A Report on the Media and the Immigration Debate

Analyzes media coverage of immigration since 1980 and how industry practices and new media have conditioned the public to associate immigration with illegality, crisis, controversy, and government failure, causing a stalemate in the policy debate

Nonlinear Competition Between Small and Large Hexagonal Patterns

Recent experiments by Kudrolli, Pier and Gollub on surface waves, parametrically excited by two-frequency forcing, show a transition from a small hexagonal standing wave pattern to a triangular ``superlattice'' pattern. We show that generically the hexagons and the superlattice wave patterns bifurcate simultaneously from the flat surface state as the forcing amplitude is increased, and that the experimentally-observed transition can be described by considering a low-dimensional bifurcation problem. A number of predictions come out of this general analysis.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, revised, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Critical Casimir force in 4^4He films: confirmation of finite-size scaling

We present new capacitance measurements of critical Casimir force-induced thinning of $^4$He films near the superfluid/normal transition, focused on the region below $T_{\lambda}$ where the effect is the greatest. $^4$He films of 238, 285, and 340 \AA thickness are adsorbed on N-doped silicon substrates with roughness $\approx 8 {\AA}$. The Casimir force scaling function $\vartheta$, deduced from the thinning of these three films, collapses onto a single universal curve, attaining a minimum $\vartheta = -1.30 \pm 0.03$ at $x=td^{1/\nu}=-9.7\pm 0.8 {\AA}^{1/\nu}$. The collapse confirms the finite-size scaling origin of the dip in the film thickness. Separately, we also confirm the presence down to $2.13 K$ of the Goldstone/surface fluctuation force, which makes the superfluid film $\sim 2 {\AA}$ thinner than the normal film.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

Citizenship, Values, & Cultural Concerns: What Americans Want From Immigration Reform

In February 2013, Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), in partnership with the Brookings Institution, conducted one of the largest surveys ever fielded on immigration policy, immigrants, and religious and cultural changes in the U.S. The survey of nearly 4,500 American adults explores the many divisions -- political, religious, ethnic, geographical, and generational -- within the nation over core values and their relationship to immigration. The new survey also tracks key questions from surveys conducted by PRRI in 2010-2011. This report presents the results of these surveys

Managing healthcare budgets in times of austerity: the role of program budgeting and marginal analysis

Given limited resources, priority setting or choice making will remain a reality at all levels of publicly funded healthcare across countries for many years to come. The pressures may well be even more acute as the impact of the economic crisis of 2008 continues to play out but, even as economies begin to turn around, resources within healthcare will be limited, thus some form of rationing will be required. Over the last few decades, research on healthcare priority setting has focused on methods of implementation as well as on the development of approaches related to fairness and legitimacy and on more technical aspects of decision making including the use of multi-criteria decision analysis. Recently, research has led to better understanding of evaluating priority setting activity including defining ‘success’ and articulating key elements for high performance. This body of research, however, often goes untapped by those charged with making challenging decisions and as such, in line with prevailing public sector incentives, decisions are often reliant on historical allocation patterns and/or political negotiation. These archaic and ineffective approaches not only lead to poor decisions in terms of value for money but further do not reflect basic ethical conditions that can lead to fairness in the decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to outline a comprehensive approach to priority setting and resource allocation that has been used in different contexts across countries. This will provide decision makers with a single point of access for a basic understanding of relevant tools when faced with having to make difficult decisions about what healthcare services to fund and what not to fund. The paper also addresses several key issues related to priority setting including how health technology assessments can be used, how performance can be improved at a practical level, and what ongoing resource management practice should look like. In terms of future research, one of the most important areas of priority setting that needs further attention is how best to engage public members

Diagnostic accuracy of ultrasonography, MRI and MR arthrography in the characterisation of rotator cuff disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Different diagnostic imaging modalities, such as ultrasonography (US), MRI, MR arthrography (MRA) are commonly used for the characterisation of rotator cuff (RC) disorders. Since the most recent systematic reviews on medical imaging, multiple diagnostic studies have been published, most using more advanced technological characteristics. The first objective was to perform a meta-analysis on the diagnostic accuracy of medical imaging for characterisation of RC disorders. Since US is used at the point of care in environments such as sports medicine, a secondary analysis assessed accuracy by radiologists and nonradiologists. Methods A systematic search in three databases was conducted. Two raters performed data extraction and evaluation of risk of bias independently, and agreement was achieved by consensus. Hierarchical summary receiver-operating characteristic package was used to calculate pooled estimates of included diagnostic studies. Results Diagnostic accuracy of US, MRI and MRA in the characterisation of full-thickness RC tears was high with overall estimates of sensitivity and specificity over 0.90. As for partial RC tears and tendinopathy, overall estimates of specificity were also high (\u3e0.90), while sensitivity was lower (0.67â 0.83). Diagnostic accuracy of US was similar whether a trained radiologist, sonographer or orthopaedist performed it. Conclusions Our results show the diagnostic accuracy of US, MRI and MRA in the characterisation of fullthickness RC tears. Since full thickness tear constitutes a key consideration for surgical repair, this is an important characteristic when selecting an imaging modality for RC disorder. When considering accuracy, cost, and safety, US is the best option