Breaking the Binary: Desegregation of Bathrooms

This note discusses how the binary view of gender in relation to public bathroom segregation is insufficient to meet the diverse needs of the public and proposes the desegregation of bathrooms as the solution to promote gender equality and reduce gender-based social imbalances. This note will focus on the bathroom rights of individuals who identify outside of the binary options of male and female, viewed through the lens of how transgender people identifying within the binary have been treated by the courts. For the purposes of this note, the term non-binary will be used to refer to these individuals. Part I provides a brief overview of recent bathroom legislation in the United States, the statutory and constitutional framework that has been applied to sex discrimination claims, and the courts’ treatment of gender-based discrimination claims under each law. Part II analyzes gender-based discrimination claims in relation to public bathroom access under this framework in light of how courts have treated gender litigation and addresses widespread myths about privacy and safety concerns. Part III proposes the complete desegregation of bathrooms based on gender, considers which legal claim is the best avenue of implementing desegregation, delineates the benefits of such implementation, and addresses potential concerns raised by this proposal

A brief history of long memory: Hurst, Mandelbrot and the road to ARFIMA

Long memory plays an important role in many fields by determining the behaviour and predictability of systems; for instance, climate, hydrology, finance, networks and DNA sequencing. In particular, it is important to test if a process is exhibiting long memory since that impacts the accuracy and confidence with which one may predict future events on the basis of a small amount of historical data. A major force in the development and study of long memory was the late Benoit B. Mandelbrot. Here we discuss the original motivation of the development of long memory and Mandelbrot's influence on this fascinating field. We will also elucidate the sometimes contrasting approaches to long memory in different scientific communitiesComment: 40 page

SB 77 - Protection for Monuments

The Act prohibits persons and entities from destroying, concealing, or relocating any publicly or privately owned monument. Monuments may only be relocated when necessary for construction, expansion, or alteration to a site of equal prominence within the same municipality. Violators of this legislation are subject to treble the amount of the cost to repair or replace such monument, exemplary damages, attorney’s fees, court costs, and being charged with a misdemeanor

The off-axis channel macroplate

High-gain microchannel plates (MCPs) which utilize curvature of the channel to inhibit ion feedback (C-plate MCRs) have demonstrated excellent performance characteristics. However, C-plate MCPs are at present costly to fabricate, and the shearing process used to curve the channels produces a low device yield. Described here is a totally new type of high-gain MCP structure in which each channel has an axially symmetric curvature. Initial tests of proof-of-concept units of these MCPs with 75-micron-diameter channels (macroplates) suggest that their performance characteristics have the potential to be equal to those of a C-plate MCP while the fabrication process is no more complex than that of a conventional straight-channel MCP

Experimental investigation of electron multipactor discharges at very high frequency

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-166).Multipactor discharges are a resonant condition in which electrons impact a surface in phase with an alternating electric field. The discharge is sustained by electron multiplication from secondary emission. As motivation, multipactor discharges can adversely affect many different rf systems in vacuum, and this work provides an improved general understanding of multipactor and gives promising results for improved performance and reliability of these systems. The Coaxial Multipactor Experiment (CMX) creates and investigates multipactor discharges in both parallel plate and coaxial geometries at very high frequency (VHF). CMX provides the first detailed investigation of multipactor energy distribution functions for both coaxial and parallel plate geometries with the use of retarding potential analyzers (RPA). A 1-D particle tracking simulation supports these experimental distributions and yields the underlying physics behind the distribution shape. Experimental and simulation energy distributions have a low energy population of defocused electrons due to space charge effects and RPA emission, and a high energy population responsible for sustaining the discharge. Results show a higher energy distribution for the coaxial geometry as compared to the parallel plate geometry with the same electrode spacing, implying that coaxial geometries are more susceptible to multipactor. These results are supported by CMX susceptibility data, which are provided for both coaxial and parallel plate electrodes. Lastly, similar multipactor experiments were performed on Alcator C-Mod rf systems, allowing the discovery of multipactor-induced glow discharge in these systems.(cont.) Results suggest the onset of this glow discharge causes the observed C-Mod neutral pressure limits. These results are further supported by CMX experiments, and a new, 50 pim sandblasted copper surface treatment has been shown to sufficiently lower 6 < 1 for multipactor prevention on CMX and raise the minimum pressure for glow discharge breakdown. This surface treatment shows no significant degradation of high voltage handling, and it is proposed for implementation on the multipactor-susceptible regions of C-Mod rf systems.by Timothy P. Graves.Ph.D

Bayesian Flow Networks

This paper introduces Bayesian Flow Networks (BFNs), a new class of generative model in which the parameters of a set of independent distributions are modified with Bayesian inference in the light of noisy data samples, then passed as input to a neural network that outputs a second, interdependent distribution. Starting from a simple prior and iteratively updating the two distributions yields a generative procedure similar to the reverse process of diffusion models; however it is conceptually simpler in that no forward process is required. Discrete and continuous-time loss functions are derived for continuous, discretised and discrete data, along with sample generation procedures. Notably, the network inputs for discrete data lie on the probability simplex, and are therefore natively differentiable, paving the way for gradient-based sample guidance and few-step generation in discrete domains such as language modelling. The loss function directly optimises data compression and places no restrictions on the network architecture. In our experiments BFNs achieve competitive log-likelihoods for image modelling on dynamically binarized MNIST and CIFAR-10, and outperform all known discrete diffusion models on the text8 character-level language modelling task

Stable low-level expression of p21(WAF1/CIP1 )in A549 human bronchogenic carcinoma cell line-derived clones down-regulates E2F1 mRNA and restores cell proliferation control

BACKGROUND: Deregulated cell cycle progression and loss of proliferation control are key properties of malignant cells. In previous studies, an interactive transcript abundance index (ITAI) comprising three cell cycle control genes, [MYC × E2F1]/p21 accurately distinguished normal from malignant bronchial epithelial cells (BEC), using a cut-off threshold of 7,000. This cut-off is represented by a line with a slope of 7,000 on a bivariate plot of p21 versus [MYC × E2F1], with malignant BEC above the line and normal BEC below the line. This study was an effort to better quantify, at the transcript abundance level, the difference between normal and malignant BEC. The hypothesis was tested that experimental elevation of p21 in a malignant BEC line would decrease the value of the [MYC × E2F1]/p21 ITAI to a level below this line, resulting in loss of immortality and limited cell population doubling capacity. In order to test the hypothesis, a p21 expression vector was transfected into the A549 human bronchogenic carcinoma cell line, which has low constitutive p21 TA expression relative to normal BEC. RESULTS: Following transfection of p21, four A549/p21 clones with stable two-fold up-regulated p21 expression were isolated and expanded. For each clone, the increase in p21 transcript abundance (TA) was associated with increased total p21 protein level, more than 5-fold reduction in E2F1 TA, and 10-fold reduction in the [MYC × E2F1]/p21 ITAI to a value below the cut-off threshold. These changes in regulation of cell cycle control genes were associated with restoration of cell proliferation control. Specifically, each transfectant was capable of only 15 population doublings compared with unlimited population doublings for parental A549. This change was associated with an approximate 2-fold increase in population doubling time to 38.4 hours (from 22.3 hrs), resumption of contact-inhibition, and reduced dividing cell fraction as measured by flow cytometric DNA analysis. CONCLUSION: These results, likely due to increased p21-mediated down-regulation of E2F1 TA at the G1/S phase transition, are consistent with our hypothesis. Specifically, they provide experimental confirmation that a line with slope of 7,000 on the p21 versus [MYC × E2F1] bivariate plot quantifies the difference between normal and malignant BEC at the level of transcript abundance