The Use of Public Health Evidence in Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt

[This piece, written for the JAMA Internal Medicine "Viewpoints" section, discusses the impacts of House Bill 2, as documented by TxPEP research, and the use of research-based evidence in Whole Woman's Health v Hellerstedt.] The Supreme Court decision in the Whole Woman’s Health case provides a clearer judicial standard related to undue burden on women seeking abortion. The Court said laws restricting abortion cannot be considered in the abstract—or just because a legislature says they would be beneficial. Instead, courts must compare the benefit the law is likely to provide with the burden the law will impose on women. The Court’s decision shows that evidence matters, which hopefully heralds a new emphasis on data-driven policies for reproductive healthPopulation Research Cente

Determinants of Pediatric Care Utilization

The purpose of this paper is to understand the determinants of utilization of pediatric care -- care rendered to children by all physicians. Multivariate techniques are employed to examine four measures of pediatric care utilization in a national sample of children between the ages of 1 and 5. These measures are the probability of contacting a physician within the past year, the probability of obtaining a preventive physical examination within the past year, the number of office visits to physicians in private practice by children with positive visits, and the average quality of these visits.

Neutrino masses and R-parity violation

We review different contributions to the neutrino masses in the context of R-parity violating supersymmetry in a basis independent manner. We comment on the generic spectrum expected in such a scenario comparing different contributions.Comment: Invited brief review for Mod. Phys. Lett. A, 15 pages, uses axodraw.st

One Share/One Vote and the Market for Corporate Control

A corporation's securities provide the holder with particular claims on the firm's income stream and particular voting rights. These securities can be designed in various ways: one share of a particular class may have a claim to votes which is disproportionately larger or smaller than its claim to income. In this paper we analyze some of the forces which make it desirable to set up the corporation so that all securities have the same proportion of votes as their claim to income ("one share/one vote"). We show that security structure influences both the conditions under which a control change takes place and the terms on which it occurs. First, the allocation of voting rights to securities determines which securities a party must acquire in order to win control. Secondly, the assignment of income claims to the same securities determines the cost of acquiring these voting rights. We will show that it is in shareholders' interest to set the cost of acquiring control to be as large as possible, consistent with a control change occurring whenever this increases shareholder wealth. Under certain assumptions, one share/one vote best achieves this goal. We distinguish between two classes of benefits from control: private benefits and security benefits. The private benefits of control refer to benefits the current management or the acquirer obtain for themselves, but which the target security holders do not obtain. The security benefits refer to the total market value of the corporation's securities. The assignment of income claims to voting rights determines the extent 'to which an acquirer must face competition from parties who value the firm for its security benefits rather than its private benefits.

Comparative study of heat rejection systems for portable life support equipment Final report

Comparsion of heat rejection systems for portable life support equipment for earth orbital or lunar surface EV

New Physics Effects in B→K(∗)ννB \to K^(*) \nu \nu Decays

We present a model-independent analysis of rare B decays, $B \to K^{(*)} \nu \nu$. The effect of possible new physics is written in terms of dimension-6 four-fermi interactions. The lepton number violating scalar- and tensor-type interactions are included, and they induce $B \to K^{(*)} \nu \nu ({\bar \nu} {\bar \nu})$ decays. We show systematically how the branching ratios and missing mass-squared spectrum depend on the coefficients of the four-fermi interactions.Comment: 20 pages with 7 figure

Electrical and infrared properties of thin niobium microbolometers near T(sub c)

Niobium microbolometers approximately 1 micron wide x 2 micron long x 10 nm thick have been integrated at the feeds of equiangular spiral antennas made of 200 nm thick Nb. The device's current-voltage characteristics and infrared responsivity as a function of DC bias voltage were measured over a range of temperature spanning approximately plus or minus 2 percent around T(sub c). The greatest voltage responsivity occurs well below T(sub c), in a regime where the I-V curve is significantly hysteretic due to self-heating and resembles the I-V curve of a superconducting microbridge

Coping with the editorial process: considerations for early–career biologists

Lidiar con el proceso editorial: consideraciones para biólogos en la fase inicial de su carrera En el presente enensayo se describen algunos aspectos de la interacción entre los autores, los revisores y los editores, con el objetivo de ayudar a los biólogos en la fase inicial de su carrera a navegar por el proceso de publicación. Múltiples autores y editores han señalado las dificultades actuales para encontrar revisores de calidad que revisen los manuscritos y, como consecuencia, es posible que esté aumentando la frecuencia de rechazos debido a revisiones sin conocimiento de causa y erróneos. Se sugieren varias estrategias para lidiar con: 1) el rechazo de manuscritos por los editores sin una revisión; 2) los editores que informan de los comentarios de los revisores, pero no formulan observaciones al respecto; 3) las revisiones que parecen desinformadas o idiosincrásicas; y 4) los comentarios que sugieren cambios de estilo en lugar de cambios sustantivos. La clave de toda buena estrategia para tratar con los editores y los revisores consiste en asegurarse de que la interacción sea cordial y mantenga un alto grado de objetividad respecto de las críticas. Además, las estrategias concretas que un autor utiliza para responder a los comentarios estilísticos y sustantivos de los editores dependerán de su experiencia y, tal vez, de su reputación en el sector. Las técnicas que aquí se sugieren deberían servir para estimular el debate sobre algunos problemas de nuestro sector y aumentar la probabilidad de que se acepte un buen manuscrito sometido para su publicación.In this essay I describe aspects of the interactions between authors, reviewers and editors with the goal of helping early–career biologists navigate the publication process. Multiple authors and editors have commented on the current difficulties of obtaining quality referees for manuscript reviews, and as a consequence, the frequencies of rejections based on uninformed or erroneous reviews, may be increasing. I suggest a variety of strategies for dealing with: 1) manuscript rejections by editors without review, 2) editors who report but do not comment on reviewer comments, 3) reviews that appear to be uninformed or idiosyncratic, and 4) comments suggesting stylistic revisions rather than substantive ones. The key to any successful strategy for dealing with editors and referees involves ensuring the interaction remains civil and retains a high level of objectivity regarding criticism. In addition, the specific strategies that an author uses to respond to stylistic and substantive editorial comments will depend on their experience and perhaps, reputation in the field. The techniques suggested herein should serve to stimulate discussion of some problems in our field and also increase the probability of acceptance of a worthy manuscript submitted for publication.Lidiar con el proceso editorial: consideraciones para biólogos en la fase inicial de su carrera En el presente enensayo se describen algunos aspectos de la interacción entre los autores, los revisores y los editores, con el objetivo de ayudar a los biólogos en la fase inicial de su carrera a navegar por el proceso de publicación. Múltiples autores y editores han señalado las dificultades actuales para encontrar revisores de calidad que revisen los manuscritos y, como consecuencia, es posible que esté aumentando la frecuencia de rechazos debido a revisiones sin conocimiento de causa y erróneos. Se sugieren varias estrategias para lidiar con: 1) el rechazo de manuscritos por los editores sin una revisión; 2) los editores que informan de los comentarios de los revisores, pero no formulan observaciones al respecto; 3) las revisiones que parecen desinformadas o idiosincrásicas; y 4) los comentarios que sugieren cambios de estilo en lugar de cambios sustantivos. La clave de toda buena estrategia para tratar con los editores y los revisores consiste en asegurarse de que la interacción sea cordial y mantenga un alto grado de objetividad respecto de las críticas. Además, las estrategias concretas que un autor utiliza para responder a los comentarios estilísticos y sustantivos de los editores dependerán de su experiencia y, tal vez, de su reputación en el sector. Las técnicas que aquí se sugieren deberían servir para estimular el debate sobre algunos problemas de nuestro sector y aumentar la probabilidad de que se acepte un buen manuscrito sometido para su publicación

Leptogenesis from Supersymmetry Breaking

We show that soft supersymmetry breaking terms involving the heavy sneutrinos can lead to sneutrino-antisneutrino mixing and to new sources of CP violation, which are present even if a single generation is considered. These terms are naturally present in supersymmetric versions of leptogenesis scenarios, and they induce indirect CP violation in the decays of the heavy sneutrinos, eventually generating a baryon asymmetry. This new contribution can be comparable to or even dominate over the asymmetry produced in traditional leptogenesis scenarios.Comment: 4 pages; An improved discussion of the relevant numerical range of the soft breaking terms (in agreement with hep-ph/0308031