Clearing the Air on Radon Testing: The Duty of Real Estate Brokers to Protect Prospective Homebuyers

This Note recommends that the federal government create legislation that will impose a duty on real estate brokers to test homes for radon and to disclose the results to prospective purchasers. Based on a common law negligence theory, such a duty would become part of the current obligation of a real estate broker: (1) to conduct a reasonably diligent and competent search of property for sale; and (2) to disclose to prospective homebuyers all material defects affecting the value or desirability of the home. In his investigation, the broker must use the expertise and knowledge that derive from his training and experience as a professional. Initially, the Note addresses the dilemma of the homebuyer who discovers radon only after occupying the home and who has no formally defined cause of action based on common law precedent or statute. Part II traces the development of a real estate broker\u27s liability in negligence to the recently imposed duty to discover and disclose latent defects. Part III analyzes the duty to discover and disclose latent defects with respect to radon and concludes that real estate brokers should have an affirmative duty to test for radon and to disclose the results to prospective purchasers. Finally, part IV recommends legislation to protect the unwary homebuyer who otherwise would take possession of the home and suffer potential economic loss and exposure to a carcinogenic substance

Stochastic Domination in Space-Time for the Contact Process

Liggett and Steif (2006) proved that, for the supercritical contact process \non certain graphs, the upper invariant measure stochastically dominates an \ni.i.d.\\ Bernoulli product measure. In particular, they proved this for \n$\\mathbb{Z}^d$ and (for infection rate sufficiently large) $d$-ary homogeneous \ntrees $T_d$. \n In this paper we prove some space-time versions of their results. We do this \nby combining their methods with specific properties of the contact process and \ngeneral correlation inequalities. \n One of our main results concerns the contact process on $T_d$ with $d\\geq2$. \nWe show that, for large infection rate, there exists a subset $\\Delta$ of the \nvertices of $T_d$, containing a "positive fraction" of all the vertices of \n$T_d$, such that the following holds: The contact process on $T_d$ observed on \n$\\Delta$ stochastically dominates an independent spin-flip process. (This is \nknown to be false for the contact process on graphs having subexponential \ngrowth.) \n We further prove that the supercritical contact process on $\\mathbb{Z}^d$ \nobserved on certain $d$-dimensional space-time slabs stochastically dominates \nan i.i.d.\\ Bernoulli product measure, from which we conclude strong mixing \nproperties important in the study of certain random walks in random \nenvironment

Evaluation of the isospin asymmetry of the nucleon structure functions with CLAS++

The possibility to estimate the isospin symmetry breaking effects in the non-perturbative part of F_2 structure function of the chargeg lN deep-pnelastic scattering, which will provide CLAS++ dewtector of the upgraded TJNAF machine at $Q^2\approx 2 GeV^2$, is discussed. The problems of the Gottfried sum rule extraction are also considered.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, presented at BARYONS04 Conference, Palaiseau, France, October 2004, submitted to the Proceedings

Anisotropic Superexchange for nearest and next nearest coppers in chain, ladder and lamellar cuprates

We present a detailed calculation of the magnetic couplings between nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor coppers in the edge-sharing geometry, ubiquitous in many cuprates. In this geometry, the interaction between nearest neighbor coppers is mediated via two oxygens, and the Cu-O-Cu angle is close to 90 degrees. The derivation is based on a perturbation expansion of a general Hubbard Hamiltonian, and produces numerical estimates for the various magnetic energies. In particular we find the dependence of the anisotropy energies on the angular deviation away from the 90 degrees geometry of the Cu-O-Cu bonds. Our results are required for the correct analysis of the magnetic structure of various chain, ladder and lamellar cuprates.Comment: 13 pages, Latex, 7 figure

Pathprinting: An integrative approach to understand the functional basis of disease

New strategies to combat complex human disease require systems approaches to biology that integrate experiments from cell lines, primary tissues and model organisms. We have developed Pathprint, a functional approach that compares gene expression profiles in a set of pathways, networks and transcriptionally regulated targets. It can be applied universally to gene expression profiles across species. Integration of large-scale profiling methods and curation of the public repository overcomes platform, species and batch effects to yield a standard measure of functional distance between experiments. We show that pathprints combine mouse and human blood developmental lineage, and can be used to identify new prognostic indicators in acute myeloid leukemia. The code and resources are available at http://​compbio.​sph.​harvard.​edu/​hidelab/​pathprin

Higher moments of nucleon spin structure functions in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory and in a resonance model

The third moment $d_2$ of the twist-3 part of the nucleon spin structure function $g_2$ is generalized to arbitrary momentum transfer $Q^2$ and is evaluated in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory (HBChPT) up to order ${\mathcal{O}}(p^4)$ and in a unitary isobar model (MAID). We show how to link $d_2$ as well as higher moments of the nucleon spin structure functions $g_1$ and $g_2$ to nucleon spin polarizabilities. We compare our results with the most recent experimental data, and find a good description of these available data within the unitary isobar model. We proceed to extract the twist-4 matrix element $f_2$ which appears in the $1/Q^2$ suppressed term in the twist expansion of the spin structure function $g_1$ for proton and neutron.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

Post-release treatment uptake among participants of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections comprehensive medication assisted treatment program

The Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) recently implemented the first state-wide, comprehensive medications for addiction treatment (MAT) program in the US. The objective of this study was to elucidate perceived barriers for individuals who participated in RIDOC's MAT program while incarcerated. Of the 588 individuals eligible for this study, 227 phone surveys were completed with 214 individuals. Data relevant to demographic characteristics, probation/parole status, retention in MAT treatment, MAT type received during incarceration, MAT treatment history, location where they received community treatment, perceived barriers to treatment, and future goals for MAT were collected. Simple percentages, frequencies, means, and standard deviations were calculated with SPSS. Most participants (82.4%) reported continuing MAT post-release and a majority (74.3%) received treatment at an opioid treatment program. Those who did not connect with treatment post-release reported transportation issues (23.1%) and not wanting to continue MAT (20.5%) as major reasons for not continuing treatment. The most commonly reported goal for treatment was to continue MAT long-term (43.5%). Results indicate that most participants linked to MAT treatment post-release. Participants reported reasons for why they did not continue MAT and had mixed intentions about continuing MAT in the future. Results provide identification of novel factors, such as side effects, time between release and treatment linkage, and family and friends' opinions that influence MAT continuation post-incarceration. Results highlight areas of exploration to influence treatment retention, including the role of probation/parole officers and the potential for peer support specialists to assist in reducing stigma and increasing interest in MAT

Determination of the high-twist contribution to the structure function xF3νNxF^{\nu N}_3

We extract the high-twist contribution to the neutrino-nucleon structure function $xF_3^{(\nu+\bar{\nu})N}$ from the analysis of the data collected by the IHEP-JINR Neutrino Detector in the runs with the focused neutrino beams at the IHEP 70 GeV proton synchrotron. The analysis is performed within the infrared renormalon (IRR) model of high twists in order to extract the normalization parameter of the model. From the NLO QCD fit to our data we obtained the value of the IRR model normalization parameter $\Lambda^2_{3}=0.69\pm0.37~({\rm exp})\pm0.16~({\rm theor})~{\rm GeV}^2$. We also obtained $\Lambda^2_{3}=0.36\pm0.22~({\rm exp})\pm0.12~({\rm theor})~{\rm GeV}^2$ from a similar fit to the CCFR data. The average of both results is $\Lambda^2_{3}=0.44\pm0.19~({\rm exp})~{\rm GeV}^2$.Comment: preprint IHEP-01-18, 7 pages, LATEX, 1 figure (EPS

Spin splitting and precession in quantum dots with spin-orbit coupling: the role of spatial deformation

Extending a previous work on spin precession in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots with spin-orbit coupling, we study the role of deformation in the external confinement. Small elliptical deformations are enough to alter the precessional characteristics at low magnetic fields. We obtain approximate expressions for the modified $g$ factor including weak Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit terms. For more intense couplings numerical calculations are performed. We also study the influence of the magnetic field orientation on the spin splitting and the related anisotropy of the $g$ factor. Using realistic spin-orbit strengths our model calculations can reproduce the experimental spin-splittings reported by Hanson et al. (cond-mat/0303139) for a one-electron dot. For dots containing more electrons, Coulomb interaction effects are estimated within the local-spin-density approximation, showing that many features of the non-iteracting system are qualitatively preserved.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

A model for the Q2Q^2 dependence of polarized structure functions

We present an update of a phenomenological model for the spin dependent structure functions $g_1(x,Q^2)$ of the proton and neutron. This model is based on a broken SU(6) wavefunction parametrized by the unpolarized structure functions. The two free parameters of the model are choosen to fulfill the Bjorken and Ellis--Jaffe sum rules. The model respects isospin symmetry and has zero strange sea polarization. Using new values for $F/D$ from hyperon beta decay the resulting $Q^2$ dependent asymmetries $A_1$ are in perfect agreement with the existing data. Therefore we do not see any evidence for a ``spin crisis''. With two choices for $g_2$ the $Q^2$ dependence of $A_1(x,Q^2)$ and $A_2(x,Q^2)\sqrt{Q^2}/M$ is predicted and shown to be small for both cases.Comment: 18 pages and 11 figures as uudecoded ps file