Federal Rule of Evidence 502: Has It Lived Up to Its Potential?

Nothing causes litigators greater anxiety than the possibility of doing, or failing to do, something during a civil case that waives attorney– client privilege or work-product protection. Attend any seminar, webcast, podcast, or other continuing legal education course dealing with the discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”) and you are sure to hear about this concern and how to mitigate it

A Collaborative Framework for Data Management Services: The Experience of the University of California

The National Science Foundation and other funding agencies now require researchers to include data management plans with new grant proposals. Faced with this requirement, researchers are looking to libraries for help with various aspects of research data management and curation, from creating data management plans to archiving and providing access to their research data. The University of California Libraries deliver a growing range of services and tools such as the DMPTool, EZID, Merritt, Web Archiving Service and campus-based data management programs. This article discusses these initiatives, tools, and methods for campus engagement and faculty outreach, plus opportunities and challenges in developing library data services

Dark Matter Annihilation in The Galactic Center As Seen by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope

We analyze the first two years of data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope from the direction of the inner 10 degrees around the Galactic Center with the intention of constraining, or finding evidence of, annihilating dark matter. We find that the morphology and spectrum of the emission between 1.25 degrees and 10 degrees from the Galactic Center is well described by a the processes of decaying pions produced in cosmic ray collisions with gas, and the inverse Compton scattering of cosmic ray electrons in both the disk and bulge of the Inner Galaxy, along with gamma rays from known points sources in the region. The observed spectrum and morphology of the emission within approximately 1.25 degrees (~175 parsecs) of the Galactic Center, in contrast, departs from the expectations for by these processes. Instead, we find an additional component of gamma ray emission that is highly concentrated around the Galactic Center. The observed morphology of this component is consistent with that predicted from annihilating dark matter with a cusped (and possibly adiabatically contracted) halo distribution (density proportional to r^{-gamma}, with gamma=1.18 to 1.33). The observed spectrum of this component, which peaks at energies between 1-4 GeV (in E^2 units), can be well fit by a 7-10 GeV dark matter particle annihilating primarily to tau leptons with a cross section in the range of 4.6 x 10^-27 to 5.3 x 10^-26 cm^3/s, depending on how the dark matter distribution is normalized. We also discuss other sources for this emission, including the possibility that much of it originates from the Milky Way's supermassive black hole.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figure

The PAMELA Positron Excess from Annihilations into a Light Boson

Recently published results from the PAMELA experiment have shown conclusive evidence for an excess of positrons at high (~ 10 - 100 GeV) energies, confirming earlier indications from HEAT and AMS-01. Such a signal is generally expected from dark matter annihilations. However, the hard positron spectrum and large amplitude are difficult to achieve in most conventional WIMP models. The absence of any associated excess in anti-protons is highly constraining on any model with hadronic annihilation modes. We revisit an earlier proposal, whereby the dark matter annihilates into a new light (<~GeV) boson phi, which is kinematically constrained to go to hard leptonic states, without anti-protons or pi0's. We find this provides a very good fit to the data. The light boson naturally provides a mechanism by which large cross sections can be achieved through the Sommerfeld enhancement, as was recently proposed. Depending on the mass of the WIMP, the rise may continue above 300 GeV, the extent of PAMELA's ability to discriminate electrons and positrons.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v3 separated pions plot, references adde

Integration of molecular profiles in a longitudinal wellness profiling cohort

An important aspect of precision medicine is to probe the stability in molecular profiles among healthy individuals over time. Here, we sample a longitudinal wellness cohort with 100 healthy individuals and analyze blood molecular profiles including proteomics, transcriptomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, autoantibodies and immune cell profiling, complemented with gut microbiota composition and routine clinical chemistry. Overall, our results show high variation between individuals across different molecular readouts, while the intra-individual baseline variation is low. The analyses show that each individual has a unique and stable plasma protein profile throughout the study period and that many individuals also show distinct profiles with regards to the other omics datasets, with strong underlying connections between the blood proteome and the clinical chemistry parameters. In conclusion, the results support an individual-based definition of health and show that comprehensive omics profiling in a longitudinal manner is a path forward for precision medicine

Discerning Secluded Sector gauge structures

New fundamental particles, charged under new gauge groups and only weakly coupled to the standard sector, could exist at fairly low energy scales. In this article we study a selection of such models, where the secluded group either contains a softly broken U(1) or an unbroken SU(N). In the Abelian case new {\gamma}v gauge bosons can be radiated off and decay back into visible particles. In the non-Abelian case there will not only be a cascade in the hidden sector, but also hadronization into new {\pi}v and {\rho}v mesons that can decay back. This framework is developed to be applicable both for e+e- and pp collisions, but for these first studies we concentrate on the former process type. For each Abelian and non-Abelian group we study three different scenarios for the communication between the standard sector and the secluded one. We illustrate how to distinguish the various characteristics of the models and especially study to what extent the underlying gauge structure can be determined experimentally.Comment: removed extra figure

Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections through Hand Hygiene

Previously published guidelines provide comprehensive recommendations for hand hygiene in healthcare facilities. The intent of this document is to highlight practical recommendations in a concise format, update recommendations with the most current scientific evidence, and elucidate topics that warrant clarification or more robust research. Additionally, this document is designed to assist healthcare facilities in implementing hand hygiene adherence improvement programs, including efforts to optimize hand hygiene product use, monitor and report back hand hygiene adherence data, and promote behavior change. This expert guidance document is sponsored by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and is the product of a collaborative effort led by SHEA, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the American Hospital Association (AHA), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), and The Joint Commission, with major contributions from representatives of a number of organizations and societies with content expertise. The list of endorsing and supporting organizations is presented in the introduction to the 2014 updates

Meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies in neonates reveals widespread differential DNA methylation associated with birthweight

Birthweight is associated with health outcomes across the life course, DNA methylation may be an underlying mechanism. In this meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies of 8,825 neonates from 24 birth cohorts in the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics Consortium, we find that DNA methylation in neonatal blood is associated with birthweight at 914 sites, with a difference in birthweight ranging from -183 to 178 grams per 10% increase in methylation (P-Bonferroni <1.06 x 10(-7)). In additional analyses in 7,278 participants,Peer reviewe