An Economic Analysis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

As an attempt by Congress to overturn a Supreme Court ruling by statute, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), although passed by a congressional landslide, was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed during Bill Clinton\u27s presidency. Wheeler examines RFRA from a law and economics perspective to show that, as a method by which Congress attempted to impose its definition of a constitutional right upon the courts, the Act was inefficient

Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics: A Brief Introduction for the non-Expert

Open Access to particle physics literature does not sound particularly new or exciting, since particle physicists have been reading preprints for decades, and arXiv.org for 15 years. However new movements in Europe are attempting to make the peer-reviewed literature of the field fully Open Access. This is not a new movement, nor is it restricted to this field. However, given the field's history of preprints and eprints, it is well suited to a change to a fully Open Access publishing model. Data shows that 90% of HEP published literature is freely available online, meaning that HEP libraries have little need for expensive journal subscriptions. As libraries begin to cancel journal subscriptions, the peer review process will lose its primary source of funding. Open Access publishing models can potentially address this issue. European physicists and funding agencies are proposing a consortium, SCOAP3, that might solve many of the objections to traditional Open Access publishing models in Particle Physics. These proposed changes should be viewed as a starting point for a serious look at the field's publication model, and are at least worthy of attention, if not adoption

Configurational temperature control for atomic and molecular systems

A new configurational temperature thermostat suitable for molecules with holonomic constraints is derived. This thermostat has a simple set of motion equations, can generate the canonical ensemble in both position and momentum space, acts homogeneously through the spatial coordinates, and does not intrinsically violate the constraints. Our new configurational thermostat is closely related to the kinetic temperature Nosé-Hoover thermostat with feedback coupled to the position variables via a term proportional to the net molecular force. We validate the thermostat by comparing equilibrium static and dynamic quantities for a fluid of n-decane molecules under configurational and kinetic temperature control. Practical aspects concerning the implementation of the new thermostat in a molecular dynamics code and the potential applications are discussed

Products of Compartmental Models in Epidemiology.

We show that many structured epidemic models may be described using a straightforward product structure in this paper. Such products, derived from products of directed graphs, may represent useful refinements including geographic and demographic structure, age structure, gender, risk groups, or immunity status. Extension to multistrain dynamics, that is, pathogen heterogeneity, is also shown to be feasible in this framework. Systematic use of such products may aid in model development and exploration, can yield insight, and could form the basis of a systematic approach to numerical structural sensitivity analysis

Subtleties Concerning Conformal Tractor Bundles

The realization of tractor bundles as associated bundles in conformal geometry is studied. It is shown that different natural choices of principal bundle with normal Cartan connection corresponding to a given conformal manifold can give rise to topologically distinct associated tractor bundles for the same inducing representation. Consequences for homogeneous models and conformal holonomy are described. A careful presentation is made of background material concerning standard tractor bundles and equivalence between parabolic geometries and underlying structures.Comment: 17 page

Evaluation of Level of Milk Potential on Nutrient Balance in 2- and 4- Year- Old May- Calving Range Cows Grazing Sandhills Upland Range

A modeling study evaluated the effects of milk production level on nutrient balance in May- calving cows grazing Sandhills upland range during the breeding season. Forage quality of upland range peaks in June and steadily declines in July until November. With timing of forage quality decline and increasing nutrient demands due to lactation, cows were in a negative energy balance in late June and early July prior to deficiency of metabolizable protein. Supplementation to meet energy deficiencies in June and July and MP deficiencies in July with distiller grains that is high ruminally undegradable protein and high fiber energy may be needed in May- calving cowherds. Selection for milk over 23 lb at peak lactation creates deficiencies early post- calving and increases the need for additional supplementation to correct the nutrient deficiency. In an effort to match cow type to environment in the Sandhills and optimize performance, producers should consider selecting against high milk potential

A List of Household Objects for Robotic Retrieval Prioritized by People with ALS (Version 092008)

This technical report is designed to serve as a citable reference for the original prioritized object list that the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech released on its website in September of 2008. It is also expected to serve as the primary citable reference for the research associated with this list until the publication of a detailed, peer-reviewed paper. The original prioritized list of object classes resulted from a needs assessment involving 8 motor-impaired patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and targeted, in-person interviews of 15 motor-impaired ALS patients. All of these participants were drawn from the Emory ALS Center. The prioritized object list consists of 43 object classes ranked by how important the participants considered each class to be for retrieval by an assistive robot. We intend for this list to be used by researchers to inform the design and benchmarking of robotic systems, especially research related to autonomous mobile manipulation

The Evolution of Male-Biased Dispersal under the Joint Selective Forces of Inbreeding Load and Demographic and Environmental Stochasticity

Acknowledgments We thank G. Bocedi, S. Palmer, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts. R.C.H. was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (1271380). Simulations were performed on the University of Aberdeen’s Maxwell high performance computing cluster.Peer reviewedPublisher PD