Service learning: What is it? Can we use it?

I used to work for a Big Eight (now Big Six) Accounting firm. In addition to a tremendous amount of pro bono work that we did, the firm required all of its staff accountants, managers, and partners to become involved with one of the many not-for-profit organizations in the Cincinnati area. The rationale was that each employee had an obligation to the greater community, to give something of himself or herself to others. And while I also heard that the real purpose of this requirement was practice development (translate marketing), there were certainly more likely places to network for paying clients. And we were in those places, too

Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers to the Bulk Sale of At-Risk Mortgages

This memorandum argues that the sale of loans and loan pools to new owners would help to stabilize housing prices, and that such a modification to the REMIC rules would be desirable and well within Congress’ constitutional authority. Furthermore, it would not lead to successful legal claims by investors in securitized loan pools under the Just Compensation or Due Process clauses, which provide the primary constitutional protections for property interests

Issue Brief: Overcoming Legal Barriers to the Bulk Sale of At-Risk Mortgages

This memorandum argues that the sale of loans and loan pools to new owners would help to stabilize housing prices, and that such a modification to the REMIC rules would be desirable and well within Congress’ constitutional authority. Furthermore, it would not lead to successful legal claims by investors in securitized loan pools under the Just Compensation or Due Process clauses, which provide the primary constitutional protections for property interests

Dark Matter as a Guide Toward a Light Gluino at the LHC

Motivated by specific connections to dark matter signatures, we study the prospects of observing the presence of a relatively light gluino whose mass is in the range ~(500-900) GeV with a wino-like lightest supersymmetric particle with mass in the range of ~(170-210) GeV. The light gaugino spectra studied here is generally different from other models, and in particular those with a wino dominated LSP, in that here the gluinos can be significantly lighter. The positron excess reported by the PAMELA satellite data is accounted for by annihilations of the wino LSP and their relic abundance can generally be brought near the WMAP constraints due to the late decay of a modulus field re-populating the density of relic dark matter. We also mention the recent FERMI photon constraints on annihilating dark matter in this class of models and implications for direct detection experiments including CDMS and XENON. We study these signatures in models of supersymmetry with non-minimal soft breaking terms derived from both string compactifications and related supergravity models which generally lead to non-universal gaugino masses. At the LHC, large event rates from the three-body decays of the gluino in certain parts of the parameter space are found to give rise to early discovery prospects for the gaugino sector. Excess events at the 5 sigma level can arise with luminosity as low as order 100 pb^{-1} at a center of mass energy of 10 TeV and less than ~ 1 fb^{-1} at a center of mass energy of 7 TeV.Comment: 2 columns, 9 pages, 5 figure caption

Vector-meson contributions do not explain the rate and spectrum in K_L -> pi0 gamma gamma

We analyze the recent NA48 data for the reaction K_L -> pi0 gamma gamma with and without the assumption of vector meson dominance (VMD). We find that the data is well described by a three-parameter expression inspired by O(p^6) chiral perturbation theory. We also find that it is impossible to fit the shape of the decay distribution and the overall rate simultaneously if one imposes the VMD constraints on the three parameters. We comment on the different fits and their implications for the CP-conserving component of the decay K_L -> pi0 e+ e-.Comment: Version accepted for publication on Phys. Rev. D. 19 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures, uses epsf.st

Shedding Light on the Symmetries of Dark Matter

I consider symmetries which could explain observed properties of dark matter, namely, its stability on Gyr time scales or its relic density and discuss how such symmetries can be discovered through the study of the propagation and polarization of light in its transit through dark matter.Comment: 6 pages, Invited talk at the 4th International Symposium on Symmetries in Subatomic Physics (SSP 2009), June 2-5, 2009, Taipei, Taiwa

Multi-lepton signals from the top-prime quark at the LHC

We analyze the collider signatures of models with a vector-like top-prime quark and a massive color-octet boson. The top-prime quark mixes with the top quark in the Standard Model, leading to richer final states than ones that are investigated by experimental collaborations. We discuss the multi-lepton final states, and show that they can provide increased sensitivity to models with a top-prime quark and gluon-prime. Searches for new physics in high multiplicity events are an important component of the LHC program and complementary to analyses that have been performed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Maternal Drinking During Pregnancy: Attention and Short-Term Memory in 14-Year-Old Offspring—A Longitudinal Prospective Study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66151/1/j.1530-0277.1994.tb00904.x.pd

Reducing risk with e-based support for adherence to lifestyle change in hypertension (REACH): Protocol for a multicentred randomised controlled trial

Introduction: Web-based lifestyle counselling designed to improve adherence to self-management behaviours for diet, exercise and medication has been shown to reduce blood pressure (BP). However, the long-term clinical outcome of these interventions is not established. Our aim was to establish whether an e-counselling program is independently associated with improved clinical outcomes over a 12-month period, as defined by the following criteria: (1) reduction of systolic BP, diastolic BP, pulse pressure and associated risk factors for cardiovascular events; and (2) adherence to self-management behaviour (diet, exercise, smoke-free living and prescribed medication). Methods and analysis: Reducing risk with e-based support for adherence to lifestyle change in hypertension is a two-parallel group, double-blind randomised controlled trial that will utilise a two (Groups: e-counselling vs control) by three (assessment intervals: baseline, 4-month and 12-month outcome) design. BP, lipoprotein cholesterol, physical activity and dietary behaviours and psychological distress will be measured at each assessment. We plan to recruit 528 participants (35-74 years of age) diagnosed with stage 1 or 2 hypertension (systolic BP, 140-180 mm Hg; diastolic BP 90-110 mm Hg) from three major cities (Toronto, London, Vancouver) and one rural area (Grey Bruce region) across Canada between February 2012 and July 2015. Controls will receive general educational e-messages on heart healthy living and the e-counselling group will receive tailored e-messages that are matched to their stage of readiness for change. For both groups, e-messages will be sent proactively on a weekly basis during months 1-4, then bi-weekly during months 5-8 and then monthly during months 9-12. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been obtained from all recruitment sites. This will be one of the first studies to evaluate the long-term efficacy of preventive e-counselling strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention in patients with hypertension. Findings from this study will be used to guide the ongoing development of e-counselling services

The Association Between Believing in Free Will and Subjective Well-Being Is Confounded by a Sense of Personal Control

The extent to which an individual believes in free will is associated with a number of positive life outcomes, including their own subjective well-being. However, it is not known whether the belief that one has free will per se is uniquely associated with subjective well-being over and above potential confounding variables. We examined a sense of personal control as one such confound—specifically, whether the association between free will belief and subjective well-being is based, in part, on the degree to which an individual feels a sense of personal control over their life. In Study, 1 trait-level belief in personal control significantly uniquely predicted satisfaction with life and stress, over and above the contribution of free will belief. In Study 2, within-person daily fluctuations in stress and depression were not significantly predicted by daily changes in free will belief over and above the contribution of personal control/choice. The findings provide new insight into the relationship between free will belief and subjective well-being