For the second week in a row, Queen Elizabeth II was a no-show at church with a bad cold that forced her to skip the New Year’s Day holiday service, according to the palace. “The Queen does not yet feel ready to attend church as she is still recuperating from a heavy cold,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement Sunday. The Queen also missed the royal family’s traditional Christmas service at St. Mary Magdalene Church on the Sandringham estate due to a cold. That was reportedly the first time in 28 years the Queen did not attend the Christmas service. On New Years Day, he stayed inside again prompting increased concerns about her health. Joe Giddens/AP Photo Princess Anne, the monarch’s daughter, reassured well-wishers who braved the cold, rainy weather Sunday outside the church that the queen was on the mend. Queen Elizabeth was last seen more than two weeks ago to pre-record her annual Christmas message. Her prolonged absence since has heightened speculation and concern about the severity and extent of her illness. The Queen: "I wish you all a very happy Christmas" #QueensSpeech pic.twitter.com/KHn3CWD1e4 — The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) December 25, 2016 Royal sources are saying, however, that the palace is simply being cautious and practical given the cold weather, and that the queen is said to be up and about working inside the warmth of her home. “We’re talking about a 90-year-old woman with a lingering cold,” ABC News contributor on the royal family, Victoria Murphy, said. “She didn’t want to be standing inside a cold church for up to an hour braving that terrible rain and didn’t want to risk getting worse and she was advised by her doctors to not take the risk.” Before Christmas, the Queen and Prince Philip postponed their trip to Sandringham by 24 hours because they were ill. They later elected to take a helicopter instead of boarding the royal train in London as they typically do each year. Prince Philip, who was also suffering from a cold, according to the palace, was well enough to make the traditional walk to church with the rest of the family on Christmas while the queen remained at home. The public will have to wait one more week for a glimpse of their monarch. Her next scheduled public appearance is at church next Sunday, if she's well enough to attend.


We study the additivity property of three multipartite entanglement measures, i.e. the geometric measure of entanglement (GM), the relative entropy of entanglement and the logarithmic global robustness. First, we show the additivity of GM of multipartite states with real and non-negative entries in the computational basis. Many states of experimental and theoretical interests have this property, e.g. Bell diagonal states, maximally correlated generalized Bell diagonal states, generalized Dicke states, the Smolin state, and the generalization of D\"{u}r's multipartite bound entangled states. We also prove the additivity of other two measures for some of these examples. Second, we show the non-additivity of GM of all antisymmetric states of three or more parties, and provide a unified explanation of the non-additivity of the three measures of the antisymmetric projector states. In particular, we derive analytical formulae of the three measures of one copy and two copies of the antisymmetric projector states respectively. Third, we show, with a statistical approach, that almost all multipartite pure states with sufficiently large number of parties are nearly maximally entangled with respect to GM and relative entropy of entanglement. However, their GM is not strong additive; what's more surprising, for generic pure states with real entries in the computational basis, GM of one copy and two copies, respectively, are almost equal. Hence, more states may be suitable for universal quantum computation, if measurements can be performed on two copies of the resource states. We also show that almost all multipartite pure states cannot be produced reversibly with the combination multipartite GHZ states under asymptotic LOCC, unless relative entropy of entanglement is non-additive for generic multipartite pure states.


Stellar kinematics in the external regions of globular clusters can be used to probe the validity of Newton's law in the low acceleration regimes without the complication of non-baryonic dark matter. Indeed, in contrast with what happens when studying galaxies, in globular clusters a systematic deviation of the velocity dispersion profile from the expected Keplerian falloff would provide indication of a breakdown of Newtonian dynamics rather than the existence of dark matter. We perform a detailed analysis of the velocity dispersion in the globular cluster omega Centauri in order to investigate whether it does decrease monotonically with distance as recently claimed by Sollima et al. (2009), or whether it converges toward a constant value as claimed by Scarpa Marconi and Gilmozzi (2003B). We combine measurements from these two works to almost double the data available at large radii, in this way obtaining an improved determination of the velocity dispersion profile in the low acceleration regime. We found the inner region of omega Centauri is clearly rotating, while the rotational velocity tend to vanish, and is consistent with no rotation at all, in the external regions. The cluster velocity dispersion at large radii from the center is found to be sensibly constant. The main conclusion of this work is that strong similarities are emerging between globular clusters and elliptical galaxies, for in both classes of objects the velocity dispersion tends to remain constant at large radii. In the case of galaxies, this is ascribed to the presence of a massive halo of dark matter, something physically unlikely in the case of globular clusters. Such similarity, if confirmed, is best explained by a breakdown of Newtonian dynamics below a critical acceleration.


Striking regularities are found in the northwestern arm of the M31 galaxy. Star complexes located in this arm are all spaced 1.2 kpc apart and have similar sizes of about 0.6 kpc. Within the same arm region Beck et al. (1989) detected a regular magnetic field, and we found that its wavelength is the spacing between the complexes. In this arm, groups of HII regions lie inside star complexes, which, in turn, are located inside the gas and dust lane. In contrast, the southwestern arm of M31 splits into a gas and dust lane upstream and a dense stellar arm downstream, with HII regions located mostly along the boundary between these components of the arm. The stellar density in the southwestern arm is much higher than in the northwestern arm, and the former is not fragmented into star complexes. The age gradient across this arm have been found in earlier observations. According the classical SDW theory, these drastic differences may be due due to their different pitch angles: about 0 degree for northwestern part of the arm and about 30 degree for the southwestern segment. Data on M31, M51, M74, and some other galaxies suggest that star complexes are mostly located in the arm segments that are not accompanied by a dust lane upstream, i.e. do not host spiral shock wave. The regularities in the distribution of complexes along a density wave spiral arm are most probably due to the development of the Parker-Jeans instability, which builds up star complexes if the initial SFR in the arm is low and, as a sequence, magnetic field is regular along the arm.


Our work is motivated by the need for impromptu (or "as-you-go") deployment of relay nodes (for establishing a packet communication path with a control centre) by fire-men/commandos while operating in an unknown environment. We consider a model, where a deployment operative steps along a random lattice path whose evolution is Markov. At each step, the path can randomly either continue in the same direction or take a turn "North" or "East," or come to an end, at which point a data source (e.g., a temperature sensor) has to be placed that will send packets to a control centre at the origin of the path. A decision has to be made at each step whether or not to place a wireless relay node. Assuming that the packet generation rate by the source is very low, and simple link-by-link scheduling, we consider the problem of relay placement so as to minimize the expectation of an end-to-end cost metric (a linear combination of the sum of convex hop costs and the number of relays placed). This impromptu relay placement problem is formulated as a total cost Markov decision process. First, we derive the optimal policy in terms of an optimal placement set and show that this set is characterized by a boundary beyond which it is optimal to place. Next, based on a simpler alternative one-step-look-ahead characterization of the optimal policy, we propose an algorithm which is proved to converge to the optimal placement set in a finite number of steps and which is faster than the traditional value iteration. We show by simulations that the distance based heuristic, usually assumed in the literature, is close to the optimal provided that the threshold distance is carefully chosen.


connection with exposure to mustard gas or lewisite at such site and such claims were denied; and (2) submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on experiments conducted by the Department of Defense during World War II to assess the effects of mustard gas and lewisite on people, which shall include-- (A) a list of each location where such an experiment occurred, including locations investigated and assessed under paragraph (1); (B) the dates of each such experiment; and (C) the number of members of the Armed Forces who were exposed to mustard gas or lewisite in each such experiment. (d) Investigation and Report by Secretary of Veterans Affairs.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall-- (1) investigate and assess-- (A) the actions taken by the Secretary to reach out to individuals who had been exposed to mustard gas or lewisite in the experiments described in subsection (c)(2)(A); and (B) the claims for disability compensation under laws administered by the Secretary that were filed with the Secretary and the percentage of such claims that were denied by the Secretary; and (2) submit to the appropriate committees of Congress-- (A) a report on the findings of the Secretary with respect to the investigations and assessments carried out under paragraph (1); and (B) a comprehensive list of each location where an experiment described in subsection (c)(2)(A) was conducted. (e) Definitions.--In this section: (1) The terms ``active military, naval, or air service'', ``veteran'', and ``World War II'' have the meanings given such terms in section 101 of title 38, United States Code. (2) The term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means-- (A) the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Special Committee on Aging of the Senate; and (B) the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives. (3) The term ``full-body exposure'', with respect to mustard gas or lewisite, has the meaning given that term by the Secretary of Defense.


If you’ve been watching the second series of Victoria, you’ll probably have noticed that the queen’s beloved Lord Melbourne is looking a little peaky. Advertisement Now, it’s no secret that Lord M, played in the ITV drama by Rufus Sewell, retired from public life in his final years, leaving London and politics for his home, Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. But while dizzy spells and weakness would not necessarily be a cause for concern in the modern age, for the former Prime Minister the symptoms were somewhat more sinister. Below are some details of the ex-politician’s final years – but a word of warning first. If you don’t want any spoilers, avoid reading beyond this rather lovely picture of the man in question… When did Lord Melbourne die? After leaving parliament in August 1841, Melbourne retreated from public life and suffered a stroke 14 months after his exit from politics. Weakened, he led a reclusive existence in the following years although continued to exchange letters with Victoria. He passed away on 24th November 1848, nine years after the queen had begun her reign. How did Lord Melbourne die? Lord Melbourne is reported to have died from the effects of his stroke. A clip from episode three (below) sees the former statesman trembling and the ITV drama also alludes to “weakness on his left side”, both of which would suggest the aftermath of such a condition. An article in the Liverpool Albion, announcing his death, reports: “the noble deceased had been attacked about three weeks or a month since by what was considered a bilious complaint” but that a London doctor went on to inform family members of “his fears that his lordship’s illness would prove fatal”. Melbourne died at his beloved Brockett Hall surrounded by family members including his sister, Lady Palmerston. Was he survived by any family? Lord Melbourne’s wife (who famously ran off with the poet, Lord Byron) had passed away in 1828, shortly followed by the couple’s only son, George Augustus Frederick. Their daughter, who was born premature, had also predeceased Melbourne, so on his death his titles passed on to his brother, Frederick. Did Lord Melbourne really attend the queen’s costume ball in aid of Spitalfields’ silk industry? Advertisement Episode three of the ITV drama sees Rufus Sewell’s beleaguered statesman attend the party dressed as the poet Dante. However, it is not clear


In this paper we study the wind accretion onto a rotating black hole in the close binary system harboring a young massive star. It is shown that the angular momentum of the accreted stellar wind material is not sufficient for the formation of an accretion disk. On the other hand, in the considered conditions the Blanford-Znajek mechanism can be activated, thus powerful jets can be launched in the direction of the rotation axis of the black hole. Importantly, no observational signatures of accretion, as typically seen from the thermal X-ray emission from the accretion disks, are expected in the suggested scenario. Here, properties of the generated jet are studied numerically in the framework of a 2D general relativity magnetohydrodynamical approach. Due to the accumulation of the magnetic flux at the black hole horizon, the jet power is expected to be modulated on a sub-second time-scale. Although the intervals between jet active phases depend on the magnetic flux escape from the black hole horizon (which can be modeled self-consistently only using a 3D code), a general estimate of the averaged jet power is obtained. It is expected that for the black hole rotation, expected in stellar binary system (the dimensionless rotation parameter a=0.5), approximately 10% of the accreted rest energy can be channeled into the jets. In the specific case of the gamma-ray binary system LS 5039, the obtained jet luminosity can be responsible for the observed GeV radiation if one invokes Doppler boosting, which can enhanced the apparent flux from the system.


Come January, LiAngelo Ball and LaMelo Ball will be off to Prienai, a town of about 10,000 people in southern Lithuania, to begin their respective careers as professional basketball players in Europe. The next set of circumstances for LaVar Ball’s youngest boys will be anything but glamorous, up to and including Prienai Arena, where they will play for Prienu Vytautas under head coach Virginijus Šeškus, who’s regarded by some as “the LaVar Ball of Lithuania.” Ben Brust, who played briefly in Lithuania following his four-year stint at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, passed along a less-than-impressive photo of the gym that Gelo and Melo will soon call home. The Ball’s to Lithuania is a disaster waiting to happen (I played there for a year and hated it). This is a picture of the teams gym that the Ball brothers would play at. Not exactly BIG BALLER material #BBB pic.twitter.com/STkQ57YRS5 — Ben Brust (@BenBrust) December 11, 2017 ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz added these details about the arena’s seating arrangements: The club plays in a 1,700-seat arena; 500 of those seats are reserved for team sponsors and their friends. Tickets cost around 5 euro. There’s no word yet as to how many more will need to be set aside for LaVar and his Big Baller Brand entourage. The good news is, it won’t cost them much to get in the building if the cash-strapped club can’t afford to comp them.


As Reben told Engadget, "the discourse around such a(n) apparatus is more important than its physical presence." For this project he chose to use Google Assistant, but said it could have been an Amazon Echo "or some other input device as well." At the same time, the device triggered "could have been a back massaging chair or an ice cream maker." But Reben chose to arm Assistant with a gun. And given the concerns raised by Google's Duplex AI since I/O earlier this month, as well as the seemingly never-ending mass shootings in America, his decision is astute. In this example, Reben was the one who told Assistant to "activate gun." He is still the person responsible for the action. But in a world where machine learning has led to AI that's smart enough to anticipate our needs and cater to our comfort every day, it's not hard to imagine a day when digital assistants could kill off people who upset us, if given access to weapons. Who is responsible for the deaths then? It's easy enough to say that we should block AI access to dangerous devices. But we've already got them in our cars, in the military and in other places we probably haven't even thought about. We can demand companies make sure that their tech cannot cause harm, but it's simply impossible to plan for every eventuality, every possible way that AI might go rogue. "Part of the message for me includes the unintended consequences of technology and the futility of considering every use case," Reben said. Google might not ever have imagined Assistant being used to shoot a weapon. But all it took for Reben to achieve that was parts laying around his studio. He used a control relay that usually turns on a lamp, linked it to a Google Home speaker, then connected a laundromat change-dispensing solenoid to pull a string that looped around the trigger. "The setup was very easy," Reben said. He's no stranger to artwork featuring the abilities of artificial intelligence. Reben has created projects that show what AI hears and sees when exposed to "The Joy of Painting," as well as hiding tiny artworks in URLs. This, however is an even more provocative piece that forces the viewer to imagine what could happen if nefarious programmers made an AI that went rogue. Now, more than ever, we need to have the discussions about how, and if, we can prevent an intelligent machine from killing us all.


ISO, aperture, AV, TV, huh? That doesn’t looks like a TV to me. Oh what do they all mean! Which way do I twizzle this knob? Oh blinzkis! I can see only black. Oh right, the lens cap is still on. If that all sounds like a typical conversation every time you're handed a DSLR then the 800D might just be the answer. Canon's long had an app which offers users tips and tutorials to help them master photography, but it’s not always convenient to whip out your phone, fire up the app and start tapping in your ISO questions as the sun goes down. Especially when you're trying to hold a camera at the same time. The solution, according to Canon, is take the best bits from the app and put them in the camera itself, then call the whole thing the User Guide Mode. The 800D defaults to this mode, meaning that you’ll be shown handy tips on the screen as you shoot. It's a trick that Nikon has also tried in its entry-level cams, and while we don't need that kind of help ourselves, obviously, we can see how beginners might find it incredibly reassuring in use. Canon's version of it certainly looked impressive in our brief time with the camera. The instructions are clear, with plenty of simple graphics to help illustrate the points, and don't get bogged down too much in jargon. How useful they are will depend on your current level of expertise, but if you already know it all then maybe the 800D isn't the camera for you anyway.


If one piece had to be picked to encapsulate the latest exhibition from artist Leang Seckon, it would be his work titled “Dead and Reborn Again.” Last year, the head of a pre-Angkorian statue of the Hindu deity Harihara—a fusion of Vishnu and Shiva—which had been in a French museum since the late 19th century, was sent to the National Museum in Phnom Penh to be reunited with its body, found in the 20th century, and identified in the 2010s as belonging to the head. “Harihara is a special god protecting the land,” Mr. Seckon said in an interview. Having the statue’s head and body reunited was, he said, “like a butterfly born out of the worm, Cambodia coming out of darkness.” In his painting, the statue’s head floats in the clouds with its body on the left and a whole statue on the right. This series of vast frescoes and small collages took Mr. Seckon two-and-a-half years to complete. Real and mythical people are mixed and melded, reflecting events and realities but also age-old symbols and beliefs that Cambodians may rarely discuss but which are part of their very fabric. He produced 32 works for the new show, “When Head and Body Unite,” which goes on display at the Rossi & Rossi gallery in Hong Kong next month. Done in his signature style, each work is multilayered. The large ones—some of which would fill a wall—are done on canvas and fabric with acrylic paint, collages and pieces of leather cut as finely as embroidery. The colors are warm and muted gold, soft blues and grays. Smaller collages consist of layers of painted images mixed with photographs and illustrations collected over months of research. Each one speaks of a chapter of the country’s recent history. From the “Golden Era” of the refugee camps in Thailand in the 1980s, it also includes the country’s leading figures in the early 1990s such as King Norodom Sihanouk, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Prime Minister Hun Sen. Every work carries references well-known to Cambodians and also very personal to the artist. In “Gold Silt Creative Person,” a man stretches his arms above his head as he looks in a mirror in which his reflection shows the head of the mythical snake, naga, while his shadow is


If you want to keep the price on your new smartphone low, the ZTE Axon 7 has been our most recommended smartphone for $400, just edging out the OnePlus 3 in many circumstances. The OnePlus 3T costs a little more, but it’s worth it. However, the OnePlus 3T now costs more than the magic $400, and if that’s all you want to spend, the Axon 7 is the choice to make. Buyers in the U.K. may want to investigate the Honor 8 Pro, which combines a great camera with good software and other strong features, for 480 British pounds. However, all this applies to someone wanting to buy a new smartphone right this minute. The OnePlus 3T is nearly six months into its lifespan, and rumors are flying about a sequel in the near future. If you buy one, be prepared to see it replaced before the end of the summer. How long will it last? The OnePlus 3T isn’t a rugged phone, and misses out on any water resistance, so you’ll have to be careful with it if you want it to last. It should be worth it, though, because the processor is still one of the fastest out there, which enables OnePlus 3T owners to keep up with gaming and app trends, ensuring their phone will handle the best software for some time to come. Our midnight black OnePlus 3T has Android 7.1.1 Nougat installed with the March 1 Android Security Patch, so it’s nearly up to date. OnePlus has shaken up its software department recently, and promised more timely software updates in the future. The updates come to an end with Android O, but the device will continue to receive security updates. Should you buy it? Yes. The OnePlus 3T is a ridiculously good value smartphone, without any of the drawbacks you’d expect from anything labeled as “good value.” It’s beautiful to look at, great to use, takes impressive pictures, and is technically capable enough to give years of service. All for $440? Just buy one. Update: Android O will be the last major update for OnePlus 3 and 3T


term ``principal investigator'' has the meaning given the term in section 487(a)(30)(D), as added by section 2. SEC. 4. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES. Section 1105(a)(40) of title 31, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph: ``(40) in the case of a Federal department or agency authorized to award research and development grants on a competitive basis-- ``(A) the number of reports received under section 487(a)(30) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1094(a)(30)), as added by the Federal Funding Accountability for Sexual Harassers Act, and disaggregated by reports received under subparagraph (A) and by reports received under subparagraph (B) of such section; and ``(B) the number of cases in which the department or agency recommended awarding such a grant for which the principal investigator (as defined in section 3(b) of the Federal Funding Accountability for Sexual Harassers Act) was an individual on which a report under section 487(a)(30)(A) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1094(a)(30)(A)) had been filed during the preceding fiscal year.''. SEC. 5. STUDY AND REPORT. The Secretary of Education shall enter into a contract with the National Academy of Sciences under which the National Academy of Sciences shall-- (1) conduct a comprehensive study on the prevalence and impact of sexual harassment in higher education in science, engineering, and medical departments and programs, which shall include an evaluation of, and strategies to, address the legislative, administrative, educational, and cultural barriers to reducing the negative impacts of such sexual harassment; and (2) not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, submit to the Secretary of Education and make public a report on the results of such study, including-- (A) an evaluation of the impact of sexual harassment on the academic careers of scientists, engineers, and health care professionals; (B) a review of current institutional procedures for preventing sexual harassment with an assessment of their efficacy, with comparisons to international programs and procedures if relevant; and (C) recommendations for evidence-based strategies and policies that can reduce or eliminate sexual harassment.


X-ray observations of unabsorbed active galactic nuclei provide an opportunity to explore the innermost regions of supermassive black hole accretion discs. Our goal in this paper is to investigate the central environment of a Seyfert 1.5 galaxy IRAS 05078+1626. We studied the time-averaged spectrum obtained with the EPIC and RGS instruments. A power-law continuum (photon index ~ 1.75) dominates the 2-10 keV energy range. A narrow iron K alpha spectral line is clearly seen, presumably originating in a distant torus, but no broad relativistic component was detected. However, the power law and the iron K alpha line alone do not provide a satisfactory fit in the soft X-ray band whose spectrum can be explained by the combination of three components: a) a cold photoelectric absorber with column density ~ 10^(21) cm^(-2). This gas could be located either in outer parts of the accretion disc, at the rim of the torus or farther out in the host galaxy; b) a warm absorber with high ionization parameter (log(xi) ~ 2.2) and column density ~ 10^(24) cm^(-2); c) an ionized reflection where the reflecting gas could be either in the inner wall of a warm absorber cone or in an ionized accretion disc. The first X-ray spectroscopic measurement of IRAS05078+1626 unveils some of the standard ingredients in Seyfert galaxies, such as a power-law primary continuum, modified by reflection from the accretion disc and by the effect of complex, multi-phase obscuration. However, data constrains the accretion disc, if present, not to extend closer than to 60 gravitational radii from the black hole.


she, too, was raped. It was dark when the men finally left. F managed to wriggle her wrists free of the rope and ran into a field. In the morning, she returned to search for her mother, but she had vanished. She saw at least five women lying dead on the ground, their throats cut. She has no idea what has become of her husband. And she cannot imagine returning to her homeland. “We’ve had enough torture,” she says. —— SHE DOES NOT KNOW IF HER HUSBAND IS ALIVE S was lying in bed with her husband and son after dinner in late August when around 10 soldiers burst into the house. A few took her husband outside. Five stayed behind, and one pointed his gun at her. She tried to run, but they grabbed her and kicked her back, stomach and chest. They stripped off her clothes and took her necklace and earrings. Three men raped her. Her young son began to cry. A soldier pointed his gun at the child and he screamed louder. S was in agony. After the men were finished, they took her outside, naked. Her son followed them. About two dozen other women, also naked, had been dragged outside as well. The soldiers forced the women to march toward a rice paddy, beating and kicking them as they walked. S felt blood running down her legs. Once they arrived, the men ordered them to lie down. S fought back and soldiers kicked her. She fell to the ground. Three more soldiers began to rape her. When at last the assault was over, S fled back toward her house with her son, only to find her home had been burned along with many others. She does not know if her husband is alive.


We explore a simple model for the high luminosity of SN 2006gy involving photon diffusion of shock-deposited thermal energy. The distinguishing property of the model is that the large ``stellar'' radius of 160 AU required to prevent adiabatic losses is not the true stellar radius, but rather, the radius of an opaque, unbound circumstellar envelope, created when 10 Msun was ejected in the decade before the supernova in an eruption analogous to that of eta Carinae. The supernova light is produced primarily by diffusion of thermal energy following the passage of the blast wave through this shell. This model differs from traditional models of supernova debris interacting with external CSM in that here the shell is optically thick and the escape of radiation is delayed. We show that any model attempting to account for SN2006gy's huge luminosity with radiation emitted by ongoing CSM interaction fails for the following basic reason: the CSM density required to achieve the observed luminosity makes the same circumstellar envelope opaque, forcing a thermal diffusion solution. In our model, the weaker CSM interaction giving rise to SN2006gy's characteristic Type IIn spectrum and soft X-rays is not linked to the power source of the visual continuum; instead, it arises after the blast wave breaks free of the opaque shell into the surrounding wind. While a simple diffusion model can explain the gross properties of the early light curve of SN2006gy, it predicts that the light curve must plummet rapidly at late-times, unless an additional power source is present.


The frequency of heating events in the corona is an important constraint on the coronal heating mechanisms. Observations indicate that the intensities and velocities measured in active region cores are effectively steady, suggesting that heating events occur rapidly enough to keep high temperature active region loops close to equilibrium. In this paper, we couple observations of Active Region 10955 made with XRT and EIS on \textit{Hinode} to test a simple steady heating model. First we calculate the differential emission measure of the apex region of the loops in the active region core. We find the DEM to be broad and peaked around 3\,MK. We then determine the densities in the corresponding footpoint regions. Using potential field extrapolations to approximate the loop lengths and the density-sensitive line ratios to infer the magnitude of the heating, we build a steady heating model for the active region core and find that we can match the general properties of the observed DEM for the temperature range of 6.3 $<$ Log T $<$ 6.7. This model, for the first time, accounts for the base pressure, loop length, and distribution of apex temperatures of the core loops. We find that the density-sensitive spectral line intensities and the bulk of the hot emission in the active region core are consistent with steady heating. We also find, however, that the steady heating model cannot address the emission observed at lower temperatures. This emission may be due to foreground or background structures, or may indicate that the heating in the core is more complicated. Different heating scenarios must be tested to determine if they have the same level of agreement.


If you want to stick to your New Year's resolutions in 2017, don't dream big, dream reasonable.Instead of trying to lose 100 pounds or become fluent in French in 365 days, having manageable goals and a firm but flexible timeline will help keep your resolutions alive for 2017. Here are reasonable and achievable New Year's resolutions.Perhaps you've been dying to see the Eiffel Tower glowing at night or have always wanted to trek along the Great Wall of China. International travel fantasies are fun to picture but hard to turn into reality with pricey plane fares and hotels rates.Instead of trying to trot the entire globe, take a road trip to a nearby hotspot or fly to a fun, new destination in the U.S. to satisfy your New Year travel bug. You'll be able to explore somewhere new and exciting without significantly impacting your schedule or wallet.Learning a new language can be of great benefit to your personal and professional life but also requires a lot of time and dedication. Lifehacker suggests that people trying to learn a foreign language should set specific priorities and a timeline for their language goals, like knowing how to speak basic phrases at the end of a month. Online tools like Duolingo and Memrise can also keep language learners on track with their goals.It's hard not to watch a cooking show on TV and have dreams of becoming a world class chef. But with consumers spending more money at restaurants than they do at grocery stores, according to Bloomberg, fewer people are strengthening their cooking skills at home.Treat yourself to a new cookbook and then commit to trying out new recipes on a daily or weekly basis. You can also sign up for cooking classes at a community center to learn about food in a group setting.The most popular New Year's resolution in 2016 was staying fit and healthy according to Nielsen, and 2017 is almost certain to shape up the same way. Set realistic goals and commit to a regular fitness activity that you enjoy. Find a workout buddy to help motivate you and keep you on track and reward yourself when you hit milestone achievements.People love to read, with nearly eight in 10 Americans having read a book in the past year, according to the Pew Research Center. But with so many book options available in digital and print, tackling all of the year's great literary offerings can be a difficult and time-consuming task.If you want to increase your literary diet in 2017, try finishing a new book every month. If you


We present CaII K and TiII optical spectra of early-type stars taken mainly from the UVES Paranal Observatory Project, plus HI 21-cm spectra from the Vila-Elisa and Leiden-Dwingeloo surveys, which are employed to obtain distances to intermediate and high velocity clouds. HI emission at a velocity of -117 km/s towards the sightline HD 30677 with NHI=1.7x10^19 cm-2 has no corresponding CaII K absorption, which has a signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of 610. The star has a spectroscopically determined distance of 2.7-kpc, and hence sets this as a firm lower distance limit towards Anti-Centre cloud ACII. Towards another sightline (HD 46185), HI at +122 km/s and NHI=1.2x10^19 cm-2 is seen. The CaII K spectrum has a S/N = 780, although no absorption is observed at the cloud velocity. This similarly places a firm lower distance limit of 2.9-kpc towards this parcel of gas that may be an intermediate velocity cloud. The lack of intermediate velocity (IV) CaII K absorption towards HD 196426 at a S/N = 500 reinforces a lower distance limit of 700-pc towards this part of Complex gp, where NHI is 1.1x10^19 cm-2 and velocity is +78 km/s. Additionally, no IV CaII K is seen in absorption in the spectrum of HD 19445, which is strong in HI with NHI=8x10^19 cm-2 at -42 km/s, placing a firm although uninteresting lower distance limit of 39-pc to this part of IV South. Finally, no HV CaII K absorption is seen towards HD 115363 at a S/N = 410, placing a lower distance of 3.2-kpc towards the HVC gas at velocity of +224 km/s and NHI=5.2x10^19 cm-2. This gas is in the same region of the sky as complex WE (Wakker 2001), but at higher velocities. The non-detection of CaII K absorption sets a lower distance of 3.2-kpc towards the HVC, which is unsurprising if this feature is indeed related to the Magellanic System.


," he said. The Brookers - who are also launching a surfing products brand to help fund more field work - have also been joined on the project by a neighbouring cafe owner and friend, Jane Fallows. She has left her daughter to run the family business while she works on the scientific side of the trial. Image caption Jane Fallows and Simon and Collin Brooker before they headed out Jane, who once worked in medical research, will be involved in gathering the data and liaising with scientists in Wales and then joining the trial to work with conservationists and oceanographers. "I'm interested in the science side, the conservation side, and also gathering all the facts together from the experts there and using that to do the research," she said. "All the field testing will be done off shore, we'll take a boat out, baiting the water and waiting for sharks to come in and then administering the chemical into the water," said Simon. Collin added: "We need to look at coastal protection but it's not only protecting the humans, it's protecting the sharks." Image copyright Collin Brooker Image caption They have been in South Africa since the summer Image copyright Collin Brooker Image caption The Brookers hope they will be able to offer something as part of an overall conservation solution The Brookers said sharks were very much part of the eco-system, but where they have been culled, fish populations have grown out of control, which can in turn damage reefs. "For hundreds of years fishermen have learnt to trawl a dead shark on their nets to keep sharks away- but we're commercialising that," said Collin. "It's putting it into everyday use but by not using a dead shark anymore but a synthetic re-creation of that." Image copyright Collin Brooker The Brookers have recently started their first sea trials, which they said brought "encouraging" first results with one of the active ingredients. A tiny dose cleared a sea area of three shark species for five minutes, while other fish were unaffected. Eventually, if all goes to plan, the aim is to develop the device for manufacture back in south Wales, with an eye on the surfing and diving market in other parts of the world, if it takes off.


If the seed magnetic fields exist in the early Universe, tensor components of their anisotropic stresses are not compensated prior to neutrino decoupling and the tensor metric perturbations generated from them survive passively. Consequently, due to the decay of these metric perturbations after recombination, the so-called integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, the large-scale fluctuations of CMB radiation are significantly boosted. This kind of CMB anisotropy is called the "tensor passive mode." Because these fluctuations deviate largely from the Gaussian statistics due to the quadratic dependence on the strength of the Gaussian magnetic field, not only the power spectrum but also the higher-order correlations have reasonable signals. With these motives, we compute the CMB bispectrum induced by this mode. When the magnetic spectrum obeys a nearly scale-invariant shape, we obtain an estimation of a typical value of the normalized reduced bispectrum as $\ell_1(\ell_1 + 1)\ell_3(\ell_3+1)|b_{\ell_1\ell_2\ell_3}| \sim (130-6) \times 10^{-16} (B_{1 \rm Mpc} / 4.7 {\rm nG})^6$ depending on the energy scale of the magnetic field production from $10^{14}$GeV to $10^3$GeV. Here, $B_{1 {\rm Mpc}}$ is the strength of the primordial magnetic field smoothed on $1 {\rm Mpc}$. From the above estimation and the current observational constraint on the primordial non-Gaussianity, we get a rough constraint on the magnetic field strength as $B_{1 {\rm Mpc}} < 2.6 - 4.4 {\rm nG}$.


difference, Chaudhuri said, is that instead of calling for Medicaid to cover more people, the lawmakers propose funding more school psychologists and counselors. Included in their proposal is a way for courts to use "extreme risk protection orders" to temporarily remove guns from people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others. Rep. Marcia Morey, a former Durham judge, presented such orders as a step beyond domestic violence protective orders. Anyone with direct personal knowledge can ask the court to remove a gun from someone who exhibits threatening, dangerous behavior, she said, while due process rights are preserved. Their proposal would also require background checks before purchase of semi-automatic weapons such as an AR-15 from a private seller, as is already the case for people who buy handguns. Democrats are getting out ahead of a House school safety committee Republican House Speaker Tim Moore organized, which will have its first meeting this week. Republican co-chairmen of the school safety committee have promised to hear all ideas, but early on, Moore dismissed "the gun debate" as "a discussion for another time." F. Paul Valone, president of the gun-rights group Grassroots NC, called the Democrats' proposal "an attempt to incrementally end the private ownership of firearms." The proposed age restriction is a ploy to stunt the appreciation for the Second Amendment among people younger than 21, he said. And the extreme risk protection laws enacted in other states limit due process because judges can make decisions without all parties present, Valone said. "Any of these proposals, if they come out of the General Assembly, we will vociferously oppose them by all possible means," Valone said. Grassroots NC tracks legislators' votes and sends out 150,000 voter guides, he said. Democrats called on the school safety committee to consider their bill. Chaudhuri said Democrats would file it even if the safety committee doesn't support it.


We study the ground state entanglement, energy and fidelities of a two-electron system bounded by a core-shell potential, where the core width is varied continuously until it eventually vanishes. This simple system displays a rich and complex behavior: as the core width is varied, this system is characterized by two peculiar transitions where, for different reasons, it displays characteristics similar to a few-particle quantum phase transition. The first occurrence corresponds to something akin to a second order quantum phase transition, while the second transition is marked by a discontinuity, with respect to the driving parameter, in the first derivatives of quantities like energy and entanglement. The study of this system allows to shed light on the sudden variation of entanglement and energy observed in S. Abdullah et al. [Phys. Rev. B 80, 235302 (2009)]. We also compare the core-shell system with a system where a core well is absent: this shows that, even when extremely narrow, the core well has a relevant `pinning' effect. Interestingly, depending on the potential symmetry, the pinning of the wavefunction may either halve or double the system entanglement (with respect to the no-core-well system) when the ground state is already bounded to the outer (shell) well. In the process we discuss the system fidelity and show the usefulness of considering the particle density fidelity as opposed to the more commonly used -- but much more difficult to access -- wavefunction fidelity. In particular we demonstrate that -- for ground-states with nodeless spatial wavefunctions -- the particle density fidelity is zero if and only if the wavefunction fidelity is zero.


This fun, fluffy doc lacks guts, grit and integrity Film | by Jorge Ignacio Castillo Always at The Carlyle Studio 7 Opens July 6 Real-Life Goldfinger Donald Trump can call it “a joke” all he wants, but The Carlyle really is one of New York’s most legendary hotels. The grand old establishment is known for its classy art deco design, impressive clientele (from Jack Nicholson to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge) and, above all, a fierce code of silence. Never mind the staff’s refusal to gossip: the documentary Always At The Carlyle has stories for days. The hosts may refuse to blab but the guests are happy to. Some of the events that took place in the hotel are the stuff of legend: Marilyn Monroe’s killer rendition of “Happy Birthday”; Paul Newman’s experiments with vinaigrette; an elevator ride including Princess Diana, Michael Jackson and Steve Jobs. And that’s just what we know. More than following a cinematic structure, the film focuses on the hotel’s most popular areas one at the time: the ridiculously expensive rooms, the Bemelmans Bar and the mythical Café Carlyle. The tone is relentlessly positive, so much so, it feels a bit like a 90-minute long infomercial. Clearly the hotel wouldn’t have been as accommodating otherwise. I have two major problems with Always At The Carlyle. As fascinating as the New York landmark is, the film feels like a celebration of the rich and famous, even though the staff (the majority of whom are immigrants) have more compelling stories than any A-listers. Of all people, Harrison Ford comes the closest to hitting the nail on the head by pointing out the irrationality of paying $1,100 a night for an hotel room. The second issue is the decision of the film’s producers to excise a Woody Allen interview. As problematic as the filmmaker may be, Woody is one of the most recognizable mainstays of the Carlyle (he’s played clarinet every Monday at the Café for decades), and a couple of passing references just don’t cut it. Of all genres, a documentary needs the courage of its convictions — even a fluffier doc like this. Regardless of my misgivings over the film I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t stay at The Carlyle given an opportunity.


if every country puts a break on emissions that exists today, climate change will still have an impact on the world we live in today.” Obama made the connection between climate change and changes with food production and consumption across the globe. Seeds and Chips, the organization hosting the summit intended to highlight global food innovation, focuses on revolutionary ways to produce food. The organization seeks to change the ways in which food is produced, processed, distributed, communicated and consumed, according to its website. “The good news is that because of the work of many of you, the innovations you are already investing in, we’re starting to see a better way to feed a growing planet, combat hunger and malnutrition, put healthy food on the table, save our environment, and none of this is impossible,” Obama told the crowd. Barack Obama attends the Seeds and Chips - Global Food Innovation summit DANIEL DAL ZENNARO / EPA Although he never mentioned Trump by name, Obama acknowledged the current president is leading the country in a different direction when it comes to the planet warming. Despite the differences between the two presidents, Obama was optimistic that he laid the groundwork to help the United States eventually reduce emissions. “Obviously, the current administration has differences with my administration in terms of energy policy, and that’s part of what happens in democracy,” Obama said. “The good news is, in part because of what we did over the last eight years, the private sector has already made a determination that our future is in clean energy.” Claudio Lavanga reported from Milan, Kalhan Rosenblatt from New York.


. (h) Regulatory Authority.--The President shall issue such regulations, licenses, and orders as are necessary to carry out this section. (i) Identification of Sanctionable Foreign Persons.--The Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, in consultation with the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs and other bureaus of the Department of State, as appropriate, is authorized to submit to the Secretary of State, for review and consideration, the names of foreign persons who may meet the criteria described in subsection (a). (j) Appropriate Congressional Committees Defined.--In this section, the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means-- (1) the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate; and (2) the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS. (a) In General.--The President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees, in accordance with subsection (b), a report that includes-- (1) a list of each foreign person with respect to which the President imposed sanctions pursuant to section 3 during the year preceding the submission of the report; (2) a description of the type of sanctions imposed with respect to each such person; (3) the number of foreign persons with respect to which the President-- (A) imposed sanctions under section 3(a) during that year; and (B) terminated sanctions under section 3(g) during that year; (4) the dates on which such sanctions were imposed or terminated, as the case may be; (5) the reasons for imposing or terminating such sanctions; and (6) a description of the efforts of the President to encourage the governments of other countries to impose sanctions that are similar to the sanctions authorized by section 3. (b) Dates for Submission.-- (1) Initial report.--The President shall submit the initial report under subsection (a) not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act. (2) Subsequent reports.-- (A) In general.--The President shall submit a subsequent report under subsection (a) on December 10, or the first day thereafter on which both Houses of Congress are in session, of-- (i) the calendar year in which the initial report is submitted if the initial report is submitted before December 10 of that calendar year; and (ii) each calendar year thereafter.


The radius of neutron stars can in principle be measured via the normalisation of a blackbody fitted to the X-ray spectrum during thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts, although few previous studies have addressed the reliability of such measurements. Here we examine the apparent radius in a homogeneous sample of long, mixed H/He bursts from the low-mass X-ray binaries GS 1826-24 and KS 1731-26. The measured blackbody normalisation (proportional to the emitting area) in these bursts is constant over a period of up to 60s in the burst tail, even though the flux (blackbody temperature) decreased by a factor of 60-75% (30-40%). The typical rms variation in the mean normalisation from burst to burst was 3-5%, although a variation of 17% was found between bursts observed from GS 1826-24 in two epochs. A comparison of the time-resolved spectroscopic measurements during bursts from the two epochs shows that the normalisation evolves consistently through the burst rise and peak, but subsequently increases further in the earlier epoch bursts. The elevated normalisation values may arise from a change in the anisotropy of the burst emission, or alternatively variations in the spectral correction factor, f_c, of order 10%. Since burst samples observed from systems other than GS 1826-24 are more heterogeneous, we expect that systematic uncertainties of at least 10% are likely to apply generally to measurements of neutron-star radii, unless the effects described here can be corrected for.


Share Bikes featuring a retro-styling seem to be all the rage these days, with even high-tech ebikes cashing in on the trend. Now, Schwinn has taken the throwback design aesthetic one step further by introducing the new Classic Cruiser, an indoor exercise machine that looks like something straight out of the 1950s, but is packed full of modern technology. At first glance, the Classic Cruiser looks like a vintage bike that had its rear tire removed. It features a bold, bright-red paint job, wide fenders, and a thick tire, along with a classic spring-loaded seat like those commonly found on traditional beach cruisers. It even has a traditional dial speedometer to let riders know how fast they are pedaling and a matching workout timer, along with a retro gear switch mounted on the handlebars within easy reach of the rider’s thumb. But when you look a bit deeper the Classic Cruiser’s tech elements begin to show. For instance, its seven-speed drive system uses electromagnetic resistance and is reportedly whisper quiet, something that is much appreciated when riding indoors. The bike even tracks speed, time, distance, and calories burned, all of which can be shared to the Schwinn Classic Cruiser smartphone app, available for both iOS and Android. That same app comes with a built-in feature that allows riders to pedal their way around a virtual 1950s town, avoiding obstacles while also delivering papers. Technology is such an important part of the Classic Cruiser that the exercise bike actually ships with a media shelf built to securely hold a tablet. The bike is also compatible with the RideSocial app (iOS/Android), which gives users even more virtual environments to explore, including cycling routes through Death Valley, Sequoia National Park, and Tibet. Other handy features include preprogrammed workouts to help riders achieve their fitness goals and compatibility with popular cycling apps, such as Zwift, for sharing exercise metrics. The Classic Cruiser even comes with built-in wheels to help move it around more easily. Available now and priced at $800, the Schwinn Classic Cruiser delivers a lot of bang for the buck, particularly if you appreciate its vintage looks.


We characterize the changes in the longitudinal photospheric magnetic field during 38 X-class and 39 M-class flares within $65^{\circ}$ of disk-center using 1-minute GONG magnetograms. In all 77 cases we identify at least one site in the flaring active region where clear, permanent, stepwise field changes occurred. The median duration of the field changes was about 15 minutes and was approximately equal for X-class and for M-class flares. The absolute values of the field changes ranged from the detection limit of $\sim\!\!10$~G to as high as $\sim\!\!450$~G in two exceptional cases. The median value was 69~G. Field changes were significantly stronger for X-class than for M-class flares and for limb flares than for disk-center flares. Longitudinal field changes less than 100~G tended to decrease longitudinal field strengths, both close to disk-center and close to the limb, while field changes greater than 100~G showed no such pattern. Likewise, longitudinal flux strengths tended to decrease during flares. Flux changes, particularly net flux changes near disk-center, correlated better than local field changes with GOES peak X-ray flux. The strongest longitudinal field and flux changes occurred in flares observed close to the limb. We estimate the change of Lorentz force associated with each flare and find that this is large enough in some cases to power seismic waves. We find that longitudinal field decreases would likely outnumber increases at all parts of the solar disk within $65^{\circ}$ of disk-center, as in our observations, if photospheric field tilts increase during flares as predicted by Hudson et al.


Unemployment Insurance Act, as added by section 2006 of the Assistance for Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act (Public Law 111-5; 123 Stat. 445), is amended-- (1) in clause (iii)-- (A) by striking ``June 30, 2009'' and inserting ``June 30, 2010''; (B) by striking ``December 31, 2009'' and inserting ``December 31, 2010''; and (2) by adding at the end of clause (iv) the following: ``In addition to the amount appropriated by the preceding sentence, out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated $175,000,000 to cover the cost of additional extended unemployment benefits provided under this subparagraph, to remain available until expended.''. (b) Administrative Expenses.--Section 2006(b) of the Assistance for Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act (Public Law 111-5; 123 Stat. 445) is amended by adding at the end the following: ``In addition to funds appropriated by the preceding sentence, out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated to the Railroad Retirement Board $807,000 to cover the administrative expenses associated with the payment of additional extended unemployment benefits under section 2(c)(2)(D) of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, to remain available until expended.''. (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall take effect as if included in the enactment of the Assistance for Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act.


A $t$-ruling set of a graph $G = (V, E)$ is a vertex-subset $S \subseteq V$ that is independent and satisfies the property that every vertex $v \in V$ is at a distance of at most $t$ from some vertex in $S$. A \textit{maximal independent set (MIS)} is a 1-ruling set. The problem of computing an MIS on a network is a fundamental problem in distributed algorithms and the fastest algorithm for this problem is the $O(\log n)$-round algorithm due to Luby (SICOMP 1986) and Alon et al. (J. Algorithms 1986) from more than 25 years ago. Since then the problem has resisted all efforts to yield to a sub-logarithmic algorithm. There has been recent progress on this problem, most importantly an $O(\log \Delta \cdot \sqrt{\log n})$-round algorithm on graphs with $n$ vertices and maximum degree $\Delta$, due to Barenboim et al. (Barenboim, Elkin, Pettie, and Schneider, April 2012, arxiv 1202.1983; to appear FOCS 2012). We approach the MIS problem from a different angle and ask if O(1)-ruling sets can be computed much more efficiently than an MIS? As an answer to this question, we show how to compute a 2-ruling set of an $n$-vertex graph in $O((\log n)^{3/4})$ rounds. We also show that the above result can be improved for special classes of graphs such as graphs with high girth, trees, and graphs of bounded arboricity. Our main technique involves randomized sparsification that rapidly reduces the graph degree while ensuring that every deleted vertex is close to some vertex that remains. This technique may have further applications in other contexts, e.g., in designing sub-logarithmic distributed approximation algorithms. Our results raise intriguing questions about how quickly an MIS (or 1-ruling sets) can be computed, given that 2-ruling sets can be computed in sub-logarithmic rounds.


if other issues arise on the club, you know maybe left field is an opportunity for either one of them,’’ Cashman said. “We’ll find out over time. Clearly right field and DH work, but I think they’re athletic enough to be considered elsewhere. But the very easiest aspect of it is right field and DH, and I think both players will benefit from the DH rest. You won’t have to run somebody into the ground every day.’’ Stanton, last season’s NL MVP, has been the DH in 13 games and was enthused about the role. “I’m fine with it. I can bounce around. Wherever they need me I’m OK with that. I always liked DHing when we played the AL teams in previous years,’’ said Stanton, who has hit.333 with a 1.019 OPS in 54 at-bats as a DH. Cashman called Judge, who is a better right fielder than Stanton, before making the deal to see how the 2017 AL Rookie of the Year felt about the possibility of shifting between right, DH and possibly left. “We’re going to do everything we can to win and that’s going to make it easier in that matter,’’ Cashman said of Judge’s answer. “He said, ‘Hey, I’m pumped. This is exciting. If you could pull that off, that would be amazing.’ I didn’t talk about who we would be giving up, so he didn’t know that aspect.’’ In 11 games (10 starts) at DH, Judge has hit.294 with a 1.114 OPS in 34 at-bats. When a team has a 28-year-old and owes him $265 million for a decade, it makes sense he plays where he is comfortable, but, at least in December, the Yankees aren’t set on Stanton in right and Judge the DH full time. “We’re going to juggle it. Those are things that we’ll flesh out in spring training. Who do we believe potentially would move over to play left field in a 20-, 30-game situation. Use the DH role strategically, play different matchups that give certain guys days off depending upon the matchups,’’ new manager Aaron Boone said. “So I do feel like it’s a really good problem that we have.’’ As for Judge, Stanton and Sanchez, all right-handed hitters, batting in a row, Boone said it can be done. “Absolutely you can


If THIS baseball offseason gets any uglier, we might yearn for the good faith and honest dealings of Capitol Hill. Spring-training boycotts? Collusion accusations? Good grief. Ever see an implosion before? The Players Association is laying the dynamite around itself as we speak. This historically slow free-agent market reached a boiling point of sorts Friday, when Brodie Van Wagenen, one of the game’s most accomplished and respected player representatives, published a statement on Twitter that threatened a mass spurning of spring training “if behavior doesn’t change” and noted team owners’ behavior “feels coordinated, rightly or wrongly.” “There is a rising tide among players for radical change,” Van Wagenen wrote. “A fight is brewing.” A second player representative, Joshua Kusnick, backed up Van Wagenen with a tweet of his own: “[It] has certainly felt like an external force has held things up.” What in the name of Marvin Miller is going on here? What gets accomplished by this saber-rattling? First of all, don’t bet your house, or even a roll of toilet paper in your house, on a spring-training boycott, which would represent a historically outrageous violation of the collective bargaining agreement. Suffice it to say not every agent — and hence not every player — is on board with this anger. So let’s shrug off the imminent threat and pivot to the animosity, fueled further by pace-of-play negotiations, which could pose a long-term headache. Any unionized industry functions best when both sides are run competently, and baseball’s routine work stoppages of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s can be attributed 99 percent to the stick-in-the-mud owners who wanted to destroy the Players Association rather than welcome it as a partner. Now, with Van Wagenen writing of a player population “uniting in a way that has not been seen since 1994,” the ineptitude has swung 180 degrees. It is the union that signed off on the CBA that rewarded tanking and penalized clubs that spent too much. As veteran Oakland outfielder/first baseman Brandon Moss told the MLB Network this past week: “Sooner or later, you have to take responsibility for a system you created for yourself. It’s our fault.” MLB, with that reality in mind, opted not to comment in response to Friday’s Jerry Maguire-esque outbursts. Tony Clark


Given a Banach space $X$, for $n\in \mathbb N$ and $p\in (1,\infty)$ we investigate the smallest constant $\mathfrak P\in (0,\infty)$ for which every $f_1,...,f_n:{-1,1}^n\to X$ satisfy \int_{{-1,1}^n}\Bigg|\sum_{j=1}^n \partial_jf_j(\varepsilon)\Bigg|^pd\mu(\varepsilon) \leq \mathfrak{P}^p\int_{{-1,1}^n}\int_{{-1,1}^n}\Bigg\|\sum_{j=1}^n \d_j\Delta f_j(\varepsilon)\Bigg\|^pd\mu(\varepsilon) d\mu(\delta), where $\mu$ is the uniform probability measure on the discrete hypercube ${-1,1}^n$ and ${\partial_j}_{j=1}^n$ and $\Delta=\sum_{j=1}^n\partial_j$ are the hypercube partial derivatives and the hypercube Laplacian, respectively. Denoting this constant by $\mathfrak{P}_p^n(X)$, we show that $\mathfrak{P}_p^n(X)\le \sum_{k=1}^{n}\frac{1}{k}$ for every Banach space $(X,|\cdot|)$. This extends the classical Pisier inequality, which corresponds to the special case $f_j=\Delta^{-1}\partial_j f$ for some $f:{-1,1}^n\to X$. We show that $\sup_{n\in \N}\mathfrak{P}_p^n(X)<\infty$ if either the dual $X^*$ is a $\mathrm{UMD}^+$ Banach space, or for some $\theta\in (0,1)$ we have $X=[H,Y]_\theta$, where $H$ is a Hilbert space and $Y$ is an arbitrary Banach space. It follows that $\sup_{n\in \N}\mathfrak{P}_p^n(X)<\infty$ if $X$ is a Banach lattice of finite cotype.


If the presence of a gravitational field breaks the Lorentz symmetry valid for special relativity, an "absolute motion" might be detectable. We summarize a scalar theory of gravity with a such "ether", which starts from a tentative interpretation of gravity as a pressure force. The theory also admits that our physical standards of space and time are affected by gravitation similarly as they are affected by a uniform motion. General motion is governed by an extension of Newton's second law to the curved space-time which is thus obtained. Together with the scalar field equation of the theory, this leads to a true conservation equation for the total energy. The law of motion also leads to an alternative 4-component equation governing the dynamics of a continuum in terms of its energy-momentum tensor. That new equation implies that mass conservation is obtained as a limiting behaviour for a weak and slowly varying gravitational field and/or at a low pressure. In the presence of the Lorentz force field, the new dynamical equation gives the second group of the gravitationally-modified Maxwell equations in the investigated theory. This is consistent with the geometrical optics of the theory as governed by the proposed extension of Newton's second law. The theory has the correct Newtonian limit; it predicts Schwarzschild's exterior metric of general relativity and geodesic motion in the static situation with spherical symmetry. A post-Newtonian approximation of this theory shows that no preferred-frame effect occurs for photons at the (first) post-Newtonian approximation. It is argued that the existence of preferred-frame effects in celestial mechanics, comparable in magnitude with the "relativistic" effects, does not a priori invalidate the theory.


If you worry about your privacy, you might be the type to put tape over your webcam, iSight, or FaceTime camera. Perhaps you use an app like Oversight, instead, so you can detect camera activity. There’s actually a way you can disable your Mac’s front-facing camera altogether, and it won’t leave sticky residue on the component. This works on all versions of macOS and OS X. Why Should I Disable My Mac’s Camera? This process isn’t for the average Mac user. Rather, it’s for those who want the privacy of having their cameras turned off. Security professionals, system administrators, and similar folks can benefit from this procedure. A Word of Warning Just to make sure you understand, this is an advanced tip that will fully disable the software components behind your Mac’s front-facing camera. When you follow these steps, you’ll prevent the camera from being used by any of the applications on your Mac. I’ll also show you how to enable the camera again when you need it. If, however, you aren’t comfortable modifying system files using the command line with super user privileges, you should keep going the tape-over-the-lens route. First, Disable System Integrity Protection Introduced in OS X El Capitan, System Integrity Protection, or SIP, is also called rootless mode. It prevents you from modifying certain system-level files and folders. That’s precisely what we need to do to disable the front-facing camera, so let’s disable SIP temporarily. First, back up your Mac, then proceed. Reboot your Mac into Recovery mode, and launch the Terminal from the Utilities menu. Then, issue the following command: csrutil disable Now reboot into normal mode and proceed. We’ll turn SIP back on after we’re done. Completely Disable your FaceTime Camera Now we’ll be able to issue the commands necessary to disable the Mac’s front-facing camera. Open the Terminal app from /Applications/Utilities and issue these command strings, one at a time, into the command line. Enter each command on its own line, even copying and pasting to make sure everything goes right. Terminal will ask for your password for the first one, but remember it after that. sudo chmod a-r /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreMediaIO.framework/Versions/A/Resources/VDC.plugin/Contents/MacOS/VDC sudo chmod a-r /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreMediaIOServicesPrivate.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AVC.plugin/Contents/MacOS/AVC sudo


We report a new technique to select 1.6<z<4.6 dusty Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs), over a third of which are `blobs' (LABs) with emission extended on scales of 30-100kpc. Combining data from the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission with optical spectroscopy from the W.M. Keck telescope, we present a color criteria that yields a 78% success rate in identifying rare, dusty LAEs of which at least 37% are LABs. The objects have a surface density of only ~0.1 per square degree, making them rare enough that they have been largely missed in narrow surveys. We measured spectroscopic redshifts for 92 of these WISE-selected, typically radio-quiet galaxies and find that the LAEs (LABs) have a median redshift of 2.3 (2.5). The WISE photometry coupled with data from Herschel reveals that these galaxies have extreme far-infrared luminosities (L_IR>10^{13-14}L_sun) and warm colors, typically larger than submillimeter-selected galaxies (SMGs) and dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs). These traits are commonly associated with the dust being energized by intense AGN activity. We hypothesize that the combination of spatially extended Lyman-alpha, large amounts of warm IR-luminous dust, and rarity (implying a short-lived phase) can be explained if the galaxies are undergoing strong `feedback' transforming them from an extreme dusty starburst to a QSO.


health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion. SEC. 503. PROHIBITION ON TAX BENEFITS RELATING TO ABORTION. For taxable years beginning after the date of the enactment of this section, no credit shall be allowed under the internal revenue laws with respect to amounts paid or incurred for an abortion or with respect to amounts paid or incurred for a health benefits plan (including premium assistance) that includes coverage of abortion. SEC. 504. CONSTRUCTION RELATING TO SEPARATE COVERAGE. Nothing in this title shall be construed as prohibiting any individual, entity, or State or locality from purchasing separate abortion coverage or health benefits coverage that includes abortion so long as such coverage is paid for entirely using only funds not authorized or appropriated by Federal law and such coverage shall not be purchased using matching funds required for a federally subsidized program, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds. SEC. 505. CONSTRUCTION RELATING TO THE USE OF NON-FEDERAL FUNDS FOR HEALTH COVERAGE. Nothing in this title shall be construed as restricting the ability of any non-Federal health benefits coverage provider from offering abortion coverage, or the ability of a State or locality to contract separately with such a provider for such coverage, so long as only funds not authorized or appropriated by Federal law are used and such coverage shall not be purchased using matching funds required for a federally subsidized program, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds. SEC. 506. TREATMENT OF ABORTIONS RELATED TO RAPE, INCEST, OR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER. The limitations established in this title shall not apply to an abortion-- (1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or (2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.


If you're like literally every other phone owner on the planet, you probably need to delete some things off your phone for space. But what are you going to do with all those pictures of the kids, your going out selfies, and pictures of your pets? Don't just delete them - decor with them! Kristina Guerrero is showing you how to turn your pics into works of art with 3 different online apps that do all the hard stuff for you. 1. Keepsake Everyone loves the look of beautifully framed pictures up on a wall. But no one likes running to get pictures printed at Costco and then still go frame shopping. Luckily, there's the Keepsake app. It lets you upload photos straight from your phone, then choose what kind of frame you want the photo in and what you want the frame to look like. Once you make your choices, Keepsake sends your preprinted, pre-framed photos, right to your door - you get great looking decor pieces, without any of the gas mileage! 2. Mixtiles If you love the look of photos on canvases but don't want to pay outrageous prices for a few prints, try Mixtiles. The company makes photo board prints out of your phone's pictures and even gives you the no-damage adhesives you need to put them up. Mixtiles also won't damage your wallet - get a set of 3 prints for $49 and any additional tile is just $9. 3. Chatbooks There is something nostalgic about having a photo album, but making them can be more frustrating than fun. Now, you can reap all the photobook benefits, without all the work, with Chatbooks. The app lets you upload photos from your phone, pick the style of book you'd like, add captions; it even automatically formats the pictures to fit your book. No math required! Put together your own Chatbook for just $8 per book - or get a subscription and create a whole volume of potentially child-embarrassing memories. Do you like to print out your photos or do you prefer to keep them on your phone? Tell us on our Facebook page, @TheListShowTV.


If you could have any superpower, would you decide to be strong, fast or invincible? Given the choice, most of us would aim for the exceptional, stretching the human form toward bigger and better limits. How many among us would choose to go in the opposite direction, to shrink down? Of course, if you were accidentally empowered with the gift to reduce in size, you would find a plethora of useful and even heroic ways to exploit your new talent. But, is it really something any of us dream of becoming? Quite different than the communities of little humanoids (such as The Borrowers or Arthur and the Invisibles ), shrinking down is often treated as disorienting and traumatic in cinema. While it certainly has heroic possibilities, it is usually a signal of a deep spiritual crisis as it relates to the fragility of the human body and soul. With the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp, let’s explore some of film history’s best examples of characters who shrink down: a strange and sometimes beguiling journey through a transformative thread at the movies. 11 Ant-Man Ant-Man is among the most palatable Marvel films, largely due to the lingering fingerprint of director Edgar Wright, who we can only presume was fired from the film for daring to lend it a personality. Paul Rudd might be one of the most charming actors working today, but still, Ant-Man just barely transcends the role of “filler character” in the Marvel universe. Despite this, the film is a rare and somewhat empowering example of celebrating the virtues of going small. 10 Downsizing In Downsizing, a Norwegian scientist presents the irreversible act of “downsizing” as the most effective way to combat climate change. Matt Damon, a hapless pushover impressed by anyone who has ever been on TV, decides to take the plunge – only to be faced with guilt and regret. While on paper, Downsizing’s skewering of Western-centric world-saving ethos is fascinating social commentary, Alexander Payne can’t seem to get his message across without using the white saviour trope. 9 Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Honey, I Shrunk the Kids stars Canadian treasure Rick Moranis, and combines state of the art effects, charming family dynamics and cute animals. This largely harmless franchise toys with power dynamics within the family unit, using the act of shrinking down (or, sometimes, being blown up) as a means of exploring interpersonal relationships. You have to hand it to the Disney


We provide a comprehensive description and offer an explanation for the sizes of the faintest known galaxies in the universe, the dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellites of the Milky Way and Andromeda. After compiling a consistent data set of half-light radii (r_{1/2}) and luminosities, we describe the size-luminosity relation of dSphs by a log-normal distribution in r_{1/2} with a mean size that varies as a function of luminosity. Accounting for modest number statistics, measurement uncertainties and surface brightness limitations, we find that the size-luminosity relations of the Milky Way and Andromeda dSph populations are statistically indistinguishable, and also very similar: their mean sizes at a given stellar luminosity differ by no more than 30%. In addition, we find that the mean size, slope and scatter of this log-normal size description of Local Group dSphs matches onto the relation of more massive low-concentration galaxies. This suggests that the stellar sizes of dSphs are ultimately related to their overall initial baryonic angular momentum. To test this hypothesis we perform a series of high resolution N-body simulations that we couple with a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation. These predict the same mean size and slope as observed in dSph satellites. At the same time, these models predict that the size-luminosity distributions for satellite galaxies around similar host-halos must be similar providing a natural explanation as to why the size distributions of Milky Way and Andromeda satellites are similar. Although strong rotation is currently not observed in dSphs, this may well be consistent with our angular-momentum-based explanation for their sizes if the disks of these galaxies have become sufficiently stirred through tidal interaction.


This study aims at the early diagnostics of geoeffectiveness of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from quantitative parameters of the accompanying EUV dimming and arcade events. We study events of the 23th solar cycle, in which major non-recurrent geomagnetic storms (GMS) with Dst <-100 nT are sufficiently reliably identified with their solar sources in the central part of the disk. Using the SOHO/EIT 195 A images and MDI magnetograms, we select significant dimming and arcade areas and calculate summarized unsigned magnetic fluxes in these regions at the photospheric level. The high relevance of this eruption parameter is displayed by its pronounced correlation with the Forbush decrease (FD) magnitude, which, unlike GMSs, does not depend on the sign of the Bz component but is determined by global characteristics of ICMEs. Correlations with the same magnetic flux in the solar source region are found for the GMS intensity (at the first step, without taking into account factors determining the Bz component near the Earth), as well as for the temporal intervals between the solar eruptions and the GMS onset and peak times. The larger the magnetic flux, the stronger the FD and GMS intensities are and the shorter the ICME transit time is. The revealed correlations indicate that the main quantitative characteristics of major non-recurrent space weather disturbances are largely determined by measurable parameters of solar eruptions, in particular, by the magnetic flux in dimming areas and arcades, and can be tentatively estimated in advance with a lead time from 1 to 4 days. For GMS intensity, the revealed dependencies allow one to estimate a possible value, which can be expected if the Bz component is negative.


For Klein-Gordon fields, it is well known that there exist an infinite number of nonequivalent Fock representations of the canonical commutation relations and, therefore, of inequivalent quantum theories. A context in which this kind of ambiguities arises and prevents the derivation of robust results is, e.g., in the quantum analysis of cosmological perturbations. In these situations, typically, a suitable scaling of the field by a time dependent function leads to a description in an auxiliary static background, though the nonstationarity still shows up in a time dependent mass. For such a field description, and assuming the compactness of the spatial sections, we recently proved in three or less spatial dimensions that the criteria of a natural implementation of the spatial symmetries and of a unitary time evolution are able to select a unique class of unitarily equivalent vacua, and hence of Fock representations. In this work, we succeed to extend our uniqueness result to the consideration of all possible field descriptions that can be reached by a time dependent canonical transformation which, in particular, involves a scaling of the field by a function of time. This kind of canonical transformations modify the dynamics of the system and introduce a further ambiguity in its quantum description, exceeding the choice of a Fock representation. Remarkably, for any compact spatial manifold in less than four dimensions, we show that our criteria eliminate any possible nontrivial scaling of the field other than that leading to the description in an auxiliary static background. Besides, we show that either no time dependent redefinition of the field momentum is allowed or, if this may happen, the redefinition does not introduce any Fock representation that cannot be obtained by a unitary transformation.


URAL STATE INITIATIVE. (a) In General.--To address the problem of a significant portion of traffic fatalities occurring on highways in rural areas, the Secretary of Transportation shall, for each fiscal year beginning with fiscal year 2010, allocate $20 million to each State with a population density of less than 20 persons per square mile (based on the most recent decentennial census), for use by such States for projects and programs and activities eligible under 23 U.S.C. 148 and not located in an urbanized area as defined in section 134(b)(6), title 23, United States Code. (b) Such allocations shall not be considered an apportionment within the meaning of section 105 of title 23, United States Code, or considered a ``specific program'' within the meaning of said section 105. (c) Federal Share.--The Federal share of the cost of a project carried out under this section shall be determined in accordance with section 120 of title 23, United States Code. (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be appropriated out of the Highway Trust Fund (other than the Mass Transit Account) such sums as may be necessary to carry out this section for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2014. (e) Applicability of Title 23.--Except as provided by subsection (b) of this section, funds made available to carry out this section shall be available for obligation in the same manner as if such funds were apportioned under chapter 1 of title 23, United States Code.


If you like the idea of sipping home-made soda or tonic water while chilling out and listening to vinyl records, you'll be in heaven if you pay a visit to JOE. The new lounge bar, on Church Street, in Crystal Palace, makes all of its soft drinks and mixers in-house with flavours varying from week to week based on which fruits are in season. Tempting organic cordials which have featured on the menu since it opened at the end of August include pineapple and mint, fig and cinnamon and blackberry, pear and rose - with all flavours designed to be drunk alone or with a shot of your chosen liqor. A choice of tonic, soda and dandelion and burdock flavours are also available, as well as either filter or cold-brew coffee and tea. "You can really customise the menu, just like you would for a selection of Spanish tapas," explained owner Joe Hirschhorn. "When I set up here, I wanted to bring the same energy that many new restaurants bring to food to the drinks menu. "I'd noticed that people tend to sleepwalk into the same pubs after work and have generic drinks, and I wanted to change that. "I wanted to offer people something that was completely natural without added sugars getting in the way of you enjoying the flavours of the drinks." Traditional spirit and mixer combinations like gin and tonic are always available and there are also three cocktails on the menu at any one time - which can be made either with or without alcohol and are served with a glass straw. Previous offerings have included the Canadi-Asian - a mix of cold-brew coffee, maple syrup and coconut milk which can be combined with white rum for an extra kick - and the Copa Verde, which is made with avocado, agave syrup and thyme. "We don't see them as cocktails - they are creations and they are designed to be drunk either as they are or with a spirit - the white rum really takes the Canadi-Asian to a new level," Joe said. "And everyone who has tasted our gin and tonic has come back for more." All of the spirits, wines, ciders and craft beers at the lounge are currently ordered in, but Joe assures customers that they are high-quality and said he has not ruled out the idea of producing them in-house one day. He explained his inspiration for setting up the bar, adding: "Part of the reason for why we are somewhere in between a


Medium resolution spectral analysis of candidate Faint High Latitude Carbon (FHLC) stars from Hamburg/ESO survey has given us the potential to discover objects of rare types. Two primary spectral characteristics of R Coroanae Borealis (RCB) stars are hydrogen deficiency and weaker CN bands relative to C_{2} bands. They are also characterized by their characteristic location in the J-H, H-K plane with respect to cool carbon stars. From a spectral analysis of a sample of 243 candidate FHLC stars, we have discovered a hydrogen-deficient carbon (HdC) star HE 1015-2050, at high Galactic latitude. A differential analysis of its spectrum with that of the spectrum of U Aquarii (U Aqr), a well-known cool HdC star of RCB type, provides sufficient evidence to put this object in a group same as that of U Aqr. Further, it is shown that HE 1015-2050 does not belong to any of the C-star groups CH, C-R, C-N or C-J. Cool RCB stars form a group of relatively rare astrophysical objects; approximately 51 are known in the Galaxy and some 18 in the Large Magellanic Clouds (LMC) and five in Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The present discovery adds a new member to this rare group. Although its spectral characteristics and its location in the J-H vs H-K plane places HE 1015-2050 in the same group to which U Aqr belongs, extended photometric observations would be useful to learn if there is any sudden decline in brightness, this being a characteristic property of HdC stars of RCB type.


We review current observational and theoretical constraints on the Galactic chemical evolution (GCE) of oxygen isotopes in order to explore whether GCE plays a role in explaining the lower 17O/18O ratio of the Sun, relative to the present-day interstellar medium, or the existence of distinct 16O-rich and 16O-poor reservoirs in the Solar System. Although the production of both 17O and 18O are related to the metallicity of progenitor stars, 17O is most likely produced in stars that evolve on longer timescales than those that produce 18O. Therefore the 17O/18O ratio need not have remained constant over time, contrary to preconceptions and the simplest models of GCE. An apparent linear, slope-one correlation between delta17O and delta18O in the ISM need not necessarily reflect an O isotopic gradient, and any slope-one galactocentric gradient need not correspond to evolution in time. Instead, increasing 17O/18O is consistent both with observational data from molecular clouds and with modeling of the compositions of presolar grains. Models in which the rate of star formation has decelerated over the past few Gyr or in which an enhanced period of star formation occurred shortly before solar birth ("starburst") can explain the solar-ISM O-isotopic difference without requiring a local input of supernova ejecta into the protosolar cloud. "Cosmic chemical memory" models in which interstellar dust is on average older than interstellar gas predict that primordial Solar System solids should be 16O-rich, relative to the Sun, in conflict with observations. However, scenarios in which the 16O-rich contribution of very massive stars could lead to 16O-poor solids and a 16O-rich bulk Sun, if the Solar System formed shortly after a starburst, independent of the popular scenario of photochemical self-shielding of CO.


Image copyright Getty Images Drake has addressed the controversy of a photo of him appearing to be in blackface. The Canadian rapper said it was to highlight and raise frustrations about black actors "not always getting a fair chance in the industry". He said it was taken as part of a project while working as an actor - and not for a clothing brand shoot. The 2007 photo resurfaced after Pusha T posted it on his Instagram, along with a track taking aim at Drake. On his Instagram story, the God's Plan rapper said: "The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment." He said the photo was from a project that was about "young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast". Previous reports suggested the photos were from a clothing brand shoot but Drake insisted this was wrong. Image copyright Drake/ Instagram Drake said he and his best friend at the time, actor Mazin Elsadig, were "attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors in auditions". Pusha T has used the photo to promote The Story of Adidon - the latest in a line of diss tracks between the two rappers. He was responding to Drake's track Duppy Freestyle, which was released on Friday. Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here.


6); (ii) by striking the period at the end of paragraph (7) and inserting ``; and''; and (iii) by adding at the end the following new paragraph: ``(8) in the case of prostate cancer screening services (as defined in section 1861(ll)) (other than prostate-specific antigen tests), the amounts described in section 1834(d)(1).''. (D) Section 1833(h)(1)(A) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1395l(h)(1)(A)) is amended by striking ``The Secretary'' and inserting ``Subject to section 1834(d), the Secretary''. (E) Section 1861(s)(2)(O) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x(s)(2)(O)) is amended by striking ``(jj)'' and inserting ``(kk)''. (F) Section 1862(a) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 1395y(a)) is amended-- (i) in paragraph (1)-- (I) in subparagraph (E), by striking ``and'' at the end, (II) in subparagraph (F), by striking the semicolon at the end and inserting ``, and'', and (III) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph: ``(G) in the case of prostate cancer screening services (as defined in section 1861(ll)) provided for the purpose of early detection of prostate cancer, which are performed more frequently than is covered under section 1834(d)(2);''; and (ii) in paragraph (7), by striking ``paragraph (1)(B) or under paragraph (1)(F)'' and inserting ``subparagraphs (B), (F), or (G) of paragraph (1)''. (b) Coverage of Certain Drug Treatments.--Section 1861(s)(2) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x(s)(2)), as amended by subsection (a)(1), is further amended-- (1) by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (Q); (2) by adding ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (R); and (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph: ``(S) an oral drug prescribed for the treatment of prostate cancer, if the use of the drug for such purpose is a medically accepted indication under subsection (t)(2);''.


make a two-state solution impossible, and that a one state solution would put the future of the Jewish state in question. Trump has shied away from criticizing Netanyahu’s settlement policies as an impediment to peace, instead offering Israel some scope to build on land already under development. “The construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal,” the White House said in a statement earlier this month. Saeb Erakat, a senior Palestinian official, said it was not enough for Trump to say settlements were “unhelpful” but he must order an end to new building. Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Monday, dined with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday and after his White House talks with Trump on Wednesday will meet lawmakers. Aside from winning support for policies that will help him at home, the Israeli leader will also want to get the measure of Trump’s appetite for better relations with Russia. Trump has signaled his willingness to work with Russia to defeat the Daesh group in Syria. That could de facto mean furthering the goals of Russian allies Bashar Assad and Iran. Israel sees Iran and its Lebanese ally the Hezbollah militia as its greatest existential threat, a view shared by the leaders of the main Sunni Arab states of the region. Dennis Ross, a US diplomat who worked on Middle East policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said Netanyahu’s diplomatic goals would at first be modest. Israel wouldn’t oppose a rapprochement with Moscow in itself, but would urge Washington to use this as leverage to push Russia away from Iran. “What he’d like to see is a distancing of Russia from Iran within Syria, maybe more of a move toward Turkey and less toward Iran in Syria,” Ross told reporters on Monday. Trump appears to have back-pedaled on a campaign threat to tear up Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which Israel bitterly opposed, but his administration has “put Iran on notice.” This appears to mean a more robust stance against military provocations and a determination to impose tough sanctions on Iran’s missile program and covert support for militants. Observers expect Trump and Netanyahu to get on well in public. Both have much to gain politically from marking a clean break from the Obama years. But, personal chemistry aside, the pair will only make the relationship a success if it overcomes the disagreement that poisoned ties under Obama.


or after October 1, 2001, and before October 1, 2002, 50 percent; and ``(iii) with respect to cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 2002, and before October 1, 2003, 25 percent.''. (b) Limit on Reductions Under Balanced Budget Act.--Section 1886(b) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395ww(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following: ``(8)(A) Notwithstanding the amendments made by sections 4411, 4414, 4415, and 4416 of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, in the case of a psychiatric facility (as defined in subparagraph (B)(ii)), the amount of payment for the operating costs of inpatient hospital services for cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 1998, and before October 1, 2000, shall not be less than 95 percent of the amount that would have been paid for such costs if such amendments did not apply. ``(B) For purposes of this paragraph, the term `psychiatric facility' means-- ``(i) a psychiatric hospital; and ``(ii) a psychiatric unit described in the matter following clause (v) of subsection (d)(1)(B).''. (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsections (a) and (b) shall apply as if included in the enactment of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.


We present 0.2" resolution near-infrared integral field spectroscopy of H-alpha emission from six star forming galaxies at z~1.6 (look-back time of ~9.6 Gyr). These observations were obtained with OSIRIS using the Keck Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics system. All sources have a compact spatial extent of ~1", with an average half light radius of r=2.9 kpc and average dereddened star formation rate of 22 Msolar per year. Based on H-alpha kinematics we find that these six galaxies are dynamically distinguishable, and we classify them as either merger or disk candidate systems. We find three merger systems (HDF-BX1287, HDF-BX1315, and Q1623-BX491) with varying geometries and dynamical properties. Three galaxies (HDF-BMZ1299, Q2343-BX344, and Q2343-BM145) are well-fit by an inclined-disk model with low velocity residuals (20 to 46 km/sec). An average plateau velocity of v_p=185 km/sec is achieved within 1.0 kpc. The majority of observed velocity dispersions (~88 km/sec) can be explained by the residual seeing halo, and are not intrinsic to our sources. However, one merger and one disk candidate have high velocity dispersions (> 200 km/sec) that cannot be solely explained by beam smearing. For two disk candidates, we detect [NII] emission and are able to map the [NII]/H-alpha ratio on kiloparsec scales. In both cases, [NII] emission is more concentrated than H-alpha emission (< 0.2"), and peak ratios are best explained by the presence of an AGN. These are among the weakest known AGN at high redshift, however their emission is strong enough to impact high redshift metallicity studies that use nebular ratios. All disk candidates have likely completed only a few orbital periods, and if left unperturbed are excellent candidates to become present-day spiral galaxies.