ripk1LPC-KO), to characterize the role of RIPK1 and TNF-alpha in hepatitis induced by concanavalin A (ConA). Our results show that RIPK1 is dispensable for liver homeostasis under steady-state conditions but in contrast, RIPK1 kinase activity contributes to caspase-independent cell death induction following ConA injection and RIPK1 also serves as a scaffold, protecting hepatocytes from massive apoptotic cell death in this model. In the Ripk1LPC-KO mice challenged with ConA, TNF-alpha triggers apoptosis, responsible for the observed severe hepatitis. Mechanism potentially involves both TNF-independent canonical NF-kappa B activation, as well as TNF-dependent, but canonical NF-kappa B-independent mechanisms. In conclusion, our results suggest that RIPK1 kinase activity is a pertinent therapeutic target to protect liver against excessive cell death in liver diseases

Cariaco Basin calibration update; revisions to calendar and 14C chronologies for core PL07-58PC

Author Posting. © Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of Dept. of Geosciences, University of Arizona for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Radiocarbon 46 (2004): 1161-1187.This paper describes the methods used to develop the Cariaco Basin PL07-58PC marine radiocarbon calibration data set. Background measurements are provided for the period when Cariaco samples were run, as well as revisions leading to the most recent version of the floating varve chronology. The floating Cariaco chronology has been anchored to an updated and expanded Preboreal pine tree-ring data set, with better estimates of uncertainty in the wiggle-match. Pending any further changes to the dendrochronology, these results represent the final Cariaco 58PC calibration data set.This work was supported by LLNL (97-ERI-009), DOE (W-7405-Eng-48), and NSF (ATM- 9709563)

Quad-Chip Double-Balanced Frequency Tripler

Solid-state frequency multipliers are used to produce tunable broadband sources at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The maximum power produced by a single chip is limited by the electrical breakdown of the semiconductor and by the thermal management properties of the chip. The solution is to split the drive power to a frequency tripler using waveguides to divide the power among four chips, then recombine the output power from the four chips back into a single waveguide. To achieve this, a waveguide branchline quadrature hybrid coupler splits a 100-GHz input signal into two paths with a 90 relative phase shift. These two paths are split again by a pair of waveguide Y-junctions. The signals from the four outputs of the Y-junctions are tripled in frequency using balanced Schottky diode frequency triplers before being recombined with another pair of Y-junctions. A final waveguide branchline quadrature hybrid coupler completes the combination. Using four chips instead of one enables using four-times higher power input, and produces a nearly four-fold power output as compared to using a single chip. The phase shifts introduced by the quadrature hybrid couplers provide isolation for the input and output waveguides, effectively eliminating standing waves between it and surrounding components. This is accomplished without introducing the high losses and expense of ferrite isolators. A practical use of this technology is to drive local oscillators as was demonstrated around 300 GHz for a heterodyne spectrometer operating in the 2-3-THz band. Heterodyne spectroscopy in this frequency band is especially valuable for astrophysics due to the presence of a very large number of molecular spectral lines. Besides high-resolution radar and spectrographic screening applications, this technology could also be useful for laboratory spectroscopy

Radiometer on a Chip

The radiometer on a chip (ROC) integrates whole wafers together to p rovide a robust, extremely powerful way of making submillimeter rece ivers that provide vertically integrated functionality. By integratin g at the wafer level, customizing the interconnects, and planarizing the transmission media, it is possible to create a lightweight asse mbly performing the function of several pieces in a more conventiona l radiometer

Precision near-infrared radial velocity instrumentation II: Non-Circular Core Fiber Scrambler

We have built and commissioned a prototype agitated non-circular core fiber scrambler for precision spectroscopic radial velocity measurements in the near-infrared H band. We have collected the first on-sky performance and modal noise tests of these novel fibers in the near-infrared at H and K bands using the CSHELL spectrograph at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF). We discuss the design behind our novel reverse injection of a red laser for co-alignment of star-light with the fiber tip via a corner cube and visible camera. We summarize the practical details involved in the construction of the fiber scrambler, and the mechanical agitation of the fiber at the telescope. We present radial velocity measurements of a bright standard star taken with and without the fiber scrambler to quantify the relative improvement in the obtainable blaze function stability, the line spread function stability, and the resulting radial velocity precision. We assess the feasibility of applying this illumination stabilization technique to the next generation of near-infrared spectrographs such as iSHELL on IRTF and an upgraded NIRSPEC at Keck. Our results may also be applied in the visible for smaller core diameter fibers where fiber modal noise is a significant factor, such as behind an adaptive optics system or on a small < 1 meter class telescope such as is being pursued by the MINERVA and LCOGT collaborations.Comment: Proceedings of the SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference "Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VI" held in San Diego, CA, August 25-29, 201

Weather on the Nearest Brown Dwarfs: Resolved Simultaneous Multi-Wavelength Variability Monitoring of WISE J104915.57-531906.1AB

We present two epochs of MPG/ESO 2.2m GROND simultaneous 6-band ($r'i'z'JHK$) photometric monitoring of the closest known L/T transition brown dwarf binary WISE J104915.57-531906.1AB. We report here the first resolved variability monitoring of both the T0.5 and L7.5 components. We obtained 4 hours of focused observations on the night of UT 2013-04-22, as well as 4 hours of defocused (unresolved) observations on the night of UT 2013-04-16. We note a number of robust trends in our light curves. The $r'$ and $i'$ light curves appear to be anticorrelated with $z'$ and $H$ for the T0.5 component and in the unresolved lightcurve. In the defocused dataset, $J$ appears correlated with $z'$ and $H$ and anticorrelated with $r'$ and $i'$, while in the focused dataset we measure no variability for $J$ at the level of our photometric precision, likely due to evolving weather phenomena. In our focused T0.5 component lightcurve, the $K$ band lightcurve displays a significant phase offset relative to both $H$ and $z'$. We argue that the measured phase offsets are correlated with atmospheric pressure probed at each band, as estimated from 1D atmospheric models. We also report low-amplitude variability in $i'$ and $z'$ intrinsic to the L7.5 component.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted to ApJ Letter