The Fiscal Impact of Extending Federal Benefits to Same-Sex Domestic Partners

This report finds that offering health and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees would add $41 million to the federal budget in the first year of coverage. Over ten years the report predicts the budgetary cost will be$675 million, a small percentage of the federal budget. The report also takes into account the added federal income taxes that will be paid by federal employees if they sign a partner up for health insurance. It estimates the cost of including partners in retirement benefits, work injury and death compensation, and travel and relocation expenses. Many benefits offered to federal employees, such as life insurance and family and medical leave, can be offered to domestic partners at no additional cost to the federal government

The Effects of Marriage Equality in Massachusetts: A survey of the experiences and impact of marriage on same-sex couples

May 17th, 2009 marks the 5th year of marriage equality in the state of Massachusetts. To mark this anniversary, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health conducted the largest survey to date of married same-sex couples, the Health and Marriage Equality in Massachusetts (HMEM) survey. During the past year, four other states have extended marriage to same-sex couples and several other states are considering marriage legislation. The HMEM data allows us to address important questions that arise as other states consider whether to extend marriage to same-sex couples. The data provides answers to several key questions: Who is getting married? Why are same-sex couples getting married? What impact has marriage had on same-sex relationships? And, what impact has marriage had on the children of same-sex couples

Fluctuation Phenomena in Chaotic Dirac Quantum Dots: Artificial Atoms on Graphene Flakes

We develop the stub model for the Dirac Quantum Dot, an electron confining device on a grapheme surface. Analytical results for the average conductance and the correlation functions are obtained and found in agreement with those found previously using semiclassical calculation. Comparison with available data are presented. The results reported here demonstrate the applicability of Random Matrix Theory in the case of Dirac electrons confined in a stadium.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Uso de vagem de faveira (Parkia platycephala) mais feno de leucena (Leucaena lecocephala) para suplementacao do rebanho na seca.

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Chaotic behavior of the Compound Nucleus, open Quantum Dots and other nanostructures

It is well established that physical systems exhibit both ordered and chaotic behavior. The chaotic behavior of nanostructure such as open quantum dots has been confirmed experimentally and discussed exhaustively theoretically. This is manifested through random fluctuations in the electronic conductance. What useful information can be extracted from this noise in the conductance? In this contribution we shall address this question. In particular, we will show that the average maxima density in the conductance is directly related to the correlation function whose characteristic width is a measure of energy- or applied magnetic field- correlation length. The idea behind the above has been originally discovered in the context of the atomic nucleus, a mesoscopic system. Our findings are directly applicable to graphene.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to: "4th International Workshop on Compound-Nuclear Reactions and Related Topics (CNR*13)", October 7-11, 2013, Maresias, Brazil. To appear in the proceeding

Magnetic order in Ce0.95Nd0.05CoIn5: the Q-phase at zero magnetic field

We report neutron scattering experiment results revealing the nature of the magnetic order occurring in the heavy fermion superconductor Ce0.95Nd0.05CoIn5, a case for which an antiferromagnetic state is stabilized at a temperature below the superconducting transition one. We evidence an incommensurate order and its propagation vector is found to be identical to that of the magnetic field induced antiferromagnetic order occurring in the stoichiometric superconductor CeCoIn5, the so-called Q-phase. The commonality between these two cases suggests that superconductivity is a requirement for the formation of this kind of magnetic order and the proposed mechanism is the enhancement of nesting condition by d-wave order parameter with nodes in the nesting area.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. on June 30th, 201

Hidden IR structures in NGC 40: signpost of an ancient born-again event

We present the analysis of infrared (IR) observations of the planetary nebula NGC 40 together with spectral analysis of its [WC]-type central star HD 826. Spitzer IRS observations were used to produce spectral maps centred at polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) bands and ionic transitions to compare their spatial distribution. The ionic lines show a clumpy distribution of material around the main cavity of NGC 40, with the emission from [Ar II] being the most extended, whilst the PAHs show a rather smooth spatial distribution. Analysis of ratio maps shows the presence of a toroidal structure mainly seen in PAH emission, but also detected in a Herschel PACS 70 mic image. We argue that the toroidal structure absorbs the UV flux from HD 826, preventing the nebula to exhibit lines of high-excitation levels as suggested by previous authors. We discuss the origin of this structure and the results from the spectral analysis of HD 826 under the scenario of a late thermal pulse.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures; Accepted to MNRA