Working in the Public Interest Law Conference

The two-day conference included a variety of panel discussions and roundtables on such topics as: civil liberties; race and the criminal justice system; decriminalizing mental illness; funding public defender systems; the media\u27s role in the law; immigration; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth in state sponsored institutions; environmental justice; and women\u27s reproductive rights

A Comparison of some Different Techniques for Vector Based Call-Routing

Two approaches to vector-based call-routing are described, one based on matching queries to routes and the other on matching queries directly to stored queries. We argue that there are some problems with the former approach, both when used directly and when latent semantic analysis (LSA) is used to reduce the dimensionality of the vectors. However, the second approach imposes a higher computational load than the first and we have experimented with reducing the number of reference vectors (using the multi-edit and condense algorithm) and the dimensionality of the vectors (using linear discriminant analysis (LDA)). Results are presented for the task of routing queries on banking and financial services to one of thirty-two destinations. Best results (5.1% routing error) were obtained by first using LSA to smooth the query vectors followed by LDA to increase discrimination and reduce vector dimensionality

Linear mixed-effect model for transformed minimum reaction times (s^-1.5).

<p>Linear mixed-effect model for transformed minimum reaction times (s^-1.5).</p

Sprinter minimum reaction times by sex and year in the 2004–2016 Olympics.

<p>(A) Scatter plot of reaction times by sex and year. The solid black circles and bars represent the mean and ±3SD reaction times after back-transformation. The hatched area designates reaction times deemed by IAAF rule to be a false start. The number of false starts reported for the 100 m sprints, 100 m hurdles, and 110 m hurdles were: 1 false start in 2004 and 2008 each, 3 in 2012, and 2 in 2016. (B) Mean (±2SE) transformed minimum reaction times (s^-1.5) by sex and year. The 100 ms false start threshold when transformed becomes 31.6 s^-1.5. The most parsimonious Linear Mixed-effect Model found to fit the data used a random intercept for each athlete. The fixed effects consisted of Olympic year as a factor with 3 levels (2004 and 2008 together, 2012, and 2016), Sex as a factor with 2 levels, with the interaction of Olympic year by sex. As a check, the predicted mean values from the LMM were found (the black dots and dashed lines) and agreed well with the original data (red and blue lines). Minimum reaction times decreased significantly by year (See <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0198633#sec003" target="_blank">Results</a> section). Note that the 2010 IAAF rule change decreed that any runner who false started would be disqualified from the race, and that applied to the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.</p

On the apparent decrease in Olympic sprinter reaction times

<div><p>Reaction times of Olympic sprinters provide insights into the most rapid of human response times. To determine whether minimum reaction times have changed as athlete training has become ever more specialized, we analyzed the results from the Olympic Games between 2004 and 2016. The results for the 100 m and 110 m hurdle events show that minimum reaction times have systematically decreased between 2004 and 2016 for both sexes, with women showing a marked decrease since 2008 that eliminated the sex difference in 2012. Because overall race times have not systematically decreased between 2004 and 2016, the most likely explanation for the apparent decrease in reaction times is a reduction in the proprietary force thresholds used to calculate the reaction times based on force sensors in starting blocks—and not the result of more specialized or effective training.</p></div