Compensating for severe nuclear accidents: An expert elucidation

We present the results of a structured discussion held in London in July 2014 involving a panel of experts drawn from three communities: specialists on aspects of risk and insurance; lawyers concerned with issues of nuclear law; and safety and environmental regulators. The discussions were held on the basis of participant anonymity. The process emphasised three considerations: conceptions of loss arising from a severe nuclear accident; the specifics of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident and what it means for policy and strategy going forward; and the future of liability regimes. We observe some stoicism from those closest to implementation of policies and procedures associated with nuclear risks, but a lower level of certainty and confidence among those concerned with nuclear energy regulation

Experimental Design: Design Experimentation

This paper was selected for publication in MIT’s Design Issues. The research takes an original approach by positioning experimentation as a comprehensive design methodology, rather than using the traditional industrial design approach of employing experimentation as a problem-solving tool within a standard design model. It is an evolution of design thinking on non-linear design methods first developed by Hall and presented to the ‘International Association of Societies of Design Research Conference’, Seoul, South Korea (2009), and in a paper entitled ‘Innovation design engineering: Non-linear progressive education for diverse intakes’ presented at the ‘International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education’, University of Brighton, UK, which offered a non-linear pedagogy (Hall and Childs 2009) that uniquely supports a diverse interdisciplinary intake. Experimental design is well known in the science domain but very little evidence has been recorded of experimentation in industrial design and its position in relation to work in other science and research domains. Connections are made with theories on research methods, an analysis of case studies and comparisons of literature on experimentation from science disciplines, especially that of Kuhn (1962), Galison (1987), Pasteur’s quadrant for scientific research in Stokes (1997) and Borgdorff (2007). Hall makes significant claims in exploring and articulating a model of design experimentation that highlights the differences between scientific and design experimentation. This work was original in describing an experimental design model for the increasing activity in early phases of design development by recording and enhancing knowledge in this important area for future design research and practice. The methods researched in the paper were later used in experimental design workshops in Daegu, South Korea (2011) and Busan, South Korea (2012)

Navigating the Information Highway: A Multilayered Approach for First-Year Graduate Students

Taylor University’s Zondervan Library developed a multifaceted approach of engagement with graduate students of the Master of Higher Education and Student Development program, utilizing a variety of venues and courses relating to advanced research and writing. Regular assessments provided feedback for improvement within the embedded program structure. A second component of this model involved an archival project, which facilitated student research with primary documents in the university archives. Overall, graduate student understanding and ownership of the research process increased, and teaching faculty noticed improvement in the quality of research-based assignments as well as the program’s thesis project

The effect of redshift-space distortions on projected 2-pt clustering measurements

Although redshift-space distortions only affect inferred distances and not angles, they still distort the projected angular clustering of galaxy samples selected using redshift dependent quantities. From an Eulerian view-point, this effect is caused by the apparent movement of galaxies into or out of the sample. From a Lagrangian view-point, we find that projecting the redshift-space overdensity field over a finite radial distance does not remove all the anisotropic distortions. We investigate this effect, showing that it strongly boosts the amplitude of clustering for narrow samples and can also reduce the significance of baryonic features in the correlation function. We argue that the effect can be mitigated by binning in apparent galaxy pair-centre rather than galaxy position, and applying an upper limit to the radial galaxy separation. We demonstrate this approach, contrasting against standard top-hat binning in galaxy distance, using sub-samples taken from the Hubble Volume simulations. Using a simple model for the radial distribution expected for galaxies from a survey such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we show that this binning scheme will simplify analyses that will measure baryon acoustic oscillations within such galaxy samples. Comparing results from different binning schemes has the potential to provide measurements of the amplitude of the redshift-space distortions. Our analysis is relevant for other photometric redshift surveys, including those made by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-Starrs) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, accepted by MNRAS, corrected typos, revised argument in section 3, figure added in section 3, results unchange

Ion molecule reactions in vinyl fluoride by photoionization. Effects of vibrational excitation on major reaction pathways

Photoionization methods have been used to study the reactions of the molecular ion in vinyl fluoride to yield the ionic products C_3H_3F_2^+, C_3H_4F^+, and C_3H_5^+. Quantitative measurements are reported of the effect of the vibrational state of the reactant ion on the product distribution and overall reaction cross section. Reaction cross sections for all three channels decrease with reactant internal energy. The effect on the reaction pathway producing C_3H_3F_2^+ is especially pronounced, with 0.18 eV of vibrational excitation being sufficient to reduce the reaction probability by 75%. Deactivation of vibrationally excited reactant ions competes with the reaction and is shown to be an efficient process

Matrix product states and variational methods applied to critical quantum field theory

We study the second-order quantum phase-transition of massive real scalar field theory with a quartic interaction ($\phi^4$ theory) in (1+1) dimensions on an infinite spatial lattice using matrix product states (MPS). We introduce and apply a naive variational conjugate gradient method, based on the time-dependent variational principle (TDVP) for imaginary time, to obtain approximate ground states, using a related ansatz for excitations to calculate the particle and soliton masses and to obtain the spectral density. We also estimate the central charge using finite-entanglement scaling. Our value for the critical parameter agrees well with recent Monte Carlo results, improving on an earlier study which used the related DMRG method, verifying that these techniques are well-suited to studying critical field systems. We also obtain critical exponents that agree, as expected, with those of the transverse Ising model. Additionally, we treat the special case of uniform product states (mean field theory) separately, showing that they may be used to investigate non-critical quantum field theories under certain conditions.Comment: 24 pages, 21 figures, with a minor improvement to the QFT sectio

Beyond Disability Civil Rights

[Excerpt] This Article argues that to be effective, both domestic and international disability rights must adopt a disability human rights paradigm. Such a framework combines the type of civil and political rights provided by antidiscrimination legislation (also called negative or first-generation rights) with the full spectrum of social, cultural, and economic measures (also called positive or second-generation rights) bestowed by many human rights treaties.16 By acting holistically, this agenda accounts for factors normally exogenous to civil rights laws and ensures that individuals can flourish and participate in their societies. Accordingly, our intention is to share some thoughts on how to best provide disabled citizens with equal opportunity rather than “merely” equal treatment. Internationally, States and civil society organizations have been developing innovative and effective equality measures. We draw on their experiences in providing examples of how disability legislation and policy can be developed to implement a more holistic human rights approach. These lessons are also pertinent for invigorating the ADA