The Hand in the Brew: Judges and Their Communities

Reviewing: Paul W. Kahn, Making the Case: The Art of the Judicial Opinion (Yale University Press 2016); Douglas E. Edlin, Common Law Judging: Subjectivity, Impartiality, and the Making of Law (University of Michigan Press 2016)

Implementation of HERS-ST in Iowa and Development / Refinement of a National Training Program

The Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) is an economic model that uses highway performance monitoring system (HPMS) data to project future highway conditions and requirements. HERS is a highly complex model that, at the national level, uses samples of the highway network taken from the HPMS data. As a result, at the national level it is only used for aggregate network-level analysis (planning-level analysis). When the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Asset Management was established in 1999, the office began developing the state version of HERS, or HERS-ST. HERS-ST has since evolved into a model that is specifically crafted for states. A DOS version of HERS-ST was demonstrated at a workshop attended by representatives of several state transportation agencies in 2001. Since then, several improvements have been made to the software, including updates for a Windows environment and the addition of GIS capabilities. The current project will yield a HERS-ST specifically for Iowa, but one that can be used as a model for other states

Relevance of the slowly-varying electron gas to atoms, molecules, and solids

Under a certain scaling, the electron densities of finite systems become both large and slowly-varying, so that the gradient expansions of the density functionals for the Kohn-Sham kinetic and exchange energies become asymptotically exact to order $\nabla^2$. Neutral atoms of large $Z$ scale similarly, but a cusp correction at the nucleus requires generalizing the gradient expansion for exchange, producing the wrong gradient coefficient in the slowly-varying limit. Meta-generalized gradient approximations (meta-GGA's) recover both the slowly-varying and large-$Z$ limits. GGA correlation energies of large-Z atoms are found to be accurate.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted at PR

Hepatic IKKε expression is dispensable for high-fat feeding-induced increases in liver lipid content and alterations in glucose tolerance

© 2020 the American Physiological Society. There are endocrine and immunological changes that occur during onset and progression of the overweight and obese states. The inhibitor of nuclear factor-κB kinase-ε (IKKε) was originally described as an inducible protein kinase; whole body gene deletion or systemic pharmaceutical targeting of this kinase improved insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance in mice. To investigate the primary sites of action associated with IKKε during weight gain, we describe the first mouse line with conditional elimination of IKKε in the liver (IKKεAlb-/-). IKKεAlb-/- mice and littermate controls gain weight, show similar changes in body composition, and do not display any improvements in insulin sensitivity or whole body glucose tolerance. These studies were conducted using breeder chow diets and matched low- vs. high-fat diets. While glycogen accumulation in the liver is reduced in IKKεAlb-/- mice, lipid storage in liver is similar in IKKεAlb-/- mice and littermate controls. Our results using IKKεAlb-/-mice suggest that the primary action of this kinase to impact insulin sensitivity during weight gain lies predominantly within extrahepatic tissues

Thermal Density Functional Theory in Context

This chapter introduces thermal density functional theory, starting from the ground-state theory and assuming a background in quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. We review the foundations of density functional theory (DFT) by illustrating some of its key reformulations. The basics of DFT for thermal ensembles are explained in this context, as are tools useful for analysis and development of approximations. We close by discussing some key ideas relating thermal DFT and the ground state. This review emphasizes thermal DFT's strengths as a consistent and general framework.Comment: Submitted to Spring Verlag as chapter in "Computational Challenges in Warm Dense Matter", F. Graziani et al. ed

Radio Astronomy

Contains reports on twelve research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant AST77-06052)Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-76-C-1400)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Contract NAS5-21980)U.S. Air Force - Electronic Systems Division (Contract F19628-75-C-0122)U.S. Department of Commerce - National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (Grant 04-8-M01-1)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Contract NAS5-22929)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Contract NAS5-23677)National Science Foundation (Grant AST73-05042-A03)National Science Foundation (Grant AST76-20376