153 research outputs found
Tick, Tick, Tick…The Electoral College, A Ticking Time Bomb
What can be done about this ticking bomb? Nothing short of a constitutional amendment can stop the clock. Many amendments to change the electoral college system have been proposed.Some have cleared either house of Congress, but not one has reached the states for ratification since the Twelfth Amendment. We consider some possibilities to stop the clock below
Tick, Tick, Tick…The Electoral College, A Ticking Time Bomb
What can be done about this ticking bomb? Nothing short of a constitutional amendment can stop the clock. Many amendments to change the electoral college system have been proposed.Some have cleared either house of Congress, but not one has reached the states for ratification since the Twelfth Amendment. We consider some possibilities to stop the clock below
Justiciability of All Human Rights: Scottish Independence as Redress for British Human Rights Abuses
Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder fiber interferometer test of the anisotropy of the speed of light
Two optical fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers were constructed in an
environment with a temperature stabilization of better than 1 mK per day. One
interferometer with a length of 2 m optical fiber in each arm with the main
direction of the arms parallel to each other. A path (length 175 mm) filled
with atmospheric air is inserted in one arm. Another interferometer with a
length of 2 m optical fiber in each parallel arm acts as a control. In each arm
1 m of fiber was wound around a ring made of piezo material enabling the
control of the length of the arms by means of a voltage. The influence of
rotation of the interferometers at the Earth surface on the observed phase
differences was determined. For one interferometer (with the air path) it was
found that the phase difference depends on the azimuth of the interferometer.
For the other one no relevant dependence on the azimuth has been measured.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
The United States' Failure to Ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Must the Poor Be Always with Us
This Article proposes that the United States should ratify the ICESCR. The treaty's requirements are to be met over a period of time, according to the abilities of each member state. This ought to eliminate concerns about interference with the United States' sovereignty, and about the methods, costs, and means of implementing the treaty. Part II of this Article provides the context and content of the ICESCR, including its status in the United States. Part III examines the current status of poverty in the United States, and current attempts to address poverty through domestic remedies and legislation. Part IV demonstrates ways in which the ICESCR could effectively address problems faced by poor people in the U. S. Finally, this Article reaches two conclusions from which a solution may follow: there is no legitimate reason for poverty to persist in this country, and the United States is simply out of synch with the rest of the world in its legal approach to poverty. We need not accept poverty as an inevitable fact of life in this country; with the proper legal tools and internalization of the proper norms, we may find that, in fact, we need not always have the poor with us
Symmetric Groups and Quotient Complexity of Boolean Operations
The quotient complexity of a regular language L is the number of left
quotients of L, which is the same as the state complexity of L. Suppose that L
and L' are binary regular languages with quotient complexities m and n, and
that the transition semigroups of the minimal deterministic automata accepting
L and L' are the symmetric groups S_m and S_n of degrees m and n, respectively.
Denote by o any binary boolean operation that is not a constant and not a
function of one argument only. For m,n >= 2 with (m,n) not in
{(2,2),(3,4),(4,3),(4,4)} we prove that the quotient complexity of LoL' is mn
if and only either (a) m is not equal to n or (b) m=n and the bases (ordered
pairs of generators) of S_m and S_n are not conjugate. For (m,n)\in
{(2,2),(3,4),(4,3),(4,4)} we give examples to show that this need not hold. In
proving these results we generalize the notion of uniform minimality to direct
products of automata. We also establish a non-trivial connection between
complexity of boolean operations and group theory
Testing the neutrality of matter by acoustic means in a spherical resonator
New measurements to test the neutrality of matter by acoustic means are
reported. The apparatus is based on a spherical capacitor filled with gaseous
SF excited by an oscillating electric field. The apparatus has been
calibrated measuring the electric polarizability. Assuming charge conservation
in the decay of the neutron, the experiment gives a limit of
for the electron-proton charge
difference, the same limit holding for the charge of the neutron. Previous
measurements are critically reviewed and found incorrect: the present result is
the best limit obtained with this technique
Constraints on the Electrical Charge Asymmetry of the Universe
We use the isotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background to place stringent
constraints on a possible electrical charge asymmetry of the universe. We find
the excess charge per baryon to be in the case of a uniform
distribution of charge, where is the charge of the electron. If the charge
asymmetry is inhomogeneous, the constraints will depend on the spectral index,
, of the induced magnetic field and range from
() to (). If one could further
assume that the charge asymmetries of individual particle species are not
anti-correlated so as to cancel, this would imply, for photons, ; for neutrinos, ; and for heavy (light) dark
matter particles ().Comment: New version to appear in JCA
Neutral Particles in Light of the Majorana-Ahluwalia Ideas
The first part of this article (Sections I and II) presents oneself an
overview of theory and phenomenology of truly neutral particles based on the
papers of Majorana, Racah, Furry, McLennan and Case. The recent development of
the construct, undertaken by Ahluwalia [{\it Mod. Phys. Lett. A}{\bf 9} (1994)
439; {\it Acta Phys. Polon. B}{\bf 25} (1994) 1267; Preprints LANL
LA-UR-94-1252, LA-UR-94-3118], could be relevant for explanation of the present
experimental situation in neutrino physics and astrophysics.
In Section III the new fundamental wave equations for self/anti-self
conjugate type-II spinors, proposed by Ahluwalia, are re-casted to covariant
form. The connection with the Foldy-Nigam-Bargmann-Wightman- Wigner (FNBWW)
type quantum field theory is found. The possible applications to the problem of
neutrino oscillations are discussed.Comment: REVTEX file. 21pp. No figure
Interference with glycosaminoglycan-chemokine interactions with a probe to alter leukocyte recruitment and inflammation in vivo
In vivo leukocyte recruitment is not fully understood and may result from interactions of chemokines with glycosaminoglycans/GAGs. We previously showed that chlorite-oxidized oxyamylose/COAM binds the neutrophil chemokine GCP-2/CXCL6. Here, mouse chemokine binding by COAM was studied systematically and binding affinities of chemokines to COAM versus GAGs were compared. COAM and heparan sulphate bound the mouse CXC chemokines KC/CXCL1, MIP-2/CXCL2, IP-10/CXCL10 and I-TAC/CXCL11 and the CC chemokine RANTES/CCL5 with affinities in the nanomolar range, whereas no binding interactions were observed for mouse MCP-1/CCL2, MIP-1α/CCL3 and MIP-1β/CCL4. The affinities of COAM-interacting chemokines were similar to or higher than those observed for heparan sulphate. Although COAM did not display chemotactic activity by itself, its co-administration with mouse GCP-2/CXCL6 and MIP-2/CXCL2 or its binding of endogenous chemokines resulted in fast and cooperative peritoneal neutrophil recruitment and in extravasation into the cremaster muscle in vivo. These local GAG mimetic features by COAM within tissues superseded systemic effects and were sufficient and applicable to reduce LPS-induced liver-specific neutrophil recruitment and activation. COAM mimics glycosaminoglycans and is a nontoxic probe for the study of leukocyte recruitment and inflammation in vivo
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