2,480 research outputs found
The 'War on Poverty' after 40 Years: A Minskyan Assessment
Hyman Minsky is best known for his work in the area of financial economics, and especially for his financial instability hypothesis. In recent years, some authors have also recognized his advocacy of the “employer of last resort” as part of his “big government” intervention to help maintain stability. However, very little research has been undertaken regarding Minsky’s early involvement in the “War on Poverty.” This paper will trace the development of Minsky’s thinking on antipoverty policies to his support for welfare reform and federal job creation programsWar on Poverty, employer of last resort, anti-poverty programs, Hyman Minsky, unemployment, job creation, welfare, economic opportunity, Keynesian policy, demand stimulus, full employment, structuralist
Violence Against Sex Workers in Latin America: Pervasiveness, Impunity, and Implications
On December 17, 2005, two transgendered sex workers in Guatemala City were shot in the head, one fatally. Witnesses—including the survivor—alleged that police forces shot the victims. Human rights advocates have argued that the attack was part of a broader social cleansing campaign that has targeted all sex workers.
Sex workers in Latin America are subjected to violence regularly. This violence varies greatly, but its pervasiveness and the impunity for perpetrators are two common themes. Violence against sex workers comes from many different sources: police, pimps, johns, serial killers, gang members and others. The violence also takes many forms, including arbitrary confinement, physical and sexual assault, torture, and murder. The police often do not consider violence against sex workers to be a crime, and therefore do not try to investigate or prosecute known perpetrators. Other times, the police are the perpetrators of the violence
Tsirelson bounds for generalized Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequalities
Quantum theory imposes a strict limit on the strength of non-local
correlations. It only allows for a violation of the CHSH inequality up to the
value 2 sqrt(2), known as Tsirelson's bound. In this note, we consider
generalized CHSH inequalities based on many measurement settings with two
possible measurement outcomes each. We demonstrate how to prove Tsirelson
bounds for any such generalized CHSH inequality using semidefinite programming.
As an example, we show that for any shared entangled state and observables
X_1,...,X_n and Y_1,...,Y_n with eigenvalues +/- 1 we have | + <X_2
Y_1> + + + ... + - | <= 2 n
cos(pi/(2n)). It is well known that there exist observables such that equality
can be achieved. However, we show that these are indeed optimal. Our approach
can easily be generalized to other inequalities for such observables.Comment: 9 pages, LateX, V2: Updated reference [3]. To appear in Physical
Review
Shock volume: Patient-specific cumulative hypoperfusion predicts organ dysfunction in a prospective cohort of multiply injured patients
BACKGROUND:
Multiply injured patients are at risk of developing hemorrhagic shock and organ dysfunction. We determined how cumulative hypoperfusion predicted organ dysfunction by integrating serial Shock Index measurements.
METHODS:
In this study, we calculated shock volume (SHVL) which is a patient-specific index that quantifies cumulative hypoperfusion by integrating abnormally elevated Shock Index (heart rate/systolic blood pressure ≥ 0.9) values acutely after injury. Shock volume was calculated at three hours (3 hr), six hours (6 hr), and twenty-four hours (24 hr) after injury. Organ dysfunction was quantified using Marshall Organ Dysfunction Scores averaged from days 2 through 5 after injury (aMODSD2–D5). Logistic regression was used to determine correspondence of 3hrSHVL, 6hrSHVL, and 24hrSHVL to organ dysfunction. We compared correspondence of SHVL to organ dysfunction with traditional indices of shock including the initial base deficit (BD) and the lowest pH measurement made in the first 24 hr after injury (minimum pH).
RESULTS:
SHVL at all three time intervals demonstrated higher correspondence to organ dysfunction (R2 = 0.48 to 0.52) compared to initial BD (R2 = 0.32) and minimum pH (R2 = 0.32). Additionally, we compared predictive capabilities of SHVL, initial BD and minimum pH to identify patients at risk of developing high-magnitude organ dysfunction by constructing receiver operator characteristic curves. SHVL at six hours and 24 hours had higher area under the curve compared to initial BD and minimum pH.
CONCLUSION:
SHVL is a non-invasive metric that can predict anticipated organ dysfunction and identify patients at risk for high-magnitude organ dysfunction after injury.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:
Prognostic study, level III
Present and future of surface-enhanced Raman scattering
The discovery of the enhancement of Raman scattering by molecules adsorbed on nanostructured metal surfaces is a landmark in the history of spectroscopic and analytical techniques. Significant experimental and theoretical effort has been directed toward understanding the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect and demonstrating its potential in various types of ultrasensitive sensing applications in a wide variety of fields. In the 45 years since its discovery, SERS has blossomed into a rich area of research and technology, but additional efforts are still needed before it can be routinely used analytically and in commercial products. In this Review, prominent authors from around the world joined together to summarize the state of the art in understanding and using SERS and to predict what can be expected in the near future in terms of research, applications, and technological development. This Review is dedicated to SERS pioneer and our coauthor, the late Prof. Richard Van Duyne, whom we lost during the preparation of this article
Using post-measurement information in state discrimination
We consider a special form of state discrimination in which after the
measurement we are given additional information that may help us identify the
state. This task plays a central role in the analysis of quantum cryptographic
protocols in the noisy-storage model, where the identity of the state
corresponds to a certain bit string, and the additional information is
typically a choice of encoding that is initially unknown to the cheating party.
We first provide simple optimality conditions for measurements for any such
problem, and show upper and lower bounds on the success probability. For a
certain class of problems, we furthermore provide tight bounds on how useful
post-measurement information can be. In particular, we show that for this class
finding the optimal measurement for the task of state discrimination with
post-measurement information does in fact reduce to solving a different problem
of state discrimination without such information. However, we show that for the
corresponding classical state discrimination problems with post-measurement
information such a reduction is impossible, by relating the success probability
to the violation of Bell inequalities. This suggests the usefulness of
post-measurement information as another feature that distinguishes the
classical from a quantum world.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, revtex, v2: published version, minor change
A time-dependent Tsirelson's bound from limits on the rate of information gain in quantum systems
We consider the problem of distinguishing between a set of arbitrary quantum
states in a setting in which the time available to perform the measurement is
limited. We provide simple upper bounds on how well we can perform state
discrimination in a given time as a function of either the average energy or
the range of energies available during the measurement. We exhibit a specific
strategy that nearly attains this bound. Finally, we consider several
applications of our result. First, we obtain a time-dependent Tsirelson's bound
that limits the extent of the Bell inequality violation that can be in
principle be demonstrated in a given time t. Second, we obtain a
Margolus-Levitin type bound when considering the special case of distinguishing
orthogonal pure states.Comment: 15 pages, revtex, 1 figur
Teaching Emergent Bilinguals: How In-service Teachers’ Perception of First Language Acquisition Theories Inform Practice
Different writers, linguists, and researchers present nuances in language acquisition theories. However, few studies explore in-service teachers’ voices in such discourses. It is, therefore, imperative to explore the voices of in-service teachers in such narratives as they teach emergent bilinguals (EBs) and culturally and linguistically diverse students. This paper examined how in-service teachers perceive First Language Acquisition (FLA) theories and how those perceptions influence teaching EBs and informing classroom practice. Centering on Freeman and Freeman’s discussion of five FLA theories (imitation, reinforcement, behaviorist, social interaction, active construction, connectionist), we argue that in-service teachers’ perceptions of first language acquisition theories impact how they teach and engage EBs in their classrooms. Findings show that in-service teachers consider the social interaction theory most beneficial to students’ language development. However, the precariousness of FLA theories makes it challenging for them to determine the best approach to teaching EBs. Additionally, teacher education programs and critical professional development (PD) courses are instrumental in fostering understanding and robust pedagogical mindsets and preparing teachers to meet the needs of emergent bilinguals.  
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus acquisition in healthcare workers with cystic fibrosis: a retrospective cross-sectional study.
Background People with cystic fibrosis (CF) may work in healthcare settings risking nosocomial pathogen acquisition. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in adult healthcare workers with CF (HCWcf). Methods Data was collected in this observational study on MRSA acquisition from 405 CF patients attending an adult CF centre in Australia between 2001–2012. Demographic and clinical characteristics were compared between HCWcf and non-HCWcf. A sub-analysis was subsequently performed to compare demographic and clinical characteristics between those patients (HCWcf versus non-HCWcf) that acquired MRSA. We also investigated rates of chronic MRSA infection and the outcome of eradication treatment in HCWcf. Results A higher proportion of HCWcf acquired MRSA [n = 10/21] compared to non-HCWcf [n = 40/255] (P <0.001). The odds of MRSA acquisition were 8.4 (95 % CI, 3.0 – 23.4) times greater in HCWcf than non-HCWcf. HCWcf with MRSA were older (P = 0.02) and had better lung function (P = 0.009), yet hospitalisation rates were similar compared to non-HCWcf with MRSA. Chronic MRSA infection developed in 36/50 CF patients (HCWcf, n = 6; non-HCWcf, n = 30), with eradication therapy achieved in 5/6 (83 %) HCWcf. Conclusions The rate of MRSA incidence was highest in HCWcf and the workplace is a possible source of acquisition. Vocational guidance should include the potential for MRSA acquisition for CF patients considering healthcare professions
A New Giant Stellar Structure in the Outer Halo of M31
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has revealed an overdensity of luminous red
giant stars ~ 3 degrees (40 projected kpc) to the northeast of M31, which we
have called Andromeda NE. The line-of-sight distance to Andromeda NE is within
approximately 50 kpc of M31; Andromeda NE is not a physically unrelated
projection. Andromeda NE has a g-band absolute magnitude of ~ -11.6 and central
surface brightness of ~ 29 mag/sq.arcsec, making it nearly two orders of
magnitude more diffuse than any known Local Group dwarf galaxy at that
luminosity. Based on its distance and morphology, Andromeda NE is likely
undergoing tidal disruption. Andromeda NE's red giant branch color is unlike
that of M31's present-day outer disk or the stellar stream reported by Ibata et
al. (2001), arguing against a direct link between Andromeda NE and these
structures. However, Andromeda NE has a red giant branch color similar to that
of the G1 clump; it is possible that these structures are both material torn
off of M31's disk in the distant past, or that these are both part of one
ancient stellar stream.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; ApJ Letters accepted versio
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