Hydrodynamic flow at RHIC

We review the apparently hydrodynamic behaviour of low transverse momentum particles (p_T < 1.5 GeV/c) produced in central and semicentral (b < 7 fm) heavy ion collisions at RHIC. We investigate the impact parameter dependence of various observables, elaborating on radial and elliptic flow and particle multiplicities. We also discuss possible ambiguities in the initialization of the hydrodynamic system and present observables that should allow for their resolution.Comment: 10 pages, Proceedings of the 17th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Park City, Utah, 200

Hydrodynamic aspects of relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC

The current status of the application of hydrodynamics to ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is reviewed. We elaborate on the arguments for strong transverse flow and rapid thermalization and discuss future applications and trends in hydrodynamics.Comment: Invited plenary talk at SEWM04, Helsinki, June 16-19 200

Illinois Government Research no. 56 1983: Prison Capacity and Sentencing Severity: A Look at Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania

After a brief lull in the late seventies and early eighties, crime is once again a prime concern among a large number of Americans. More people are mentioning crime in periodic surveys of public problems than in the previous decade, and the 1982 governor's race in California may have been won at the eleventh hour by a strong law and order appeal. In the minds of many, criminal punishment is an integral part of the crime problem and society's efforts to combat it. It is viewed as both a real and a symbolic deterrent to crime, every bit as important as a mobile, effective police force. This has led to a reexamination of sentencing practices and a revision of sentencing codes, an increase in minimum punishments, and even new prison construction. Illinois, for example, moved from an interdeterminate to a determinate sentencing code, abolished its parole board, and enacted Class X legislation providing more severe sentences for selected heinous crimes. More recently it has embarked upon a campaign to increase its state penal capacity. Indeed, a recent report of the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission shows that the Department of Corrections received 75 percent of all new capital project dollars for FY 1983 ??? in excess of $80 million. Many students of criminal courts have doubted the effectiveness of these reforms. They note the low visibility of most sentencing decisions and the vested interest of most criminal court practitioners in the status quo. Of particular concern are the long-established "going rates" for routine offenses on which county plea bargaining practices are based. To better understand the sentencing process ??? and improve our chances to reform it ??? we undertook a long-term comparative study of criminal courts. The focus of the present essay is on factors that affect sentencing severity. Such factors are, of course, of special interest to those concerned with increasing the deterrent effect of sentencing.published or submitted for publicatio

Bayesian Models and Decision Algorithms for Complex Early Phase Clinical Trials

An early phase clinical trial is the first step in evaluating the effects in humans of a potential new anti-disease agent or combination of agents. Usually called "phase I" or "phase I/II" trials, these experiments typically have the nominal scientific goal of determining an acceptable dose, most often based on adverse event probabilities. This arose from a tradition of phase I trials to evaluate cytotoxic agents for treating cancer, although some methods may be applied in other medical settings, such as treatment of stroke or immunological diseases. Most modern statistical designs for early phase trials include model-based, outcome-adaptive decision rules that choose doses for successive patient cohorts based on data from previous patients in the trial. Such designs have seen limited use in clinical practice, however, due to their complexity, the requirement of intensive, computer-based data monitoring, and the medical community's resistance to change. Still, many actual applications of model-based outcome-adaptive designs have been remarkably successful in terms of both patient benefit and scientific outcome. In this paper I will review several Bayesian early phase trial designs that were tailored to accommodate specific complexities of the treatment regime and patient outcomes in particular clinical settings.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS315 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Expansion rates at RHIC

A detailed description of the temporal evolution of the thermodynamic fields in heavy ion collisions is presented within a hydrodynamic framework. Particular attention is devoted to the evolution of the collective flow fields and their space-time gradients.Comment: Proceedings for the 19th Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Breckenridge, Colorado, March 8-15, 2003, 6 page

On the stability of thin-shell wormholes

A thin-shell wormhole is theoretically constructible by surgically grafting together two Schwarzschild spacetimes using the so-called cut-and-paste technique. By describing such a wormhole as the limiting case of a spherical shell, it is shown that the structure must be unstable to linearized radial perturbations. Some earlier studies by the author et al. have shown, however, that under certain conditions, thin-shell wormholes can be stable.Comment: 5 pages, no figure