Multinomial selection index

Comparison of multivariate statistical analysis techniques for multinomial selection indice

Appellate Court Voting Rules

During the 1996 term, the United States Supreme Court made a candid confession about its voting practices. In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, the Court overruled Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co. and recognized that when a justice defers to the majority against his or her own reasoning inconclusive precedent results. Union Gas was particularly unusual because Justice White switched his vote to assure a result in a three-remedy case where none of the three remedies had the support of a majority. In Seminole Tribe, the Court admitted Union Gas has, since its issuance, been of questionable precedential value, largely because a majority of the Court expressly disagreed with the rationale of the plurality. Accordingly, the Court recognized the problems created when a justice votes against his or her own reasoning to ensure a result. While scholars frequently have analyzed the strategic voting practices of legislators, similar analysis of voting on judicial panels is relatively new. Frank Easterbrook was the first scholar to apply Arrow\u27s Theorem systematically to the Supreme Court\u27s voting practice, and several scholars followed his lead. After Justice White\u27s vote in Union Gas, Professor John Rogers warned the Court against abdicating its role as a reasoned decision maker. He concluded, however, that the contradictory vote in Union Gas was aberrational. More recently, Professors David Post and Steven Salop published an article encouraging multimember courts to abandon their traditional practice of outcome voting and instead to adopt a system of issue voting.\u27 Shortly thereafter, Professors Lewis Kornhauser and Lawrence Sager urged appellate courts to adopt neither outcome voting nor issue voting as a rule. Rather, they suggested appellate courts should take a metavote on whether outcome or issue voting should control each case. Professor Maxwell Stearns advanced the debate over appellate court voting in a trilogy of articles published over the past two years. These articles apply social choice theory to the Supreme Court, providing an evolutionary analysis of outcome voting, stare decisis, and standing. The investigation of appellate court voting rules has become all the more intriguing following Seminole Tribe. Recognizing the important insights to be gained from an intense investigation of appellate court voting rules, the Vanderbilt Law Review has organized the following Colloquium to discuss whether appellate courts should continue using the traditional practice of outcome voting or whether such courts should adopt a system of issue voting

Sample preparation for nanoanalytical electron microscopy using the FIB lift-out method and low energy ion milling

Thinning specimens to electron transparency for electron microscopy analysis can be done by conventional (2 - 4 kV) argon ion milling or focused ion beam (FIB) lift-out techniques. Both these methods tend to leave ''mottling'' visible on thin specimen areas, and this is believed to be surface damage caused by ion implantation and amorphisation. A low energy (250 - 500 V) Argon ion polish has been shown to greatly improve specimen quality for crystalline silicon samples. Here we investigate the preparation of technologically important materials for nanoanalysis using conventional and lift-out methods followed by a low energy polish in a GentleMill™ low energy ion mill. We use a low energy, low angle (6 - 8°) ion beam to remove the surface damage from previous processing steps. We assess this method for the preparation of technologically important materials, such as steel, silicon and GaAs. For these materials the ability to create specimens from specific sites, and to be able to image and analyse these specimens with the full resolution and sensitivity of the STEM, allows a significant increase of the power and flexibility of nanoanalytical electron microscopy

Molecular Aspects of H. pylori-Related MALT Lymphoma

Helicobacter pylori-related extranodal marginal zone lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue is a paradigm for malignancy arising in an inflammatory background. While the diagnosis of H. pylori gastritis is often straightforward, distinction between severe gastritis and early lymphoma can be difficult and requires careful assessment of clinical findings in addition to histological features and immunohistochemical results. A number of cytogenetic abnormalities have been discovered in H. pylori-related lymphomas and several have clinical importance, related to the responsiveness of lymphoma to H. pylori eradication therapy, but routine molecular studies are not widely utilized. While molecular methods may be used in equivocal cases, a trial of conservative therapy is warranted given the propensity for these lymphomas to regress with eradication of the organism. Once therapy is initiated, care must be taken to avoid a premature assignment of disease refractoriness because complete response can take several months to more than a year. Cases truly refractory to H. pylori eradication therapy may be treated with adjuvant chemoradiation with a high response rate

A quantitative study of spin noise spectroscopy in a classical gas of 41^{41}K atoms

We present a general derivation of the electron spin noise power spectrum in alkali gases as measured by optical Faraday rotation, which applies to both classical gases at high temperatures as well as ultracold quantum gases. We show that the spin-noise power spectrum is determined by an electron spin-spin correlation function, and we find that measurements of the spin-noise power spectra for a classical gas of $^{41}$K atoms are in good agreement with the predicted values. Experimental and theoretical spin noise spectra are directly and quantitatively compared in both longitudinal and transverse magnetic fields up to the high magnetic field regime (where Zeeman energies exceed the intrinsic hyperfine energy splitting of the $^{41}$K ground state)

Prototype of a new Engineering Masters project model: Working with marketing and software faculties to commercially kickstart university research

We describe a Master of Engineering (500-level) project modelled on the real-world arrangement where engineers work with marketing and software groups to prepare a product for commercialisation. A 4-member software team to develop and test embedded firmware and support applications on a mobile platform was provided through a final-year undergraduate software-engineering project course based outside the engineering school, in a separate faculty. A marketing team consisting of interns prepared logos, product names, and advertising materials, with input from a creative 200-level class. This team also considered possible exit strategies based on analysis of the market size and activity. This marketing effort was organised through the management communications group in the management school. The masters student acts as project manager and it is their remit to guide the product towards release on the crowd-sourced venture-capital site kickstarter.com. A small but original product idea is required to provide a viable vehicle for the project. Financial commitment to manufacture, even on a small scale, represents a novel outcome for a university project

The promise and limits of private standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping

This article examines private standards that aim to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in shipping. These have emerged against a backdrop of regulatory inertia and the exclusion of international shipping from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. They are a product of complex governance arrangements and they have addressed areas of market failure that have held back fuel efficiency advances that are made possible by technological innovations. These private standards hold considerable promise but suffer to different degrees from certain weaknesses, notably a lack of transparency, a low level of ambition and concerns about data reliability. This article examines these deficiencies together with the reasons for them, and assesses the role that law could play in addressing them. It argues that the conditions may be present for the mitigation of shipping’s GHG emissions to become a site of ‘hybrid’ governance, combining private standards and state/supra-state law in a productive way

Spin noise spectroscopy to probe quantum states of ultracold fermionic atomic gases

Ultracold alkali atoms provide experimentally accessible model systems for probing quantum states that manifest themselves at the macroscopic scale. Recent experimental realizations of superfluidity in dilute gases of ultracold fermionic (half-integer spin) atoms offer exciting opportunities to directly test theoretical models of related many-body fermion systems that are inaccessible to experimental manipulation, such as neutron stars and quark-gluon plasmas. However, the microscopic interactions between fermions are potentially quite complex, and experiments in ultracold gases to date cannot clearly distinguish between the qualitatively different microscopic models that have been proposed. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that optical measurements of electron spin noise -- the intrinsic, random fluctuations of spin -- can probe the entangled quantum states of ultracold fermionic atomic gases and unambiguously reveal the detailed nature of the interatomic interactions. We show that different models predict different sets of resonances in the noise spectrum, and once the correct effective interatomic interaction model is identified, the line-shapes of the spin noise can be used to constrain this model. Further, experimental measurements of spin noise in classical (Boltzmann) alkali vapors are used to estimate the expected signal magnitudes for spin noise measurements in ultracold atom systems and to show that these measurements are feasible