The mm-zz relation for Type Ia supernovae: safety in numbers or safely without worry?

The $m$-$z$ relation for Type Ia supernovae is compatible with the cosmological concordance model if one assumes that the Universe is homogeneous, at least with respect to light propagation. This could be due to the density along each line of sight being equal to the overall cosmological density, or to `safety in numbers', with variation in the density along all lines of sight averaging out if the sample is large enough. Statistical correlations (or lack thereof) between redshifts, residuals (differences between the observed distance moduli and those calculated from the best-fitting cosmological model), and observational uncertainties suggest that the former scenario is the better description, so that one can use the traditional formula for the luminosity distance safely without worry.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (includes small changes made while checking the proofs). Related information available at http://www.multivax.de:8000/helbig/research/publications/info/etasnia2.htm

Phillip DeVito Honors and Awards: Wine Spectator 1991

The Wine Spectator Grand Award was presented in 1991 to Phillip DeVito and the Salishan Lodge in Gleneden Beach, Oregon. The Grand Award is the highest award given by the magazine and is for one of the greatest wine lists in the world. DeVito was the maître d’hôtel and cellar master for the fine dining and wine program at Salishan for 22 years and won this award every year from 1983-1994. As of 2014, these are the only Grand Awards ever won by any person or entity in Oregon

Upholding the Promise: Supporting Veterans and Military Personnel in the Next Four Years

After more than a decade of war, several years of constrained national budgets and a changing veteran population, the second Obama administration must confront how best to uphold its promises to the nation's men and women who serve or have served in uniform.In this report, CNAS Non-Resident Senior Fellow Phillip Carter urges the Obama Administration to develop an inclusive, strategic policy approach that serves veterans and military personnel as well as they have served the nation. He calls upon the administration to tackle urgent issues such as military and veteran suicide, while working over the long term to prevent the civilian "sea of goodwill" toward veterans from turning into an ocean of apathy as current wars wind down, and public attention turns away from the men and women who have fought those wars

The Lens-Redshift Test Revisited

Kochanek (1992) suggested that the redshifts of gravitational lens galaxies rule out a large cosmological constant. This result was questioned by Helbig & Kayser (1996), who pointed out that selection effects related to the brightness of the lens can bias the results of this test against a high lambda value; however, we did not claim that the observations favoured a high lambda value, merely that current observational data were not sufficient to say either way, using the test as proposed by Kochanek (1992) but corrected for selection effects. Kochanek (1996) pointed out that additional information (fraction of measured lens redshifts) provides additional information which restores the sensitivity of the test to the cosmological model, at least somewhat. Here, I consider three aspects. First, I examine the accuracy of the correction to the test proposed by Kochanek (1996). Second, I compare the slightly different statistical methods which have been used in connection with this test. Third, I discuss what results can be obtained today now that more and better-defined observations are available.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 2 included PostScript files; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXVth Rencontres de Moriond, "L2K - Cosmological Physics with Gravitational Lensing", J.-P. Kneib, Y. Mellier, M. Moniez & J. Tran Thanh Van (eds.); see also http://terapix.iap.fr/L2K/l2k_one.htm

Phillip DeVito Honors and Awards: Medallions

These ceremonial medallions were worn by Phillip DeVito for special events. DeVito had a long career in Oregon wine, including being the maître d’hôtel and cellar master for the fine dining and wine program at Salishan Lodge in Gleneden Beach, Oregon from 1972 to 1994. (left to right): Oregon Wine Brotherhood, Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs, Wine Spectator Grand Award, Ceremonial Tastevin of Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs, as Chef de Table

The Lisbon Treaty: a constitutional document, not a constitution–a British perspective

The European Union has undergone a constitutional transformation in the past half century. It has evolved from its origins as the European Economic Community, promoting economic integration, into a supranational polity that has come to be perceived in constitutional and even federal terms. This paper will explore the extent to which the modern-day EU can be said to possess some sort of constitution. In doing this, it will be necessary to decouple such a constitution from the notion of state constitutionalism and instead define it as a unique transnational constitution. Despite this, useful comparisons can be drawn between state constitutions and that of the EU, in order to ascertain the form the latter may take. Particularly useful in this regard is the analogy between the British constitutional model and the EU constitution. This paper concludes that the EU possesses a composite constitution more akin to that of the United Kingdom rather than a formal written text, as is typical in continental Europe. As such, in the present writer’s view, the Lisbon Treaty would feature, along with the other treaties, as a constitutional document within the constitutional arrangements of the EU, without it becoming a formal constitution itsel

Totally disconnected locally compact groups locally of finite rank

We study totally disconnected locally compact second countable (t.d.l.c.s.c.) groups that contain a compact open subgroup with finite rank. We show such groups that additionally admit a pro-$\pi$ compact open subgroup for some finite set of primes $\pi$ are virtually an extension of a finite direct product of topologically simple groups by an elementary group. This result, in particular, applies to l.c.s.c. $p$-adic Lie groups. We go on to prove a decomposition result for all t.d.l.c.s.c. groups containing a compact open subgroup with finite rank. In the course of proving these theorems, we demonstrate independently interesting structure results for t.d.l.c.s.c. groups with a compact open pro-nilpotent subgroup and for topologically simple l.c.s.c. $p$-adic Lie groups.Comment: Referee's suggestions incorporated. Main theorems for the general locally pro-nilpotent and the general locally of finite rank cases improve

Conjugacy class conditions in locally compact second countable groups

Many non-locally compact second countable groups admit a comeagre conjugacy class. For example, this is the case for the automorphism group of the rational order and the automorphism group of the random graph [Truss]. A. Kechris and C. Rosendal ask if a non-trivial locally compact second countable group can admit a comeagre conjugacy class. We answer the question in the negative via an analysis of locally compact second countable groups with topological conditions on a conjugacy class.Comment: Referee's suggestions incorporate