Combined phylogenetic analyses reveal interfamilial relationships and patterns of floral evolution in the eudicot order Fabales

Relationships between the four families placed in the angiosperm order Fabales (Leguminosae, Polygalaceae, Quillajaceae, Surianaceae) were hitherto poorly resolved. We combine published molecular data for the chloroplast regions matK and rbcL with 66 morphological characters surveyed for 73 ingroup and two outgroup species, and use Parsimony and Bayesian approaches to explore matrices with different missing data. All combined analyses using Parsimony recovered the topology Polygalaceae (Leguminosae (Quillajaceae + Surianaceae)). Bayesian analyses with matched morphological and molecular sampling recover the same topology, but analyses based on other data recover a different Bayesian topology: ((Polygalaceae + Leguminosae) (Quillajaceae + Surianaceae)). We explore the evolution of floral characters in the context of the more consistent topology: Polygalaceae (Leguminosae (Quillajaceae + Surianaceae)). This reveals synapomorphies for (Leguminosae (Quillajaceae + Surianaceae)) as the presence of free filaments and marginal/ventral placentation, for (Quillajaceae + Surianaceae) as pentamery and apocarpy, and for Leguminosae the presence of an abaxial median sepal and unicarpellate gynoecium. An octamerous androecium is synapomorphic for Polygalaceae. The development of papilionate flowers, and the evolutionary context in which these phenotypes appeared in Leguminosae and Polygalaceae, shows that the morphologies are convergent rather than synapomorphic within Fabales.

Legal outlier, again? U.S. felon suffrage: comparative and international human rights perspectives

The judiciousness of American felon suffrage policies has long been the subject of scholarly debate, not least due to the large number of affected Americans: an estimated 5.3 million citizens are ineligible to vote as a result of a criminal conviction. This article offers comparative law and international human rights perspectives and aims to make two main contributions to the American and global discourse. After an introduction in Part I, Part II offers comparative law perspectives on challenges to disenfranchisement legislation, juxtaposing U.S. case law against recent judgments rendered by courts in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and by the European Court of Human Rights. The article submits that owing to its unique constitutional stipulations, as well as to a general reluctance to engage foreign legal sources, U.S. jurisprudence lags behind an emerging global jurisprudential trend that increasingly views convicts’ disenfranchisement as a suspect practice and subjects it to judicial review. This transnational judicial discourse follows a democratic paradigm and adopts a “residual liberty” approach to criminal justice that considers convicts to be rights-holders. The discourse rejects regulatory justifications for convicts’ disenfranchisement, and instead sees disenfranchisement as a penal measure. In order to determine its suitability as a punishment, the adverse effects of disenfranchisement are weighed against its purported social benefits, using balancing or proportionality review. Part III analyzes the international human rights treaty regime. It assesses, in particular, Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), which proclaims that “every citizen” has a right to vote without “unreasonable restrictions.” The analysis concludes that the phrase “unreasonable restrictions” is generally interpreted in a manner which tolerates certain forms of disenfranchisement, whereas other forms (such as life disenfranchisement) may be incompatible with treaty obligations. This article submits that disenfranchisement is a normatively flawed punishment. It fails to treat convicts as politically-equal community members, degrades them, and causes them grave harms both as individuals and as members of social groups. These adverse effects outweigh the purported social benefits of disenfranchisement. Furthermore, as a core component of the right to vote, voter eligibility should cease to be subjected to balancing or proportionality review. The presumed facilitative nature of the right to vote makes suffrage less susceptible to deference-based objections regarding the judicial review of legislation, as well as to cultural relativity objections to further the international standardization of human rights obligations. In view of this, this article proposes the adoption of a new optional protocol to the ICCPR proscribing convicts’ disenfranchisement. The article draws analogies between the proposed protocol and the ICCPR’s “Optional Protocol Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty.” If adopted, the proposed protocol would strengthen the current trajectory towards expanding convicts’ suffrage that emanates from the invigorated transnational judicial discourse.

Rights, the environment and Part V of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

Using figures derived from the UK Home Office, this paper analyses and reviews the impact and deployment of Part V of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 since its enactment. This is done with special reference to its impact on citizenship and the regulation of ‘the environment’ and associated rural spaces. It is argued that, notwithstanding the actual use of the public order clauses in Part V of the Act, its underlying meanings are largely of a symbolic nature. Such symbolism is, however, a powerful indication of the defence of particularist constructions of rural space. It can also open out new conditions of possibility, providing a useful ‘oppressed’ status and media spectacle for a range of protesters and activists.

'Quasi'-norm of an arithmetical convolution operator and the order of the Riemann zeta function

In this paper we study Dirichlet convolution with a given arithmetical function f as a linear mapping 'f that sends a sequence (an) to (bn) where bn = Pdjn f(d)an=d. We investigate when this is a bounded operator on l2 and ¯nd the operator norm. Of particular interest is the case f(n) = n¡® for its connection to the Riemann zeta function on the line 1, 'f is bounded with k'f k = ³(®). For the unbounded case, we show that 'f : M2 ! M2 where M2 is the subset of l2 of multiplicative sequences, for many f 2 M2. Consequently, we study the `quasi'-norm sup kak = T a 2M2 k'fak kak for large T, which measures the `size' of 'f on M2. For the f(n) = n¡® case, we show this quasi-norm has a striking resemblance to the conjectured maximal order of j³(® + iT )j for ® > 12 .

Fractional order modeling of large three-dimensional RC networks

An incidence matrix analysis is used to model a three-dimensional network consisting of resistive and capacitive elements distributed across several interconnected layers. A systematic methodology for deriving a descriptor representation of the network with random allocation of the resistors and capacitors is proposed. Using a transformation of the descriptor representation into standard state-space form, amplitude and phase admittance responses of three-dimensional random RC networks are obtained. Such networks display an emergent behavior with a characteristic Jonscher-like response over a wide range of frequencies. A model approximation study of these networks is performed to infer the admittance response using integral and fractional order models. It was found that a fractional order model with only seven parameters can accurately describe the responses of networks composed of more than 70 nodes and 200 branches with 100 resistors and 100 capacitors. The proposed analysis can be used to model charge migration in amorphous materials, which may be associated to specific macroscopic or microscopic scale fractal geometrical structures in composites displaying a viscoelastic electromechanical response, as well as to model the collective responses of processes governed by random events described using statistical mechanics.

A low-order model investigation of the analysis of gravity waves in the ensemble Kalman filter.

The behavior of the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is examined in the context of a model that exhibits a nonlinear chaotic (slow) vortical mode coupled to a linear (fast) gravity wave of a given amplitude and frequency. It is shown that accurate recovery of both modes is enhanced when covariances between fast and slow normal-mode variables (which reflect the slaving relations inherent in balanced dynamics) are modeled correctly. More ensemble members are needed to recover the fast, linear gravity wave than the slow, vortical motion. Although the EnKF tends to diverge in the analysis of the gravity wave, the filter divergence is stable and does not lead to a great loss of accuracy. Consequently, provided the ensemble is large enough and observations are made that reflect both time scales, the EnKF is able to recover both time scales more accurately than optimal interpolation (OI), which uses a static error covariance matrix. For OI it is also found to be problematic to observe the state at a frequency that is a subharmonic of the gravity wave frequency, a problem that is in part overcome by the EnKF.However, error in themodeled gravity wave parameters can be detrimental to the performance of the EnKF and remove its implied advantages, suggesting that a modified algorithm or a method for accounting for model error is needed.

Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the polarized hadroproduction of heavy flavors

We present the complete next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the polarized hadroproduction of heavy flavors which soon will be studied experimentally in polarized pp collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in order to constrain the polarized gluon density Δg. It is demonstrated that the dependence on unphysical renormalization and factorization scales is strongly reduced beyond the leading order. The sensitivity of the charm quark spin asymmetry to Δg is analyzed in some detail, including the limited detector acceptance for leptons from charm quark decays at the BNL RHIC.

Erratum to: “Photoproduction of heavy quarks in next-to-leading order QCD with longitudinally polarized initial states” [Nucl. Phys. B 540 (1999) 345]

There are three trivial misprints in our paper.

Photoproduction of heavy quarks in next-to-leading order QCD with longitudinally polarized initial states

We present all relevant details of our calculation of the complete next-to-leading order O(αS2α) QCD corrections to heavy flavor photoproduction with longitudinally polarized point-like photons and hadrons. In particular we provide analytical results for the virtual plus soft gluon cross section. We carefully address the relevance of remaining theoretical uncertainties by varying, for instance, the factorization and renormalization scales independently. Such studies are of importance for a meaningful first direct determination of the polarized gluon density Δg from the total charm production spin asymmetry by the upcoming COMPASS experiment. It is shown that the scale uncertainty is considerably reduced in next-to-leading order, but the dependence on the charm quark mass is sizable at fixed target energies. Finally, we study several differential single-inclusive heavy quark distributions and, for the polarized HERA option, the total bottom spin asymmetry.

Next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the polarized photoproduction of heavy flavors

We present a calculation of the next-to-leading order ... QCD corrections to heavy flavor photoproduction with longitudinally polarized beams. We apply our results to study the longitudinal spin asymmetry for the total charm quark production cross section which will be utilized by the forthcoming COMPASS experiment at CERN to obtain first direct information on the polarized gluon density Δg. We also briefly discuss the main theoretical uncertainties inherent in this calculation. In particular we demonstrate that the factorization scale dependence is considerably reduced in next-to-leading order.

The domain derivative in rough-surface scattering and rigorous estimates for first-order perturbation theory

We investigate Fréchet differentiability of the scattered field with respect to variation in the boundary in the case of time–harmonic acoustic scattering by an unbounded, sound–soft, one–dimensional rough surface. We rigorously prove the differentiability of the scattered field and derive a characterization of the Fréchet derivative as the solution to a Dirichlet boundary value problem. As an application of these results we give rigorous error estimates for first–order perturbation theory, justifying small perturbation methods that have a long history in the engineering literature. As an application of our rigorous estimates we show that a plane acoustic wave incident on a sound–soft rough surface can produce an unbounded scattered field.