Probate Legislation Enacted by the 1955 Session of the Washington Legislature

The purpose of this survey is to focus attention on changes in the probate law of the state as a result of the 1955 session of the legislature. Five separate Acts amending or adding to the law of probate were adopted. These Acts are chapters 98, 141, 154 and 205 of the Laws of 1955 and chapter 7 of the Laws of 1955 (Extraordinary Session). In the aggregate they embody a substantial number of changes, most of which are simple procedural amendments. A few of the amendments present secondary questions of some difficulty. It is not the purpose of this survey to attempt elaborate discussion of any such complicated problems. For the most part these questions are peculiar to the Washington statute and not categorically answerable on the basis of existing authorities. Consequently the existence of such questions will be noted leaving their ultimate solution to the future. (Parts of this article were prepared by the authors for the larger article, Washington Legislation—1955, which appeared in 30 Wash. L. Rev. 195-223. The Article was deemed to be of sufficient interest to justify printing it outside of the special issue for which it was written.

Convoluted arc with flux concentrator for current interruption

Further considerations are given to the use of an electromagnetic flux concentrator for arc plasma control in a rotary arc current interrupter. Such flux concentrators have been previously proposed for plasma fusion and other plasma applications. The possible extension of the proposed method for enhancing the interruption of direct currents with a rotary arc interrupter is discussed with the aid of theoretical modeling of the concentrator geometry and with its possible enhancement of ablation from the arc containing cylinders

Analysis of existing mathematics textbooks for use in secondary schools.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Probing the Primordial Power Spectrum with Cluster Number Counts

We investigate how well galaxy cluster number counts can constrain the primordial power spectrum. Measurements of the primary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) may be limited, by the presence of foregrounds from secondary sources, to probing the primordial power spectrum at wave numbers less than about 0.30 h Mpc^{-1}. We break up the primordial power spectrum into a number of nodes and interpolate linearly between each node. This allows us to show that cluster number counts could then extend the constraints on the form of the primordial power spectrum up to wave numbers of about 0.45 h Mpc^{-1}. We estimate combinations of constraints from PLANCK and SPT primary CMB and their respective SZ surveys. We find that their constraining ability is limited by uncertainties in the mass scaling relations. We also estimate the constraint from clusters detected from a SNAP like gravitational lensing survey. As there is an unambiguous and simple relationship between the filtered shear of the lensing survey and the cluster mass, it may be possible to obtain much tighter constraints on the primordial power spectrum in this case.Comment: Clarifications added and a few minor corrections made. Matches version to appear in PR

Weather, Crime, and Mental Illness

ABSTRACT - A simple count of disturbed incidents in the mentally ill and total radio transmissions of the Minneapolis Police Departmenf were collected daily over a six-month period. These were correlated with calendar time, temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure for the same period. Separate comparisons were made of all these measures for December 1959 with those of other Decembers. All the weather variables correlated linearly and significantly with the behavior v.ariables; temperature and humidity, positively; barometric pressure negatively. Calendar time for the half year correlated linearly and negatively. December 1959 had a higher crime and mental disturbance rate than other Decembers; this was accompanied by higher temperature and humidity

Panel Discussion: Foreign Governmental Control of Multinational Corporations Marketing in the United States

This panel discussion focuses on debating the regulation of companies operating in more than one country. The primary emphasis is placed on oil companies

Reconciling multiple counterfactuals when evaluating biodiversity conservation impact in social-ecological systems

When evaluating the impact of a biodiversity conservation intervention, a ‘counterfactual’ is needed, as true experimental controls are typically unavailable. Counterfactuals are possible alternative system trajectories in the absence of an intervention and comparing observed outcomes against the chosen counterfactual allows the impact (change attributable to the intervention) to be determined. Since counterfactuals are hypothetical scenarios, and by definition never occur, they must be estimated. Sometimes there may be many plausible counterfactuals, given that they can include multiple drivers of biodiversity change, and be defined on a range of spatial or temporal scales. Here we posit that, by definition, conservation interventions always take place in social-ecological systems (SES; ecological systems integrated with human actors). Evaluating the impact of an intervention within an SES therefore means taking into account the counterfactuals assumed by different human actors. Use of different counterfactuals by different actors will give rise to perceived differences in the impacts of interventions, which may lead to disagreement about its success or the effectiveness of the underlying approach. Despite that there are biophysical biodiversity trends, it is often true that no single counterfactual is definitively the ‘right one’ for conservation assessment, so multiple evaluations of intervention efficacy could be considered justifiable. Therefore, we propose the need to calculate a quantity termed the sum of perceived differences, which captures the range of impact estimates associated with different actors within a given SES. The sum of perceived differences gives some indication how closely actors within an SES agree on the impacts of an intervention. We illustrate the concept of perceived differences using a set of global, national and regional case studies. We discuss options for minimising the sum, drawing upon literatures from conservation science, psychology, behavioural economics, management and finance

The Double Burden of Racial Discrimination in Daily-Life Moments: Increases in Negative Emotions and Depletion of Psychosocial Resources Among Emerging Adult African Americans

Objective: Racial discrimination is a common experience for African Americans, but no research has examined how discrimination reported in daily-life moments influences concurrent negative emotions and psychosocial resources. Method: Emerging adult African Americans (N = 54) reported hourly on momentary racial discrimination, negative emotions, and psychosocial resources across two days. Results: Controlling for past discrimination and trait emotion, momentary racial discrimination was associated with greater negative emotions and lower psychosocial resources (ps \u3c .05). The relationship between momentary racial discrimination and negative emotions was stronger among individuals residing in areas with fewer African Americans (simple slope p \u3c .0001). The relationship between momentary racial discrimination and psychosocial resources was stronger among individuals reporting greater past discrimination (simple slope p \u3c .0001). Vicarious discrimination (exposure to discrimination experienced by another person) was associated with higher negative emotions, p \u3c .01, but not with psychosocial resources. Conclusion: These results are the first to demonstrate that personal and vicarious racial discrimination are associated with negative emotions and lower coping resources in daily-life moments and that contextual factors modify these associations. Results refine our understanding of the immediate sequelae of discrimination in daily life and point to possible targets for ecological momentary interventions

Forecast Constraints on Inflation from Combined CMB and Gravitational Wave Direct Detection Experiments

We study how direct detection of the inflationary gravitational wave background constrains inflationary parameters and complements CMB polarization measurements. The error ellipsoids calculated using the Fisher information matrix approach with Planck and the direct detection experiment, BBO (Big Bang Observer), show different directions of parameter degeneracy, and the degeneracy is broken when they are combined. For a slow-roll parameterization, we show that BBO could significantly improve the constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio compared with Planck alone. We also look at a quadratic and a natural inflation model. In both cases, if the temperature of reheating is also treated as a free parameter, then the addition of BBO can significantly improve the error bars. In the case of natural inflation, we find that the addition of BBO could even partially improve the error bars of a cosmic variance-limited CMB experiment.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; matches version to appear in PRD; typos correcte

Improving averted loss estimates for better biodiversity outcomes from offset exchanges

Biodiversity offsetting aims to achieve at least ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity by fully compensating for residual development-induced biodiversity losses after the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimise, remediate) has been applied. Actions used to generate offsets can include securing protection, maintaining condition, or enhancing condition of targeted biodiversity at an offset site. Protection and maintenance actions aim to prevent future loss of biodiversity, so such offsets are referred to as ‘averted loss’ offsets. However, the benefits of such approaches can be highly uncertain and opaque, because assumptions about the change in likelihood of loss due to the offset are often implicit. As a result, the gain generated by averting losses can be intentionally or inadvertently overestimated, leading to offset outcomes that are insufficient for achieving no net loss of biodiversity. We present a method and decision tree to guide consistent and credible estimation of the likelihood of loss of a proposed offset site with and without protection, for use when calculating the amount of benefit associated with the ‘protection’ component of averted loss offsets. In circumstances such as when a jurisdictional offset policy applies to most impacts, plausible estimates of averted loss can be very low. Averting further loss of biodiversity is desirable, and averted loss offsets can be a valid approach for generating tangible gains. However, overestimation of averted loss benefits poses a major risk to biodiversity