The Prevalence of Social Science in Gay Rights Cases: The Synergistic Influences of Historical Context, Justificatory Citation, and Dissemination Efforts

Disjunctive legal change is often accompanied by a period of frantic activity as the competing forces of stasis and evolution vie for domination. Nowhere is the battle for legal change likely to be more sharply joined than when the findings of modern science, in their varied and multifarious forms, are pitted directly against prevailing moral or societal precepts. One of the latest incarnations of this trend is the battle over the legal recognition of gay rights. In recent history, the courts have been inundated by gay litigants seeking the rights and protections already afforded other discrete groups within society. In the resulting legal skirmishes, gay individuals are resorting with increasing regularity to the sciences in an effort to overcome the moral opprobrium surrounding homosexuality. The judicial opinions which have resulted from the onslaught of gay litigants have not remained untouched by the scientific information adduced. Rather, as this Article will demonstrate, a disproportionally large number of gay rights opinions contain citations and references to social science information. These judicial opinions have become artifacts of the battle between modern science and existing moral conceptions of homosexuality and provide a discrete microcosm within which to examine science\u27s contribution to legal change. The lessons derived from gay rights cases may help to elucidate other contexts in which science and morality meet head-on

Spectrum of the Relativistic Particles in Various Potentials

We extend the notion of Dirac oscillator in two dimensions, to construct a set of potentials. These potentials becomes exactly and quasi-exactly solvable potentials of non-relativistic quantum mechanics when they are transformed into a Schr\"{o}dinger-like equation. For the exactly solvable potentials, eigenvalues are calculated and eigenfunctions are given by confluent hypergeometric functions. It is shown that, our formulation also leads to the study of those potentials in the framework of the supersymmetric quantum mechanics

Buried palaeosols of NW Sardinia (Italy) as archives of the Late Quaternary climatic fluctuations

A multi-disciplinary approach was performed to investigate two compound geosols included between wind-blown deposits at the top, and interglacial (MIS 5) beach sediments at the bottom, located along the Alghero coast (North-western Sardinia, Italy). A sedimentological and morphological study was carried out on the profile in the field, and samples collected on the main pedomembers were subjected to several laboratory analyses, consisting of physical and chemical determinations on bulk samples, mineralogy (XRD), micromorphology on undisturbed samples (thin Section, SEM), and EDAX-micro probe analyses. Dating was performed by means of Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL). The studied geosols show the evidence of a complex pedosedimentary evolution. Around 80 to 70. ka the lower geosol underwent weathering and clay illuviation (wet and warm conditions), followed by calcification-recalcification processes (dry-contrasted), and finally by strong bioturbation. Around 70. ka the onset of the glacial period (MIS 4) is marked by the deposition of a sand dune, capping the lower geosol. These results indicate that the coastal area of the central Mediterranean kept the relatively warm conditions typical of the interglacial climate for most of the Early Würm and reached cold conditions only at about 70. ka, possibly in relation to the rapid cooling of the Heinrich event H7. The upper geosol developed on colluvial material including abundant pedorelicts and reddish earth material, deposited around 50. ka. Before being buried by aeolian sand around 43. ka, this deposit underwent pedogenesis phases possibly associated to Middle Würm interstadial events, indicating that in the study area these events were intense enough to influence pedogenesis. © 2014 Elsevier B.V

Recent trends in management strategies for two major maize borers: Ostrinia nubilalis and Sesamia nonagrioides

23 p.-2 tab.Stem borers (Lepidoptera) are common cereal pests. In many parts of the world, the species Ostrinia nubilalis and Sesamia nonagrioides stand out as important insect pests of economically important crops such as maize. Their management relied mainly on transgenic host plant resistance over the last 25 years. Technologies based on the insecticidal properties of Bacillus thuringiensis-derived proteins allowed widespread pest population suppression, especially for O. nubilalis. However, the recent discovery of Bt resistance, which has revitalized interest in both pests’ biology and management, may jeopardize the effectiveness of such transgenic technologies. Historical information on O. nubilalis bionomy may need to be reassessed in light of changing climate conditions and changing agricultural practices, as well as increased production of alternate host crops across its distribution range. The current paper examines the bioecology and historical research that has been conducted to manage these two important maize-boring pests.N

Design, Performance and Calibration of the CMS Forward Calorimeter Wedges

We report on the test beam results and calibration methods using charged particles of the CMS Forward Calorimeter (HF). The HF calorimeter covers a large pseudorapidity region (3\l |\eta| \le 5), and is essential for large number of physics channels with missing transverse energy. It is also expected to play a prominent role in the measurement of forward tagging jets in weak boson fusion channels. The HF calorimeter is based on steel absorber with embedded fused-silica-core optical fibers where Cherenkov radiation forms the basis of signal generation. Thus, the detector is essentially sensitive only to the electromagnetic shower core and is highly non-compensating (e/h \approx 5). This feature is also manifest in narrow and relatively short showers compared to similar calorimeters based on ionization. The choice of fused-silica optical fibers as active material is dictated by its exceptional radiation hardness. The electromagnetic energy resolution is dominated by photoelectron statistics and can be expressed in the customary form as a/\sqrt{E} + b. The stochastic term a is 198% and the constant term b is 9%. The hadronic energy resolution is largely determined by the fluctuations in the neutral pion production in showers, and when it is expressed as in the electromagnetic case, a = 280% and b = 11%

Design, Performance, and Calibration of CMS Hadron-Barrel Calorimeter Wedges

Extensive measurements have been made with pions, electrons and muons on four production wedges of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) hadron barrel (HB) calorimeter in the H2 beam line at CERN with particle momenta varying from 20 to 300 GeV/c. Data were taken both with and without a prototype electromagnetic lead tungstate crystal calorimeter (EB) in front of the hadron calorimeter. The time structure of the events was measured with the full chain of preproduction front-end electronics running at 34 MHz. Moving-wire radioactive source data were also collected for all scintillator layers in the HB. These measurements set the absolute calibration of the HB prior to first pp collisions to approximately 4%

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Of the importance of a leaf: the ethnobotany of sarma in Turkey and the Balkans

BACKGROUND: Sarma - cooked leaves rolled around a filling made from rice and/or minced meat, possibly vegetables and seasoning plants - represents one of the most widespread feasting dishes of the Middle Eastern and South-Eastern European cuisines. Although cabbage and grape vine sarma is well-known worldwide, the use of alternative plant leaves remains largely unexplored. The aim of this research was to document all of the botanical taxa whose leaves are used for preparing sarma in the folk cuisines of Turkey and the Balkans. Methods: Field studies were conducted during broader ethnobotanical surveys, as well as during ad-hoc investigations between the years 2011 and 2014 that included diverse rural communities in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. Primary ethnobotanical and folkloric literatures in each country were also considered. Results: Eighty-seven botanical taxa, mainly wild, belonging to 50 genera and 27 families, were found to represent the bio-cultural heritage of sarma in Turkey and the Balkans. The greatest plant biodiversity in sarma was found in Turkey and, to less extent, in Bulgaria and Romania. The most commonly used leaves for preparing sarma were those of cabbage (both fresh and lacto-fermented), grape vine, beet, dock, sorrel, horseradish, lime tree, bean, and spinach. In a few cases, the leaves of endemic species (Centaurea haradjianii, Rumex gracilescens, and R. olympicus in Turkey) were recorded. Other uncommon sarma preparations were based on lightly toxic taxa, such as potato leaves in NE Albania, leaves of Arum, Convolvulus, and Smilax species in Turkey, of Phytolacca americana in Macedonia, and of Tussilago farfara in diverse countries. Moreover, the use of leaves of the introduced species Reynoutria japonica in Romania, Colocasia esculenta in Turkey, and Phytolacca americana in Macedonia shows the dynamic nature of folk cuisines. Conclusion: The rich ethnobotanical diversity of sarma confirms the urgent need to record folk culinary plant knowledge. The results presented here can be implemented into initiatives aimed at re-evaluating folk cuisines and niche food markets based on local neglected ingredients, and possibly also to foster trajectories of the avant-garde cuisines inspired by ethnobotanical knowledge

Scholarship on Gender and Sport in Sex Roles and Beyond

In this paper we critically review how research on girls or women and sport has developed over the last 35 years. We use a post-positivist lens to explore the content of the papers published in Sex Roles in the area of women, gender and sport and examine the shifts in how gender and sport have been conceptualized in these accounts. In order to initiate a broader dialogue about the scholarly analysis of gender and sport, we subsequently explore ideas inspired by feminist theorizing that have dominated/guided related research in other outlets over this time period but have received relatively little attention in papers published in Sex Roles. We conclude by briefly making suggestions for further research in this area