3-Manifold Perspective on Surface Homeomorphisms for Surfaces with Very Negative Euler Characteristic

The goal of this paper is to show for a compact triangulated 3-manifold M with boundary which fibers over the circle that whenever F is a fiber with sufficiently negative Euler characteristic the monodromymaps an essential simple closed curve or an essential simple arc in F to be disjoint from its image (possibly after isotopy). This is shown by applying the theorem of Ichihara, Kobayashi, and Rieck in [10] to the double of M to get a pair of pants. We then find an equivariant pair of pants and use it to find an essential simple closed curve or an essential simple arc which satisfies our theorem. As a corollary, if we add the hypothesis that M is a hyperbolic manifold, we get that the translation distance of the monodromy in the arc and curve complex of F is at most 1 for all but finitely many monodromy maps

Dark Matter Halos in Galaxies and Globular Cluster Populations

We combine a new, comprehensive database for globular cluster populations in all types of galaxies with a new calibration of galaxy halo masses based entirely on weak lensing. Correlating these two sets of data, we find that the mass ratio $\eta \equiv M_{GCS}/M_{h}$ (total mass in globular clusters, divided by halo mass) is essentially constant at $\langle \eta \rangle \sim 4 \times 10^{-5}$, strongly confirming earlier suggestions in the literature. Globular clusters are the only known stellar population that formed in essentially direct proportion to host galaxy halo mass. The intrinsic scatter in $\eta$ appears to be at most 0.2 dex; we argue that some of this scatter is due to differing degrees of tidal stripping of the globular cluster systems between central and satellite galaxies. We suggest that this correlation can be understood if most globular clusters form at very early stages in galaxy evolution, largely avoiding the feedback processes that inhibited the bulk of field-star formation in their host galaxies. The actual mean value of $\eta$ also suggests that about $1/4$ of the \emph{initial} gas mass present in protogalaxies collected into GMCs large enough to form massive, dense star clusters. Finally, our calibration of $\langle \eta \rangle$ indicates that the halo masses of the Milky Way and M31 are $(1.2\pm0.5)\times 10^{12} M_{\odot}$ and $(3.9\pm1.8)\times 10^{12} M_{\odot}$ respectively.Comment: 6 pages, ApJL in pres

THE IMPACT OF CHANGING CONSUMER PREFERENCES ON BABY FOOD CONSUMPTION

This study examines the relationship between processed baby food consumption, socioeconomic factors, and attitudes and awareness concerning baby food safety and nutrition. The results are consistent with the view that recent concerns about safety may have negatively impacted consumption. Several socioeconomic factors were also found to be significant in explaining consumption.Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

THE IMPACT OF FOOD PRODUCT CHARACTERISTICS ON CONSUMER PURCHASING BEHAVIOR: THE CASE OF FRANKFURTERS

Consumers purchase different foods with differing characteristics. These reasons undoubtedly extend beyond prices to include taste, convenience, and the presence or absence of nutrients. Mandatory food product labeling now provides information on nutrients in food products. However, survey data indicates that consumers value taste more highly than nutrition when they purchase food, at least for some food products. This study employs hedonic price analysis to demonstrate that consumers value taste more than nutrition when they purchase frankfurters.Consumer/Household Economics,

interAdapt -- An Interactive Tool for Designing and Evaluating Randomized Trials with Adaptive Enrollment Criteria

The interAdapt R package is designed to be used by statisticians and clinical investigators to plan randomized trials. It can be used to determine if certain adaptive designs offer tangible benefits compared to standard designs, in the context of investigators' specific trial goals and constraints. Specifically, interAdapt compares the performance of trial designs with adaptive enrollment criteria versus standard (non-adaptive) group sequential trial designs. Performance is compared in terms of power, expected trial duration, and expected sample size. Users can either work directly in the R console, or with a user-friendly shiny application that requires no programming experience. Several added features are available when using the shiny application. For example, the application allows users to immediately download the results of the performance comparison as a csv-table, or as a printable, html-based report.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures (software screenshots); v2 includes command line function descriptio