Guest Editors\u27 Introduction: Best of RESPECT, Part 2

The guest editors introduce best papers on broadening participation in computing from the RESPECT\u2715 conference. The five articles presented here are part two of a two-part series representing research on broadening participation in computing. These articles study participation in intersectional ways, through the perceptions and experiences of African-American middle school girls, the sense of belonging in computing for LGBTQ students, the impact of a STEM scholarship and community development program for low-income and first-generation college students, a leadership development program, and how African-American women individually take leadership to enable their success in computing

Challenging cases of professionalism in Japan: improvement in understanding of professional behaviors among Japanese residents between 2005 and 2013.

BackgroundProfessionalism is deemed as the basis of physicians' contract with society in Japan. Our study in 2005, using a questionnaire with scenarios to professionalism, suggested that many physicians at various levels of training in Japan encounter challenges when responding to these common scenarios related to professionalism. It is unclear how medical professionalism has changed among Japanese residents in over time.MethodsWe conducted a follow-up survey about challenges to professionalism for Japanese residents using the same Barry Questionnaire after a seven-year interval from the prior survey. The survey uses six clinical scenarios with multiple choice responses. The six cases include the following challenges: acceptance of gifts; conflict of interest; confidentiality; physician impairment; sexual harassment; and honesty in documentation. Each scenario is followed by 4 or 5 possible responses, including the "best" and the "second best" responses. The survey was conducted as a part of nationwide general medicine in-training examination.ResultsWe collected data from 1,049 participants (290 women, 28%; 431 PGY-1 and 618 PGY-2 residents). Overall, the current residents performed better than their colleagues in the earlier survey for five scenarios (gifts, conflict of interest, confidentiality, impairment, and honesty) but not for the harassment scenario. PGY-2 residents were more likely to select either the best or 2nd best choices to gifts (p = 0.002) and harassment (p = 0.031) scenarios than PGY-1 residents. Residents in the current study chose either the best or 2nd best choices to the gifts (p < 0.001) and honesty (p < 0.001) scenarios than those of the previous study conducted seven years ago, but not for the harassment scenario (p = 0.004).ConclusionsOur study suggests that there is improvement of medical professionalism with respect to some ethical challenges among the Japanese residents in the current study compared to those in our previous study

No More Laissez Faire? Expert Evidence, Rule Changes and Reliability: Can More Effective Training for the Bar and Judiciary Prevent Miscarriages of Justice?

The apparent link between miscarriages of justice in prosecutions involving expert evidence and the level of training provided to the legal profession (the Bar in particular) and the judiciary in respect of such evidence was highlighted in 2005 with the publication of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Report Expert Evidence on Trial.2 The Law Commission, in the 2011 Report Expert Evidence in England and Wales 3 subsequently comprehensively addressed the same issue. This article seeks to consider why appropriate training in relation to expert evidence is so necessary and questions whether, in the context of the amendments to what is now Part 19 of the Criminal Procedure Rules (CrimPR19) and Part 19A of the Criminal Practice Direction (CrimPD19A), there have been sufficient developments in training to effect a cultural change within the legal profession and ultimately substantially reduce the risk of future miscarriages of justice. Finally, the article debates the nature of required training, arguing that much more detailed training is required than has previously been considered and addresses where this training best sits

17 new very low-mass members in Taurus. The brown dwarf deficit revisited

Recent studies of the substellar population in the Taurus cloud have revealed a deficit of brown dwarfs (BD) compared to the Trapezium cluster population (Briceno et al 1998; Luhman 2000; Luhman et al 2003a; Luhman 2004). However, these works have concentrated on the highest stellar density regions of the Taurus cloud. We have performed a large scale optical survey of this region, covering a total area of 30 deg^2, and encompassing the densest part of the cloud as well as their surroundings, down to a mass detection limits of 15 Jupiter Masses (MJ). In this paper, we present the optical spectroscopic follow-up observations of 97 photometrically selected potential new low-mass Taurus members, of which 27 are strong late-M (SpT < M4V) candidates. These observations reveal 5 new very low mass (VLM) Taurus members and 12 new BDs. Combining our observations with previously published results, we derive an updated substellar to stellar ratio in Taurus of Rss =0.23 +/- 0.05. This ratio now appears consistent with the value previously derived in the Trapezium cluster under similar assumptions of 0.26 +/- 0.04. We find strong indication that the relative numbers of BDs with respect to stars is decreased by a factor 2 in the central regions of the aggregates with respect to the more distributed population. Our findings are best explained in the context of the embryo-ejection model where brown dwarfs originate from dynamical interactions in small N unstable multiple systems.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figure

BM3D Frames and Variational Image Deblurring

A family of the Block Matching 3-D (BM3D) algorithms for various imaging problems has been recently proposed within the framework of nonlocal patch-wise image modeling [1], [2]. In this paper we construct analysis and synthesis frames, formalizing the BM3D image modeling and use these frames to develop novel iterative deblurring algorithms. We consider two different formulations of the deblurring problem: one given by minimization of the single objective function and another based on the Nash equilibrium balance of two objective functions. The latter results in an algorithm where the denoising and deblurring operations are decoupled. The convergence of the developed algorithms is proved. Simulation experiments show that the decoupled algorithm derived from the Nash equilibrium formulation demonstrates the best numerical and visual results and shows superiority with respect to the state of the art in the field, confirming a valuable potential of BM3D-frames as an advanced image modeling tool.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Image Processing on May 18, 2011. implementation of the proposed algorithm is available as part of the BM3D package at http://www.cs.tut.fi/~foi/GCF-BM3

A comparison of forward and backward pp pair knockout in 3He(e,e'pp)n

Measuring nucleon-nucleon Short Range Correlations (SRC) has been a goal of the nuclear physics community for many years. They are an important part of the nuclear wavefunction, accounting for almost all of the high-momentum strength. They are closely related to the EMC effect. While their overall probability has been measured, measuring their momentum distributions is more difficult. In order to determine the best configuration for studying SRC momentum distributions, we measured the $^3$He$(e,e'pp)n$ reaction, looking at events with high momentum protons ($p_p > 0.35$ GeV/c) and a low momentum neutron ($p_n< 0.2$ GeV/c). We examined two angular configurations: either both protons emitted forward or one proton emitted forward and one backward (with respect to the momentum transfer, $\vec q$). The measured relative momentum distribution of the events with one forward and one backward proton was much closer to the calculated initial-state $pp$ relative momentum distribution, indicating that this is the preferred configuration for measuring SRC.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys Rev C. Version 2 incorporates minor corrections in response to referee comment

Normal forms for coupled Takens-Bogdanov systems

The set of systems of differential equations that are in normal form with respect to a particular linear part has the structure of a module of equivariants, and is best described by giving a Stanley decomposition of that module. Groebner basis methods are used to determine the Stanley decomposition of the ring of invariants, that arise in normal forms for systems with nilpotent linear part consisting of repeated 2 x 2 Jordan blocks. Then an efficient algorithm developed by Murdock, is used to produce a Stanley decomposition of the module of the equivariants from the Stanley decomposition of the ring of invariants. Also included is a discussion of the phenomenon of asymptotic unfolding and is used to find the unfolding of single Takens-Bogdanov systems