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Using data on essentially every US Supreme Court decision since 1946, we estimate a model of peer effects on the Court. We consider both the impact of justice ideology and justice votes on the votes of their peers. To identify these peer effects we use two instruments. The first is based on the composition of the Court, determined by which justices sit on which cases due to recusals or health reasons for not sitting. The second utilizes the fact that many justices previously sat on Federal Circuit Courts and are empirically much more likely to affirm decisions from their “home” court. We find large peer effects. Replacing a single justice with one who votes in a conservative direction 10 percentage points more frequently increases the probability that each other justice votes conservative by 1.63 percentage points. In terms of votes, a 10 percentage point increase in the probability that a single justice votes conservative leads to a 1.1 percentage increase in the probability that each other justice votes conservative. Finally, a single justice becoming 10% more likely to vote conservative increases the share of cases with a conservative outcome by 3.6 percentage points – excluding the direct effect of that justice – and reduces the share with a liberal outcome by 3.2 percentage points. In general, the indirect effect of a justice’s vote on the outcome through the votes of their peers is typically several times larger than the direct mechanical effect of the justice’s own vote.

We report the synthesis of a stable analogue of τ-phosphohistidine: 4-phosphopyrazol-2-yl alanine (pPza). Polyclonal antibodies generated against the mimic show high reactivity and selectivity for τ-phosphohistidine, with minor or no cross-reactivity towards non-phosphorylated histidine or O-phosphoamino acids, including phosphotyrosine.

It has long been known that high temperature superconductors (HTS) could have an important role to play in the future of tokamak fusion research. Here we report on first results of the use of HTS in a tokamak magnet and on the progress in design and construction of the first fully-HTS tokamak.

High-profile disasters can cause large spikes in philanthropy and volunteerism. By providing temporary positive shocks to the altruism of donors, these natural experiments help identify heterogeneity in the distributions of the latent altruism which motivates donors. This study examines gender heterogeneity of volunteer response by blood donors following the most devastating Bushfires in Australia's history. Using difference in differences analyses, we observe a sharp increase in blood donations after the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. Several key features of this increase are consistent with the predictions of a model where the distribution of latent altruism has smaller variance among women than men. First, the highest increase in donations occurs among previous non-donors, lapsed donors and less frequent donors. Further, the increase in donations following the Bushfires, compared to non-disaster periods, is substantially greater for females than males; the proportional increase in the number of females donating for the first time after the disaster is approximately twice the proportional increase for men. Notably, this gender gap decreases with the frequency with which people have previously donated.

The Mega Ampère Spherical Tokamak (MAST) programme is strongly focused on addressing key physics issues in preparation for operation of ITER as well as providing solutions for DEMO design choices. In this regard, MAST has provided key results in understanding and optimizing H-mode confinement, operating with smaller edge localized modes (ELMs), predicting and handling plasma exhaust and tailoring auxiliary current drive. In all cases, the high-resolution diagnostic capability on MAST is complemented by sophisticated numerical modelling to facilitate a deeper understanding. Mitigation of ELMs with resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with toroidal mode number n RMP = 2, 3, 4, 6 has been demonstrated: at high and low collisionality; for the first ELM following the transition to high confinement operation; during the current ramp-up; and with rotating n RMP = 3 RMPs. n RMP = 4, 6 fields cause less rotation braking whilst the power to access H-mode is less with n RMP = 4 than n RMP = 3, 6. Refuelling with gas or pellets gives plasmas with mitigated ELMs and reduced peak heat flux at the same time as achieving good confinement. A synergy exists between pellet fuelling and RMPs, since mitigated ELMs remove fewer particles. Inter-ELM instabilities observed with Doppler backscattering are consistent with gyrokinetic simulations of micro-tearing modes in the pedestal. Meanwhile, ELM precursors have been strikingly observed with beam emission spectroscopy (BES) measurements. A scan in beta at the L–H transition shows that pedestal height scales strongly with core pressure. Gyro-Bohm normalized turbulent ion heat flux (as estimated from the BES data) is observed to decrease with increasing tilt of the turbulent eddies. Fast ion redistribution by energetic particle modes depends on density, and access to a quiescent domain with ‘classical’ fast ion transport is found above a critical density. Highly efficient electron Bernstein wave current drive (1 A W−1) has been achieved in solenoid-free start-up. A new proton detector has characterized escaping fusion products. Langmuir probes and a high-speed camera suggest filaments play a role in particle transport in the private flux region whilst coherence imaging has measured scrape-off layer (SOL) flows. BOUT++ simulations show that fluxes due to filaments are strongly dependent on resistivity and magnetic geometry of the SOL, with higher radial fluxes at higher resistivity. Finally, MAST Upgrade is due to begin operation in 2016 to support ITER preparation and importantly to operate with a Super-X divertor to test extended leg concepts for particle and power exhaust.

The locations of the peaks of the CMB spectrum are sensitive indicators of cosmological parameters, yet there is no known analytic formula which accurately describes their dependence on them. We parametrize the location of the peaks as l_m = l_A(m - \phi_m), where l_A is the analytically calculable acoustic scale and m labels the peak number. Fitting formulae for the phase shifts \phi_m for the first three peaks and the first trough are given. It is shown that in a wide range of parameter space, the acoustic scale l_A can be retrieved from actual CMB measurements of the first three peaks within one percent accuracy. This can be used to speed up likelihood analysis. We describe how the peak shifts can be used to distinguish between different models of dark energy.

Polyclonal antibodies raised against 4-phosphothiophen-2-yl alanine 2a, a novel five-membered ring analogue of phosphotyrosine, showed high selectivity for phosphotyrosine and no cross-reactivity with other phosphorylated amino acids. Western blots showed that the polyclonal was similarly effective, but different in selectivity, to a commercially available monoclonal antibody.

It is shown that the formation of phase space holes and clumps in kinetically driven, dissipative systems is not restricted to the near threshold regime, as previously reported and widely believed. Specifically, we observe hole-clump generation from the edges of an unmodulated phase space plateau, created via excitation, phase mixing and subsequent dissipative decay of a linearly unstable bulk plasma mode in the electrostatic bump-on-tail model. This has now allowed us to elucidate the underlying physics of the hole-clump formation process for the first time. Holes and clumps develop from negative energy waves that arise due to the sharp gradients at the interface between the plateau and the nearly unperturbed, ambient distribution and destabilize in the presence of dissipation in the bulk plasma. We confirm this picture by demonstrating that the formation of such nonlinear structures in general does not rely on a "seed" wave, only on the ability of the system to generate a plateau. In addition, we observe repetitive cycles of plateau generation and erosion, the latter due to hole-clump formation and detachment, which appear to be insensitive to initial conditions and can persist for a long time. We present an intuitive discussion of why this continual regeneration occurs.

We propose that it should be possible to use the CMB to discriminate between dark energy models with different equations of state, including distinguishing a cosmological constant from many models of quintessence. The separation of peaks in the CMB anisotropies can be parametrised by three quantities: the amount of quintessence today, the amount at last scattering, and the averaged equation of state of quintessence. In particular, we show that the CMB peaks can be used to measure the amount of dark energy present before last scattering.

Alfv\'en cyclotron instabilities excited by velocity gradients of energetic beam ions were investigated in MAST experiments with super-Alfv\'enic NBI over a wide range of toroidal magnetic fields from ~0.34 T to ~0.585 T. In MAST discharges with high magnetic field, a discrete spectrum of modes in the sub-cyclotron frequency range is excited toroidally propagating counter to the beam and plasma current (toroidal mode numbers n < 0)., Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures. This article has been submitted to Physics of Plasmas. After it is published, it will be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/pop/browse

Remarkable progress has been made in diagnosing energetic particle instabilities on present-day machines and in establishing a theoretical framework for describing them. This overview describes the much improved diagnostics of Alfven instabilities and modelling tools developed world-wide, and discusses progress in interpreting the observed phenomena. A multi-machine comparison is presented giving information on the performance of both diagnostics and modelling tools for different plasma conditions outlining expectations for ITER based on our present knowledge., 37 pages, 20 figures

The transformation of kinetically unstable plasma eigenmodes into hole-clump pairs with temporally evolving carrier frequencies was recently attributed to the emergence of an intermediate stage in the mode evolution cycle, that of an unmodulated plateau in the phase space distribution of fast particles. The role of the plateau as the hole-clump breeding ground is further substantiated in this article via consideration of its linear and nonlinear stability in the presence of fast particle collisions and sources, which are known to affect the production rates and subsequent frequency sweeping of holes and clumps. In particular, collisional relaxation, as mediated by e.g. velocity space diffusion or even simple Krook-type collisions, is found to inhibit hole-clump generation and detachment from the plateau, as it should. On the other hand, slowing down of the fast particles turns out to have an asymmetrically destabilizing/stabilizing effect, which explains the well-known result that collisional drag enhances holes and their sweeping rates but suppresses clumps. It is further demonstrated that relaxation of the plateau edge gradients has only a minor quantitative effect and does not change the plateau stability qualitatively, unless the edge region extends far into the plateau shelf and the corresponding Landau pole needs to be taken into account.

Gaussian processes have been favourably compared to backpropagation neural networks as a tool for regression. We show that a recurrent neural network can implement exact Gaussian process inference using only linear neurons that integrate their inputs over time, inhibitory recurrent connections, and one-shot Hebbian learning. The network amounts to a dynamical system which relaxes to the correct solution. We prove conditions for convergence, show how the system can act as its own teacher in order to produce rapid predictions, and comment on the biological plausibility of such a network.

In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the progress of true-vacuum bubbles is expected to be significantly retarded by the interaction between the bubble wall and the hot plasma. It has been claimed that this leads to a significant reduction in the number of topological defects formed per bubble, as a result of phase equilibration between bubbles. This claim has been verified for spontaneously-broken global symmetries. We perform a series of simulations of complete phase transitions in the 2+1-dimensional U(1)-Abelian Higgs model, for a range of bubble wall velocities, in order to obtain a quantitative measure of the effect of bubble wall speed on the number density of topological defects. We find that the number of defects formed is i) significantly lower in the local than the global case and ii) decreases exponentially as a function of wall velocity. Slow-moving bubbles also lead, however, to the nucleation of more bubbles before the phase transition is complete. Our simulations show that this is in fact the dominant effect, and so we predict {\em more} defects per unit volume as a result of the sub-luminal bubble wall terminal velocity., 9 pages, 5 figures. Replaced with version to appear in Physical Review D

The CMB data recently released by BOOMERANG and MAXIMA suggest that the anisotropy spectrum has a third peak in the range 8001 are disfavoured. Models with more than 5% quintessence before last scattering require a spectral index greater than 1. These constraints are compared with supernovae observations. We also show that the CMB alone now provides strong evidence for an accelerating universe., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, replaced with version which appears in journal. Discussion on supernovae bounds and references added

In first-order phase transitions in the early universe, the bubble wall is expected to be significantly slowed-down by its interaction with the surrounding plasma. We examine the behaviour of the phase of the Higgs field after two-bubble collisions, and find that phase differences equilibrate much more quickly in slow-moving bubbles than in those which expand at the speed of light. This could lead to a significant reduction in the initial density of topological defects formed at a first-order phase transition., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Proceedings of the International Workshop on Particle Physics and the Early Universe (COSMO 99), Trieste, Italy, September 27 - October 2, 1999

In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the progress of true-vacuum bubbles is expected to be significantly retarded by the interaction between the bubble wall and the hot plasma. We examine the evolution and collision of slow-moving true-vacuum bubbles. Our lattice simulations indicate that phase oscillations, predicted and observed in systems with a local symmetry and with a global symmetry where the bubbles move at speeds less than the speed of light, do not occur inside collisions of slow-moving local-symmetry bubbles. We observe almost instantaneous phase equilibration which would lead to a decrease in the expected initial defect density, or possibly prevent defects from forming at all. We illustrate our findings with an example of defect formation suppressed in slow-moving bubbles. Slow-moving bubble walls also prevent the formation of `extra defects', and in the presence of plasma conductivity may lead to an increase in the magnitude of any primordial magnetic field formed., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, replaced with typos corrected and reference added. To appear in Phys. Rev. D

New diagnostic, modelling and plant capability on the Mega Ampère Spherical Tokamak (MAST) have delivered important results in key areas for ITER/DEMO and the upcoming MAST Upgrade, a step towards future ST devices on the path to fusion currently under procurement. Micro-stability analysis of the pedestal highlights the potential roles of micro-tearing modes and kinetic ballooning modes for the pedestal formation. Mitigation of edge localized modes (ELM) using resonant magnetic perturbation has been demonstrated for toroidal mode numbers n = 3, 4, 6 with an ELM frequency increase by up to a factor of 9, compatible with pellet fuelling. The peak heat flux of mitigated and natural ELMs follows the same linear trend with ELM energy loss and the first ELM-resolved Ti measurements in the divertor region are shown. Measurements of flow shear and turbulence dynamics during L-H transitions show filaments erupting from the plasma edge whilst the full flow shear is still present. Off-axis neutral beam injection helps to strongly reduce the redistribution of fast-ions due to fishbone modes when compared to on-axis injection. Low-k ion-scale turbulence has been measured in L-mode and compared to global gyro-kinetic simulations. A statistical analysis of principal turbulence time scales shows them to be of comparable magnitude and reasonably correlated with turbulence decorrelation time. Te inside the island of a neoclassical tearing mode allow the analysis of the island evolution without assuming specific models for the heat flux. Other results include the discrepancy of the current profile evolution during the current ramp-up with solutions of the poloidal field diffusion equation, studies of the anomalous Doppler resonance compressional Alfvén eigenmodes, disruption mitigation studies and modelling of the new divertor design for MAST Upgrade. The novel 3D electron Bernstein synthetic imaging shows promising first data sensitive to the edge current profile and flows. © 2013 IAEA, Vienna.

A theoretical framework is developed to describe long range frequency sweeping events in the 1D electrostatic bump-on-tail model with fast particle sources and collisions. The model includes three collision operators (Krook, drag (dynamical friction) and velocity space diffusion), and allows for a general shape of the fast particle distribution function. The behaviour of phase space holes and clumps is analysed in the absence of diffusion, and the effect of particle trapping due to separatrix expansion is discussed. With a fast particle distribution function whose slope decays above the resonant phase velocity, hooked frequency sweeping is found for holes in the presence of drag collisions alone.

A fully nonlinear model is developed for the bump-on-tail instability including the effects of dynamical friction (drag) and velocity space diffusion on the energetic particles driving the wave. The results show that drag provides a destabilizing effect on the nonlinear evolution of waves. Specifically, in the early nonlinear phase of the instability, the drag facilitates the explosive scenario of the wave evolution, leading to the creation of phase space holes and clumps that move away from the original eigenfrequency. Later in time, the electric field associated with a hole is found to be enhanced by the drag, whereas for a clump it is reduced. This leads to an asymmetry of the frequency evolution between holes and clumps. The combined effect of drag and diffusion produces a diverse range of nonlinear behaviors including hooked frequency chirping, undulating, and steady state regimes. An analytical model is presented, which explains the aforementioned diversity. A continuous production of hole-clump pairs in the absence of collisions is also observed.

The Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonance between fast ions and shear Alfv́n waves (SAWs) has been experimentally investigated with a test-particle fast-ion (Li+) beam launched in the helium plasma of the Large Plasma Device [Gekelman, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 62, 2875 (1991)]. Left- or right-hand circularly polarized SAWs are launched by an antenna with four current channels. A collimated fast-ion energy analyzer characterizes the resonance by measuring the nonclassical spreading of the averaged beam signal. Left-hand circularly polarized SAWs resonate with the fast ions but right-hand circularly polarized SAWs do not. The measured fast-ion profiles are compared with simulations by a Monte Carlo Lorentz code that uses the measured wave field data. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.