Mapping Sex Offender Addresses: The Utility of the Alaska Sex Offender Registry as a Research Data Base

The registration of sex offenders was part of a national effort to enhance public safety by permitting law enforcement officials to track the location of convicted sex offenders after their release. All fifty states have enacted legislation requiring persons convicted of various sex-related offenses to register with law enforcement agencies; many states also grant public access to all or a portion of their registries. This document reports on the Alaska Statistical Analysis Center's efforts to improve data accuracy in the Alaska Sex Offender Registry, maintained by the Alaska State Troopers, and to assess the registry's utility as a research tool.Bureau of Justice Statistics, Grant No. 1999-RU-RX-K006Background of the Project / Research Methodology / Results / Utility: Spatial Justice Research / APPENDICES / A. Alaska’s Sex Offender Registration Law / B. Establishment of a Central Registry of Sex Offenders in Alaska / C. Definitions of Offenses for which Convicted Persons Must Register as Sex Offenders in Alask

Constituent quark model for baryons with strong quark-pair correlations and non-leptonic weak transitions of hyperon

We study the roles of quark-pair correlations for baryon properties, in particular on non-leptonic weak decay of hyperons. We construct the quark wave function of baryons by solving the three body problem explicitly with confinement force and the short range attraction for a pair of quarks with their total spin being 0. We show that the existence of the strong quark-quark correlations enhances the non-leptonic transition amplitudes which is consistent with the data, while the baryon masses and radii are kept to the experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, talk presented at KEK-Tanashi International Symposium on Physics of Hadrons and Nuclei, Tokyo, Japan, 14-17 Dec. 199

Chiral Loops and Ghost States in the Quenched Scalar Propagator

The scalar, isovector meson propagator is analyzed in quenched QCD, using the MQA pole-shifting ansatz to study the chiral limit. In addition to the expected short-range exponential falloff characteristic of a heavy scalar meson, the propagator also exhibits a longer-range, negative metric contribution which becomes pronounced for smaller quark masses. We show that this is a quenched chiral loop effect associated with the anomalous structure of the $\eta '$ propagator in quenched QCD. Both the time dependence and the quark mass dependence of this effect are well-described by a chiral loop diagram corresponding to an $\eta '- \pi$ intermediate state, which is light and effectively of negative norm in the quenched approximation. The relevant parameters of the effective Lagrangian describing the scalar sector of the quenched theory are determined.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, Late

Note on Moufang-Noether currents

The derivative Noether currents generated by continuous Moufang tranformations are constructed and their equal-time commutators are found. The corresponding charge algebra turns out to be a birepresentation of the tangent Mal'ltsev algebra of an analytic Moufang loop.Comment: LaTeX2e, 6 pages, no figures, presented on "The XVth International Colloquium on Integrable Systems and Quantum Symmetries, Prague, 15-17 June, 2006

Universal Quantum Viscosity in a Unitary Fermi Gas

A Fermi gas of atoms with resonant interactions is predicted to obey universal hydrodynamics, where the shear viscosity and other transport coefficients are universal functions of the density and temperature. At low temperatures, the viscosity has a universal quantum scale $\hbar n$ where $n$ is the density, while at high temperatures the natural scale is $p_T^3/\hbar^2$ where $p_T$ is the thermal momentum. We employ breathing mode damping to measure the shear viscosity at low temperature. At high temperature $T$, we employ anisotropic expansion of the cloud to find the viscosity, which exhibits precise $T^{3/2}$ scaling. In both experiments, universal hydrodynamic equations including friction and heating are used to extract the viscosity. We estimate the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density and compare to that of a perfect fluid.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Towards a more holistic research approach to plant conservation: the case of rare plants on oceanic islands

Research dedicated to rare endemic plants is usually focused on one given aspect. However, holistic studies, addressing several key issues, might be more useful, supporting management programs, while unravelling basic knowledge about ecological and population level processes. A more comprehensive approach to research is proposed, encompassing: phylogenetics/systematics, pollination biology and seed dispersal, propagation, population genetics, species distribution models (SDMs), threats and monitoring. We present a holistic study dedicated to Veronica dabneyi, an endangered chamaephyte endemic to the Azores. Veronica dabneyi was mainly found associated with other endemic taxa, however invasive plants were also present and together with introduced cattle, goats and rabbits are a major threat. Most populations grow at somewhat rocky and steep locations that appeared to work as refuges. Seed set in the wild was generally high and recruitment of young plants from seed seemed to be frequent. In the laboratory, it was possible to germinate and fully develop V. dabneyi seedlings, which were planted at their site of origin. No dormancy was detected and time for 50% of germination was affected by incubation temperature. Eight new microsatellite markers were applied to 72 individuals from 7 sites. A considerable degree of admixture was found between samples from the two islands Flores and Corvo, with 98% of the genetic variability allocated within populations. Levels of heterozygosity were high and no evidence of inbreeding was found. SDMs based on climatic and topographic variables allowed the estimation of the potential distribution of V. dabneyi on Flores and Corvo using ENFA and Maxent. The inclusion of land use variables only slightly increased the information explained by the models. Projection of the expected habitat in Faial largely coincided with the only historic record of V. dabneyi in that island. This research could be the basis for the design of a recovery plan, showing the pertinence of more holistic research approaches to plant conservation

Short distance current correlators: Comparing lattice simulations to the instanton liquid

Point to point correlators of currents are computed in quenched QCD using a chiral lattice fermion action, the overlap action. I compare correlators made of exact quark propagators with correlators restricted to low (less than 500 MeV) eigenvalue eigenmodes of the Dirac operator. In many cases they show qualitative resemblence (typically at small values of the quark mass and distances larger than 0.4 fm) and they differ qualitatively at larger quark masses or at very short distance. Lattice results are in qualitative agreement (and in the difference of vector and axial vector channels, quantitative agreement) with the expectations of instanton liquid models. The scalar channel shows the effects of a quenched finite volume zero mode artifact, a negative correlator.Comment: 18 pages, Revtex, 11 postscript figures. Some changes. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Interference effects in two-photon ATI by multiple orders high harmonics with random or locked phases

We numerically study 2-photon processes using a set of harmonics from a Ti:Sapphire laser and in particular interference effects in the Above Threshold Ionization spectra. We compare the situation where the harmonic phases are assumed locked to the case where they have a random distribution. Suggestions for possible experiments, using realistic parameters are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, LaTe