Technology, Values, and the Justice System: The Evolution of the Access to Justice Technology Bill of Rights

To transform these values into reality, the Washington State Supreme Court Order gave the ATJ Board the mission to promote and facilitate equal access to justice, and, among other tasks, to develop and implement policies and initiatives that enhance, improve, and strengthen access to justice. On November 2, 2000, the Court entered an Order which reauthorized the ATJ Board as a permanent body, charging it with responsibility to assure high quality access for all persons in Washington State who suffer disparate access barriers to the justice system. The Court gave the ATJ Board the specific task, among others, to develop and implement new programs and innovative measures designed to expand access to justice in Washington State

Improving the Criminal Justice System: The Need for a Commitment

Society asks a great deal of the criminal justice system. It asks for protection, punishment, rehabilitation, and humanity; it simultaneously asks that the system operate accurately, efficiently and fairly. Recently, societal concern has been sharply focused on the criminal justice system and most particularly on its correctional and sentencing aspects. The rising crime rate is blamed on the failure of the system to deal properly with offenders. This assumes too great a potency in the criminal justice system however; many other factors in society have a far greater impact on the incidence of crime and violence. The criminal justice system, even operating at its best, cannot cure enough of society\u27s ills to solve the problem of crime. It is nevertheless true that parts of the criminal justice system can and should be improved so as to slow the rising crime rate, or perhaps even effect a reduction of the present incidence of crime. To help with this endeavor, this article will propose improvements in the present system and highlight the need for them by examining Washington\u27s failure to accomplish its self-imposed goals in the area of corrections

Where is the Information Stored in Black Holes?

It is shown that many modes of the gravitational field exist only inside the horizon of an extreme black hole in string theory. At least in certain cases, the number of such modes is sufficient to account for the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. These modes are associated with sources which carry Ramond-Ramond charge, and so may be viewed as the strong coupling limit of D-branes. Although these sources naturally live at the singularity, they are well defined and generate modes which extend out to the horizon. This suggests that the information in an extreme black hole is not localized near the singularity or the horizon, but extends between them.Comment: 21 pages, reference corrected and comment adde

Counting States of Black Strings with Traveling Waves

We consider a family of solutions to string theory which depend on arbitrary functions and contain regular event horizons. They describe six dimensional extremal black strings with traveling waves and have an inhomogeneous distribution of momentum along the string. The structure of these solutions near the horizon is studied and the horizon area computed. We also count the number of BPS string states at weak coupling whose macroscopic momentum distribution agrees with that of the black string. It is shown that the number of such states is given by the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the black string with traveling waves.Comment: 21 pages RevTex. One equation correcte

Statistical Effects and the Black Hole/D-brane Correspondence

The horizon area and curvature of three-charge BPS black strings are studied in the D-brane ensemble for the stationary black string. The charge distributions along the string are used to translate the classical expressions for the horizon area and curvature of BPS black strings with waves into operators on the D-brane Hilbert space. Despite the fact that any `wavy' black string has smaller horizon area and divergent curvature, the typical values of the horizon area and effects of the horizon curvature in the D-brane ensemble deviate negligibly from those of the original stationary black string in the limit of large integer charges. Whether this holds in general will depend on certain properties of the quantum bound states.Comment: 13 pages, RevTex, small errors corrected, some interpretation changed in light of new result

Quantum Probes of Spacetime Singularities

It is shown that there are static spacetimes with timelike curvature singularities which appear completely nonsingular when probed with quantum test particles. Examples include extreme dilatonic black holes and the fundamental string solution. In these spacetimes, the dynamics of quantum particles is well defined and uniquely determined.Comment: 12 pages, RevTeX, no figures, A few breif comments added and typos correcte

Localized Branes and Black Holes

We address the delocalization of low dimensional D-branes and NS-branes when they are a part of a higher dimensional BPS black brane, and the homogeneity of the resulting horizon. We show that the effective delocalization of such branes is a classical effect that occurs when localized branes are brought together. Thus, the fact that the few known solutions with inhomogeneous horizons are highly singular need not indicate a singularity of generic D- and NS-brane states. Rather, these singular solutions are likely to be unphysical as they cannot be constructed from localized branes which are brought together from a finite separation.Comment: 13 pages, RevTex, no figures, few references and comments adde

Transport of radon-222 and methyl iodide by deep convection in the GFDL Global Atmospheric Model AM2

Transport of radon-222 and methyl iodide by deep convection is analyzed in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Atmospheric Model 2 (AM2) using two parameterizations for deep convection. One of these parameterizations represents deep convection as an ensemble of entraining plumes; the other represents deep convection as an ensemble of entraining plumes with associated mesoscale updrafts and downdrafts. Although precipitation patterns are generally similar in AM2 with both parameterizations, the deep convective mass fluxes are more than three times larger in the middle- to upper troposphere for the parameterization consisting only of entraining plumes, but do not extend across the tropopause, unlike the parameterization including mesoscale circulations. The differences in mass fluxes result mainly from a different partitioning between convective and stratiform precipitation; the parameterization including mesoscale circulations detrains considerably more water vapor in the middle troposphere and is associated with more stratiform rain. The distributions of both radon-222 and methyl iodide reflect the different mass fluxes. Relative to observations (limited by infrequent spatial and temporal sampling), AM2 tends to simulate lower concentrations of radon-222 and methyl iodide in the planetary boundary layer, producing a negative model bias through much of the troposphere, with both cumulus parameterizations. The shapes of the observed profiles suggest that the larger deep convective mass fluxes and associated transport in the parameterization lacking a mesoscale component are less realistic

Causality and the AdS Dirichlet problem

The (planar) AdS Dirichlet problem has previously been shown to exhibit superluminal hydrodynamic sound modes. This problem is defined by bulk gravitational dynamics with Dirichlet boundary conditions imposed on a rigid timelike cut-off surface. We undertake a careful examination of this set-up and argue that, in most cases, the propagation of information between points on the Dirichlet hypersurface is nevertheless causal with respect to the induced light cones. In particular, the high-frequency dynamics is causal in this sense. There are however two exceptions and both involve boundary gravitons whose propagation is not constrained by the Einstein equations. These occur in i) AdS$_3$, where the boundary gravitons generally do not respect the induced light cones on the boundary, and ii) Rindler space, where they are related to the infinite speed of sound in incompressible fluids. We discuss implications for the fluid/gravity correspondence with rigid Dirichlet boundaries and for the black hole membrane paradigm.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures. v2: added refs. v3: minor clarification

RELEASE (REdressing Long-tErm Antidepressant uSE): protocol for a 3-arm pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial effectiveness-implementation hybrid type-1 in general practice

BACKGROUND: Many people experience withdrawal symptoms when they attempt to stop antidepressants. Withdrawal symptoms are readily misconstrued for relapse or ongoing need for medication, contributing to long-term use (> 12 months). Long-term antidepressant use is increasing internationally yet is not recommended for most people. Long-term use is associated with adverse effects including weight gain, sexual dysfunction, lethargy, emotional numbing and increased risk of falls and fractures. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of two multi-strategy interventions (RELEASE and RELEASE+) in supporting the safe cessation of long-term antidepressants, estimate cost-effectiveness, and evaluate implementation strategies. METHODS: DESIGN: 3-arm pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial effectiveness-implementation hybrid type-1. SETTING: primary care general practices in southeast Queensland, Australia. POPULATION: adults 18 years or older taking antidepressants for longer than 1 year. Practices will be randomised on a 1.5:1:1 ratio of Usual care:RELEASE:RELEASE+. INTERVENTION: RELEASE for patients includes evidence-based information and resources and an invitation to medication review; RELEASE for GPs includes education, training and printable resources via practice management software. RELEASE+ includes additional internet support for patients and prescribing support including audit and feedback for GPs. OUTCOME MEASURES: the primary outcome is antidepressant use at 12 months self-reported by patients. Cessation is defined as 0 mg antidepressant maintained for at least 2 weeks. SECONDARY OUTCOMES: at 6 and 12 months are health-related quality of life, antidepressant side effects, well-being, withdrawal symptoms, emotional numbing, beliefs about antidepressants, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms; and at 12 months 75% reduction in antidepressant dose; aggregated practice level antidepressant prescribing, and health service utilisation for costs. SAMPLE SIZE: 653 patients from 28 practices. A concurrent evaluation of implementation will be through mixed methods including interviews with up to 40 patients and primary care general practitioners, brief e-surveys, and study administrative data to assess implementation outcomes (adoption and fidelity). DISCUSSION: The RELEASE study will develop new knowledge applicable internationally on the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and implementation of two multi-strategy interventions in supporting the safe cessation of long-term antidepressants to improve primary health care and outcomes for patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ANZCTR, ACTRN12622001379707p. Registered on 27 October 2022