Protection of Domestic Violence Victims Under the New York City Human Rights Law\u27s Provisions Prohibiting Discrimination on the Basis of Disability

This Article analyzes the need to create a new protected class of domestic violence victims to shield them from discrimination in employment. The Article examines arguments for and against proposed legislation to revise the human rights law governing disability, section 8-107 of the New York City Administration Code. The Article concludes that this legislation is unnecessary because the law already provides sufficient protection to domestic violence victims without requiring that victims disclose their domestic violence status to their employers

Filament Hunting: Integrated HI 21cm Emission From Filaments Inferred by Galaxy Surveys

Large scale filaments, with lengths that can reach tens of Mpc, are the most prominent features in the cosmic web. These filaments have only been observed indirectly through the positions of galaxies in large galaxy surveys or through absorption features in the spectra of high redshift sources. In this study we propose to go one step further and directly detect intergalactic medium filaments through their emission in the HI 21cm line. We make use of high resolution cosmological simulations to estimate the intensity of this emission in low redshift filaments and use it to make predictions for the direct detectability of specific filaments previously inferred from galaxy surveys, in particular the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Given the expected signal of these filaments our study shows that HI emission from large filaments can be observed by current and next generation radio telescopes. We estimate that gas in filaments of length $l \gtrsim$ 15 $h^{-1}$Mpc with relatively small inclinations to the line of sight ($\lesssim 10^\circ$) can be observed in $\sim40-100$ hours with telescopes such as GMRT or EVLA, potentially providing large improvements over our knowledge of the astrophysical properties of these filaments. Due to their large field of view and sufficiently long integration times, upcoming HI surveys with the Apertif and ASKAP instruments will be able to detect large filaments independently of their orientation and curvature. Furthermore, our estimates indicate that a more powerful future radio telescope like SKA-2 can be used to map most of these filaments, which will allow them to be used as a strong cosmological probe.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

The exit-time problem for a Markov jump process

The purpose of this paper is to consider the exit-time problem for a finite-range Markov jump process, i.e, the distance the particle can jump is bounded independent of its location. Such jump diffusions are expedient models for anomalous transport exhibiting super-diffusion or nonstandard normal diffusion. We refer to the associated deterministic equation as a volume-constrained nonlocal diffusion equation. The volume constraint is the nonlocal analogue of a boundary condition necessary to demonstrate that the nonlocal diffusion equation is well-posed and is consistent with the jump process. A critical aspect of the analysis is a variational formulation and a recently developed nonlocal vector calculus. This calculus allows us to pose nonlocal backward and forward Kolmogorov equations, the former equation granting the various moments of the exit-time distribution.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

An evaluation of the Amblyopia and Strabismus Questionnaire using Rasch analysis

noPURPOSE. To evaluate whether the Amblyopia and Strabismus Questionnaire (A&SQ) is a suitable instrument for the assessment of vision-related quality-of life (VR-QoL) in individuals with strabismus and/or amblyopia. METHODS. The A&SQ was completed by 102 individuals, all of whom had amblyopia, strabismus, or both. Rasch analysis was used to evaluate the usefulness of individual questionnaire items (i.e., questions); the response-scale performance; how well the items targeted VR-QoL; whether individual items showed response bias, depending on factors such as whether strabismus was present; and dimensionality. RESULTS. Items relating to concerns about the appearance of the eyes were applicable only to those with strabismus, and many items showed large ceiling effects. The response scale showed disordered responses and underused response options, which improved after the number of response options was reduced from five to three. This change improved the discriminative ability of the questionnaire (person separation index increased from 1.98 to 2.11). Significant bias was found between strabismic and nonstrabismic respondents. Separate Rasch analyses conducted for subjects with and without strabismus indicated that all A&SQ items seemed appropriate for individuals with strabismus (Rasch infit values between 0.60 and 1.40), but several items fitted the model poorly in amblyopes without strabismus. The AS&Q was not found to be unidimensional. CONCLUSIONS. The findings highlight the limitations of the A&SQ instrument in the assessment of VR-QoL in subjects with strabismus and especially in those with amblyopia alone. The results suggest that separate instruments are needed to quantify VR-QoL in amblyopes with and without strabismus

Tomographic Intensity Mapping versus Galaxy Surveys: Observing the Universe in H-alpha emission with new generation instruments

The H-alpha line emission is an important probe for a number of fundamental quantities in galaxies, including their number density, star formation rate (SFR) and overall gas content. A new generation of low-resolution intensity mapping probes, e.g. SPHEREx and CDIM, will observe galaxies in H-alpha emission over a large fraction of the sky from the local Universe till a redshift of z ~ 6 to 10, respectively. This will also be the target line for observations by the high-resolution Euclid and WFIRST instruments in the z ~ 0.7 - 2 redshift range. In this paper, we estimate the intensity and power spectra of the H-alpha line in the z ~ 0 - 5 redshift range using observed line luminosity functions (LFs), when possible, and simulations, otherwise. We estimate the significance of our predictions by accounting for the modelling uncertainties (e.g. SFR, extinction, etc.) and observational contamination. We find that Intensity Mapping (IM) surveys can make a statistical detection of the full H-alpha emission between z ~ 0.8 - 5. Moreover, we find that the high-frequency resolution and the sensitivity of the planned CDIM surveys allow for the separation of H-alpha emission from several interloping lines. We explore ways to use the combination of these line intensities to probe galaxy properties. As expected, our study indicates that galaxy surveys will only detect bright galaxies that contribute up to a few percent of the overall H-alpha intensity. However, these surveys will provide important constraints on the high end of the H-alpha LF and put strong constraints on the AGN LF.Comment: Submitted to MNRA

Cosmology with intensity mapping techniques using atomic and molecular lines

We present a systematic study of the intensity mapping technique using updated models for the different emission lines from galaxies and identify which ones are more promising for cosmological studies of the post reionization epoch. We consider the emission of ${\rm Ly\alpha}$, ${\rm H\alpha}$, H$\beta$, optical and infrared oxygen lines, nitrogen lines, CII and the CO rotational lines. We then identify that ${\rm Ly\alpha}$, ${\rm H\alpha}$, OII, CII and the lowest rotational CO lines are the best candidates to be used as IM probes. These lines form a complementary set of probes of the galaxies emission spectra. We then use reasonable experimental setups from current, planned or proposed experiments to access the detectability of the power spectrum of each emission line. Intensity mapping of ${\rm Ly\alpha}$ emission from $z=2$ to 3 will be possible in the near future with HETDEX, while far-infrared lines require new dedicated experiments. We also show that the proposed SPHEREx satellite can use OII and ${\rm H\alpha}$ IM to study the large-scale distribution of matter in intermediate redshifts of 1 to 4. We found that submilimeter experiments with bolometers can have similar performances at intermediate redshifts using CII and CO(3-2).Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, 5 tables, published in MNRAS, typos correcte

Modularity from Fluctuations in Random Graphs and Complex Networks

The mechanisms by which modularity emerges in complex networks are not well understood but recent reports have suggested that modularity may arise from evolutionary selection. We show that finding the modularity of a network is analogous to finding the ground-state energy of a spin system. Moreover, we demonstrate that, due to fluctuations, stochastic network models give rise to modular networks. Specifically, we show both numerically and analytically that random graphs and scale-free networks have modularity. We argue that this fact must be taken into consideration to define statistically-significant modularity in complex networks.Comment: 4 page