EXPLORING INTERPRETATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF MICHIGAN’S EXPUNGEMENT STATUTE THROUGH FORMAL MODELING AND ANALYSIS

Rules and regulations often come with a lack of clarity and the possibility of multiple interpretations. Without a clear understanding of what they are supposed to mean it becomes difficult to tell the people that these rules and regulations apply what to expect from them. This report will take a closer look at one of these sets of rules, the expungement laws in the state of Michigan. The alternative interpretations and possible contradictions are explored and their effects on real people are discussed. After an introduction providing a general understanding of the issue, a proposed solution to these problems will be looked at as well. Computer models can be used to explore the consequences and different outcomes from different interpretations of these laws. A model was written in Alloy in order to show the practicality of this method and was used to further explore the Michigan expungement laws

Taxation - Real Estate Tax Exemption - Purely Public Charities

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a private nursing home that has a significant number of Medicare/ Medicaid patients qualifies as a purely public charity and is therefore exempt from payment of local real estate taxes. St. Margaret Seneca Place v. Board of Property Assessment, Appeals & Review, 640 A.2d 380 (Pa. 1994)

Depressive Symptoms Predicted by Executive Dysfunctions

Poster Presentation & Judging of Undergraduate Research

What Do Healthy Rural Economies Look Like in the U.S., and How Might Conservation Organizations Help Support Them?

Report of the 2012 Berkley Workshop Held at the Wingspread Conference Center, Racine,WI - July 201

Severe flooding and cause-specific hospitalization in the United States

Flooding is one of the most disruptive and costliest climate-related disasters and presents an escalating threat to population health due to climate change and urbanization patterns. Previous studies have investigated the consequences of flood exposures on only a handful of health outcomes and focus on a single flood event or affected region. To address this gap, we conducted a nationwide, multi-decade analysis of the impacts of severe floods on a wide range of health outcomes in the United States by linking a novel satellite-based high-resolution flood exposure database with Medicare cause-specific hospitalization records over the period 2000- 2016. Using a self-matched study design with a distributed lag model, we examined how cause-specific hospitalization rates deviate from expected rates during and up to four weeks after severe flood exposure. Our results revealed that risk of hospitalization was consistently elevated during and for at least four weeks following severe flood exposure for nervous system diseases (3.5 %; 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.6 %, 6.4 %), skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases (3.4 %; 95 % CI: 0.3 %, 6.7 %), and injury and poisoning (1.5 %; 95 % CI: -0.07 %, 3.2 %). Increases in hospitalization rate for these causes, musculoskeletal system diseases, and mental health-related impacts varied based on proportion of Black residents in each ZIP Code. Our findings demonstrate the need for targeted preparedness strategies for hospital personnel before, during, and after severe flooding

Active-site protonation states in an Acyl-Enzyme intermediate of a Class A β-Lactamase with a Monobactam Substrate

The monobactam antibiotic aztreonam is used to treat cystic fibrosis patients with chronic pulmonary infections colonized by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains expressing CTX-M extended-spectrum β-lactamases. The protonation states of active-site residues that are responsible for hydrolysis have been determined previously for the apo form of a CTX-M β-lactamase but not for a monobactam acyl-enzyme intermediate. Here we used neutron and high-resolution X-ray crystallography to probe the mechanism by which CTX-M extended-spectrum β-lactamases hydrolyze monobactam antibiotics. In these first reported structures of a class A β-lactamase in an acyl-enzyme complex with aztreonam, we directly observed most of the hydrogen atoms (as deuterium) within the active site. Although Lys 234 is fully protonated in the acyl intermediate, we found that Lys 73 is neutral. These findings are consistent with Lys 73 being able to serve as a general base during the acylation part of the catalytic mechanism, as previously proposed

On the Lawrence–Doniach and Anisotropic Ginzburg–Landau Models for Layered Superconductors

The authors consider two models, the Lawrence-Doniach and the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau models for layered superconductors such as the recently discovered high-temperature superconductors. A mathematical description of both models is given and existence results for their solution are derived. The authors then relate the two models in the sense that they show that as the layer spacing tends to zero, the Lawrence-Doniach model reduces to the anisotropic Ginzburg- Landau model. Finally, simplified versions of the models are derived that can be used to accurately simulate high-temperature superconductors