Empirilegal Analysis: Commencement of a Dialogue, or a Battle?

As disciplines, law and science involve different ways of doing essentially the same thing: render the best possible decision based on existing information. In their efforts to accomplish this shared goal, law and science use different methods and speak different languages. In recent years, however, law and science have been increasingly working in the same arenas. Naturally, this can lead to tension because of the ways in which the two disciplines differ. Sometimes this tension demonstrates itself as outright conflict as it did when Epstein and King came out with their controversial “Rules of Inference” in which they criticized legal scholars for misusing scientific methods to examine subjects in law. Legal scholars did not hesitate to respond vehemently by criticizing Epstein and King’s own misuse of scientific methods despite their being empirical scholars. In his response, one legal scholar response alluded to the fact that an opportunity had been lost for a meaningful dialogue. This paper uses that scholar’s allusion as a starting point for a commentary on how a battle could be turned into a dialogue by shedding light on the cultural differences between law and science. This commentary will review the Epstein and King paper as well as the resulting three formal responses. It will conclude with the suggestion that a battle ensued instead of a dialogue because of an incongruence between the cultures and languages that form the foundations of law and science

OGO-6 gas-surface energy transfer experiment

The kinetic energy flux of the upper atmosphere was analyzed using OGO-6 data. Energy transfer between 10 microwatts/sq cm and 0.1 W/sq cm was measured by short-term frequency changes of temperature-sensitive quartz crystals used in the energy transfer probe. The condition of the surfaces was continuously monitored by a quartz crystal microbalance to determine the effect surface contamination had on energy accommodation. Results are given on the computer analysis and laboratory tests performed to optimize the operation of the energy transfer probe. Data are also given on the bombardment of OGO-6 surfaces by high energy particles. The thermoelectrically-cooled quartz crystal microbalance is described in terms of its development and applications

A comparison of sensitivity-specificity imputation, direct imputation and fully Bayesian analysis to adjust for exposure misclassification when validation data are unavailable.

: Measurement error is an important source of bias in epidemiological studies. We illustrate three approaches to sensitivity analysis for the effect of measurement error: imputation of the 'true' exposure based on specifying the sensitivity and specificity of the measured exposure (SS); direct imputation (DI) using a regression model for the predictive values; and adjustment based on a fully Bayesian analysis. : We deliberately misclassify smoking status in data from a case-control study of lung cancer. We then implement the SS and DI methods using fixed-parameter (FBA) and probabilistic (PBA) bias analyses, and Bayesian analysis using the Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo program WinBUGS to show how well each recovers the original association. : The 'true' smoking-lung cancer odds ratio (OR), adjusted for sex in the original dataset, was OR = 8.18 [95% confidence limits (CL): 5.86, 11.43]; after misclassification, it decreased to OR = 3.08 (nominal 95% CL: 2.40, 3.96). The adjusted point estimates from all three approaches were always closer to the 'true' OR than the OR estimated from the unadjusted misclassified smoking data, and the adjusted interval estimates were always wider than the unadjusted interval estimate. When imputed misclassification parameters departed much from the actual misclassification, the 'true' OR was often omitted in the FBA intervals whereas it was always included in the PBA and Bayesian intervals. : These results illustrate how PBA and Bayesian analyses can be used to better account for uncertainty and bias due to measurement error.<br/

Search for antiproton decay at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator

A search for antiproton decay has been made at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator. Limits are placed on thirteen antiproton decay modes. The results include the first explicit experimental limits on the muonic decay modes of the antiproton, and the first limits on the decay modes e- gamma gamma, and e- omega. The most stringent limit is for the decay mode pbar-> e- gamma. At 90% C.L. we find that tau/B(pbar-> e- gamma) > 7 x 10^5 yr. The most stringent limit for decay modes with a muon in the final state is for the decay pbar-> mu- gamma. At 90% C.L. we find that tau/B(pbar-> mu- gamma) > 5 x 10^4 yr.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Final results on 13 channels (was 15) are presente

Practical Methods for Continuous Gravitational Wave Detection using Pulsar Timing Data

Gravitational Waves (GWs) are tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein's General Relativity. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are well poised to detect low frequency ($10^{-9}$ -- $10^{-7}$ Hz) GWs in the near future. There has been a significant amount of research into the detection of a stochastic background of GWs from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs). Recent work has shown that single continuous sources standing out above the background may be detectable by PTAs operating at a sensitivity sufficient to detect the stochastic background. The most likely sources of continuous GWs in the pulsar timing frequency band are extremely massive and/or nearby SMBHBs. In this paper we present detection strategies including various forms of matched filtering and power spectral summing. We determine the efficacy and computational cost of such strategies. It is shown that it is computationally infeasible to use an optimal matched filter including the poorly constrained pulsar distances with a grid based method. We show that an Earth-term-matched filter constructed using only the correlated signal terms is both computationally viable and highly sensitive to GW signals. This technique is only a factor of two less sensitive than the computationally unrealizable optimal matched filter and a factor of two more sensitive than a power spectral summing technique. We further show that a pairwise matched filter, taking the pulsar distances into account is comparable to the optimal matched filter for the single template case and comparable to the Earth-term-matched filter for many search templates. Finally, using simulated data optimal quality, we place a theoretical minimum detectable strain amplitude of $h>2\times 10^{-15}$ from continuous GWs at frequencies on the order $\sim1/T_{\rm obs}$.Comment: submitted to Ap

Meta-analysis of the effects of laidlomycin propionate, fed alone or in combination with chlortetracycline, compared with monensin sodium, fed alone or in combination with tylosin, on growth performance, health, and carcass outcomes in finishing steers in North America

Citation: Cernicchiaro, N., Corbin, M., Quinn, M., Prouty, F., Branine, M., & Renter, D. G. (2016). Meta-analysis of the effects of laidlomycin propionate, fed alone or in combination with chlortetracycline, compared with monensin sodium, fed alone or in combination with tylosin, on growth performance, health, and carcass outcomes in finishing steers in North America. Journal of Animal Science, 94(4), 1662-1676. doi:10.2527/jas2015-0086The objective of this research was to use data from multiple studies to comprehensively quantify the effects of feeding 1) laidlomycin propionate (LP), alone and/or in combination with chlortetracycline, compared with 2) monensin sodium (MS), alone and/or in combination with tylosin, at commercially approved dosages, on ADG, DMI, feed efficiency (FE), mortality, and carcass characteristics (HCW and liver abscesses). A secondary objective was to explore potential sources of heterogeneity among the comparative effectiveness studies. A systematic review of peer-reviewed literature and industry reports was used to identify studies that included direct comparisons of these treatments in finishing steers in North America. Random-effects meta-analysis models of performance, carcass, and health-related outcomes were fitted with extracted data, consisting of a total of 17 data sets comprising a total of 135 pens and 13,603 steers. Results showed that pens of steers fed LP had increased ADG (live and carcass adjusted), DMI, and HCW compared with those fed monensin (P 0.05) were identified for FE or for health-related outcomes (overall and cause-specific mortality). There was a substantial amount of heterogeneity in outcomes among studies, and when pen size and type of production setting were included in mixed-effects metaregression models, they accounted for only a small proportion of the between-study heterogeneity found in the meta-analysis models. Therefore, caution should be exercised when interpreting summary estimates in the presence of substantial heterogeneity. However, these results provide comprehensive information on the comparative effects of different ionophores across multiple studies and multiple years, states, and production settings. These unique results can enable quantitative and informed decisions by potential end users of these feed additives that are widely used in the U.S. beef industry for reducing the costs of beef production through enhanced cattle performance