Trivial Consequences Research Articles

Modular group algebras whose group of unitary units is locally nilpotent

We characterize those modular group algebras FG whose group of unitary units is locally nilpotent or nilpotent under the classical involution of FG. The main results of [19, 20] are trivial consequences of this note.

Dimensionality and Measurement Invariance of the Italian Version of the EORTC QLQ-C30 in Postoperative Lung Cancer Patients.

BackgroundThis study aims to validate and evaluate the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Italian version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (QLQ-C30), which is a measure of quality of life (QoL) for lung cancer patients after surgery.MethodsA total of 167 lung cancer patients completed the Italian version of the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire at 30 days after they received a lobectomy. The factor structure of this scale was assessed by performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Measurement invariance was evaluated by considering differential item functioning (DIF) due to age, gender, and type of surgery (i.e., robot- or not robot-assisted).ResultsThe CFA demonstrated the validity of the factor structure of the EORTC QLQ-C30 in assessing overall health and eight distinct subscales of adverse events and functioning. Moreover, the results highlighted a minimal DIF with only trivial consequences on measurement invariance. Specifically, the DIF did not affect the mean differences of latent scores of QoL between patients undergoing robot-assisted surgery or traditional surgery.ConclusionThese findings supported the validity and suitability of the EORTC QLQ-C30 for the assessment of QoL in lung cancer patients of diverse ages and genders undergoing lobectomy with or without robot-assisted surgery.

Selection and Redistribution in the Irish Tontines of 1773, 1775, and 1777

AbstractWe construct and analyze a new data set on the mortality experience of the nominees of the 1773, 1775, and 1777 Irish tontines. The active participation of Genevan speculators in these Irish tontines has been well documented. We use our new data to quantify both the extent to which these nominees were longer‐lived and the financial consequences of their enhanced longevity. The Genevan nominees were indeed notably longer‐lived than non‐Genevan nominees—particularly so for the 50 nominees selected by a Genevan investment syndicate. Their enhanced longevity had only trivial financial consequences for the issuer, but it led to significant redistribution from non‐Genevan to Genevan investors. We highlight the implications of this across‐group distributional risk for modern proposals to introduce tontine‐like elements into modern retirement pensions.

Trivial consequences undermine prof's retaliation lawsuit, judge holds

Case name: Burton v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, et al., No. 16‐2982 (7th Cir. 03/17/17).

Time reversal and symmetries of time correlation functions

ABSTRACTThe time reversal invariance of classical dynamics is reconsidered in this paper with specific focus on its consequences for time correlation functions and associated properties such as transport coefficients. We show that, under fairly common assumptions on the interparticle potential, an isolated Hamiltonian system obeys more than one time reversal symmetry and that this entails non trivial consequences. Under an isotropic and homogeneous potential, in particular, eight valid time reversal operations exist. The presence of external fields that reduce the symmetry of space decreases this number, but does not necessarily impair all time reversal symmetries. Thus, analytic predictions of symmetry properties of time correlation functions and, in some cases, even of their null value are still possible. The noteworthy case of a constant external magnetic field, usually assumed to destroy time reversal symmetry, is considered in some detail. We show that, in this case too, some of the new time reversal operations hold, and that this makes it possible to derive relevant properties of correlation functions without the uninteresting inversion of the direction of the magnetic field commonly enforced in the literature.

An Explicit Reciprocity Law Associated to Some Finite Coverings of Algebraic Curves

We provide a new reciprocity law associated with finite coverings of algebraic curves. Moreover, we give explicit examples of this new reciprocity law that are not trivial consequences of the Weil reciprocity law over the base curve.

Lawsuits and Rulings

Racial Discrimination: Absence of Factual Allegations Ends Professor's Suit Title IX: Trivial Consequences Undermine Professor's Suit

Measuring dispositional optimism in patients with chronic heart failure and their healthcare providers: the validity of the Life Orientation Test-Revised.

The Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) measures dispositional optimism (DO) – an individual difference promoting physical and psychological well-being in healthy adults (HAs) as well as in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and healthcare providers (HPs). Controversy has arisen regarding the dimensionality of the LOT-R. Whereas DO was originally defined as a one-dimensional construct, empirical evidence suggests two correlated factors in the LOT-R. This study was the first attempt to identify the best factor structure of the LOT-R in patients with CHF and HPs and to evaluate its measurement invariance among subsamples of patients with CHF, HPs, and a normative sample of HAs. Its validity was also evaluated in patients with CHF. The sample comprised 543 participants (34% HAs; 34% HPs; and 32% CHF patients). Congeneric, two correlated factor, and two orthogonal factor models for the LOT-R were compared by performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Measurement invariance was evaluated by considering differential item functioning (DIF) among subsamples of HPs, patients with CHF, and HAs. In patients with CHF, validity was assessed by considering associations with anxiety and depression. The CFA demonstrated the superior fit of the two orthogonal factor model. Moreover, across patients with CHF, HPs, and HAs, the results highlighted a minimal DIF with only trivial consequences. Finally, negative but weak correlations of DO with anxiety and depression confirmed the validity of the LOT-R in patients with CHF. In summary, these findings supported the validity and suitability of the LOT-R for the assessment of DO in patients with CHF, HPs, and HAs.

The Problem of Rational Knowledge

Real-world agents do not know all consequences of what they know. But we are reluctant to say that a rational agent can fail to know some trivial consequence of what she knows. Since every consequence of what she knows can be reached via chains of trivial cot be dismissed easily, as some have attempted to do. Rather, a solution must give adequate weight to the normative requirements on rational agents’ epistemic states, without treating those agents as mathematically ideal reasoners. I’ll argue that agents can fail to know trivial consequences of what they know, but never determinately. Such cases are epistemic oversights on behalf of the agent in question, and the facts about epistemic oversights are always indeterminate facts. As a result, we are never in a position to assert that such-and-such constitutes an epistemic oversight for agent i (for we may rationally assert only determinate truths). I then develop formal epistemic models according to which epistemic accessibility relations are vague. Given these models, we can show that epistemic oversights always concern indeterminate cases of knowledge.

QCD critical end point under strong magnetic fields

We use the three-flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, which includes strangeness and quark physical masses in the mean field approximation, to investigate the influence of strong magnetic fields on the QCD phase diagram covering the whole $T-\mu$ plane. It is found that the size of the first order transition line increases as the field strength increases so that a larger coexistence region for hadronic and quark matter should be expected for strong magnetic fields. The location of the critical end point is also affected by the presence of magnetic fields which invariably increase the temperature value at which the first order line terminates. On the other hand, the critical end point chemical potential value displays a subtle oscillation around the B=0 value for magnetic fields within the $10^{17}-10^{20} \, {\rm G}$ range. These findings may have non trivial consequences for the physics of magnetars and heavy ion collisions.

I’ll save the world from global warming—Tomorrow: Using procrastination management to combat global warming

I’ll save the world from global warming—Tomorrow: Using procrastination management to combat global warming

¿Qué puede significar pensar en español?

The expression “to think in Spanish” could be understand in two different senses: as an exhortation or as a description of an state of affairs. In the first sense it has a normative character. It can means something like “we must think in Spanish!”. In the second case, it would be a more or less vague formulation about the existence of a relevant intelectual tradition in the spanish language. The first interpretation is misleading and can have excluding or trivial consequences. The second one is partially true. I propose a third interpretation: “to think in Spanish” could be understood as an invitation not to forget our Spanish-speaking environment in the double sense of the physical and intelectual location of our effects to think with acertain claim of originality

Do parasites matter? Assessing the fitness consequences of haemogregarine infection in snakes

Although much research in evolutionary ecology is based upon the premise that high levels of parasitism impair the host's functioning, the assumed link between parasitism and fitness has been assessed for relatively few kinds of animals. At our study site in tropical Australia, keelback snakes ( Tropidonophis mairii (Gray, 1841), Colubridae) are heavily infected with haemogregarine blood parasites: 90% of snakes that we tested carried the parasite, with the proportion of erythrocytes containing haemogregarines averaging 15% and ranging up to a remarkable 64%. Prevalence increased with snake body size, but intensity decreased with age. Unlike lizards studied previously, the snakes did not respond to haemogregarine infection by releasing immature erythrocytes into the circulation. In striking contrast to results from a recent study on a sympatric snake species, we did not find any empirical links between parasite numbers and several measures of host fitness (body condition, growth rate, feeding rate, antipredator behaviour, locomotor performance, reproductive status, reproductive output, and recapture rate). The association between this parasite and its host thus appears to be surprisingly benign, suggesting that host–parasite interactions sometimes may have only trivial consequences for host fitness in natural populations. Plausibly, host–parasite coevolution weakens or eliminates fitness costs of parasitism.

Characterizing wavelet coefficient decay of discrete-time signals

We present an intrinsically discrete-time characterization of wavelet coefficient decay. To be more precise, let f = ( f ( n ) ) n ∈ Z be a sequence and denote by ( d j , l ) j ⩾ 1 , l ∈ Z the coefficients obtained by passing f through a subsampled wavelet filter bank. Then it is common practice to relate the decay properties of ( d j , l ) to continuous-time smoothness spaces such as the homogeneous Besov spaces B ˙ p , q α ( R ) . We discuss an alternative approach using only discrete-time notions, showing that under suitable assumptions wavelet coefficient decay characterizes precisely the elements of the discrete-time Besov spaces defined by R.H. Torres in Spaces of sequences, sampling theorem and functions of exponential type, Studia Math. 100 (1991) 51–74. The results do not follow as trivial consequences of the continuous-time theory, and seem well adapted to practical applications due to their fully discrete-time nature.

Deduction of Heisenberg relations and Schrödinger equation through the structure of N -dimensional parameterized metric vector spaces

Here, it is described how N-dimensional parameterized vector spaces, possessing an adapted real metric with the addition of some supplementary axioms, permit the deduction of Heisenberg relations and Schrodinger equation. This specific space structure, proposed as a container of the description of quantum objects, suggests, in this way, that both quantum mechanical cornerstones can be considered as trivial consequences of such a special vector space choice.

RICK activates a NF-kappaB-dependent anti-human cytomegalovirus response.

The adapter kinase receptor interacting protein-like interacting caspase-like apoptosis regulatory protein kinase (RICK, also called RIP2 and CARDIAK) was found to be elevated at both the protein and RNA levels during human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) replication, suggesting either that the virus may require RICK for replication or that RICK is part of an unsuccessful host attempt to inhibit HCMV replication. It is demonstrated here that forced expression of RICK in either a kinase active or inactive form activates nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB by means of its intermediate domain and potently blocks HCMV replication in human fibroblasts. Importantly, NF-kappaB activation, which exerted a modestly positive effect on the early phase of infection, clearly had a strongly negative impact during later viral steps. A stable inhibitor of NF-kappaB (IkappaB) reverses the RICK inhibitory effect, and activation of NF-kappaB by IkappaB kinase beta expression is inhibitory to HCMV, demonstrating that NF-kappaB activation is part of a potent anti-HCMV response. Supernatant transfer experiments identified interferon-beta as a downstream component of the RICK inhibitory pathway. RICK expression was found to synergize with HCMV infection in the induction of interferon-beta expression. This study identifies an endogenous RICK-activated, NF-kappaB- and interferon-beta-dependent antiviral pathway that is either inhibited or faulty under normal HCMV replication conditions; efforts to bolster this pathway may lead to novel anti-viral approaches.

What can you learn from rashes? An approach for children.

No abstract available.

Evolution and the genetic analysis of populations: 1950–2000

SummaryBachmann, K.: Evolution and the genetic analysis of populations: 1950–2000. – Taxon 50: 7–45. 2001. – ISSN 0040–0262.Population genetics had played a key role in the fusion of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian natural selection into the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. The realization that all basic processes of evolution occur in or among populations suggested that evolutionary processes at all levels could be extrapolated from observations on living populations. In plants, an active tradition in ecological genetics had prepared the ground for the Synthesis, and the new initiative of “biosystematics” made full use of experimental and analytical techniques for systematics, especially at the level of species. This development got caught up in the “hardening of the Synthesis”, the defensive persistence on a simplified core theory in the face of challenges from known facts and new discoveries, especially in molecular genetics. Enzyme electrophoresis was the first molecular method to be introduced into population biology. The new results revealed unexpectedly high levels of variation within populations and precipitated discussion about the selective neutrality of protein polymorphisms. This discussion distracted attention from the population genetic basis of organismic evolution. Together with the widespread adoption of molecular marker methods at the expense of other approaches, population genetics was in danger of losing its central relevance and its variety of experimental approaches. Since the end of the 1970s, calls for new initiatives have drawn attention to the importance of historical contingency in evolution, especially in the form of developmental constraints. A population genetic application of these ideas initially faced immense technical problems. A succession of new molecular marker systems suitable for the genetic analysis of populations added new resolving power, but introduced new problems with the inference of processes from basically static and descriptive data. Only very recently, methods have advanced to the point that molecular markers can help in the experimental analysis of morphological and physiological evolution. The coming challenge will be to adapt results from detailed analyses of individual plants to broadly comparative population genetic studies. The accumulated new insights of the last 50 years show that the pervasive influence of historical contingency has non–trivial consequences for evolutionary biology and taxonomy. These are strikingly exemplified by a completely changed picture of genome structure and evolution. The time seems to be right for a paradigm shift in evolutionary biology.

An alternative point of view to the theory of fractional Fourier transform

The concept of the fractional Fourier transform is framed within the context of quantum evolution operators. This point of view yields an extension of the above concept and greatly simplifies the underlying operational algebra. It is also proved that a multidimensional extension can be performed by using a biorthogonal multiindex harmonic oscillator basis. It t is finally shown that most of the proposed physical interpretations of the fractional Fourier transform are just trivial consequences of the analysis developed in this paper.

Metabolic and Behavioural Consequences of the Procedures of the Doubly Labelled Water Technique on White (MF1) Mice

The effects of the doubly labelled water technique (intraperitoneal injection, temporary food deprivation and blood sampling) on the energy expenditure, food intake and behaviour of 18 white (MF1) mice was investigated. There were no significant differences in mean energy expenditure or food intake between experimental and control animals, on which the techniques were not performed, over the first 24 h after manipulation. These data indicate that there are no direct metabolic consequences associated with the procedures. During the 100 min immediately after blood sampling, the behaviour of experimental animals involved significantly more grooming, mostly at the site of the blood sample wound, more feeding and more general activity, at the expense of resting, when compared with controls. Twenty hours later the behavioural differences were less marked, but still statistically significantly different, and reversed: experimental animals spent more time resting and less in general activity or feeding. The effects of the technique on the behaviour of white mice had trivial consequences for their daily energy expenditure. This may reflect the restricted behavioural repertoire of these captive animals within respirometry chambers. The effect on wild animals may be more profound and requires investigation.