Removing the Roadblocks to Successful Domestic Violence Prosecutions: Prosecutorial Use of Expert Testimony on the Battered Woman Syndrome in Ohio

This note contends that Ohio should join the modern trend and allow expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome in a limited form in domestic violence prosecutions. Part II of this note explores the syndrome and its origins. Part III provides background on the evidentiary uses of the syndrome in Ohio. It discusses the emergence of the battered woman syndrome in Ohio courts, and then examines the unsuccessful initial attempts by prosecutors in Ohio to use expert testimony on the syndrome.Part IV looks at how several jurisdictions outside of Ohio have addressed this issue. Part V presents the argument that prosecutors in Ohio should be allowed to introduce battered woman evidence in domestic violence cases. To provide a basis for this argument, it begins by setting forth the applicable Ohio Rules of Evidence. Next, it examines each of the arguments currently cited in Ohio against prosecutorial use of battered woman evidence, and attempts to rebut each one in turn. Finally, it proposes a framework for the prosecutorial introduction of testimony on the syndrome that will enhance the likelihood of overturning the precedent in Ohio. Part VI provides concluding remarks

Managing Undocumented Students: Do Undocumented Students Hinder Student Performance?

Illegal immigration is a salient topic for policy makers and for local units of government who are responsible for implementing policies. One particularly relevant policy topic is to what extent undocumented students affect performance in public schools, and if undocumented students do have an impact on performance, what can be done about it? Using Texas as a case study, this analysis finds that, surprisingly, undocumented students have only a marginal effect on the overall performance on standardized exams. Among Latinos, however, there is a statistically negative effect. Furthermore, evidence suggests that managerial skills can mitigate those negative effects

Electromagnetic form factors of light vector mesons

The electromagnetic form factors G_E(q^2), G_M(q^2), and G_Q(q^2), charge radii, magnetic and quadrupole moments, and decay widths of the light vector mesons rho^+, K^{*+} and K^{*0} are calculated in a Lorentz-covariant, Dyson-Schwinger equation based model using algebraic quark propagators that incorporate confinement, asymptotic freedom, and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, and vector meson Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes closely related to the pseudoscalar amplitudes obtained from phenomenological studies of pi and K mesons. Calculated static properties of vector mesons include the charge radii and magnetic moments: r_{rho+} = 0.61 fm, r_{K*+} = 0.54 fm, and r^2_{K*0} = -0.048 fm^2; mu_{rho+} = 2.69, mu_{K*+} = 2.37, and mu_{K*0} = -0.40. The calculated static limits of the rho-meson form factors are similar to those obtained from light-front quantum mechanical calculations, but begin to differ above q^2 = 1 GeV^2 due to the dynamical evolution of the quark propagators in our approach.Comment: 8 pages of RevTeX, 5 eps figure

Arabidopsis NAP1 regulates the formation of autophagosomes

The SCAR/WAVE complex is required for ARP2/3-mediated actin nucleation, and these complexes are highly conserved in plants and animals [1 and 2]. Proteins from the SCAR/WAVE complex have been found to be membrane associated in plants [3]. Using fluorescent protein fusions, we have found that NAP1 [4], a component of the SCAR/WAVE complex, locates to vesicles or puncta that appear upon applied pressure. These NAP1 vesicles can be endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated, can co-align with the cytoskeleton, and fuse to each other homotypically. More interestingly, the majority co-localizes with the autophagosome marker ATG8, and anti-NAP1 identifies autophagosomes in immuno-TEM. Macroautophagy (hereafter referred to as autophagy) is enhanced under certain stress conditions such as nitrogen starvation and salt stress. We show that fewer autophagosomes are generated in the NAP1 knockout mutant during starvation stress. The nap1 mutant (and KO mutants of other components of the SCAR/WAVE and ARP2/3 complexes) is more susceptible to nitrogen starvation and is less salt tolerant, indicating defective autophagy. In conclusion, our data show that NAP1 has another function in plant cells, and that is as a regulator of autophagy

New-Onset Heart Failure and Ischemic Stroke in Non-compaction Cardiomyopathy: A Case Report

Left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC) cardiomyopathy is an embryological disorder of endocardial trabeculation and can cause heart failure, arrhythmias, and thromboembolism. Lifelong anticoagulation is indicated in patients with reduced ejection fraction due to high risks of thromboembolism. Reduced ejection fraction can develop in these patients as a consequence of this cardiomyopathy, thereby increasing the risk of intracardiac thrombus formation. This new-onset reduced ejection fraction may develop rapidly, which may not be amenable to detection by routine screening. We present a case of non-compaction cardiomyopathy (NCC) with a previously normal ejection fraction who had an ischemic stroke and was found to have new-onset reduced ejection fraction

The Quark-Photon Vertex and the Pion Charge Radius

The rainbow truncation of the quark Dyson-Schwinger equation is combined with the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the dressed quark-photon vertex to study the low-momentum behavior of the pion electromagnetic form factor. With model gluon parameters previously fixed by the pion mass and decay constant, the pion charge radius $r_\pi$ is found to be in excellent agreement with the data. When the often-used Ball-Chiu Ansatz is used to construct the quark-photon vertex directly from the quark propagator, less than half of $r_\pi^2$ is generated. The remainder of $r^2_\pi$ is seen to be attributable to the presence of the $\rho$-pole in the solution of the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Mean field exponents and small quark masses

We demonstrate that the restoration of chiral symmetry at finite-T in a class of confining Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) models of QCD is a mean field transition, and that an accurate determination of the critical exponents using the chiral and thermal susceptibilities requires very small values of the current-quark mass: log_{10}(m/m_u) < -5. Other classes of DSE models characterised by qualitatively different interactions also exhibit a mean field transition. Incipient in this observation is the suggestion that mean field exponents are a result of the gap equation's fermion substructure and not of the interaction.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, REVTEX, epsfi

Running coupling and fermion mass in strong coupling QED

Simple toy model is used in order to exhibit the technique of extracting the non-perturbative information about Green's functions in Minkowski space. The effective charge and the dynamical electron mass are calculated in strong coupling 3+1 QED by solving the coupled Dyson-Schwinger equations for electron and photon propagators. The minimal Ball-Chiu vertex was used for simplicity and we impose the Landau gauge fixing on QED action. The solution obtained separately in Euclidean and Minkowski space were compared, the latter one was extracted with the help of spectral technique.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, v4: revised and extended version, one introductory section adde

The π\pi, K+K^+, and K0K^0 electromagnetic form factors

The rainbow truncation of the quark Dyson-Schwinger equation is combined with the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation for the meson amplitudes and the dressed quark-photon vertex in a self-consistent Poincar\'e-invariant study of the pion and kaon electromagnetic form factors in impulse approximation. We demonstrate explicitly that the current is conserved in this approach and that the obtained results are independent of the momentum partitioning in the Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes. With model gluon parameters previously fixed by the condensate, the pion mass and decay constant, and the kaon mass, the charge radii and spacelike form factors are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Revte

Chiral symmetry breaking in dimensionally regularized nonperturbative quenched QED

In this paper we study dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in dimensionally regularized quenched QED within the context of Dyson-Schwinger equations. In D < 4 dimensions the theory has solutions which exhibit chiral symmetry breaking for all values of the coupling. To begin with, we study this phenomenon both numerically and, with some approximations, analytically within the rainbow approximation in the Landau gauge. In particular, we discuss how to extract the critical coupling alpha_c = pi/3 relevant in four dimensions from the D dimensional theory. We further present analytic results for the chirally symmetric solution obtained with the Curtis-Pennington vertex as well as numerical results for solutions exhibiting chiral symmetry breaking. For these we demonstrate that, using dimensional regularization, the extraction of the critical coupling relevant for this vertex is feasible. Initial results for this critical coupling are in agreement with cut-off based work within the currently achievable numerical precision.Comment: 24 pages, including 5 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.