11,383 research outputs found
Litigating State Interests: Attorneys General as Amici
An important strain of federalism scholarship locates the primary value of federalism in how it carves up the political landscape, allowing groups that are out of power at the national level to flourishâand, significantly, to governâin the states. On that account, partisanship, rather than a commitment to state authority as such, motivates state actors to act as checks on federal power. Our study examines partisan motivation in one area where state actors can, and do, advocate on behalf of state power: the Supreme Court. We compiled data on state amicus filings in Supreme Court cases from the 1979â2013 Terms and linked it up with data on the partisanship of state attorneys general (AGs). Focusing only on merits-stage briefs, we looked at each AGâs partisan affiliation and the partisanship of the AGs who either joined, or explicitly opposed, her briefs. If partisanship drives amicus activity, then we should see a strong negative relationship between the partisanship of AGs opposing each other and a strong positive relationship between those who cosign briefs.
What we found was somewhat surprising. States agreed far more often than they disagreed, andâuntil recentlyâmost multistate briefs represented bipartisan, not partisan, coalitions of AGs. Indeed, for the first twenty years of our study, the cosigners of these briefs were generally indistinguishable from a random sampling of AGs then in office. The picture changes after 2000, when the coalitions of cosigners become decidedly more partisan, particularly among Republican AGs. The partisanship picture is also different for the 6% of cases in which different states square off in opposing briefs. In those cases, AGs do tend to join together in partisan clusters. Here, too, the appearance of partisanship becomes stronger after the mid-1990s
Stationary Black Holes in a Generalized Three-Dimensional Theory of Gravity
We consider a generalized three-dimensional theory of gravity which is
specified by two fields, the graviton and the dilaton, and one parameter. This
theory contains, as particular cases, three-dimensional General Relativity and
three-dimensional String Theory. Stationary black hole solutions are generated
from the static ones using a simple coordinate transformation. The stationary
black holes solutions thus obtained are locally equivalent to the corresponding
static ones, but globally distinct. The mass and angular momentum of the
stationary black hole solutions are computed using an extension of the Regge
and Teitelboim formalism. The causal structure of the black holes is described.Comment: 12 pages, Late
Effect of high frequency ultrasounds on lycopene and total phenolic concentration, antioxidant properties and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of tomato juice
Tomato juice was subjected to high frequency ultrasounds(378 and 583 kHz)at increasing energy densities (up to 250 MJ/m3). Results relevant to the treatments at high frequency providing an energy density of 250 MJ/m3 were compared with those obtained at 24 kHz delivering the same energy density. Lycopene and total phenolic concentration, as well as the α-glucosidase inhibitory activityof tomato juice, were not affected by ultrasound regardless the frequency and energy density. However, the antioxidant properties were negatively affected by high frequency ultrasounds
Alignment of velocity fields for video surveillance
Velocity fields play an important role in surveillance since they describe typical motion behaviors of video objects (e.g., pedestrians) in the scene. This paper presents an algorithm for the alignment of velocity fields acquired by different cameras, at different time intervals, from different viewpoints. Velocity fields are aligned using a warping function which maps corresponding points and vectors in both fields. The warping parameters are estimated by minimizing a non-linear least squares energy. Experimental tests show that the proposed model is able to compensate significant misalignments, including translation, rotation and scaling
Binding of <i>Clitoria ternatea</i> L. flower extract with α-amylase simultaneously monitored at two wavelengths using a photon streaming time-resolved fluorescence approach
The binding of an extract from the flowers of Clitoria ternatea L. to the digestive enzyme α-amylase was investigated. This extract is a mixture of flavonoids, including anthocyanins, and has been previously shown to inhibit the activity this enzyme. This has implications for modulating starch digestion. Since the extract contains a mixture of flavonoids, including anthocyanins, in order to investigate the kinetics, we made use of time-resolved fluorescence to simultaneously monitor two different emission bands emanating from the extract. This measurement was enabled by the use of a âphoton streamingâ approach and changes in fluorescence lifetime and intensity were used to follow the interaction. A longer wavelength band (655nm) was ascribed to anthocyanins in the mixture and these were observed to bind at a rate an order of magnitude slower than other flavonoids present in the extract, monitored at a shorter wavelength (485 nm). Changes in the fluorescence emission of the extract upon binding were further assessed by the use of decay associated spectra
The Two-Dimensional Analogue of General Relativity
General Relativity in three or more dimensions can be obtained by taking the
limit in the Brans-Dicke theory. In two dimensions
General Relativity is an unacceptable theory. We show that the two-dimensional
closest analogue of General Relativity is a theory that also arises in the
limit of the two-dimensional Brans-Dicke theory.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, preprint DF/IST-17.9
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