No ifs, ands or butts: Illinois casinos lost revenue after smoking banned

Gambling industry ; Tobacco industry ; Illinois

Casino revenue and the Illinois smoking ban

Smoking was banned in all Illinois casinos in January 2008. We explore the effects that the smoking ban has had on Illinois casino revenue and attendance. Our empirical methodology extends and enhances that of previous literature in that we observe a natural experiment in comparing the performance of Illinois casinos with out-of-state casinos (no smoking ban) that share a market with Illinois casinos. Estimates suggest that revenue and admissions at Illinois casinos declined by more than 20 percent ($400 million) and 12 percent, respectively. Calculations reveal that casino tax revenue to state and local governments declined by approximately$200 million.Gambling industry ; Tobacco industry ; Illinois

Annual revision of metro jobs data shows little change from earlier reports

Federal Reserve District, 8th ; Employment

Seeding implement

A seeding implement which includes a cylindrical container having a bottom with a centrally located opening therein. A metering plate is located beneath said container, preferably defining a plurality of different sized orifices that are locatable beneath and concentric to the bottom wall opening of the container. An elongated, adjustable seed metering rod is provided which includes a flattened tip that resides within said bottom wall opening, and eccentric thereto, and with the rod being mounted for oscillatory motion. Removable mounting of a plurality of seeding implements on a soil renovating implement is also disclosed and claimed

A controlled experiment for the empirical evaluation of safety analysis techniques for safety-critical software

Context: Today's safety critical systems are increasingly reliant on software. Software becomes responsible for most of the critical functions of systems. Many different safety analysis techniques have been developed to identify hazards of systems. FTA and FMEA are most commonly used by safety analysts. Recently, STPA has been proposed with the goal to better cope with complex systems including software. Objective: This research aimed at comparing quantitatively these three safety analysis techniques with regard to their effectiveness, applicability, understandability, ease of use and efficiency in identifying software safety requirements at the system level. Method: We conducted a controlled experiment with 21 master and bachelor students applying these three techniques to three safety-critical systems: train door control, anti-lock braking and traffic collision and avoidance. Results: The results showed that there is no statistically significant difference between these techniques in terms of applicability, understandability and ease of use, but a significant difference in terms of effectiveness and efficiency is obtained. Conclusion: We conclude that STPA seems to be an effective method to identify software safety requirements at the system level. In particular, STPA addresses more different software safety requirements than the traditional techniques FTA and FMEA, but STPA needs more time to carry out by safety analysts with little or no prior experience.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure in Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE '15). ACM, 201

Thinking territory historically.

BACKGROUND: While the randomised controlled trial (RCT) is generally regarded as the design of choice for assessing the effects of health care, within the social sciences there is considerable debate about the relative suitability of RCTs and non-randomised studies (NRSs) for evaluating public policy interventions. // OBJECTIVES: To determine whether RCTs lead to the same effect size and variance as NRSs of similar policy interventions; and whether these findings can be explained by other factors associated with the interventions or their evaluation. // METHODS: Analyses of methodological studies, empirical reviews, and individual health and social services studies investigated the relationship between randomisation and effect size of policy interventions by: 1) Comparing controlled trials that are identical in all respects other than the use of randomisation by 'breaking' the randomisation in a trial to create non-randomised trials (re-sampling studies). 2) Comparing randomised and non-randomised arms of controlled trials mounted simultaneously in the field (replication studies). 3) Comparing similar controlled trials drawn from systematic reviews that include both randomised and non-randomised studies (structured narrative reviews and sensitivity analyses within meta-analyses). 4) Investigating associations between randomisation and effect size using a pool of more diverse RCTs and NRSs within broadly similar areas (meta-epidemiology). // RESULTS: Prior methodological reviews and meta-analyses of existing reviews comparing effects from RCTs and nRCTs suggested that effect sizes from RCTs and nRCTs may indeed differ in some circumstances and that these differences may well be associated with factors confounded with design. Re-sampling studies offer no evidence that the absence of randomisation directly influences the effect size of policy interventions in a systematic way. No consistent explanations were found for randomisation being associated with changes in effect sizes of policy interventions in field trials

Laser power stabilization via radiation pressure

This Letter reports the experimental realization of a novel, to the best of our knowledge, active power stabilization scheme in which laser power fluctuations are sensed via the radiation pressure driven motion they induce on a movable mirror. The mirror position and its fluctuations were determined by means of a weak auxiliary laser beam and a Michelson interferometer, which formed the in-loop sensor of the power stabilization feedback control system. This sensing technique exploits a nondemolition measurement, which can result in higher sensitivity for power fluctuations than direct, and hence destructive, detection. Here we used this new scheme in a proof-of-concept experiment to demonstrate power stabilization in the frequency range from 1 Hz to 10 kHz, limited at low frequencies by the thermal noise of the movable mirror at room temperature

Indolinyl-Thiazole Based Inhibitors of Scavenger Receptor-BI (SR-BI)-Mediated Lipid Transport

A potent class of indolinyl-thiazole based inhibitors of cellular lipid uptake mediated by scavenger receptor, class B, type I (SR-BI) was identified via a high-throughput screen of the National Institutes of Health Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository (NIH MLSMR) in an assay measuring the uptake of the fluorescent lipid DiI from HDL particles. This class of compounds is represented by ML278 (17–11), a potent (average IC50 = 6 nM) and reversible inhibitor of lipid uptake via SR-BI. ML278 is a plasma-stable, noncytotoxic probe that exhibits moderate metabolic stability, thus displaying improved properties for in vitro and in vivo studies. Strikingly, ML278 and previously described inhibitors of lipid transport share the property of increasing the binding of HDL to SR-BI, rather than blocking it, suggesting there may be similarities in their mechanisms of action

Assessing Local Health Department Performance in Diabetes Prevention and Control — North Carolina, 2005

Introduction: To improve the public health system's ability to prevent and control chronic diseases, we must first understand current practice and develop appropriate strategies for measuring performance. The objectives of this study were to measure capacity and performance of local health departments in diabetes prevention and control and to investigate characteristics associated with performance. Methods: In 2005, we conducted a cross-sectional mailed survey of all 85 North Carolina local health departments to assess capacity and performance in diabetes prevention and control based on the 10 Essential Public Health Services and adapted from the Local Public Health System Performance Assessment Instrument. We linked survey responses to county-level data, including data from a national survey of local health departments. Results: Local health departments reported a median of 0.05 full-time equivalent employees in diabetes prevention and 0.1 in control. Performance varied across the 10 Essential Services; activities most commonly reported included providing information to the public and to policy makers (76%), providing diabetes education (58%), and screening (74%). The mean score on a 10-point performance index was 3.5. Characteristics associated with performance were population size, health department size and accreditation status, and diabetes-specific external funding. Performance was not better in localities where the prevalence of diabetes was high or availability of primary care was low. Conclusion: Most North Carolina local health departments had limited capacity to conduct diabetes prevention or control programs in their communities. Diabetes is a major cause of illness and death, yet it is neglected in public health practice. These findings suggest opportunities to enhance local public health practice, particularly through targeted funding and technical assistance