Toward an Unconditional Right to Vote for Persons with Mental Disabilities: Reconciling State Law with Constitutional Gaurantees

Casting a ballot is a primary form of community participation in the United States. This exercise provides citizens with a means to safeguard their legal rights and effectuate change. Nevertheless, some citizens, such as people with mental disabilities, are often denied this fundamental right solely based upon their status. These citizens have faced a long history of pernicious discrimination at the hands of their communities, legislators, and even the courts. Yet, social policy has begun to evolve in light of more nuanced understandings of mental disabilities. This knowledge has also spurred the reform of state and federal law. While the prospect of change looms high, in the context of voting, some states lag behind and recent jurisprudence demands that they reform voter eligibility requirements. This Note calls for all states to ensure that the right to vote is a presumptive right of the mentally disabled, to facilitate its exercise, and to deny it by a clear and fair standard that only excludes the mentally incapacitated when there is a clear lack of understanding of the nature and effect of voting

Dust in Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin)

We report optical imaging, optical and near-infrared polarimetry, and Spitzer mid-infrared spectroscopy of comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin). Polarimetric observations were obtained in R (0.676 micron) at phase angles from 0.44 degrees to 21 degrees with simultaneous observations in H (1.65 micron) at 4.0 degrees, exploring the negative branch in polarization. Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) shows typical negative polarization in the optical as well as a similar negative branch near-infrared wavelengths. The 10 micron silicate feature is only weakly in emission and according to our thermal models, is consistent with emission from a mixture of silicate and carbon material. We argue that large, low-porosity (akin to Ballistic Particle Cluster Aggregates) rather absorbing aggregate dust particles best explain both the polarimetric and the mid-infrared spectral energy distribution.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 3 table

Atypical cystic fibrosis: from the genetic causes to current and future treatments

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a life threatening autosomal recessive disorder caused by a mutation in the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene, leading to irregular secretions and inflammation in tubular organs. Disease manifestations of CF are heterogeneous in severity and can be present in the sinopulmonary, hepatic, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary tract. Since the 1960’s, physicians and scientists have described a less severe form of CF known as atypical CF, usually seen in adults. Patients with atypical CF tend to have one severe CF mutation on one chromosome, and one less common, mild CF mutation on their other chromosome; or have one severe mutation on one chromosome and an abnormal number of trinucleotide repeats in the CFTR gene on their other chromosome. Today, of the approximately 1000 patients diagnosed with CF per year in the United States, roughly 10% are diagnosed with the atypical presentation of the disease as adults. Patients suffering from atypical CF typically have only one organ system that is dysfunctional, and their clinical symptoms may be less severe than those of a classical case where there are two severe CF mutations. Common symptoms include idiopathic bronchiectasis, chronic sinusitis, congenital bilateral absence of the vas deferens (CBAVD), and idiopathic pancreatitis. Unlike patients suffering from the classical presentation of the disease, most are pancreatic sufficient – however the possibility of pancreatic insufficiency still exists. Patients with atypical CF represent a diagnostic challenge for physicians due to the mild, slowly progressing array of clinical symptoms, the general lack of knowledge about atypical CF, and the general association of CF as a childhood disease. Increasing physician awareness of the adult population with CF is a paramount in improving the diagnosis, care and treatment of patients with atypical CF. Missed diagnoses can result in hospital admissions and morbidity that may have been avoidable. The goal of this thesis is to describe the causes of CF, the common symptoms seen in both CF and atypical CF, the proper diagnosis of atypical CF, and to identify the therapies, both current and in development, used to treat atypical CF

TopHat2: accurate alignment of transcriptomes in the presence of insertions, deletions and gene fusions

TopHat is a popular spliced aligner for RNA-sequence (RNA-seq) experiments. In this paper, we describe TopHat2, which incorporates many significant enhancements to TopHat. TopHat2 can align reads of various lengths produced by the latest sequencing technologies, while allowing for variable-length indels with respect to the reference genome. In addition to de novo spliced alignment, TopHat2 can align reads across fusion breaks, which can occur after genomic translocations. TopHat2 combines the ability to identify novel splice sites with direct mapping to known transcripts, producing sensitive and accurate alignments, even for highly repetitive genomes or in the presence of pseudogenes. TopHat2 is available at http://ccb.jhu.edu/software/tophat

Prospective Phase II trial of drug-eluting bead chemoembolization for liver transplant candidates with hepatocellular carcinoma and marginal hepatic reserve.

Purpose: To determine whether chemoembolization using drug-eluting beads (DEB-TACE) is safe and effective for liver transplantation candidates with liver-limited hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) without vascular invasion and baseline hepatic dysfunction. Materials and methods: Seventeen adult liver transplantation candidates (median age 66 years, range 58-73 years; 13 men) with HCC were treated with DEB-TACE as a part of Stage 1 of a prospective single-institution Phase II trial. All patients had marginal hepatic reserve based on at least one of the following criteria: ascites (n=14), bilirubin between 3 and 6 mg/dL (n=5), AST 5-10 times upper normal limit (n=1), INR between 1.6 and 2.5 (n=4), portal vein thrombosis (n=2), and/or portosystemic shunt (n=2). Primary study objectives were safety and best observed radiographic response. Results: Thirty-seven DEB-TACE procedures were performed. Objective response rate and disease control rate were 63% and 88%, respectively. HCC progression was observed in 12 patients. Median time to progression was 5.6 months (range 0.9-13.6 months). Within 1 month following DEB-TACE, 13 patients (76%) developed grade 3 or 4 AE attributable to the procedure. Four patients (all within Milan Criteria) were transplanted (2.7-6.9 months after DEB-TACE), and 12 patients died (1.8-32 months after DEB-TACE). All deaths were due to liver failure that was either unrelated to HCC (n=5), in the setting of metastatic HCC (n=5), or in the setting of locally advanced HCC (n=2). Mortality rate at 1 month was 0%. Conclusions: DEB-TACE achieves tumor responses but carries a high risk of hepatotoxicity for liver transplant candidates with HCC and marginal hepatic reserve

Mineralogical Characterization of Baptistina Asteroid Family: Implications for K/T Impactor Source

Bottke et al. (2007) linked the catastrophic formation of Baptistina Asteroid Family (BAF) to the K/T impact event. This linkage was based on dynamical and compositional evidence, which suggested the impactor had a composition similar to CM2 carbonaceous chondrites. However, our recent study (Reddy et al. 2009) suggests that the composition of (298) Baptistina is similar to LL-type ordinary chondrites rather than CM2 carbonaceous chondrites. This rules out any possibility of it being related to the source of the K/T impactor, if the impactor was of CM-type composition. Mineralogical study of asteroids in the vicinity of BAF has revealed a plethora of compositional types suggesting a complex formation and evolution environment. A detailed compositional analysis of 16 asteroids suggests several distinct surface assemblages including ordinary chondrites (Gaffey SIV subtype), primitive achondrites (Gaffey SIII subtype), basaltic achondrites (Gaffey SVII subtype and V-type), and a carbonaceous chondrite. Based on our mineralogical analysis we conclude that (298) Baptistina is similar to ordinary chondrites (LL-type) based on olivine and pyroxene mineralogy and moderate albedo. S-type and V-type in and around the vicinity of BAF we characterized show mineralogical affinity to (8) Flora and (4) Vesta and could be part of their families. Smaller BAF asteroids with lower SNR spectra showing only a 'single' band are compositionally similar to (298) Baptistina and L/LL chondrites. It is unclear at this point why the silicate absorption bands in spectra of asteroids with formal family definition seem suppressed relative to background population, despite having similar mineralogy

SOFIA Infrared Spectrophotometry of Comet C/2012 K1 (Pan-STARRS)

We present pre-perihelion infrared 8 to 31 micron spectrophotometric and imaging observations of comet C/2012 K1 (Pan-STARRS), a dynamically new Oort Cloud comet, conducted with NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) facility (+FORCAST) in 2014 June. As a "new" comet (first inner solar system passage), the coma grain population may be extremely pristine, unencumbered by a rime and insufficiently irradiated by the Sun to carbonize its surface organics. The comet exhibited a weak 10 micron silicate feature ~1.18 +/- 0.03 above the underlying best-fit 215.32 +/- 0.95 K continuum blackbody. Thermal modeling of the observed spectral energy distribution indicates that the coma grains are fractally solid with a porosity factor D = 3 and the peak in the grain size distribution, a_peak = 0.6 micron, large. The sub-micron coma grains are dominated by amorphous carbon, with a silicate-to-carbon ratio of 0.80 (+0.25) (- 0.20). The silicate crystalline mass fraction is 0.20 (+0.30) (-0.10), similar to with other dynamically new comets exhibiting weak 10 micron silicate features. The bolometric dust albedo of the coma dust is 0.14 +/- 0.01 at a phase angle of 34.76 degrees, and the average dust production rate, corrected to zero phase, at the epoch of our observations was Afrho ~ 5340~cm.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 5 table, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Fungi in bottled water: a case study of a production plant

A one year fungal survey of a water bottling plant was conducted in order to evaluate the incidence and fluctuations of the biota. The dominant fungal genera in order of highest numbers were Penicillium, Cladosporium and Trichoderma followed by Aspergillus, Paecilomyces, and others. As expected, highest number of isolates collected were during the summer months, particularly May and June. Indeed during these two months there were more fungi present in the water after it had passed through the filtration system (0.4μm filter), indicating that during those times of the year when fungal contamination is high, filters should be changed on a more regular basis. In order to assess whether contamination was single or multi-loci, molecular methods based on PCR were used. Overall fungal contamination arose from multiple sources. Some fungal strains were very “alike” and were detected during different sampling times, indicating that some strains were endemic to the plant. There was little evidence to suggest that fungi detected in the source water passed through to other parts of the plant. However, there was evidence that fungal strains isolated from the water filter were detected elsewhere in the factory, confirming the need to change filters more regularly during periods of high fungal contamination. In order to improve quality control a HACCP programme was implemented and Best Practice Guidelines introduced.Control of Mycological Contaminations in Bottled Water (COMBOW) - CRAFT/QLK1-2002-70843 contract