Adrift on the Sea of Indeterminacy

Today\u27s conflicts scholars no doubt consider themselves a diverse bunch, with widely differing views about how law should be chosen in multistate disputes. But from the trenches, most of them look alike. Each waxes eloquent about the search for the perfect solution-the most intellectually and morally satisfying choice of law for each dispute-and each ends the theorizing by embracing some proposition that will prove wholly indeterminate in practice

Rethinking Labor Law Preemption: State Laws Facilitating Unionization

I want to travel, against the flow of traffic, down what many consider a one-way analytical street. My thesis is that, contrary to prevailing wisdom, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) does not wholly preempt the states\u27 ability to adopt laws facilitating unionization and enhancing employee leverage in collective bargaining with employers

Disability, Federalism, and a Court with an Eccentric Mission

This article examines the Supreme Court\u27s recent Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendment decisions constraining Congress\u27s power to impose legal obligations on state governments. The context for this examination is the Court\u27s consideration this Term of the constitutionality of the provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act authorizing individual suits against states by persons alleging they have been victimized by state disability discrimination. This article was written while the fate of the ADA case was unknown. But the Court issued its decision just as this article was going to press. A postscript has been added describing that decision and its implications. The article concludes that the Court\u27s recent decisions, including the decision just issued respecting the ADA, represent a dramatic redefinition of both the Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendments, and a consequent diminution of congressional power to prevent discrimination by states against historically disadvantaged groups in our society

Numerical Study of Cosmic Censorship in String Theory

Recently Hertog, Horowitz, and Maeda have argued that cosmic censorship can be generically violated in string theory in anti-de Sitter spacetime by considering a collapsing bubble of a scalar field whose mass saturates the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. We study this system numerically and find that for various choices of initial data black holes form rather than naked singularities, implying that in these cases cosmic censorship is upheld.Comment: 16 pages, latex, 10 figures, uses JHEP.cls, v2: minor changes, version to be published in JHE

Efficient photon counting and single-photon generation using resonant nonlinear optics

The behavior of an atomic double lambda system in the presence of a strong off-resonant classical field and a few-photon resonant quantum field is examined. It is shown that the system possesses properties that allow a single-photon state to be distilled from a multi-photon input wave packet. In addition, the system is also capable of functioning as an efficient photodetector discriminating between one- and two-photon wave packets with arbitrarily high efficiency.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Analysis of detector performance in a gigahertz clock rate quantum key distribution system

We present a detailed analysis of a gigahertz clock rate environmentally robust phase-encoded quantum key distribution (QKD) system utilizing several different single-photon detectors, including the first implementation of an experimental resonant cavity thin-junction silicon single-photon avalanche diode. The system operates at a wavelength of 850 nm using standard telecommunications optical fibre. A general-purpose theoretical model for the performance of QKD systems is presented with reference to these experimental results before predictions are made about realistic detector developments in this system. We discuss, with reference to the theoretical model, how detector operating parameters can be further optimized to maximize key exchange rates

Midlife and Late-Life Vascular Risk Factors and White Matter Microstructural Integrity: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Neurocognitive Study.

BACKGROUND: Diffusion tensor imaging measures of white matter (WM) microstructural integrity appear to provide earlier indication of WM injury than WM hyperintensities; however, risk factors for poor WM microstructural integrity have not been established. Our study quantifies the association between vascular risk factors in midlife and late life with measures of late-life WM microstructural integrity. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used data from 1851 participants in ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study) who completed 3-T magnetic resonance imaging, including diffusion tensor imaging, as part of the ARIC Neurocognitive Study (ARIC-NCS). We quantified the association among lipids, glucose, and blood pressure from the baseline ARIC visit (1987-1989, ages 44-65, midlife) and visit 5 of ARIC (2011-2013, ages 67-90, late life, concurrent with ARIC-NCS) with regional and overall WM mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy obtained at ARIC visit 5 for ARIC participants. We also considered whether these associations were independent of or modified by WM hyperintensity volumes. We found that elevated blood pressure in midlife and late life and elevated glucose in midlife, but not late life, were associated with worse late-life WM microstructural integrity. These associations were independent of the degree of WM hyperintensity, and the association between glucose and WM microstructural integrity appeared stronger for those with the least WM hyperintensity. There was little support for an adverse association between lipids and WM microstructural integrity. CONCLUSIONS: Hypertension in both midlife and late life and elevated glucose in midlife are related to worse WM microstructural integrity in late life