Top quark physics at muon and other future colliders

The top quark will be extensively studied at future muon colliders. The threshold cross section can be measured precisely, and the small beam energy spread is especially effective at making the measurement useful. We report on all the activities of the top quark working group, including talks on top quark physics at other future colliders.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, Summary report of the Top Quark Working Group at the Workshop on Physics at the First Muon Collider and at the Front End of a Muon Collider, November 6-9, 1997, Fermi National Accelerator Laborator

Pro Se Aspects of Hampden County Housing Court: Helping People Help Themselves

Great changes in American life have occurred over the last score of years. With these changes has come an increasing public interest in the law and how it affects individual rights. This growing interest may account for alterations in the administration of the law and in the legal profession itself. Today, attorneys find themselves hard-pressed to stay abreast of the ever-broadening law, as each decision weaves greater detail and specificity into the older law. While the public continues to demand judicial resolutions to societal problems, the need for professional legal expertise in many routine legal matters is being questioned. It is often thought that laymen should be allowed to perform some of these tasks themselves. The legal profession itself is beginning to realize that some matters cost far more to handle than lawyers can properly charge. Often clients are better off doing some things for themselves, or having paralegals rather than lawyers perform the more routine services. Public pressures to enable individuals to handle simple legal matters without attorneys have led to an increasing use of the courts by unrepresented parties. The extension of prose adjudication into the realm of landlord-tenant problems partially explains the creation of courts like the Hampden County Housing Court. The Hampden County Housing Court began operation two years after the establishment of the Boston Housing Court. Hampden County tenants responsible for the court\u27s creation cited the need for a specialized housing court since the district courts could not adequately deal with housing problems on a timely basis due to its crowded schedule and because the right to appeal to the higher superior court was nondiscretionary. Additionally, the tenants felt that the juxtaposition of housing-related cases with the usual district court docket of more serious crimes would make housing matters appear relatively less important to the presiding judges. With the advent of the Boston Housing Court in 1971 at a superior court level, a forum was created where urban housing cases could be heard by judges in a specialized atmosphere and with the assistance of a specially trained staff. In Springfield, the Commonwealth\u27s second largest city, support for a second housing court was not widespread until fire destroyed a condemned, but still occupied house, taking the lives of two small children. The result was the bill creating the Hampden County Housing Court, the first housing court in the nation with county-wide jurisdiction able to deal with urban, suburban and rural housing cases. The atmosphere of a people\u27s court surrounded the housing court from its early stages, when the governor agreed to allow an ad hoc public committee to participate in interviewing and recommending candidates for both the judge and clerk of the new court. A Citizens Advisory Committee to the court was created as a result. These actions helped to create the impression that the rules followed in other courts need not necessarily apply in the Hampden County Housing Court. In addition, the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Haddad affirmed the right of a private citizen to enter complaints for a violation of the law, thus confirming the status of a citizen complainant in a criminal proceeding seeking to enforce the state sanitary code. This decision allowed the courts to take complaints from citizens when municipal officials failed to act. Of course, the conception of the housing court as a free-form court operating with different rules is false. Hampden County Housing Court operates under the same rules of criminal procedure as the district courts of the Commonwealth, and under the same civil rules and appellate rules as the superior courts of the Commonwealth with a few exceptions. The most important special rules concern the right to transfer any case within the county to the housing court simply by filing a transfer form and the right to accept a written report from a housing, building or other governmental inspector into evidence without requiring that the inspector be in court to give testimony. By giving the court concurrent jurisdiction with both district and superior courts, the advantages of both courts are gained. Additionally, equity powers which district courts lack, and the right of appeal to the Commonwealth\u27s Appeals Court which negates appeals for the sake of delay are realized. These few rule changes do not amount to a people\u27s court. Rather, they create an aura of service and openness to the people who use the courts and pay the salaries. In addition, two positive steps have been taken to help citizens more easily use the court

Impacts and Benefits of a Satellite Power System on the Electric Utility Industry

The purpose of this limited study was to investigate six specific issues associated with interfacing a Satellite Power System (5 GW) with large (by present standards) terrestrial power pools to a depth sufficient to determine if certain interface problems and/or benefits exist and what future studies of these problems are required. The issues investigated are as follows: (1) Stability of Power Pools Containing a 5 GWe SPS; (2) Extra Reserve Margin Required to Maintain the Reliability of Power Pools Containing a 5 GWe SPS; (3) Use of the SPS in Load Following Service (i.e. in two independent pools whose times of peak demand differ by three hours); (4) Ownership of the SPS and its effect on SPS Usage and Utility Costs; (5) Utility Sharing of SPS related RD and D Costs; (6) Utility Liability for SPS Related Hazards

Peripheral osteoma of the mandible in a cat

A six-year-old, male, castrated domestic shorthair cat was presented for evaluation of an oral mass. Full physical examination revealed a large hard mass arising from the lateral aspect of the caudal part of the left mandible. Abdominal ultrasound and thoracic computed tomography (CT) were performed to rule out metastatic disease. In addition, CT of the skull with intravenous contrast agent was performed. Histopathological examination of extra- oral biopsies confirmed the tentative diagnosis of peripheral osteoma. A three-dimensional printed skull was used in conjunction with the CT images to determine the detailed location and extent of the mass and to identify anatomical spatial relationships with important neurovascular structures. Surgical debulking of the osteoma was performed. The cat recovered uneventfully but the mass regrew nine months after debulking therapy, sooner than expected. Nevertheless, CT scan of the skull was suggestive for regrowth of the peripheral osteoma rather than for malignant transformation. The owners did not elect to pursue caudal mandibulectomy

An Update in Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) was first described in 1916 (Guillain G, 1916) and is approaching its 100th anniversary. Our knowledge of the syndrome has hugely expanded since that time. Once originally considered to be only demyelinating in pathology we now recognise both axonal and demyelinating subtypes. Numerous triggering or antecedent events including infections are recognised and GBS is considered an immunological response to these. GBS is now considered to be a clinical syndrome of an acute inflammatory neuropathy encompassing a number of subtypes with evidence of different immunological mechanisms. Some of these are clearly understood while others remain to be fully elucidated. Complement fixing antibodies against peripheral nerve gangliosides alone and in combination are increasingly recognised as an important mechanism of nerve damage. New antibodies against other nerve antigens such as neurofascin have been recently described. Research databases have been set up to look at factors associated with prognosis and the influence of intravenous immunoglobulin (IvIg) pharmacokinetics in therapy. Exciting new studies are in progress to examine a possible role for complement inhibition in the treatment of the syndrome

K Winer Letter to Gary Cohen re Use of Mark Winer Quotes

This letter is addressed to Gary Cohe

The Role of Cognitive Fusion in Pathways to Violent Radicalization and Deradicalization

A better understanding of modifiable psychological processes that could reduce pathways to violent radicalization (VR) would greatly aid researchers, providers, policy makers, and individuals at risk for VR. Cognitive fusion, the tendency for behavior to be overly regulated and influenced by one’s thoughts and feelings, and a common intervention target within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), may be one such fulcrum. Participants, recruited via gateway snowball sampling, were 233 young adults drawn from five communities in North America as part of Wave 4 of the Somali Youth Longitudinal Study. Utilizing moderation and mediation path analysis in MPlus, the study examined the relations between cognitive fusion, VR, and three important variables associated with VR risk: post traumatic stress symptoms, experiences of daily discrimination, and perceptions of a just government. Findings supported that higher levels of cognitive fusion were directly related to greater openness to VR. Additionally, higher levels of cognitive fusion statistically mediated the link between both daily discrimination and openness to VR as well as between post traumatic stress symptoms and openness to VR. Findings also highlighted that cognitive fusion and perceptions of a just government interacted such that openness to VR was highest in individuals who had low perceptions of a just government and had high levels of cognitive fusion. Results of this study provide preliminary evidence of the potential role of high cognitive fusion in the pathways to VR and further evidence for its potential integration as a target domain within deradicalization efforts