Distinguishing the “Truly National” From the “Truly Local”: Customary Allocation, Commercial Activity, and Collective Action

This Essay makes two claims about different methods of defining the expanse and limits of the Commerce Clause. My first claim is that approaches that privilege traditional subjects of state regulation are unworkable and undesirable. These approaches are unworkable in light of the frequency with which the federal government and the states regulate the same subject matter in our world of largely overlapping federal and state legislative jurisdiction. The approaches are undesirable because the question of customary allocation is unrelated to the principal reason why Congress possesses the power to regulate interstate commerce: solving collective action problems involving multiple states. These problems are evident in the way that some federal judges invoked regulatory custom in litigation over the constitutionality of the minimum coverage provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The areas of health insurance and health care are not of exclusive state concern, and it is impossible to lose—or to win—a competition requiring skillful lawyers or judges to describe them as more state than federal, or more federal than state. Nor is it most important what the answer is. More promising are the approaches that view congressional authority as turning on either commercial activity or collective action problems facing the states. My second claim is that these two approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and that the choice between them exemplifies the more general tension between applying rules and applying their background justifications. I have previously defended a collective action approach to Article I, Section 8. My primary purpose in this Essay is to clarify the jurisprudential stakes in adopting one method or the other and to identify the problems that advocates of each approach must address

The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back

Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take their toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the United Kingdom maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UK’s interests with the imperial “common good” continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islanders’ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossians’ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossians’ interests

Retrieving fin-de-siècle women poets: the transformative myths, fragments and voices of Webster, Blind and Levy

The critical recuperation of late nineteenth-century women poets, most still waiting in the margins of the literary canon, has owed significantly to the renovated interest and study of the poetical works of Augusta Webster, Mathilde Blind and Amy Levy (1860-90) by the postmodern reader. One of the reasons for this ‘salvage’ may be that they represent and embody the profound and extraordinary changes encompassing the British fin-de-siècle, in which the transition from the Victorians to the Moderns implied the transformation or reconfiguration of certain myths or (hi)stories and the critical re-use or ‘recycling’ of major literary forms. If, for Webster and Blind, involvement in radical politics (namely, feminism and socialism) certainly implied a stance as outsiders, Blind and Levy were even more set apart by their foreignness, with Levy’s different religion and sexuality increasing the distance even further. With recourse to close reading and cultural critique, this paper will analyse how these three women poets re-use fragments (‘verbal ruins’) of national and international history, as well as classic myth, in order to question and transform the images and representations of man and woman in their respective connections with the world. It will demonstrate that while Webster’s poetry (Dramatic Studies of 1866 and Portraits of 1870) is firmly grounded on social demands and the exploration and dramatization of the nature of female experience, Blind’s epic and dramatic verse (The Ascent of Man of 1889 and Dramas in Miniature of 1891) creates new myths of human destiny, reclaiming the Poet’s role as the singer of the age’s scientific deeds, and Levy’s lyrics (Xantippe of 1881 and A Minor Poet of 1884) signal the New Woman poet’s role as victim of the pressures of emancipation. With the support of critics as Isobel Armstrong, Helen Groth and Angela Leighton, the paper will furthermore discuss the way in which these poets explore the selves that women inherit and create and the languages that re-define them, often through the expansive, public forms of dramatic and narrative verse; through these hybrid and fragmentary forms, Webster, Blind and Levy literally give voice to unspeakable feelings and situations, in which the anomalous and marginal are made central.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A general formula of the effective potential in 5D SU(N) gauge theory on orbifold

We show a general formula of the one loop effective potential of the 5D SU(N) gauge theory compactified on an orbifold, $S^1/Z_2$. The formula shows the case when there are fundamental, (anti-)symmetric tensor and adjoint representational bulk fields. Our calculation method is also applicable when there are bulk fields belonging to higher dimensional representations. The supersymmetric version of the effective potential with Scherk-Schwarz breaking can be obtained straightforwardly. We also show some examples of effective potentials in SU(3), SU(5) and SU(6) models with various boundary conditions, which are reproduced by our general formula.Comment: 22 pages;minor corrections;references added;typos correcte

Neutralino-Nucleon Cross Section and Charge and Colour Breaking Constraints

We compute the neutralino-nucleon cross section in several supersymmetric scenarios, taking into account all kind of constraints. In particular, the constraints that the absence of dangerous charge and colour breaking minima imposes on the parameter space are studied in detail. In addition, the most recent experimental constraints, such as the lower bound on the Higgs mass, the $b\to s\gamma$ branching ratio, and the muon $g-2$ are considered. The astrophysical bounds on the dark matter density are also imposed on the theoretical computation of the relic neutralino density, assuming thermal production. This computation is relevant for the theoretical analysis of the direct detection of dark matter in current experiments. We consider first the supergravity scenario with universal soft terms and GUT scale. In this scenario the charge and colour breaking constraints turn out to be quite important, and \tan\beta\lsim 20 is forbidden. Larger values of $\tan\beta$ can also be forbidden, depending on the value of the trilinear parameter $A$. Finally, we study supergravity scenarios with an intermediate scale, and also with non-universal scalar and gaugino masses where the cross section can be very large.Comment: Final version to appear in JHE

Estimating the Cost of Executive Stock Options: Evidence from Switzerland

It is often argued that Black-Scholes (1973) values overstate the subjective NEWLINE value of stock options granted to risk-averse and under-diversified executives. NEWLINE We construct a “representative” Swiss executive and extend the certainty- NEWLINE equivalence approach presented by Hall and Murphy (2002) to assess NEWLINE the value-cost wedge of executive stock options. Even with low coefficients NEWLINE of relative risk aversion, the discount can be above 50% compared to the NEWLINE Black-Scholes values. Regression analysis reveals that the equilibrium level NEWLINE of executive compensation is explained by economic determinant variables NEWLINE such as firm size and growth opportunities, whereas the managers’ pay-forperformance NEWLINE sensitivity remains largely unexplained. Firms with larger NEWLINE boards of directors pay higher wages, indicating potentially unresolved NEWLINE agency conflicts. We reject the hypothesis that cross-sectional differences in NEWLINE the amount of executive pay vanish when risk-adjusted values are used as NEWLINE the dependent variable

Probing New Physics from Top-charm Associated Productions at Linear Colliders

The top-charm associated productions via $e^+ e^-$, $e^- \gamma$ and $\gamma \gamma$ collisions at linear colliders, which are extremely suppressed in the Standard Model (SM), could be significantly enhanced in some extensions of the SM. In this article we calculate the full contribution of the topcolor-assisted technicolor (TC2) to these productions and then compare the results with the existing predictions of the SM, the general two-Higgs-doublet model and the Minimal Supersymmetric Model. We find that the TC2 model predicts much larger production rates than other models and the largest-rate channel is $\gamma \gamma \to t \bar{c}$, which exceeds 10 fb for a large part of the parameter space. From the analysis of the observability of such productions at the future linear colliders, we find that the predictions of the TC2 model can reach the observable level for a large part of the parameter space while the predictions of other models are hardly accessible.Comment: discussions added (version in Eur. Phys. J. C

A More Flavored Higgs boson in Supersymmetric models

A More flavored Higgs boson arises when the flavor structure encoded in SUSY extensions of the SM is transmited to the Higgs sector. The flavor-Higgs transmition mechanism can have a radiative or mixing origin, as it is illustrated with several examples, and can produce interesting Higgs signatures that can be probed at future high-energy colliders. Within the MSSM, the flavor mediation mechanism can be of radiative type, as it is realized trhough gaugino-slepton loops, which transmit the flavor structture of the soft-breaking sector to the Higgs bosons. In particular we focus on evaluating the contributions from the general trilinear terms to the lepton flavor violating Higgs (LFV) vertices. On the other hand, as an example of flavor mediation through mixing, we discuss an E_6 inspired multi-Higgs model, with an abelian flavor symmetry, where LFV as well as lepton flavor conserving Higgs effects are found to arise, though in this case at tree-level. We find that Tevatron and LHC can provide information on the flavor structure of these models through the detection of the LFV higgs mode h-> tau+mu, while NLC can perform high-precision measurements of the LFC mode h-> tau tau.Comment: 17 pages, 5 tables, 3 figures; corrected mistake in last section, results changed but conclusions remmai

Linear Collider Capabilities for Supersymmetry in Dark Matter Allowed Regions of the mSUGRA Model

Recent comparisons of minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model predictions with WMAP measurements of the neutralino relic density point to preferred regions of model parameter space. We investigate the reach of linear colliders (LC) with $\sqrt{s}=0.5$ and 1 TeV for SUSY in the framework of the mSUGRA model. We find that LCs can cover the entire stau co-annihilation region provided \tan\beta \alt 30. In the hyperbolic branch/focus point (HB/FP) region of parameter space, specialized cuts are suggested to increase the reach in this important ``dark matter allowed'' area. In the case of the HB/FP region, the reach of a LC extends well past the reach of the CERN LHC. We examine a case study in the HB/FP region, and show that the MSSM parameters $\mu$ and $M_2$ can be sufficiently well-measured to demonstrate that one would indeed be in the HB/FP region, where the lightest chargino and neutralino have a substantial higgsino component.Comment: 29 pages, 15 EPS figures; updated version slightly modified to conform with published versio

Yukawa Unified Supersymmetric SO(10) Model: Cosmology, Rare Decays and Collider Searches

It has recently been pointed out that viable sparticle mass spectra can be generated in Yukawa unified SO(10) supersymmetric grand unified models consistent with radiative breaking of electroweak symmetry. Model solutions are obtained only if $\tan\beta \sim 50$, $\mu <0$ and positive $D$-term contributions to scalar masses from SO(10) gauge symmetry breaking are used. In this paper, we attempt to systematize the parameter space regions where solutions are obtained. We go on to calculate the relic density of neutralinos as a function of parameter space. No regions of the parameter space explored were actually cosmologically excluded, and very reasonable relic densities were found in much of parameter space. Direct neutralino detection rates could exceed 1 event/kg/day for a $^{73}$Ge detector, for low values of GUT scale gaugino mass $m_{1/2}$. We also calculate the branching fraction for $b\to s \gamma$ decays, and find that it is beyond the 95% CL experimental limits in much, but not all, of the parameter space regions explored. However, recent claims have been made that NLO effects can reverse the signs of certain amplitudes in the $b\to s\gamma$ calculation, leading to agreement between theory and experiment in Yukawa unified SUSY models. For the Fermilab Tevatron collider, significant regions of parameter space can be explored via $b\bar{b}A$ and $b\bar{b}H$ searches. There also exist some limited regions of parameter space where a trilepton signal can be seen at TeV33. Finally, there exist significant regions of parameter space where direct detection of bottom squark pair production can be made, especially for large negative values of the GUT parameter $A_0$.Comment: Added comparison to Blazek/Raby results and added Comments on de Boer et al. b->s gamma result