Chicanx histories of the present: a praxis against gang injunctions in Orange County, California, 2008–2016

Chicanxs Unidxs de Orange County (CU) is a community organisation in Southern California. Founded in 2006, CU is small, multigenerational and multi-ethnic. Its organising has focused predominantly on building community power by focusing on local politics, abusive policing and the gentrification of Chicanx neighbourhoods. This article presents an evidence-based narrative of several CU campaigns (primarily between 2008 and 2016). CU’s tactical aggressiveness and strategic pragmatism forced significant changes to ‘civil gang injunctions’ in California. For decades, California law enforcement has used such injunctions to suppress a generation of young people of colour as ‘gang members’. Minors and adults have been prohibited indefinitely from engaging in otherwise legal activities without due process. CU’s emphasis on the longevity of institutionalised and societal racism, rooted in the colonial conquest, resembles arguments associated with critical race theory (CRT) – though CU was not inspired by CRT. CU’s praxis resembles practices of critical pedagogy – though it was not directly modelled on it either. Rather, we argue that CU’s praxis is embedded in the members’ lived experience and study of the local history of racism, community and social movements. All five of this article’s authors were members of CU and were involved in the organising described in this article. The authors wrote this at the request of the CU membership, and it has been discussed and revised by the full membership

Cost-benefit analysis of alternative tax policies on sugar-sweetened beverages in Mexico

In 2014, Mexico implemented a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) equivalent to one Mexican peso (MP) per liter to address the high obesity prevalence. This tax has effectively reduced SSB purchases and yielded healthcare savings; however, it remains unknown whether SSB taxes lead to net benefits at the societal level in Mexico. Moreover, public health experts recommend increasing the tax. The objective of this study is to estimate the net benefits of SSB taxes compared to a scenario of no tax in urban Mexico. Taxes include the one-MP tax and alternative higher taxes (two and three MP per SSB liter). Thus, we conducted a cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of the government, producers, and consumers for a simulated closed cohort of adults in a life-table model. We defined net benefits as the difference between economic benefits (the value of statistical life, healthcare savings, and tax revenue) and costs (consumer surplus and profit losses). We found that, at the societal level, all simulated taxes will eventually generate benefits that surpass costs within ten years. Overall net benefits can reach USD 7.1 billion and 15.3 billion for the one-MP and the three-MP tax, respectively. Hence, these benefits increased at a declining rate compared to taxes. The government and consumers will experience overall positive net benefits among society's members. Policymakers should consider time horizons and tradeoffs between health gains and economic outcomes across different society members

Association between milk yield and serial locomotion score assessments in UK dairy cows

This study investigated the effect of lameness, measured by serial locomotion scoring over a 12-mo period, on the milk yield of UK dairy cows. The data set consisted of 11,735 records of test-day yield and locomotion scores collected monthly from 1,400 cows kept on 7 farms. The data were analyzed in a multilevel linear regression model to account for the correlation of repeated measures of milk yield within cow. Factors affecting milk yield included farm of origin, stage of lactation, parity, season, and whether cows were ever lame or ever severely lame during the study period. Cows that had been severely lame 4, 6, and 8 mo previously gave 0.51 kg/d, 0.66 kg/d, and 1.55 kg/d less milk, respectively. A severe case of lameness in the first month of lactation reduced 305-d milk yield by 350 kg; this loss may be avoidable by prompt, effective treatment. Larger reductions can be expected when cases persist or recur. Evidence-based control plans are needed to reduce the incidence and prevalence of lameness in high yielding cows to improve welfare and productivity

Loss of the RNA polymerase III repressor MAF1 confers obesity resistance.

MAF1 is a global repressor of RNA polymerase III transcription that regulates the expression of highly abundant noncoding RNAs in response to nutrient availability and cellular stress. Thus, MAF1 function is thought to be important for metabolic economy. Here we show that a whole-body knockout of Maf1 in mice confers resistance to diet-induced obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by reducing food intake and increasing metabolic inefficiency. Energy expenditure in Maf1(-/-) mice is increased by several mechanisms. Precursor tRNA synthesis was increased in multiple tissues without significant effects on mature tRNA levels, implying increased turnover in a futile tRNA cycle. Elevated futile cycling of hepatic lipids was also observed. Metabolite profiling of the liver and skeletal muscle revealed elevated levels of many amino acids and spermidine, which links the induction of autophagy in Maf1(-/-) mice with their extended life span. The increase in spermidine was accompanied by reduced levels of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase, which promotes polyamine synthesis, enables nicotinamide salvage to regenerate NAD(+), and is associated with obesity resistance. Consistent with this, NAD(+) levels were increased in muscle. The importance of MAF1 for metabolic economy reveals the potential for MAF1 modulators to protect against obesity and its harmful consequences

Quantification of selection bias in studies of risk factors for birth defects among livebirths

Background: Risk factors for birth defects are frequently investigated using data limited to liveborn infants. By conditioning on survival, results of such studies may be distorted by selection bias, also described as “livebirth bias.” However, the implications of livebirth bias on risk estimation remain poorly understood. Objectives: We sought to quantify livebirth bias and to investigate the conditions under which it arose. Methods: We used data on 3994 birth defects cases and 11 829 controls enrolled in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study to compare odds ratio (OR) estimates of the relationship between three established risk factors (antiepileptic drug use, smoking, and multifetal pregnancy) and four birth defects (anencephaly, spina bifida, omphalocele, and cleft palate) when restricted to livebirths as compared to among livebirths, stillbirths, and elective terminations. Exposures and birth defects represented varying strengths of association with livebirth; all controls were liveborn. We performed a quantitative bias analysis to evaluate the sensitivity of our results to excluding terminated and stillborn controls. Results: Cases ranged from 33% liveborn (anencephaly) to 99% (cleft palate). Smoking and multifetal pregnancy were associated with livebirth among anencephaly (crude OR [cOR] 0.61 and cOR 3.15, respectively) and omphalocele cases (cOR 2.22 and cOR 5.22, respectively). For analyses of the association between exposures and birth defects, restricting to livebirths produced negligible differences in estimates except for anencephaly and multifetal pregnancy, which was twofold higher among livebirths (adjusted OR [aOR] 4.93) as among all pregnancy outcomes (aOR 2.44). Within tested scenarios, bias analyses suggested that results were not sensitive to the restriction to liveborn controls. Conclusions: Selection bias was generally limited except for high mortality defects in the context of exposures strongly associated with livebirth. Findings indicate that substantial livebirth bias is unlikely to affect studies of risk factors for most birth defects

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 2.76 TeV

The inclusive transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions of primary charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta|<0.8$ as a function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the $p_{\rm T}$ range $0.15<p_{\rm T}<50$ GeV/$c$ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%. The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm{AA}}$ using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision energy. We observe that the suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles strongly depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most suppressed with $R_{\rm{AA}}\approx0.13$ at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7 GeV/$c$. Above $p_{\rm T}=7$ GeV/$c$, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification factor, which reaches $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx0.4$ for $p_{\rm T}>30$ GeV/$c$. In peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with $R_{\rm{AA}} \approx 0.7$ almost independently of $p_{\rm T}$. The measured nuclear modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284