Surface functionalized spherical nanoparticles: an optical assessment of local chirality

Electromagnetic radiation propagating through any molecular system typically experiences a characteristic change in its polarization state as a result of light-matter interaction. Circularly polarized light is commonly absorbed or scattered to an extent that is sensitive to the incident circularity, when it traverses a medium whose constituents are chiral. This research assesses specific modifications to the properties of circularly polarized light that arise on passage through a system of surface-functionalized spherical nanoparticles, through the influence of chiral molecules on their surfaces. Non-functionalized nanospheres of atomic constitution are usually inherently achiral, but can exhibit local chirality associated with such surface-bound chromophores. The principal result of this investigation is the quantification of functionally conferred nanoparticle chirality, manifest through optical measurements such as circularly polarized emission. The relative position of chiral chromophores fixed to a nanoparticle sphere are first determined by means of spherical coverage co-ordinate analysis. The total electromagnetic field received by a spatially fixed, remote detector is then determined. It is shown that bound chromophores will accommodate both electric and magnetic dipole transition moments, whose scalar product represents the physical and mathematical origin of chiral properties identified in the detected signal. The analysis concludes with discussion of the magnitude of circular differential optical effects, and their potential significance for the characterization of surface-functionalized nanoparticles

Disaster Loses in the Developing World: Evidence from the August 1999 Earthquake in Turkey

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of a natural disaster on a developing country’s economy. In that sense, we look at the impact of August 1999 earthquake in Turkey on two important macroeconomic indicators of the Turkish economy (Real Output and Employment) with recovery policies followed by the government and international donors. Our results indicate that the earthquake had a significant immediate negative impact on both output and employment growth in Turkey. While output growth reverted back to its predisaster pattern after the initial shock, employment growth did not recover. The earthquake had both a short run and long run influence on the Turkish economy. This study will develop understanding of the possible effects of future earthquakes. Also, it will help the Turkish Government evaluate already-applied mitigation measures (like Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool etc.) and guide the preparation for forthcoming disasters since scientists have reached a consensus that a major earthquake is expected in Istanbul.

Potential Hazards of Cellular Phone Radiation: Responses to Fear and Uncertainty

In recent years, the public has become concerned that the electromagnetic radio-frequency radiation (“RF radiationâ€) emitted by cellular telephones may pose serious health risks, including the risk of cancer. There are over 110 million cell phone users in the United States and many of them may not know that cell phones actually send electromagnetic waves into the user’s brain. Depending on how close the cell phone antenna is to one’s head, as much as sixty percent of the microwave radiation from the phone is absorbed by, and actually penetrates the head, possibly reaching as far as an inch-and-a-half into the brain. The problem is that it is still unknown whether or not this RF radiation from cellular phones actually causes any sort of damage to the user. This paper will explore many aspects of the issue of cellular phone radiation. The first section of the paper will explain what RF radiation is and provide an overview of the various scientific studies which have examined the effects of RF radiation on health. The second section of the paper will discuss and critique the regulatory responses by the FDA and the FCC in the midst of this scientific uncertainty. The third section of the paper will provide an overview of the judicial treatment of cell phone radiation issues by exploring some of the recent case law in this area. Finally, the last section of the paper will provide policy recommendations for how the FDA and FCC should be responding to this potential health crisis

Sweet Result in Savory: How the Seventh Circuit Took the Correct Approach to Post-Conviction Access to DNA Evidence in \u3cem\u3eSavory v. Lyons\u3c/em\u3e

Progress in the field of DNA testing over the last few decades has resulted in increasingly accurate results. Often this means that DNA evidence found to be inconclusive years ago may prove exculpatory to a prisoner if subjected to today’s more advanced testing. Prisoners may potentially gain access to this evidence through two methods: 1) a writ of habeas corpus; or 2) a § 1983 action. While both approaches can yield the same results, a writ of habeas corpus is subject to several procedural requirements which can delay a prisoner’s access to testing, making a § 1983 action a potentially more desirable path to follow. While both the Eleventh and Ninth circuits have allowed prisoners to gain post-conviction access to DNA testing through § 1983 actions, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth circuits have held that prisoners seeking such access are limited to habeas relief. In the 2006 case Savory v. Lyons, the Seventh Circuit followed the lead of the Eleventh and Ninth circuits and held that a prisoner’s request for post-conviction access to physical evidence for the purpose of DNA testing is cognizable through a § 1983 action. This Comment reviews the jurisprudence leading to Savory, examines Savory’s facts and analysis, and argues that the Seventh Circuit’s approach in Savory is correct because the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision Wilkinson v. Dotson regarding the validity of § 1983 actions seeking post-conviction relief, though not speaking directly to the issue as it pertains to DNA testing, creates a framework in which such actions are cognizable

Sweet Result in Savory: How the Seventh Circuit Took the Correct Approach to Post-Conviction Access to DNA Evidence in \u3cem\u3eSavory v. Lyons\u3c/em\u3e

Progress in the field of DNA testing over the last few decades has resulted in increasingly accurate results. Often this means that DNA evidence found to be inconclusive years ago may prove exculpatory to a prisoner if subjected to today’s more advanced testing. Prisoners may potentially gain access to this evidence through two methods: 1) a writ of habeas corpus; or 2) a § 1983 action. While both approaches can yield the same results, a writ of habeas corpus is subject to several procedural requirements which can delay a prisoner’s access to testing, making a § 1983 action a potentially more desirable path to follow. While both the Eleventh and Ninth circuits have allowed prisoners to gain post-conviction access to DNA testing through § 1983 actions, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth circuits have held that prisoners seeking such access are limited to habeas relief. In the 2006 case Savory v. Lyons, the Seventh Circuit followed the lead of the Eleventh and Ninth circuits and held that a prisoner’s request for post-conviction access to physical evidence for the purpose of DNA testing is cognizable through a § 1983 action. This Comment reviews the jurisprudence leading to Savory, examines Savory’s facts and analysis, and argues that the Seventh Circuit’s approach in Savory is correct because the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision Wilkinson v. Dotson regarding the validity of § 1983 actions seeking post-conviction relief, though not speaking directly to the issue as it pertains to DNA testing, creates a framework in which such actions are cognizable

Mama\u27s Boy

Mama\u27s Boy is a book of fiction and nonfiction by Jamie Berger. It deals with mothers and sons and feminism and pornography and poker and love and New York and San Francisco and Western Massachusetts

Application of Enlisted Force Retention Levels and Career Field Stability

The Air Force’s success is influenced by the manpower it has. The end-strength is Congressionally mandated. Predicting personnel retention is critical to the operations of the military. Over 10 years ago, the Air Force produced enlisted career field sustainment lines based on manning. If a career field was over manned the authorizations were decreased, likewise if a career field was under manned the authorizations were increased. The constant fluctuation of manning caused bathtubs to be created and requirements to go unfilled. Currently, the Air Force produces enlisted career field sustainment lines based on the 5-year historical retention rates. This method produced a more steady state approach, as well as providing a means to adjust the line for other policy actions such as retraining in/out. The need to have a statistically based approach is essential for explaining and defending the creation of the sustainment lines. Many decisions that affect the methods selected for maintaining end-strength are based off the sustainment lines. Data from 2006-2015 was utilized in this research. Logistic regression was used to determine if any significant variables existed, however logistic regression did not provide enough insight into the behavior of the data to be utilized. A survival analysis approach, using retention data, provides a statistically sound methodology to the creation of the sustainment lines. This study produces sustainment lines based on the survival functions for each enlisted career field. It also analyzes the potential of grouping the years of service to manage the career and analyzes retention based on gender and on marital status

Innovative Heuristics to Improve the Latent Dirichlet Allocation Methodology for Textual Analysis and a New Modernized Topic Modeling Approach

Natural Language Processing is a complex method of data mining the vast trove of documents created and made available every day. Topic modeling seeks to identify the topics within textual corpora with limited human input into the process to speed analysis. Current topic modeling techniques used in Natural Language Processing have limitations in the pre-processing steps. This dissertation studies topic modeling techniques, those limitations in the pre-processing, and introduces new algorithms to gain improvements from existing topic modeling techniques while being competitive with computational complexity. This research introduces four contributions to the field of Natural Language Processing and topic modeling. First, this research identifies a requirement for a more robust “stopwords” list and proposes a heuristic for creating a more robust list. Second, a new dimensionality-reduction technique is introduced that exploits the number of words within a document to infer importance to word choice. Third, an algorithm is developed to determine the number of topics within a corpus and demonstrated using a standard topic modeling data set. These techniques produce a higher quality result from the Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling technique. Fourth, a novel heuristic utilizing Principal Component Analysis is introduced that is capable of determining the number of topics within a corpus that produces stable sets of topic words

Measuring the Regional Economic Response to Hurricane Katrina

Naturkatastrophe; Sturm; Makroökonomischer Einfluss; USA