Modular Forms on the Double Half-Plane

We formulate a notion of modular form on the double half-plane for half-integral weights and explain its relationship to the usual notion of modular form. The construction we provide is compatible with certain physical considerations due to the second author.Comment: 17 pages: Minor corrections in text (due to a helpful referee), updated affiliations. Accepted for publication in the International Journal for Number Theory (IJNT

Household Social Environmental Influences on African-American Adolescents’ Smoking Habits

Because most smokers begin smoking during adolescence and because there are few studies that focus on African-American adolescent’s smoking behavior, the purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference exists in the prevalence of smoking between African-American adolescent teens living with household members who smoke and those living with household members who do not smoke. The subjects in this study were 585 adolescents (342 females and 243 males) who received services at the Center Hill Health Center from 2001 to 2004. The data was collected from the medical records of the clients selected for this study. The data in this study was analyzed using chi square tests of independence. The first analysis revealed that a significant difference existed between the smoking status of the household members of adolescents who were smokers compared to those who where non- smokers (? 2 = 14.58, df = 1, p < .05.)

Macroeconomics and Drug Use: A Review of the Literature and Hypotheses for Future Research

Despite more than a century of drug prohibition, problems of addiction and drug abuse continue to be major global public health and criminal justice concerns (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015). It has long been obvious that many of these problems are entwined with other economic and social issues. The editors of The Economist, in reporting evidence of a decline in drug use in the UK, speculated on the impact of the concurrent economic slowdown and commented that, "few academics have studied the link between drug use and macroeconomic performance, and what work exists is inconclusive" (Drug use and abuse: The fire next time, 2011). The goal of this paper will be to examine the work that exists on this topic and to propose a set of hypotheses to be tested in future studies

Reasons Youth of Color Give for Not Accessing Primary Health Care: A Survey of Patients at a Teen Clinic

Survey research was conducted on patients seen at Grady Teen Clinic in Atlanta, Georgia to investigate the reasons this population, predominantly composed of youth of color, gives for not accessing primary health care. Subjects for the study were males and females aged 13-19 who attended the clinic as patients during the year 2004. Data was collected from forms contained in the teens’ medical records. A majority (53%) of the subjects (n=5210) answered that the cost of medical care was their main reason for not accessing primary health care (53%), followed by lack of health insurance (44%), fear of parents learning about their visit (42%) and not knowing where to access health care (29.4%). Responses regarding cultural and language barriers (7.3%), difficulty getting or keeping appointments (9.1%) and waiting time (3.5%) were the least frequent answers. A chi square analysis revealed males and females differed significantly with respect to reasons for not accessing health care

Guidelines for Policy Modellers - 30 years on: New Tricks or Old Dogs?

Systems thinking and the use of modelling to assist in natural resources decision making started in the early 1960’s (Forrester, 1961). In the early 1970’s a multidisciplinary program was established in CSIRO’s Division of Land Resources Management to, among other issues, research and develop models to assist in the resolution of persistent and multi-faceted environmental issues. The authors of this paper were members of that group. We recently decided to look at what has been learned about these reasonably intractable problems over the more than 30 years period since. If it is true that the half life of modelling papers is around eight years and, apparently, decreasing (Haggett, 2005), then we can expect that the wheel has often been reinvented. So we describe issues as they were expressed up to the early 1980’s and compare and contrast them with concerns after the turn of the century in two contexts - the development of systems thinking in modelling and deciding when and how to model. Three general criticisms of systems analysis were evident then: (1) the models were highly mathematical and therefore opaque to the user, and it was hard even for ’experts’ to explain unexpected findings; (2) welfare, as expressed by economic or utilitarian criteria, was considered to be poorly represented in systems practice (systems thinking was being viewed here as rational, while it was slowly being recognized that apparently irrational behaviour is an important part of the social fabric and could not be ignored (Glazer, 1978)); (3) the systems approach relied on lists derived from planners, but in the absence of “systems thinking” guidelines they were only lists of what planners thought of doing, not comprehensive in any strong sense. These three major drawbacks still exist and in much the same form today. Development of systems thinking is now much more widespread. The applications gap does not appear to be filled, though there have been attempts to broaden the client base by participative model construction to reach a consensus of what is agreeable to most stakeholders. “Irrational behaviour” still threatens systems analysis and comes in several forms. There is lack of acceptance that utilitarian criteria should be used to drive the solution. And the consequences of implementing a model’s solution may lead to unforeseen consequences and behaviours by and to affected parties. Very few papers have been written in recent years on guidelines on when to model and when not to do so. There seems to be no connection with earlier publications. The field does not appear to have progressed. We perceive a world in which those who can, model, and those who can’t still feel little need to try. It is to be hoped that interest in the issues of when and why to model will not wane. It would be a shame, perhaps a source of conflict, if modelling remained yet another marker that separates a ‘them’ from an ‘us’. Some of us have now been much closer to decision-makers. Our observations include: (a) Timing is critical in decision-making. Sometimes there are a few hours for deliberation, for others decades. A modeller has to be close to help with the quick ones. Advice that comes too late will not be relevant. (b) Close contact with decision makers is essential, as is their training. (c) A contract from the client is a desirable/necessary precondition. (d) Trust, and lack of it, will always be important in accepting advice. (e) Committees, especially those charged with doing something and feel that they cannot progress without assistance, are good targets. But committees, like modelling contracts, can be solely methods of delaying decisions. (f) Modelling physical and biological systems is less contentious than using utility to guide advice

A Brief History of Prohibition and Treatment Solutions for Substance Abusers

The predominant policy of prohibition (i.e. "War on Drugs") emerged in the early Twentieth Century. It has been expanded on since that time to become the primary thrust of drug policy in almost every nation today. We will examine how this came about and the ways in which it has contributed to the maltreatment of substance abuse disorders

A Domain-General Cognitive Core Defined in Multimodally Parcellated Human Cortex.

Numerous brain imaging studies identified a domain-general or "multiple-demand" (MD) activation pattern accompanying many tasks and may play a core role in cognitive control. Though this finding is well established, the limited spatial localization provided by traditional imaging methods precluded a consensus regarding the precise anatomy, functional differentiation, and connectivity of the MD system. To address these limitations, we used data from 449 subjects from the Human Connectome Project, with the cortex of each individual parcellated using neurobiologically grounded multimodal MRI features. The conjunction of three cognitive contrasts reveals a core of 10 widely distributed MD parcels per hemisphere that are most strongly activated and functionally interconnected, surrounded by a penumbra of 17 additional areas. Outside cerebral cortex, MD activation is most prominent in the caudate and cerebellum. Comparison with canonical resting-state networks shows MD regions concentrated in the fronto-parietal network but also engaging three other networks. MD activations show modest relative task preferences accompanying strong co-recruitment. With distributed anatomical organization, mosaic functional preferences, and strong interconnectivity, we suggest MD regions are well positioned to integrate and assemble the diverse components of cognitive operations. Our precise delineation of MD regions provides a basis for refined analyses of their functions

Generational Shift and Drug Abuse in Older Americans

Since the problem of substance abuse by older adults began to receive serious professional attention, the focus has been almost exclusively on alcohol abuse. This reality is changing as the “baby boomers” age. We examined data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (1985) and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2006) comparing nationwide prevalence of both legal and illicit drugs. Use of drugs by category varied over the study period; some showed little change (e.g., alcohol) while others showed marked increase (e.g., marijuana, cocaine). We found that the population of older Americans in 2006 contained greater proportions of persons who had used or continued to use illicit drugs than did older Americans in 1985. Gerontologists and geriatric services will increasingly encounter older Americans who use or abuse illicit drugs

Drawing Trees with Perfect Angular Resolution and Polynomial Area

We study methods for drawing trees with perfect angular resolution, i.e., with angles at each node v equal to 2{\pi}/d(v). We show: 1. Any unordered tree has a crossing-free straight-line drawing with perfect angular resolution and polynomial area. 2. There are ordered trees that require exponential area for any crossing-free straight-line drawing having perfect angular resolution. 3. Any ordered tree has a crossing-free Lombardi-style drawing (where each edge is represented by a circular arc) with perfect angular resolution and polynomial area. Thus, our results explore what is achievable with straight-line drawings and what more is achievable with Lombardi-style drawings, with respect to drawings of trees with perfect angular resolution.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figure