Why Have Poorer Neighbourhoods Stagnated Economically, While the Richer have Flourished? Neighbourhood Income Inequality in Canadian Cities

Higher income neighbourhoods in Canada’s eight largest cities flourished economically during the past quarter century, while lower income communities stagnated. This paper identifies some of the underlying processes that led to this outcome. Increasing family income inequality drove much of the rise in neighbourhood inequality. Increased spatial economic segregation, the increasing tendency of “like to live nearby likeâ€, also played a role. In the end, the differential economic outcomes between richer and poorer neighbourhoods originated in the labour market, or in family formation patterns. Changes in investment, pension income, or government transfers played a very minor role. But it was not unemployment that differentiated the richer from poorer neighbourhoods. Rather, it was the type of job found, particularly the annual earnings generated. The end result has been little improvement in economic resources in poor neighbourhoods during a period of substantial economic growth, and a rise in neighbourhood income inequality.Inequality, Neighbourhood, Poverty

Brief for Council of Islamic Schools in North America, Partnership for Inner-City Education, and Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners

DAVID AND AMY CARSON, as Parents and next Friends of O.C., and TROY AND ANGELA NELSON, as Parents and next Friends of A.N. and R.N., Petitioners v. A. PENDER MAKIN, in Her Official Capacity as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, Respondent. On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit BRIEF FOR COUNCIL OF ISLAMIC SCHOOLS IN NORTH AMERICA, PARTNERSHIP FOR INNER-CITY EDUCATION, AND UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS No. 20-1088 March 11, 2021 Amici curiae operate, represent, and support elementary and secondary schools in three faith traditions: Catholic (Partnership for Inner-City Education), Islamic (Council of Islamic Schools in North America), and Jewish (Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America). Students attending many of the schools that are operated or supported by amici participate in publicly-funded private-school-choice programs. Central to these schools’ religious and educational missions is the integration of faith throughout all aspects of their educational programs, making the status/use distinction employed by the court below both unworkable and discriminatory

The Mid-infrared Fine-structure Lines of Neon as an Indicator of Star For mation Rate in Galaxies

The fine-structure lines of singly ([Ne II] 12.8 micron) and doubly ([Ne III] 15.6 micron) ionized neon are among the most prominent features in the mid-infrared spectra of star-forming regions, and have the potential to be a powerful new indicator of the star formation rate in galaxies. Using a sample of star-forming galaxies with measurements of the fine-structure lines available from the literature, we show that the sum of the [Ne II] and [Ne III] luminosities obeys a tight, linear correlation with the total infrared luminosity, over 5 orders of magnitude in luminosity. We discuss the formation of the lines and their relation with the Lyman continuum luminosity. A simple calibration between star formation rate and the [Ne II]+[Ne III] luminosity is presented.Comment: To appear in ApJ. 8 page

Chronologies for recent peat deposits using wiggle-matched radiocarbon ages: problems with old carbon contamination

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. © 2005 by the Arizona Board of Regents of behalf of the University of Arizona.Dating sediments which have accumulated over the last few hundred years is critical to the calibration of longer-term paleoclimate records with instrumental climate data. We attempted to use wiggle-matched radiocarbon ages to date 2 peat profiles from northern England which have high-resolution records of paleomoisture variability over the last ~300 yr. A total of 65 14C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurements were made on 33 macrofossil samples. A number of the age estimates were older than expected and some of the oldest ages occurred in the upper parts of the sequence, which had been dated to the late 19th and early 20th century using other techniques. We suggest that the older 14C ages are the result of contamination by industrial pollution. Based on counts of spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs), the potential aging effect for SCP carbon was calculated and shown to be appreciable for samples from the early 20th century. Ages corrected for this effect were still too old in some cases, which could be a result of fossil CO2 fixation, non-SCP particulate carbon, contamination due to imperfect cleaning of samples, or the “reservoir effect” from fixation of fossil carbon emanating from deeper peat layers. Wiggle matches based on the overall shape of the depth-14C relationship and the 14C minima in the calibration curve could still be identified. These were tested against other age estimates (210Pb, pollen, and SCPs) to provide new age-depth models for the profiles. New approaches are needed to measure the impact of industrially derived carbon on recent sediment ages to provide more secure chronologies over the last few hundred years

Brief of The Catholic University of America School of Canon Law, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, The Queens Federation of Churches, and The Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America, as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners

This brief addresses the importance of the principle of church autonomy and the protections provided by the First and Fourteenth Amendments and this Court\u27s precedents regarding religious denominations\u27 internal mandatory dispute-resolution procedures

Byzantine Stochastic Gradient Descent

This paper studies the problem of distributed stochastic optimization in an adversarial setting where, out of the $m$ machines which allegedly compute stochastic gradients every iteration, an $\alpha$-fraction are Byzantine, and can behave arbitrarily and adversarially. Our main result is a variant of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) which finds $\varepsilon$-approximate minimizers of convex functions in $T = \tilde{O}\big( \frac{1}{\varepsilon^2 m} + \frac{\alpha^2}{\varepsilon^2} \big)$ iterations. In contrast, traditional mini-batch SGD needs $T = O\big( \frac{1}{\varepsilon^2 m} \big)$ iterations, but cannot tolerate Byzantine failures. Further, we provide a lower bound showing that, up to logarithmic factors, our algorithm is information-theoretically optimal both in terms of sampling complexity and time complexity

Intermolecular interaction and solid state characterization of abietic acid/chitosan solid dispersions possessing antimicrobial and antioxidant properties

The aim of this work was to prepare and characterize solid dispersions of abietic acid (AB) and chitosan (CS) to investigate how formulation of the mixture may help in the battle against microbial colonization in different areas, such as the biomedical field or the food industry. Solid dispersions were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, polarized optical microscopy, zeta potential and size analysis. The data showed that the dispersion/solvent evaporation method formed solid dispersions in which abietic acid was molecularly dispersed in the carrier. A synergistic effect between the two components in terms of antioxidant and antimicrobial properties was found, especially in the formulations obtained with 1/1 AB/CS molar ratio. Interestingly, the aggregation state (amorphous/crystalline) of AB seemed to affect the antimicrobial activity of the formulation, suggesting increased bioactivity when the drug was in the amorphous state. These findings, together with the demonstrated biocompatibility of the formulations, seem to open promising perspectives for a successful application of the developed AB/CS formulations in the biomedical field or in the food industry

Metformin reduces airway glucose permeability and hyperglycaemia-induced Staphylococcus aureus load independently of effects on blood glucose

Background Diabetes is a risk factor for respiratory infection, and hyperglycaemia is associated with increased glucose in airway surface liquid and risk of Staphylococcus aureus infection. Objectives To investigate whether elevation of basolateral/blood glucose concentration promotes airway Staphylococcus aureus growth and whether pretreatment with the antidiabetic drug metformin affects this relationship. Methods Human airway epithelial cells grown at air–liquid interface (±18 h pre-treatment, 30 μM–1 mM metformin) were inoculated with 5×105 colony-forming units (CFU)/cm2 S aureus 8325-4 or JE2 or Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01 on the apical surface and incubated for 7 h. Wild-type C57BL/6 or db/db (leptin receptor-deficient) mice, 6–10 weeks old, were treated with intraperitoneal phosphate-buffered saline or 40 mg/kg metformin for 2 days before intranasal inoculation with 1×107 CFU S aureus. Mice were culled 24 h after infection and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid collected. Results Apical S aureus growth increased with basolateral glucose concentration in an in vitro airway epithelia–bacteria co-culture model. S aureus reduced transepithelial electrical resistance (RT) and increased paracellular glucose flux. Metformin inhibited the glucose-induced growth of S aureus, increased RT and decreased glucose flux. Diabetic (db/db) mice infected with S aureus exhibited a higher bacterial load in their airways than control mice after 2 days and metformin treatment reversed this effect. Metformin did not decrease blood glucose but reduced paracellular flux across ex vivo murine tracheas. Conclusions Hyperglycaemia promotes respiratory S aureus infection, and metformin modifies glucose flux across the airway epithelium to limit hyperglycaemia-induced bacterial growth. Metformin might, therefore, be of additional benefit in the prevention and treatment of respiratory infection

A rapid method to collect methane from peatland streams for radiocarbon analysis

Peatland streams typically contain high methane concentrations and act as conduits for the release of this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Radiocarbon analysis provides a unique tracer that can be used to identify the methane source, and quantify the time elapsed between carbon fixation and return to the atmosphere as CH4. Few studies – those that have focus largely on sites with bubble (ebullition) emissions – have investigated the14C age of methane in surface waters because of the difficulty in collecting sufficient CH4for analysis. Here, we describe new sampling methods for the collection of CH4samples from CH4-oversaturated peatland streams for radiocarbon analysis. We report the results of a suite of tests, including using methane14C standards and replicated field measurements, to verify the methods. The methods are not restricted to ebullition sites, and can be applied to peatland streams with lower methane concentrations. We report the14C age of methane extracted from surface water samples (~4–13 l) at two contrasting locations in a temperate raised peat bog. Results indicate substantial spatial variation with ages ranging from ~400 (ditch in afforested peatland) to ~3000 years BP (bog perimeter stream). These contrasting ages suggest that methane in stream water can be derived from a wide range of peat depths. This new method provides a rapid (10–15 min per sample) and convenient approach, which should make14CH4dating of surface water more accessible and lead to an increased understanding of carbon cycling within the soil–water–atmosphere system