Orbital Stability of Multi-Planet Systems: Behavior at High Masses

In the coming years, high contrast imaging surveys are expected to reveal the characteristics of the population of wide-orbit, massive, exoplanets. To date, a handful of wide planetary mass companions are known, but only one such multi-planet system has been discovered: HR8799. For low mass planetary systems, multi-planet interactions play an important role in setting system architecture. In this paper, we explore the stability of these high mass, multi-planet systems. While empirical relationships exist that predict how system stability scales with planet spacing at low masses, we show that extrapolating to super-Jupiter masses can lead to up to an order of magnitude overestimate of stability for massive, tightly packed systems. We show that at both low and high planet masses, overlapping mean motion resonances trigger chaotic orbital evolution, which leads to system instability. We attribute some of the difference in behavior as a function of mass to the increasing importance of second order resonances at high planet-star mass ratios. We use our tailored high mass planet results to estimate the maximum number of planets that might reside in double component debris disk systems, whose gaps may indicate the presence of massive bodies.Comment: Accepted to Ap

Addressing gender-based violence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region : A critical review of interventions

The authors present an overview of gender-based violence (GBV) in Latin America, with special emphasis on good practice interventions to prevent GBV or offer services to its survivors or perpetrators. Intimate partner violence and sexual coercion are the most common forms of GBV, and these are the types of GBV that they analyze. GBV has serious consequences for women's health and well-being, ranging from fatal outcomes, such as homicide, suicide, and AIDS-related deaths, to nonfatal outcomes, such as physical injuries, chronic pain syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, complications during pregnancy, miscarriage, and low birth-weight of children. GBV also poses significant costs for the economies of developing countries, including lower worker productivity and incomes, and lower rates of accumulation of human and social capital. The authors examine good practice approaches in justice, health, education, and multisectoral approaches. In each sector, they identify good practices for: (1) law and policies; (2) institutional reforms; (3) community-level interventions; and (4) individual behavior change strategies.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Development,Gender and Social Development,Public Health Promotion,Children and Youth,Adolescent Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Youth and Governance,Gender and Social Development,Children and Youth

Moduli of Tropical Plane Curves

We study the moduli space of metric graphs that arise from tropical plane curves. There are far fewer such graphs than tropicalizations of classical plane curves. For fixed genus $g$, our moduli space is a stacky fan whose cones are indexed by regular unimodular triangulations of Newton polygons with $g$ interior lattice points. It has dimension $2g+1$ unless $g \leq 3$ or $g = 7$. We compute these spaces explicitly for $g \leq 5$.Comment: 31 pages, 25 figure

Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in middle and low-income countries : a global review and analysis

Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as"gender-based"violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.

Family-Friendly Employment Policies: What do People Want?

This research examines what people want in terms of family-friendly employment policies within the workplace. Two groups were compared: undergraduate students preparing themselves for the workforce and Baby Boomers that are about to, or already have, retired. The sample was chosen from current University of Connecticut fourth year students and alumni who graduated from the University of Connecticut between 1970 and 1978. Data was collected using an online questionnaire, mainly consisting of closed-ended questions on four and five point Likert scales. Analysis indicates differences between males and females in their response to employment policies, particularly their opinions in terms of sick leave. Alumni, many of whom are part of the sandwich generation, are less worried about child, partner, or elder care responsibilities than one might expect

Counting Is Not Enough: Investing in Qualitative Case Reviews for Practice Improvement in Child Welfare

Outlines the value of quality case service reviews in child welfare systems, requirements for building and sustaining a robust process and adapting it under limited state budgets, and recommendations for jurisdictions, initiators, and national leadership

Examining the Potential for Isotope Analyses of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Sulphur in Burned Bone from Experimental and Archaeological Contexts.

The aim of this project was to determine whether isotope analyses of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur can be conducted on collagen extracted from burned bone. This project was conducted in two phases: a controlled heating experiment and an archaeological application. The controlled heating experiment used cow (Bos taurus) bone to test the temperature thresholds for the conservation of δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S values. These samples were also used to test the efficacy of Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and colour analysis, for determining the burning intensities experienced by bone burned in unknown conditions. The experiment showed that δ13C values were relatively unchanged up to 400°C (<2‰ variation), while δ15N values were relatively stable up to 200°C (0.5‰ variation). Values of δ34S were also relatively stable up to 200°C (1.4‰ variation). Colour change and FTIR data were well correlated with the change in isotope ratios. Models estimating burning intensities were created from the FTIR data. For the archaeological application, samples were selected from two early Anglo-Saxon cemetery sites: Elsham and Cleatham. Samples were selected from both inhumed and cremated individuals. Among the inhumed individuals δ13C values suggested a C3 terrestrial diet and δ15N values suggested protein derived largely from terrestrial herbivores, as expected for the early Anglo-Saxon period. However, δ34S values suggested the consumption of freshwater resources and that this consumption was related to both the age and sex of the individual. The experimental data shows that there is potential for isotope analyses of cremated remains, as during the cremation process heat exposures are not uniform across the body. The samples selected for the archaeological application, however, were not successful. Bone samples heated in controlled conditions produced viable collagen for isotope analysis; however, there are several differences between experiments conducted in a muffle furnace and open-air pyre cremation that need to be investigated further. Additionally, the influence of taphonomy on collagen survival in burned bone needs to be quantified. Finally, methods of sample selection need to be improved to find bone samples from archaeologically cremated remains that are most likely to retain viable collagen. While there is significant research that must be conducted before this research can be widely applied there are a multitude of cultures that practised cremation throughout history and around the world that could be investigated through the analyses proposed in this project

Using audio cues to support motion gesture interaction on mobile devices

2015 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Motion gestures are an underutilized input modality for mobile interaction despite numerous potential advantages. Negulescu et al. found that the lack of feedback on attempted motion gestures made it difficult for participants to diagnose and correct errors, resulting in poor recognition performance and user frustration. In this paper, we describe and evaluate a training and feedback technique, Glissando, which uses audio characteristics to provide feedback on the systems interpretation of user input. This technique enables feedback by verbally confirming correct gestures and notifying users of errors in addition to providing continuous feedback by mapping distinct musical notes to each of three axes and manipulating pitch to specify both spatial and temporal information