Comment on Peterson and Selvin

A comment on an article by Peterson and Selvin dealing with the role of courts as participants in the resolution of mass tort cases is presented

Building a resource for studying translation shifts

This paper describes an interdisciplinary approach which brings together the fields of corpus linguistics and translation studies. It presents ongoing work on the creation of a corpus resource in which translation shifts are explicitly annotated. Translation shifts denote departures from formal correspondence between source and target text, i.e. deviations that have occurred during the translation process. A resource in which such shifts are annotated in a systematic way will make it possible to study those phenomena that need to be addressed if machine translation output is to resemble human translation. The resource described in this paper contains English source texts (parliamentary proceedings) and their German translations. The shift annotation is based on predicate-argument structures and proceeds in two steps: first, predicates and their arguments are annotated monolingually in a straightforward manner. Then, the corresponding English and German predicates and arguments are aligned with each other. Whenever a shift - mainly grammatical or semantic -has occurred, the alignment is tagged accordingly.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Can Human Beings Truly Be Considered Free?

There exists a complex relationship between human freedom and God\u27s divine foreknowledge; the questions surrounding this topic abound and are difficult to answer. The question arises, if God knows all that we think and do, now and in the future, and has Providence over all of our actions, are we truly free; do we have free will? I assert that we do. The arguments that would pit God\u27s foreknowledge and human freedom against each other as incompatible have a faulty foundation surrounding the nature of God\u27s knowledge, His Being, and our purpose in the world. Essentially, the nature of God\u27s knowledge is not deterministic, and His knowing does not necessitate that actions happen as they will; they do not happen because He knows, He knows because they happen. Additionally, God created us with a particular nature, and that nature includes a free will as human beings. God can neither impede nor prevent this nature, as He would actually, in effect, be contradicting His own nature as well as ours. We as beings are made to fulfill our natures, and thus we were made to act freely. God\u27s providence exists in that He made us, and made us to fulfill our particular natures, and as such, we are naturally inclined towards the good and towards our divine end and Creator. The divine end and purpose exists for us all, but it is our free will which allows us to choose to fulfill or not fulfill this nature. Once the true nature and metaphysics of God\u27s knowledge and being, our nature as humans, and our purpose as humans are understood, we can better attempt to reconcile the idea of God\u27s foreknowledge and providence with our freedom and free will as human beings

Asymptotic genealogy of a critical branching process

Consider a continuous-time binary branching process conditioned to have population size n at some time t, and with a chance p for recording each extinct individual in the process. Within the family tree of this process, we consider the smallest subtree containing the genealogy of the extant individuals together with the genealogy of the recorded extinct individuals. We introduce a novel representation of such subtrees in terms of a point-process, and provide asymptotic results on the distribution of this point-process as the number of extant individuals increases. We motivate the study within the scope of a coherent analysis for an a priori model for macroevolution.Comment: 30 page

The Influence of School Segregation on Students’ Educational Achievement

This literature review evaluates how race, geographical location, and socioeconomic status impacts a student’s educational achievement. These variables affect educational success, which is impacted by the history of housing and racial segregation in the United States. The discussion will include why schools are segregated and how this has an impact on a student’s education by looking at different studies and theories such as the Black Culture theory and the Acting White Hypothesis. Even in desegregated schools, “tracking” separates and further segregates races in the educational system. The literature review concludes with a summary of the findings, importance, and future research that can be done in this field including equal funding for public schools across Americ

(Anti-)deuteron production and anisotropic flow measured with ALICE at the LHC

The high abundance of (anti-)deuterons in the statistics gathered in Run 1 of the LHC and the excellent performance of the ALICE setup allow for the simultaneous measurement of the elliptic flow and the deuteron production rates with a large transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) reach. The (anti-) deuterons are identified using the specific energy loss in the time projection chamber and the velocity information in the time-of-flight detector. The elliptic flow of (anti-)deuterons can provide insight into the production mechanisms of particles in heavy-ion collisions. Quark coalescence is one of the approaches to describe the elliptic flow of hadrons, while the production of light nuclei can be also depicted as a coalescence of nucleons. In these proceedings, the measured $v_{2}$ of deuterons produced in Pb--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$=2.76TeV will be compared to expectations from coalescence and hydrodynamic models.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, proceeding of Quark Matter 2015, Kobe, Japa

Licensed To Kill: A Defense of Vicarious Liability Under the Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) makes it illegal to take an endangered and threatened species by killing, harming, or harassing the animal. Although the classic example of a take is an individual poacher shooting an endangered species, these protected species are also harmed by larger–scale policies and programs. In several court cases, local and state governments have been held vicariously liable for the take of endangered species when their policies or actions caused third parties to commit a take. The vicarious liability theory, as applied to the ESA, is controversial and has been criticized by numerous scholars. This Note argues that a limited version of the vicarious liability theory is consistent with the text of the ESA and plays an essential role in fulfilling the promise of the ESA\u27s take prohibition. As a case study, this Note examines how the vicarious liability theory could be used to hold the state of Louisiana liable for licensing shrimping gear that causes the take of endangered and threatened sea turtles. As illustrated by the Louisiana example, the acceptance of a narrowly construed vicarious liability theory would protect endangered species without placing an unreasonable or unconstitutional burden on state and local governments

Making Assessment Meaningful

Our investigation highlighted practical implications and barriers for implementing assessment for formative purpose. With larger student numbers it is becoming harder for academics to find the time to engage in formative assessment. It seems a shame that as class sizes grow it is at the cost of the learning experience in terms of formative feedback. So whilst our respondents showed a commitment to using assessment for formative purposes, practical reasons may prevent this from actually happening. As an institution we also need to be looking at assessment timing. If assessment is to be formative, it needs to happen at a time when students can then act on feedback in a constructive way. We also need to be creating activities that allow students to engage with the feedback: simply handing students a page of written feedback will not encourage all students to act and learn. Creating discussion during teaching time, following assessment, for students to talk about the feedback will encourage them to read and reflect on any feedback. It is clear that assessment for formative purpose is at the heart of most lecturers’ practice within London Metropolitan University, but now we need to place it firmly at the heart of the student experience, in a meaningful and real way