Left Behind: How the Absence of a Federal Vacatur Law Disadvantages Survivors of Human Trafficking

After a hamstring injury in October of 2004 forced her to surrender her athletic scholarship at St. John\u27s University, Shamere McKenzie chose to spend her winter break working in order to save the money she needed to pay the remainder of her tuition. In January of 2005, Shamere met a man named Corey Davis, who expressed an interest in dating her. After getting to know him for several weeks, she eventually shared with him the challenges she was having earning the money she needed to continue her enrollment in college. Davis encouraged her to consider exotic dancing as a way to earn quick money, and told her he would act as her protection from the men in theclubs. Desperate to return to school and put at ease by Davis\u27s charming and intelligent demeanor, Shamere accepted his offer.Shamere became even more convinced of the sincerity of Davis\u27s promises after making $300 in less than two hours on her first night in a New Jersey strip club. Energized by the prospect of making the money she needed far more quickly than she had anticipated, Shamere accepted Davis\u27s offer to travel from the club to a house party in Brooklyn where she could earn additional income by dancing for the men in attendance. When one of the men at the house requested a sex act from her, Shamere spoke harshly to him, which Davis overheard. Instead of protecting her as she expected he would, Davis pulled Shamere to the side and demanded she do as the man requested. When she protested, Davis told her that if she tried to leave, he\u27d make sure she never made it out alive. Later that night, he threatened to kill Shamere\u27s family if she disobeyed him again, then choked her to the point of unconsciousness

A Generalized Cut-Set Bound

In this paper, we generalize the well known cut-set bound to the problem of lossy transmission of functions of arbitrarily correlated sources over a discrete memoryless multiterminal network.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, a short version of it appears in ISIT 200

Beyond the Cut-Set Bound: Uncertainty Computations in Network Coding with Correlated Sources

Cut-set bounds on achievable rates for network communication protocols are not in general tight. In this paper we introduce a new technique for proving converses for the problem of transmission of correlated sources in networks, that results in bounds that are tighter than the corresponding cut-set bounds. We also define the concept of "uncertainty region" which might be of independent interest. We provide a full characterization of this region for the case of two correlated random variables. The bounding technique works as follows: on one hand we show that if the communication problem is solvable, the uncertainty of certain random variables in the network with respect to imaginary parties that have partial knowledge of the sources must satisfy some constraints that depend on the network architecture. On the other hand, the same uncertainties have to satisfy constraints that only depend on the joint distribution of the sources. Matching these two leads to restrictions on the statistical joint distribution of the sources in communication problems that are solvable over a given network architecture.Comment: 12 pages, A short version appears in ISIT 201

On Marton's Inner Bound for the General Broadcast Channel

We establish several new results on Marton's coding scheme and its corresponding inner bound on the capacity region of the general broadcast channel. We show that unlike the Gaussian case, Marton's coding scheme without superposition coding is not optimal in general even for a degraded broadcast channel with no common message. We then establish properties of Marton's inner bound that help restrict the search space for computing the sum-rate. Next, we show that the inner bound is optimal along certain directions. Finally, we propose a coding scheme that may lead to a larger inner bound.Comment: 14 pages, Submitted to IEEE Transactions in Information Theor

Difficulties of Simultaneous Interpreting from ‎Translation Students‏'‏‎ Perspective

The present study is a survey that explored the difficulties of simultaneous interpreting (SI) for translation students. The survey addressed the senior translation students in the Kurdistan Region, asking them about the troubles of SI from English into Kurdish or Arabic in the classrooms. Relying on the available models in interpreting studies reviewed by Pöchhacker (2004), this study assessed the students` difficulties in SI from the linguistic, cultural, cognitive, interactional, and translational aspects. For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among the students, covering the issues relevant to the cited dimensions. Sixty respondents participated in the survey, whose responses were statistically analyzed and discussed in this paper. The results revealed that the cognitive issues- i.e., comprehending fast speaking, concentration, memorization, controlling stress, encyclopedic knowledge, and strategic thinking- formed the highest degree of difficulty (22%) for the students. In sum, working on all aspects of SI should be emphasized by the translation teachers in the classroom to pave the way for developing the students` skills and abilities in these respects

Thyroid scintigraphy in three-year-old children with congenital hypothyroidism in correlation with neonatal TSH

Introduction: A large number of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) cases in Iran are transient. This study was designed to investigate the aetiology of permanent CH (PCH) by thyroid scintigraphy (TS) and its relationship with the first diagnostic thyrotropin (TSH).Material and methods: During 12 years (2005–2017) of CH screening in southwest Iran, all infants referred with the diagnosis of CH were followed until their third birthday, when they were re-evaluated for serum T4, TSH after discontinuing the treatment for 3–4 weeks. If the last test indicated a PCH state (TSH >10 mU/L with any levels of T4), TS was performed, and, based on the results, the patients were categorised as agenesis, dysgenesis (sublingual, thyroglossal cyst), and normal/diffuse goitre (indicating dyshormonogenesis).Results: After excluding all transient CH subjects, 224 permanent CH cases were enrolled (52.7% female). Seasonal distributions were as follows: spring: 25.7%, summer: 27.9%, autumn: 20.3%, and winter: 26.1%. No significant differences were found between females and males and the different modes of delivery (55.4% were delivered by caesarean section) regarding T4, TSH (p > 0.05). Of a total of 213 performed scans, 20.7% had agenesis, 36.2% had dysgenesis, and 43.2% were normal or goitrous. Those with agenesis/dysgenetic thyroidhad a lower T4 and a higher TSH than those with normal scans. However, the differences were not significant. Compared to those who had TSH < 40 mU/L, patients with TSH ≥ 40mU/L had 46% (95% CI: 1.06–2.02) more risk of agenesis or dysgenesis in TS.Conclusions: More than 40% of PCH are caused by dyshormonogenesis in Iran. Having a TSH ≥ 40 mU/L after the first week of life significantly raises the probability of thyroid agenesis/dysgenesis as the cause

Prevalence and Distribution of Carabelli Cusp in Maxillary Molars in Deciduous and Permanent Dentition and Its Relation to Tooth Size in a Group of Iranian Adult and Pediatric Dental Patients

Background: Carabelli cusp is a dental morphologic anomaly arising on the palatal side of the mesiopalatal cusp of maxillary first or second molars. It is believed that this cusp is seen in people with larger teeth. Since it has different prevalence among populations, it can be used in forensic dentistry. As well, dentists should be aware of common dental anomalies that might impact dental treatments. In this study, the prevalence of Carabelli cusp and its relation to tooth size in permanent and deciduous dentitions in Iranian population was assessed.Methods: This analytic-descriptive study was performed on 129 (43 deciduous, 86 permanent) patients and their dental casts. First and second molars were observed for the presence of Carabelli cusp. Mesiodistal width of teeth was recorded by using a vernier calliper. The data were analyzed by the Independent t test, Chi-square and Mann Whitney statistical tests using SPSS 18.Results: Frequency of Carabelli trait were respectively 72% and 62% in deciduous and permanent dentitions. No significant difference was seen between males and females in this study in both studied dentitions (P>0.05). Dentitions with Carabelli cusp had larger mesiodistal width compared to other groups in both dentitions (P<0.001). Conclusion: Carabelli cusp in the studied Iranian population was higher compared to other Asian populations. In addition, its bilateral occurrence like a shallow groove in first maxillary molars was related to larger tooth size in both dentitions