The Thirteenth Amendment and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act: Is There Room for Religion?

40 pages.This Comment explores the extent to which federal hate crime legislation such as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) protects people from bias-motivated violence on account of their religion. In doing so, it examines racial and religious protection in the context of Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence and federal hate crime legislation. This Comment seeks to explain and clarify the relationship between the Thirteenth Amendment, religion, and federal hate crime statutes like the HCPA

Doe v. Clalit Health Services

This abstract is not part of the Court\u27s opinion and is provided for the reader\u27s convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.] An appeal of a District Court judgment denying the Appellants’ lawsuit for wrongful birth of their daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome. The appeal focused on the scope of the duty of disclosure imposed on an attending physician, which was divided into two sub-questions: Does the duty of disclosure require a physician to disclose religious information regarding obligations and restrictions that derive from a patient’s religious belief or law that are relevant to the medical treatment? Is a physician obligated to provide patients with medical information that is adapted to obligations and restrictions of this nature? An additional question addressed was whether to raise the standard of disclosure required of a physician who customarily expanded on the information disclosed to his patients to include religious information or medical information adapted as noted above, in light of the Stern rule. The Supreme Court (per Justice Willner, Justices Hendel and Mintz concurring) denied the appeal, holding: First, the Court, per Justice Willner, discussed the normative framework relevant to the obligation to obtain informed consent for medical treatment and the duty of disclosure that derives from it, noting that the issue of breaching the duty of disclosure would be addressed in light of the tort of negligence, given the Appellants’ choice to sue on those grounds. The Court held that, according to the relevant statutory provisions and the case law, the duty of disclosure imposed on physicians is limited to medical information alone, and does not include religious information related to restrictions and obligations of religious faith. In other words, a physician is not required to provide a patient with religious information relevant to his medical care. The Court held that it would be inappropriate to expand the scope of the duty of disclosure to adapting medical information to the patient’s religious characteristics when there is no medical indication for such disclosure. That is notwithstanding the recognition that a patient’s intelligent decision is naturally also informed by considerations that derive from his religion and beliefs. The Court noted that, in the context of the duty of disclosure, a physician is not required to adapt the medical information he provides to a patients’ religious beliefs and restrictions if they arise in the framework of an inquiry initiated by the physician or derive from a presumption based on external factors that would appear to indicate the patient’s religion. The Court held that only when the patient, at his own initiative, asks the physician for medical information adapted to his religious characteristics, is the physician required to disclose this type of information to the patient. That is because when a patient initiates such a request, his question changes the nature of the relationship between the physician and the patient, creating a different standard of disclosure based on the patient’s expectation of receiving medical information conforming to his request. In that case, the physician bears a duty to disclose all the individual information that is relevant for the patient, in accordance with his request, in the framework of the test of reasonableness and the other tests that apply to the tort of negligence. If the patient wants to receive medical information adapted to his religious characteristics, namely a right of disclosure that goes beyond the customary duty of disclosure, he bears the burden of requesting it from the physician. Note that even when the patient asks his physician for medical information adapted to individual religious characteristics, the physician is not required to disclose religious information to him, but only adapted medical information. That is because religious information is beyond the bounds of the physician’s expertise in his role as a physician. It is therefore inappropriate to include such information within the duty of disclosure. Applying the above to the circumstances of the case at bar led to denying the Appellants’ arguments regarding breach of the duty of disclosure by the Respondents. The Court noted that, according to the Stern rule, once a medical institution adopts practices and procedures that are more stringent than the customary practice, it demonstrates that it possesses the information required to operate with extra care and caution. Thus, it has been held that the standard of reasonable conduct that such an institution is required to maintain should be “elevated” by attributing the specific medical institution’s unique knowledge and expertise to the test of the reasonable medical institution, according to which that institution’s conduct is evaluated. The Court rejected applying the Stern rule to the present case, holding that the lower court correctly found no basis for raising the standard of conduct required of the Respondents to the point of requiring them to disclose information to patients about religious restrictions or medical information adapted to individual religious characteristics, just because it was allegedly their practice to do so. Justice Mintz concurred in the opinion of Justice Willner and added that the attending physician should completely avoid providing “religious information” or medical information adapted to the religious characteristics of a patient if not requested to do so, if only because of the physician’s lack of knowledge about such religious characteristics, which are completely beyond his professional medical expertise. That is true even if the physician has acquired extensive religious-legal knowledge as a result of his clinical experience. Justice Hendel concurred with the main points of Justice Willner’s opinion, but was of the opinion that there may be situations in which a physician would do well to provide patients with religious information that he knows, even indirectly, but he would not hold that there is a duty to do so. Justice Willner disagreed with that position because disclosing religious information is not the obligation of the physician, and it is completely beyond the bounds of his role and expertise. Justice Willner also did not agree with Justice Hendel’s suggestion that a physician would do well to inform a patient of the option of speaking with rabbis or other religious leaders whose opinions may differ from those of the patient’s rabbi, or offer to speak with the rabbi advising his patient, because doing so would unequivocally deviate from the role of the physician and could be interpreted as violating the patient’s sensibilities

A v. Haifa Regional Rabbinical Court

[This abstract is not part of the Court\u27s opinion and is provided for the reader\u27s convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.] A petition against the judgment of the Great Rabbinical Court dealing with the issue of specific co-ownership of the residential home that was brought into the marriage by the husband and registered in his name. The petition raises the question of intervention by the High Court of Justice in the judgment of the Great Rabbinical Court due to the fact that weight was accorded to the alleged infidelity of the wife. Background: the parties are subject to the property regime under the Spouses (Property Relations) Law. The couple lived in the house with their children for over 20 years, until they divorced. The wife (the Petitioner) claimed co-ownership of the property; the husband claimed that the property was entirely his. The Regional Rabbinical Court accepted the wife’s position, but on appeal, the Great Rabbinical Court ruled by majority that the Petitioner had no share in the plot or the house. The Petitioner argued that among the considerations for denying the partnership, the Great Rabbinical Court accorded weight to the factual claim that the wife was unfaithful to her husband while still married to him. In this, she argued, the Rabbinical Court applied religious law to the matter of specific co-ownership in a residential home, thus acting ultra vires. The High Court of Justice, (per Justice D. Mintz, Justice A. Stein concurring, Justice I. Amit dissenting) denied the petition for the following reasons: Justice D. Mintz (delivering the opinion of the Court): The judgment of the Great Rabbinical Court was based upon a factual finding that co-ownership of the property was not proved, due to the absence of “additional supporting evidence” to prove the partnership (per Judge Amos), or due to the absence of an “assessment as to the intention or partnership or gift” (per Judge Nahari), or due to the absence of an “intention of co-ownership” (per Judge Almaliah). While the matter of the Petitioner’s alleged infidelity was mentioned in the opinions of Judges Amos and Nahari, and Judge Nahari expressed the view that “the act of infidelity creates an intention of non-partnership of the owner of the property vis-à-vis the person who was unfaithful to him, and this also applies elsewhere,” this is not enough to justify the intervention of the High Court of Justice in the judgment. There is no dispute that the couple’s property relations are governed by the Spouses (Property Relations) Law, according to which an external asset is excluded from the balancing of resources. However, spouses are not prevented from claiming ownership of assets by virtue of the general law, i.e. regular property law and contract law. For this purpose, and for the purpose of recognition of co-ownership of a particular asset, including the residential home that was brought into the marriage by one of the spouses, it is necessary to show additional factual circumstances beyond the existence of a long, common marital life. The question whether the intention of specific co-ownership was proved is factual, and must be proved by the person claiming it. It will be examined in accordance with the assessment of the wishes of the two parties, their express or implied agreement, and their life circumstances in relation to the specific asset. In the case of a residential home, a lesser amount of evidence is needed to prove co-ownership. Just as the creation of the partnership is assessed along the axis of married life, the circumstances that indicate the absence of partnership are considered along the axis of married life, and “one is not punished for them retroactively.” In other words, the infidelity of one of the spouses cannot nullify co-ownership of property that crystallized prior to the adultery. Prima facie, in the present case, the couple lived harmoniously for many years, and the alleged adultery of the Petitioner in the later years cannot be invoked to nullify co-ownership of property that had crystallized previously. However, Justice Mintz disagreed with the position adopted by Justice Amit whereby the three judges of the Great Rabbinical Court included adultery among the considerations for nullifying co-ownership of the asset, and that it was that conduct that tipped the scales against the Petitioner. In Justice Mintz’s view, the opinions of Judges Amos and Almaliah and their reasoning demonstrate that their conclusion was not dependent upon the alleged adultery. Therefore, there are no grounds for saying that the conclusion of the majority in the Rabbinical Court was tainted by irrelevant considerations, or that the Rabbinical Court applied religious law to the property relations between the spouses. Therefore, the Rabbinical Court did not act ultra vires. Since the Rabbinical Court did not act ultra vires, and given the limited scope of the intervention of the High Court of Justice in the decisions of the rabbinical courts, the case does not fall within the scope of those cases that justify the intervention of the Court, even on the assumption that the Rabbinical Court erred in its application of the law. Justice A. Stein (concurring): The High Court of Justice does not intervene in the judgments of the rabbinical courts except in narrowly defined cases in which one of the following flaws is present: (1) ultra vires action; (2) clear departure from the provisions of the law that are directed at the religious court, which can be seen as acting ultra vires, or as an error of law that is clear and evident on the face of the judgment, which is equivalent to acting ultra vires, and (4) this Court reaches the conclusion that a petitioner ought to be given equitable relief that is not within the authority of another court. Taking into consideration the claim of unfaithfulness as part of the facts relevant to the matter of implied partnership is not a facial error of law, and it certainly does not constitute an ultra vires act. In the absence of an express agreement, the question of co-ownership of property in a particular case is a question of fact, and it may possibly be seen as a mixed question of law and fact. In order to answer this question, the judge must make factual findings concerning the existence or absence of an equal-rights partnership between the spouses in the specific asset in question. The High Court will not intervene in such findings. The Court only examines whether the Rabbinical Court exceeded the boundaries of its authority., The change introduced by the Bavli ruling was the repeal of the old rule whereby “the law follows the judge”. Accordingly, the rabbinical courts must decide property matters in accordance with the community property presumption as defined in the general law. The Bavli ruling transferred the property aspect of the laws of marriage and divorce from a regime of status to one of contract, which allows the couple to act as an autonomous unit and to determine the financial consequences of marriage and divorce by themselves and for themselves, subject to the protections against abuse provided in the Spouses (Property Relations) Law and in the general laws of contract. The spousal relationship is an individual matter, not only on the emotional and intimate level, but also in regard to property. The autonomy of the relationship requires that the court adopt a neutral, equal attitude to all patterns of life between couples, and all property arrangements, as long as no exploitation prohibited by law is involved. In addressing the question of partnership, the civil courts and the rabbinical courts must infer the existence or absence of an equal-rights partnership in a disputed asset from the couple’s lifestyle and expectations. These expectations may include a condition of absolute sexual fidelity as a sine qua non for the agreement of one spouse to share his property equally with the other. Such a condition, insofar as it exists, must be respected and enforced by the secular and religious courts. While Justice Stein agreed with Justice Amit that the law does not allow depriving a spouse of property due to infidelity, the present case concerns giving and not taking. It is a matter of examining whether the wife was granted a right that she had not acquired for herself, due to her marriage to the husband per se), and not of taking away the wife’s property due to an act of “betrayal” or “adultery.” Whether such a right has or has not been granted is a matter of empirical fact, and not of guilt, punishment, justice or other consideration in the realm of norms, as distinct from facts. On this matter, the intention of the spouse who owns the asset is of the utmost importance. This intention might indicate a lack of desire to make the “unfaithful” spouse a partner in the asset, and the court is obliged to respect and enforce these intentions, too. This obligation exists by virtue of the transition to a contractual regime and the principle of autonomy of the relationship between spouses, which may be religious, secular, patriarchal, feminist, puritan or liberal according to the couple’s choice. Two of the three judges of the Rabbinical Court decided the question of co-ownership against the wife, after examining all the elements of the relationship from the perspective of an implied agreement. This included the act of “betrayal” by the wife as a consideration negating or nullifying the husband’s intention to include her as an equal-rights partner in the house. For the above reasons, and by virtue of the talmudic rule “where a positive plea is met by an uncertain one, the positive plea prevails,” the Rabbinical Court was authorized to include this matter among its considerations. While the Rabbinical Court may have given the alleged infidelity too much weight, this has no bearing for judicial review of the High Court of Justice of the judgments of the religious courts, which is confined to the question of competence and to correcting fundamental errors. Justice Amit (dissenting): The judgment of the Great Rabbinical Court takes us back to the days prior to the Bavli ruling. Inclusion of alleged “infidelity” in the court’s considerations constitutes a clear departure from the law and is ultra vires. In accordance with the Bavli ruling, the secular law applies to the distribution of property. The secular law severs matters of the sexual conduct of the parties from the property dispute between them. This is not to say that the subject of infidelity can never have ramifications for the property dispute between spouses, but the matter must be examined from the perspective of the secular law for the purpose of the question of whether the community property presumption or specific co-ownership in an asset should be applied. Community property and specific co-ownership of an asset form at a certain point along the axis of married life. Even those who hold that weight should be attributed to the guilt of a spouse when dealing with property matters would agree that the impact of infidelity is from the particular point onward, and a distinction should be drawn between property that accumulated prior to the act of infidelity and property that accumulated from the date of infidelity and until the actual dissolution of the marriage. In the present case, even according to the husband, the alleged infidelity of the Petitioner occurred in the last few months of the 31 years of their marriage. Therefore, it is puzzling as to how the infidelity could be included among the indications and facts for the purpose of deciding whether specific co-ownership has been created over the years. The weight given by the Rabbinical Court to the Petitioner’s alleged infidelity is contrary to the case law of the Court, whereby rights may not be negated retroactively. The Rabbinical Court acted contrary to the Bavli ruling and ultra vires. In certain cases, the infidelity of one of the spouses may figure as one of the relevant facts in deciding whether specific co-ownership in a residential home that was brought into the marriage by one of the parties has been created. In general, where it has been proved that the “betrayed” spouse did not intend from the outset to share his property with the “betraying” spouse (whether at all, or in the event of infidelity), this intention must be respected. As opposed to this, it is not possible to perform a “retooling” and to decide that once the spouse committed an adulterous act, we must assume that the “betrayed” spouse did not intend from the outset to share his property with herIn the present case there is no indication that the husband did not wish to share his property with the Petitioner in the case of infidelity. The Great Rabbinical Court’s judgment states that in practice, in any case of adultery, it can be found that there was no intention of partnership. The High Court of Justice held a further consideration (diyyun nosaf) in this case, with a panel of nice justices. This further round was initiated by the Rackman Center of Bar Ilan University

High Performance Polymers and Composites (HiPPAC) Center

NASA University Research Centers funding has allowed Clark Atlanta University (CAU) to establish a High Performance Polymers and Composites (HiPPAC) Research Center. Clark Atlanta University, through the HiPPAC Center has consolidated and expanded its polymer and composite research capabilities through the development of research efforts in: (1) Synthesis and characterization of polymeric NLO, photorefractive, and piezoelectric materials; (2) Characterization and engineering applications of induced strain smart materials; (3) Processable polyimides and additives to enhance polyimide processing for composite applications; (4) Fabrication and mechanical characterization of polymer based composites

Abutbul v. Phillip

[This abstract is not part of the Court\u27s opinion and is provided for the reader\u27s convenience. It has been translated from a Hebrew version prepared by Nevo Press Ltd. and is used with its kind permission.] The Respondents filed an administrative petition with the Court for Administrative Affairs against the Appellants. The petition concerned the removal of signs placed throughout the city of Beit Shemesh, which comprised demands, requests and inscriptions that were offensive to women (hereinafter: the signs). In the framework of an consent judgment, it was determined that the Appellants must exercise all the powers of enforcement available to them by law in order to bring about the removal of the signs. Several months after the consent judgment was handed down, the Respondents filed a motion with the Court for Administrative Affairs under the Contempt of Court Ordinance (hereinafter: the Ordinance) to compel the Appellants to uphold the consent judgment. The motion was granted in part in relation to some of the signs, whereby in the event that the signs are not removed by July 6, 2017, the Appellants would incur a fine of NIS 5,000 for each day of delay in their removal. The appeal turns on this decision. The Supreme Court (per Deputy President Melcer, Justice (ret.) Shoham and Justice D. Mintz concurring) held as follows: The Court discussed the phenomenon of exclusion of women from the public domain. This is a matter of sweeping discrimination on the basis of sex, its main characteristic being the withholding from women – due to the fact that they are women – the possibility of receiving public services, of participating in public activity, or of maintaining a presence in the public domain. It is liable to manifest itself in several ways, including gender separation. In Israel, the exclusion of women sometimes involves a unique element that includes religious considerations. A question that must be examined is whether, in certain circumstances, it is possible to justify separate or restrictive treatment of women in the public domain, bearing in mind the entire array of relevant interests. The criterion for examining the constitutionality of something that is suspect as being exclusionary of women is whether there exists a “relevant difference” stemming from the nature and the substance of the public services that are provided which would justify gender separation, where weight must also be accorded to the unique cultural aspect of the ultra-Orthodox community. The “modesty signs” are part of the disturbing phenomenon of exclusion of women from the public domain. The local authority must refrain from allowing exclusionary signposting within its bounds. The signs under discussion in the appeal are a type of expropriation of the public domain from the female sector and turning it into private domain, accompanied by the exertion of social pressure and a breach of the autonomy and the security of women. The local authority has a duty to accord weight to the said breach, and to act diligently to remove the signs and to bring those responsible for their placement to justice. If there is a concern about violence and disturbances of the peace as a result of taking action to remove the signs, the authority must turn to the police for assistance with security, and it must act in “real time” to maintain order while exercising the relevant powers of enforcement. Indeed, the authority may set an order of priorities for enforcement, and as a rule, there is no room for interference in this discretion. At the same time, it must be ensured that in the actions of the authority, appropriate weight is accorded to the serious breach of human rights caused by the placement of the signs. The Court discussed the need for complying with judicial orders, and it addressed the process for preventing contempt of court, which is an enforcement process whose ramifications are liable to cause harm, and therefore its use must be limited to situations in which all other measures have been exhausted and have not helped. The Court discussed the fact that in exercising its powers of enforcement, the local authority must bear in mind the need to protect the basic rights of every person, and to do all that it can in order to put an end to violations of these rights. In the present case, despite the serious violation of the basic rights of women and despite the commitments of the Appellants, the city of Beit Shemesh is still rife with unlawful signs. The Appellants refrained from installing seven cameras in the neighborhood in which disturbances are taking place and from continuing to remove the signs that were removed but later replaced. The Court ruled that in the event that the cameras are not installed by Dec. 31, 2018 and in the event that the prohibited signs are not removed by then, the appeal would be deemed as denied from that date onwards. If the Appellants act as required by that date, the fines imposed would be cancelled retroactively

Tbeish v. Attorney General

The Petitioner claimed that he was tortured in the course of interrogation by the Israel Security Agency (ISA) (formerly the General Security Service (GSS)), and petitioned the Court to order the Attorney General to rescind his decision not to open a criminal investigation of the interrogators, and to annul the Attorney General’s guidelines entitled: “ISA Interrogations and the Necessity Defense – Framework for the Attorney General’s Discretion” (hereinafter: the AG’s Guidelines) that provide the basis for the Internal Guidelines of the ISA (hereinafter: the Guidelines). The Petitioners argued that the Guidelines unlawfully permit interrogators to consult with more senior officials in regard to employing “special means” in the course of interrogations. Facts: The Petitioner was interrogated by the Israel Security Service on the suspicion of hostile terrorist activity in the military wing of the Hamas. According to intelligence, the Petitioner knew the location of a substantial arms cache that had been used in the perpetration of several terrorist attacks. Additionally, there was a suspicion that the terrorist network of which the Petitioner was a member, intended to carry out another terrorist attack with those weapons. In light of the Petitioner’s denial of the suspicions, and in view of the ISA interrogators’ opinion that he had information about a planned attack that would endanger human lives, the ISA employed what the Respondents termed “special means of interrogation” against the Petitioner. In the course of his interrogation, the Petitioner provided information about weapons that he had received and had transferred to other Hamas activists, as well as information that aided in the interrogation of other members of the terrorist network, one of whom admitted to planning a kidnapping attack and to “setting in motion additional terrorist activity. Upon conclusion of the investigation, an information was filed against the Petitioner in the Military Court in Judea. The Petitioner pled guilty under a plea agreement, and was convicted of membership and activity in an unlawful association and of commerce in military ordnance. While the case was pending in the trial court, the Petitioner filed a complaint asking that the Attorney General immediately open a criminal investigation against the Petitioner’s interrogators, and against the members of the Prison Service’s medical staff. The Petitioner’s complaint was sent to the Department for Complaints Against the Israel Security Agency. The findings of the Department were sent to the Director responsible for Complaints against the Israel Security Agency in the State Attorney’s Office, who – with the approval of the Attorney General and the State Attorney – decided to close the investigation in regard to the Petitioner’s complaint because she was of the opinion that the investigation’s findings did not justify criminal, disciplinary, or other proceedings against the interrogators. Held: The prosecution enjoys broad discretion in deciding upon the opening of an investigation and in deciding upon filing criminal charges. It is decided law that the Court does not intervene in the manner of the exercise of that discretion, except in exceptional cases in which it is convinced of a substantive flaw in the exercise of discretion or the resulting decision. Evaluating the adequacy of the evidence is distinctively a matter for the expertise of the prosecution. Therefore, intervention into a decision not to open an investigation for lack of adequate evidence is even more restricted. Examining the reasonableness of the decision must be in accordance with the criteria of the Court in regard to the authority of ISA interrogators to employ physical means of interrogation and the circumstances in which such means may be permitted. Prior to the Court’s decision in HCJ 5100/94 Public Committee against Torture v. State of Israel, the necessity defense formed the basis for the ISA guidelines in regard to the use of interrogation methods that, in the absence of any alternative, permitted the use of physical means where necessary to save human life. Those guidelines were declared unlawful and void in HCJ 5100/94. However, that decision also comprised two holdings of importance to the matters addressed by this petition. It was held that the necessity defense might be available to an interrogator who employed physical means of interrogation in “ticking bomb” circumstances, and who was subsequently charged with an offense. It was further held that the demand for “immediacy” under sec. 34K of the Penal Law refers to the imminent nature of the act rather than of the danger. Thus, the imminence criteria is satisfied even if the threat will be realized in a few days, or even in a few weeks, provided that it is certain to materialize and there is no alternative means of preventing it. It was further held that guidelines for the use of physical force in interrogations must be based upon express authority under statute, and not upon defenses to criminal responsibility. No general authority could be founded upon the necessity defense alone. However, the Court added: “The Attorney General can instruct himself regarding circumstances in which investigators shall not stand trial, if they claim to have acted from ‘necessity’”. The circumstances of the Petitioner’s interrogation clearly show that the interrogation was intended to prevent a concrete threat to human life of a high degree of certainty. There was no alternative to the means employed for obtaining the information. Those means were proportionate to the severity of the threat they were meant to prevent. The Director’s finding that the use of those means falls within the scope of the necessity defense was grounded. The Petitioner’s claim that resort can only be made to the necessity defense in the course of a trial lacks systematic logic and is contrary to the efficient and proper administration of criminal proceedings. Where the prosecution is convinced that a suspect can claim necessity, there is no justification for conducting criminal proceedings that will lead to a result that is clear from the outset. The Attorney General’s Directives and the ISA’s classified internal guidelines do not contradict what was held in HCJ 5100/94

Anesthetics disrupt brain development via actions on the mTOR pathway

This work was supported by an ACCM StAAR Award and NIH 1R01GM120519-01 to C.D.M, NARSAD to E.K., a grant from the Chinese Scholarship Council to J.X.Non peer reviewedPublisher PD

Nonperturbative aspects of Euclidean Yang-Mills theories in linear covariant gauges : Nielsen identities and a BRST-invariant two-point correlation function

In order to construct a gauge-invariant two-point function in a Yang-Mills theory, we propose the use of the all-order gauge-invariant transverse configurations A(h). Such configurations can be obtained through the minimization of the functional A(min)(2) along the gauge orbit within the BRST-invariant formulation of the Gribov-Zwanziger framework recently put forward in [1,2] for the class of the linear covariant gauges. This correlator turns out to provide a characterization of nonperturbative aspects of the theory in a BRST-invariant and gauge-parameter-independent way. In particular, it turns out that the poles of are the same as those of the transverse part of the gluon propagator, which are also formally shown to be independent of the gauge parameter alpha entering the gauge condition through the Nielsen identities. The latter follow from the new exact BRST-invariant formulation introduced before. Moreover, the correlator enables us to attach a BRST-invariant meaning to the possible positivity violation of the corresponding temporal Schwinger correlator, giving thus for the first time a consistent, gauge parameter independent, setup to adopt the positivity violation of as a signature for gluon confinement. Finally, in the context of gauge theories supplemented with a fundamental Higgs field, we use to probe the pole structure of the massive gauge boson in a gauge-invariant fashion

Data Assimilation in Operator Algebras

We develop an algebraic framework for sequential data assimilation of partially observed dynamical systems. In this framework, Bayesian data assimilation is embedded in a non-abelian operator algebra, which provides a representation of observables by multiplication operators and probability densities by density operators (quantum states). In the algebraic approach, the forecast step of data assimilation is represented by a quantum operation induced by the Koopman operator of the dynamical system. Moreover, the analysis step is described by a quantum effect, which generalizes the Bayesian observational update rule. Projecting this formulation to finite-dimensional matrix algebras leads to new computational data assimilation schemes that are (i) automatically positivity-preserving; and (ii) amenable to consistent data-driven approximation using kernel methods for machine learning. Moreover, these methods are natural candidates for implementation on quantum computers. Applications to data assimilation of the Lorenz 96 multiscale system and the El Nino Southern Oscillation in a climate model show promising results in terms of forecast skill and uncertainty quantification.Comment: 46 pages, 4 figure

Real-time biochemical assay telemetering system

The present invention is an apparatus and a method of detecting a chemical released by perspiration, typically through sweat and broadcasting the detection to a receiver. The chemical may be a drug of abuse. The device which is attached to the skin of a subject contains labeled antibodies or label containing microspheres attached to antibodies. The labeled antibodies are bound to solid phase drug via antigen-antibody interaction. These labeled antibodies are displaced from the solid phase support to which they are bound by free drug molecules in the perspiration. These labeled antibodies then migrate through a spacer layer and are trapped by a layer containing a suitable selective binding material. The label is illuminated or excited by a light source and detected by a photodetector. The signal can be recorded, or transmitted to a remote radio monitor