Internationally Uniform Probate Law--A Method for Improving Administration of Multinational Estates

The need to coordinate succession laws of different nations was recognized as early as 1893 at the first Hague Conference where attempts were begun to coordinate the laws of succession on death through multilateral conventions. Notwithstanding so early an effort, however, the administration of multinational estates has remained plagued by diversity of national laws governing succession on death. The resulting confusion and inefficiency of administration has often frustrated the testamentary intentions of decedents of many nationalities. While no viable uniformity has been attained among nations, the need for consistency increases. Half a million United States civilian citizens live abroad, and three million aliens live in the United States. Given the current trends in immigration to the United States, in world-wide expansion of United States trade and industry, and in exploitation of the United States market by foreign producers, this number will undoubtedly continue to increase, as will the need to administer multinational estates. In response to this need, efforts continue to be made through proposed multinational conventions to coordinate succession laws of nations, and recent United States participation in such efforts, make success of the undertaking more likely in the near future

Solutions to the tethered galaxy problem in an expanding universe and the observation of receding blueshifted objects

We use the dynamics of a galaxy, set up initially at a constant proper distance from an observer, to derive and illustrate two counter-intuitive general relativistic results. Although the galaxy does gradually join the expansion of the universe (Hubble flow), it does not necessarily recede from us. In particular, in the currently favored cosmological model, which includes a cosmological constant, the galaxy recedes from the observer as it joins the Hubble flow, but in the previously favored cold dark matter model, the galaxy approaches, passes through the observer, and joins the Hubble flow on the opposite side of the sky. We show that this behavior is consistent with the general relativistic idea that space is expanding and is determined by the acceleration of the expansion of the universe -- not a force or drag associated with the expansion itself. We also show that objects at a constant proper distance will have a nonzero redshift; receding galaxies can be blueshifted and approaching galaxies can be redshifted.Comment: 8 pages including 6 figures, to appear in Am. J. Phys., 2003. Reference added in postscrip

Nonlinear optics of fibre event horizons

The nonlinear interaction of light in an optical fibre can mimic the physics at an event horizon. This analogue arises when a weak probe wave is unable to pass through an intense soliton, despite propagating at a different velocity. To date, these dynamics have been described in the time domain in terms of a soliton-induced refractive index barrier that modifies the velocity of the probe. Here, we complete the physical description of fibre-optic event horizons by presenting a full frequency-domain description in terms of cascaded four-wave mixing between discrete single-frequency fields, and experimentally demonstrate signature frequency shifts using continuous wave lasers. Our description is confirmed by the remarkable agreement with experiments performed in the continuum limit, reached using ultrafast lasers. We anticipate that clarifying the description of fibre event horizons will significantly impact on the description of horizon dynamics and soliton interactions in photonics and other systems.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Special Project: Public Housing

Despite the general prosperity of this country, a cursory survey of any American town or city will reveal that many Americans live in housing which is substandard. Frequently one sees unpainted houses characterized by broken windows and inadequate sanitary facilities. In urban areas, the ever present tenement is often filled with too many people and not enough toilets; stairs are dangerous and refuse lies uncollected in the halls. Rooms without windows are common, while those blessed with windows frequently receive little light--the only view is another window of another building. Disease and discomfort are everywhere.These conditions, however, are neither new nor unnoticed.Throughout American history, individuals as well as various levels of government have attempted to remedy, or at least alleviate, the housing problem. This study will explore one such effort--the federally-financed, locally-administered public housing program created by the Housing Act of 1937. Consequently, throughout this study, the term public housing, describing any period after 1937,refers only to the product of this Act, unless otherwise indicated. This study does not concern federally-funded housing programs such as Federal Housing Authority mortgage guarantees, rehabilitation of existing dwellings, and self-help programs

Age effects and the influence of varying proportions of terrestrial and marine dietary protein on the stable nitrogen-isotope compositions of pig bone collagen and soft tissues from a controlled feeding experiment

In this study, femoral collagen, rib collagen, femoral muscle, loin muscle and liver samples from sows, piglets and pigs raised in a controlled feeding study are analysed for their nitrogen-isotope compositions. The objectives of this research are to investigate the relationship between tissue and dietary δ15N values across age categories under controlled feeding and housing conditions, and to assess tissue 15N-enrichment relative to diet when pigs of different ages are consuming terrestrial, marine, or mixed terrestrial-marine dietary protein. There is a strong linear relationship between all tissue δ15N values and the amount of marine protein consumed, but the δ15N values do not become consistently elevated for all individuals consuming the same diet until at least 25% of the dietary protein source is marine-derived. Adolescent pigs also had consistently lower δ15N values than either piglets or sows consuming the same diet for collagen and muscle, which is most likely caused by the differences in growth rate among the age categories. Further, for some tissues and animals, a linear relationship between the amount of marine protein consumed and the Δ15NTissue – Whole Diet offset was also observed. We suggest that this variability results from both age-associated growth rates and differential incorporation of amino acids from terrestrial and marine dietary protein into rapidly growing tissue

A Dynamic Programming Approach to Adaptive Fractionation

We conduct a theoretical study of various solution methods for the adaptive fractionation problem. The two messages of this paper are: (i) dynamic programming (DP) is a useful framework for adaptive radiation therapy, particularly adaptive fractionation, because it allows us to assess how close to optimal different methods are, and (ii) heuristic methods proposed in this paper are near-optimal, and therefore, can be used to evaluate the best possible benefit of using an adaptive fraction size. The essence of adaptive fractionation is to increase the fraction size when the tumor and organ-at-risk (OAR) are far apart (a "favorable" anatomy) and to decrease the fraction size when they are close together. Given that a fixed prescribed dose must be delivered to the tumor over the course of the treatment, such an approach results in a lower cumulative dose to the OAR when compared to that resulting from standard fractionation. We first establish a benchmark by using the DP algorithm to solve the problem exactly. In this case, we characterize the structure of an optimal policy, which provides guidance for our choice of heuristics. We develop two intuitive, numerically near-optimal heuristic policies, which could be used for more complex, high-dimensional problems. Furthermore, one of the heuristics requires only a statistic of the motion probability distribution, making it a reasonable method for use in a realistic setting. Numerically, we find that the amount of decrease in dose to the OAR can vary significantly (5 - 85%) depending on the amount of motion in the anatomy, the number of fractions, and the range of fraction sizes allowed. In general, the decrease in dose to the OAR is more pronounced when: (i) we have a high probability of large tumor-OAR distances, (ii) we use many fractions (as in a hyper-fractionated setting), and (iii) we allow large daily fraction size deviations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Correspondence between solar fine-scale structures in the corona, transition region, and lower atmosphere from collaborative observations

The Soft X-Ray Imaging Payload and the High Resolution Telescope and Spectrograph (HRTS) instrument were launched from White Sands on 11 December 1987 in coordinated sounding rocket flights to investigate the correspondence of coronal and transition region structures, especially the relationship between X-ray bright points (XBPs) and transition region small spatial scale energetic events. The coaligned data from X-ray images are presented along with maps of sites of transition region energetic events observed in C IV (100,000 K), HRTS 1600 A spectroheliograms of the T sub min region and ground based magnetogram and He I 10830 A images

Use of mental simulations to change theory of planned behaviour variables

Objectives. The predictive validity of the theory of planned behaviour iswell established, but much less is known about: (a) whether there are causal relationships between key components of the model and (b) how to go about changing the theory of planned behaviour variables. This study tested the ability of outcome and process simulations to change variables specified in the theory of planned behaviour in relation to blood donation. Design. Participants (N ¼ 146) were randomized to one of four conditions: outcome simulation only, process simulation only, process-plus-outcome simulation and a distractor control condition. The dependent variables were state anxiety, and intention attitude, subjective norm and perceived control from the theory of planned behaviour. Methods. Participants were asked to empty their mind and visualize themselves: (a) after donating blood (outcome manipulation), (b) preparing to donate blood (process manipulation), (c) both preparing to donate blood and after having donated blood (process-plus-outcome manipulation) or (d) both preparing to get a high mark and after having got a high mark on their course (control condition). Following mental rehearsal, participants completed the dependent variables. Results. There were no main effects of outcome simulation, but process simulation successfully increased intention, subjective norm and perceived control. There was also a significant outcome simulation x process simulation interaction for attitude. The effect of the process manipulation on intention was mediated by subjective norm and perceived control. Conclusions. The findings show promise for the use of mental simulations in changing cognitions and further research is required to extend the present findings to other health behaviours.</p