The Venue Shuffle: Forum Selection Clauses & ERISA

Forum selection clauses are ubiquitous. Historically, the judiciary was hostile to contracts limiting a plaintiff’s venue options. The tide has since turned. Today, lower courts routinely enforce such clauses. This Article challenges this reflexive response in the special context of ERISA cases. It mines ERISA’s statutory text, rich legislative history, and historical context to supply an in-depth exploration of ERISA’s unique policy goal of providing employees “ready access to the Federal courts.” The Article then explains how forum selection clauses undermine this goal and thus should be invalid under controlling Supreme Court jurisprudence

Infrared phonon dynamics of multiferroic BiFeO3 single crystal

We discuss the first infrared reflectivity measurement on a BiFeO3 single crystal between 5 K and room temperature. The 9 predicted ab-plane E phonon modes are fully and unambiguously determined. The frequencies of the 4 A1 c-axis phonons are found. These results settle issues between theory and data on ceramics. Our findings show that the softening of the lowest frequency E mode is responsible for the temperature dependence of the dielectric constant, indicating that the ferroelectric transition in BiFeO3 is soft-mode driven.Comment: 5 pages (figures included

Efficient tight-binding Monte Carlo structural sampling of complex materials

While recent work towards the development of tight-binding and ab-initio algorithms has focused on molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo methods can often lead to better results with relatively little effort. We present here a multi-step Monte Carlo algorithm that makes use of the possibility of quickly evaluating local energies. For the thermalization of a 1000-atom configuration of {\it a}-Si, this algorithm gains about an order of magnitude in speed over standard molecular dynamics. The algorithm can easily be ported to a wide range of materials and can be dynamically optimized for a maximum efficiency.Comment: 5 pages including 3 postscript figure

An exploration of the relationship between levels of the learning organization and student outcomes in public community colleges

As the nation’s primary associate degree-granting institutions, community colleges provide access to higher education to the largest segment of undergraduates in America. However, a key challenge has been community colleges’ struggled to improve completion rates. In recent years, fewer than 40% of students have completed any type of degree or certificate within six years (T. R. Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015; Radford, Berkner, Wheeless, & Shepherd, 2010). Recent arguments emphasize that community colleges must fundamentally rethink their organization and culture in order to meet current challenges and improve student outcomes (T. R. Bailey et al., 2015). To this end, a number of change initiatives have emerged in recent years with linkages to the Learning Organization (LO) concept at their premise. Among these initiatives is Achieving the Dream (ATD), which embraces a strategy inclusive of a model designed to facilitate institutions substantially improving student success by helping them fundamentally change how they operate. To date, few have attempted to examine the viability of the Learning Organization (LO) concept as a feasible approach toward meeting challenges and improving a college’s environment for students. An obvious obstacle has been the lack of a tool to measure the extent to which a college has the attributes of a learning organization. A number of researchers have called for the continued assessment of the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) to evaluate its capability to effectively measure LO in various educational settings. The purpose of this exploratory study is to explore any association between learning organization levels of ATD and non-ATD colleges. In addition, to determine the association between learning organization levels and completion rates among ATD institutions. ANOVA, t-test, and Multiple Regression were the primary statistical tests employed to analyze the data and answer the research questions

Electrodynamics near the Metal-to-Insulator Transition in V3O5

The electrodynamics near the metal-to-insulator transitions (MIT) induced, in V3O5 single crystals, by both temperature (T) and pressure (P) has been studied by infrared spectroscopy. The T- and P-dependence of the optical conductivity may be explained within a polaronic scenario. The insulating phase at ambient T and P corresponds to strongly localized small polarons. Meanwhile the T-induced metallic phase at ambient pressure is related to a liquid of polarons showing incoherent dc transport, in the P-induced metallic phase at room T strongly localized polarons coexist with partially delocalized ones. The electronic spectral weight is almost recovered, in both the T and P induced metallization processes, on an energy scale of 1 eV, thus supporting the key-role of electron-lattice interaction in the V3O5 metal-to-insulator transition.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Pressure dependence of the charge-density-wave gap in rare-earth tri-tellurides

We investigate the pressure dependence of the optical properties of CeTe$_3$, which exhibits an incommensurate charge-density-wave (CDW) state already at 300 K. Our data are collected in the mid-infrared spectral range at room temperature and at pressures between 0 and 9 GPa. The energy for the single particle excitation across the CDW gap decreases upon increasing the applied pressure, similarly to the chemical pressure by rare-earth substitution. The broadening of the bands upon lattice compression removes the perfect nesting condition of the Fermi surface and therefore diminishes the impact of the CDW transition on the electronic properties of $R$Te$_3$.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Neutral carbon in the Egg Nebula (AFGL 2688)

A search for sub-mm C I emission from seven stars that are surrounded by dense molecular gas shells led to the detection, in the case of the "Egg Nebula' (AFGL 2688), of an 0.9 K line implying a C I/CO value greater than 5. The material surrounding this star must be extremely carbon-rich, and it is suggested that the apparently greater extent of the C I emission region may be due to the effects of the galactic UV field on the shell's chemistry, as suggested by Huggins and Glassgold (1982)

Optical properties of the Ce and La di-telluride charge density wave compounds

The La and Ce di-tellurides LaTe$_2$ and CeTe$_2$ are deep in the charge-density-wave (CDW) ground state even at 300 K. We have collected their electrodynamic response over a broad spectral range from the far infrared up to the ultraviolet. We establish the energy scale of the single particle excitation across the CDW gap. Moreover, we find that the CDW collective state gaps a very large portion of the Fermi surface. Similarly to the related rare earth tri-tellurides, we envisage that interactions and Umklapp processes play a role in the onset of the CDW broken symmetry ground state

Electrodynamics of superconducting pnictide superlattices

It has been recently reported (S. Lee et al., Nature Materials 12, 392, 2013) that superlattices where layers of the 8% Co-doped BaFe2As2 superconducting pnictide are intercalated with non superconducting ultrathin layers of either SrTiO3 or of oxygen-rich BaFe2As2, can be used to control flux pinning, thereby increasing critical fields and currents, without significantly affecting the critical temperature of the pristine superconducting material. However, little is known about the electron properties of these systems. Here we investigate the electrodynamics of these superconducting pnictide superlattices in the normal and superconducting state by using infrared reflectivity, from THz to visible range. We find that multi-gap structure of these superlattices is preserved, whereas some significant changes are observed in their electronic structure with respect to those of the original pnictide. Our results suggest that possible attempts to further increase the flux pinning may lead to a breakdown of the pnictide superconducting properties.Comment: 4 pages, two figure