Seasonal Flight Patterns of Miridae (Hemiptera) in a Southern Illinois Black Walnut Plantation

The seasonal flight patterns of 92 species of Miridae collected in window traps in a southern Illinois black walnut plantation are compared with similar data from a North Carolina black walnut plantation. Flying height distributions and seasonal flight activities of Amblytylus nasutus, Deraeocoris nebulosus, Leptopterna dolabrata, Lopidea heidemanni, Lygus lineolaris, and Plagiognathus politus are considered in detail. Six species are newly recorded for Illinois

The Solar Neighborhood VIII: Discovery of New High Proper Motion Nearby Stars Using the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey

Five new objects with proper motions between 1.0 arcsec/yr and 2.6 arcsec/yr have been discovered via a new RECONS search for high proper motion stars utilizing the SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey. The first portion of the search, discussed here, is centered on the south celestial pole and covers declinations -90 degrees to -57.5 degrees. Photographic photometry from SuperCOSMOS and JHKs near-infrared photometry from 2MASS for stars nearer than 10 pc are combined to provide a suite of new M_Ks-color relations useful for estimating distances to main sequence stars. These relations are then used to derive distances to the new proper motion objects as well as previously known stars with mu >= 1.0 arcsec/yr (many of which have no trigonometric parallaxes) recovered during this phase of the survey. Four of the five new stars have red dwarf colors, while one is a nearby white dwarf. Two of the red dwarfs are likely to be within the RECONS 10 pc sample, and the white dwarf probably lies between 15 and 25 pc. Among the 23 known stars recovered during the search, there are three additional candidates for the RECONS sample that have no trigonometric parallaxes.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Astronomy Journa

Corporate Distress, Credit Default Swaps, and Defaults: Information and Traditional, Contingent, and Empty Creditors

Federal securities law seeks to ensure the quality and quantity of information that corporations make publicly available. Informational asymmetries associated with companies in financial distress, but not in bankruptcy, have received little attention. This Article explores some important asymmetries in this context that are curious in their origin, nature, and impact. The asymmetries are especially curious because of the impact of a world with credit default swaps (CDS) and CDS-driven debt “decoupling.” The Article explores two categories of asymmetries. The first relates to information on the company itself. Here, the Article suggests there is fresh evidence for the belief that troubled companies may prove lax in securities law compliance and for the existing “final period” explanation for such laxity. The Article also offers two new explanations: one based on the requirements for class action certification in Rule 10b-5 litigation and the other based on uncertainties as to private enforceability of “Management’s Discussion and Analysis” disclosure requirements. Building on the existing analytical framework for decoupling, the Article also examines a less obvious category of asymmetries: “extra-company” informational asymmetries flowing from the CDS and CDS-driven debt decoupling activities of third parties. Such third-party activities can be determinative of a company’s prospects, but reliable public information on the presence, nature, and magnitude of such activities tends to be scant. Here, even the company itself, not just investors, may not have the requisite information, including information on the highly counterintuitive and unusually complex incentives that such third parties may have. Unlike traditional creditors, “empty creditors with a negative economic ownership” as well as certain other buyers of CDS protection can have strong incentives to intentionally cause corporations to go bankrupt even when bankruptcy would make little sense. Such third parties may profit not only from actual defaults on financial covenants—at just the right times—but also from artificially manufacturing “faux” defaults or seizing on real, but largely technical, defaults. The Article examines such CDS and “net short” creditor matters through the lens of four examples. The three most important and recent of these examples have not previously been considered in the academic literature: Norske Skog (a Norwegian lumber company) (involving Blue Crest and GSO Capital Partners), Hovnanian (an American home builder) (involving GSO Capital Partners), and Windstream Services (an American telecommunications company) (involving Aurelius)

Surface Encapsulation for Low-Loss Silicon Photonics

Encapsulation layers are explored for passivating the surfaces of silicon to reduce optical absorption in the 1500-nm wavelength band. Surface-sensitive test structures consisting of microdisk resonators are fabricated for this purpose. Based on previous work in silicon photovoltaics, coatings of SiNx and SiO2 are applied under varying deposition and annealing conditions. A short dry thermal oxidation followed by a long high-temperature N2 anneal is found to be most effective at long-term encapsulation and reduction of interface absorption. Minimization of the optical loss is attributed to simultaneous reduction in sub-bandgap silicon surface states and hydrogen in the capping material.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Joint Analysis of Cluster Observations: II. Chandra/XMM-Newton X-ray and Weak Lensing Scaling Relations for a Sample of 50 Rich Clusters of Galaxies

We present a study of multiwavelength X-ray and weak lensing scaling relations for a sample of 50 clusters of galaxies. Our analysis combines Chandra and XMM-Newton data using an energy-dependent cross-calibration. After considering a number of scaling relations, we find that gas mass is the most robust estimator of weak lensing mass, yielding 15 +/- 6% intrinsic scatter at r500 (the pseudo-pressure YX has a consistent scatter of 22%+/-5%). The scatter does not change when measured within a fixed physical radius of 1 Mpc. Clusters with small BCG to X-ray peak offsets constitute a very regular population whose members have the same gas mass fractions and whose even smaller <10% deviations from regularity can be ascribed to line of sight geometrical effects alone. Cool-core clusters, while a somewhat different population, also show the same (<10%) scatter in the gas mass-lensing mass relation. There is a good correlation and a hint of bimodality in the plane defined by BCG offset and central entropy (or central cooling time). The pseudo-pressure YX does not discriminate between the more relaxed and less relaxed populations, making it perhaps the more even-handed mass proxy for surveys. Overall, hydrostatic masses underestimate weak lensing masses by 10% on the average at r500; but cool-core clusters are consistent with no bias, while non-cool-core clusters have a large and constant 15-20% bias between r2500 and r500, in agreement with N-body simulations incorporating unthermalized gas. For non-cool-core clusters, the bias correlates well with BCG ellipticity. We also examine centroid shift variance and and power ratios to quantify substructure; these quantities do not correlate with residuals in the scaling relations. Individual clusters have for the most part forgotten the source of their departures from self-similarity.Comment: Corrects an error in the X-ray luminosities (erratum submitted)---none of the other results are affected. Go to http://sfstar.sfsu.edu/jaco for an electronic fitter and updated quick data download link

Diffuse Background Radiation

A new determination of the upper limit to the cosmic diffuse background radiation, at ~110 nm, of 300 photons s-1 cm-2 sr-1 nm-1, is placed in the context of diffuse background measurements across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including new optical, infrared, visible, and gamma-ray background measurements. The possibility that observed excess diffuse visible radiation is due to redshifted cosmological Lyman alpha recomination radiation is explored. Also, a new standard of units for the display of spectra is advocated.Comment: Nine pages and one figur

Quality and Effectiveness of Pre-Kindergarten Programs in Georgia: Parental Perspectives

A survey of parents whose children participate in Georgia's free prekindergarten, which assesses parents' perceptions of quality and effectiveness