402 research outputs found
The Price of Jails: Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration
Jails are far more expensive than previously understood, as significant jail expenditures -- such as employee salaries and benefits, health care and education programs for incarcerated people, and general administration -- are paid for by county or municipal general funds, and are not reflected in jail budgets. Drawing on surveys from 35 jail jurisdictions from 18 states, this report determined that even the jurisdictions themselves had difficulty pinning down the total cost of their local jail or jail system. It also highlights how the surest way to safely cut costs is to reduce the number of people who enter and stay in jails. In doing so, jurisdictions will be able to save resources and make the investments necessary to address the health and social service needs of their communities, which have for too long landed at the doorstep of their jails
Fe/GeTe(111) heterostructures as an avenue towards 'ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors'-based spintronics
By performing density functional theory (DFT) and Green's functions
calculations, complemented by X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy, we investigate
the electronic structure of Fe/GeTe(111), a prototypical
ferromagnetic/Rashba-ferroelectric interface. We reveal that such system
exhibits several intriguing properties resulting from the complex interplay of
exchange interaction, electric polarization and spin-orbit coupling. Despite a
rather strong interfacial hybridization between Fe and GeTe bands, resulting in
a complete suppression of the surface states of the latter, the bulk Rashba
bands are hardly altered by the ferromagnetic overlayer. This could have a deep
impact on spin dependent phenomena observed at this interface, such as
spin-to-charge interconversion, which are likely to involve bulk rather than
surface Rashba states.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Dataset on gait patterns in degenerative neurological diseases
We collected the gait parameters and lower limb joint kinematics of patients with three different types of primary degenerative neurological diseases: (i) cerebellar ataxia (19 patients), (ii) hereditary spastic paraparesis (26 patients), and (iii) Parkinson's disease (32 patients). Sixty-five gender-age matched healthy subjects were enrolled as control group. An optoelectronic motion analysis system was used to measure time-distance parameters and lower limb joint kinematics during gait in both patients and healthy controls
Ferroelectric control of the spin texture in germanium telluride
The electrical manipulation of spins in semiconductors, without magnetic
fields or auxiliary ferromagnetic materials, represents the holy grail for
spintronics. The use of Rashba effect is very attractive because the
k-dependent spin-splitting is originated by an electric field. So far only tiny
effects in two-dimensional electron gases (2DEG) have been exploited. Recently,
GeTe has been predicted to have bulk bands with giant Rashba-like splitting,
originated by the inversion symmetry breaking due to ferroelectric
polarization. In this work, we show that GeTe(111) surfaces with inwards or
outwards ferroelectric polarizations display opposite sense of circulation of
spin in bulk Rashba bands, as seen by spin and angular resolved photoemission
experiments. Our results represent the first experimental demonstration of
ferroelectric control of the spin texture in a semiconductor, a fundamental
milestone towards the exploitation of the non-volatile electrically switchable
spin texture of GeTe in spintronic devices.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Blocking Temperature Engineering in Exchange-Biased CoFeB/IrMn Bilayer
In this paper, we report on the magnetic and chemical characterization of the exchange-biased CoFeB/IrMn bilayers, grown
by magnetron sputtering on a Si-based platform and capped by either a Ru or MgO/Ru overlayer. For Ru capping, the locking temperature monotonously increases with the IrMn thickness within the investigated range (3.5–8 nm). On the contrary, for MgO/Ru capping, the exchange bias is inhibited below 6 nm, whereas above 6 nm, the magnetic behavior is the same of Ru-capped films. The chemical analysis reveals a significant dependence of the Mn content from the capping layer for thin IrMn films (2.5 nm), whereas the difference disappears when IrMn becomes thick (7 nm). Our work suggests that a non-uniform composition of the IrMn films directly affects the exchange coupling at the IrMn/CoFeB interface
Healthcare Associated Infections. educational intervention by "Adult Learning" in an Italian teaching hospital
An educational intervention for HAI prevention based on a combination of training, motivation and subsequent application in the current clinical practice in an Italian teaching hospital
Acoustic structure of male loud-calls support molecular phylogeny of Sumatran and Javanese leaf monkeys (genus Presbytis)
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The degree to which loud-calls in nonhuman primates can be used as a reliable taxonomic tool is the subject of ongoing debate. A recent study on crested gibbons showed that these species can be well distinguished by their songs; even at the population level the authors found reliable differences. Although there are some further studies on geographic and phylogenetic differences in loud-calls of nonhuman primate species, it is unclear to what extent loud-calls of other species have a similar close relation between acoustic structure, phylogenetic relatedness and geographic distance. We therefore conducted a field survey in 19 locations on Sumatra, Java and the Mentawai islands to record male loud-calls of wild surilis (<it>Presbytis</it>), a genus of Asian leaf monkeys (Colobinae) with disputed taxanomy, and compared the structure of their loud-calls with a molecular genetic analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The acoustic analysis of 100 surili male loud-calls from 68 wild animals confirms the differentiation of <it>P.potenziani, P.comata, P.thomasi </it>and <it>P.melalophos</it>. In a more detailed acoustic analysis of subspecies of <it>P.melalophos</it>, a further separation of the southern <it>P.m.mitrata </it>confirms the proposed paraphyly of this group. In concordance with their geographic distribution we found the highest correlation between call structure and genetic similarity, and lesser significant correlations between call structure and geographic distance, and genetic similarity and geographic distance.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study we show, that as in crested gibbons, the acoustic structure of surili loud-calls is a reliable tool to distinguish between species and to verify phylogenetic relatedness and migration backgrounds of respective taxa. Since vocal production in other nonhuman primates show similar constraints, it is likely that an acoustic analysis of call structure can help to clarify taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships.</p
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