Emergency Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Injunctive, and Declaratory Relief - Class Action

As a tragic combination of infectious and deadly, COVID-19 poses a once-in-a-lifetime threat on a worldwide scale. Every state and territory in the United States has now been impacted, with nearly half a million cases and over 20,000 deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even under ordinary conditions, each person who contracts this illness can be expected to infect between 2 and 3 others. Cramped, overcrowded prisons amplify this threat. With thousands of people literally stacked on top of each other and unable to move around without rubbing shoulders, such environments are fundamentally incompatible with medically-indicated social distancing and hygiene protocols. As a result, they present a grave threat not only to prisoners and staff, but also to the broader community by enabling the spread of COVID-19 both inside and outside the prison walls. This danger is playing out with disastrous consequences in Elkton Federal Correctional Institution ( FCI Elkton ), a low-security federal correctional institution with an adjacent low security satellite prison ( FSL Elkton ), collectively described as Elkton. As of April 12, 2020, at least 3 prisoners have died, and scores of prisoners and staff have reportedly been hospitalized, including more than a dozen who have needed ventilators to stay alive. These numbers will continue to grow exponentially. Despite knowing the risks to prisoners, staff, and the community, Elkton has failed to provide meaningful protection against the spread of the disease. Prisoners are still clustered together in confined spaces with limited access to hygiene and inadequate ventilation

Symmetry-based analytical solutions to the \chi^{(2)} nonlinear directional coupler

In general the ubiquitous \chi^{(2)} nonlinear directional coupler, where nonlinearity and evanescent coupling are intertwined, is nonintegrable. We rigorously demonstrate that matching excitation to the even or odd fundamental supermodes yields dynamical analytical solutions for any phase matching in a symmetric coupler. We analyze second harmonic generation and optical parametric amplification regimes and study the influence of fundamental fields parity and power on the operation of the device. These fundamental solutions are useful to develop applications in classical and quantum fields such as all-optical modulation of light and quantum-states engineering.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Petitioners\u27 Reply Memorandum in Support of Their Emergency Petetion for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

In the roughly 120 hours since Petitioners filed their emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the death toll at Elkton has doubled, and the number of BOP-confirmed COVID-19 cases among prisoners has tripled. About three dozen corrections staff have tested positive for the virus, a number that has also tripled since this case was filed. Elkton now accounts for more than one-third of all prisoner deaths from COVID-19 in federal prisons nationwide, and over half of the COVID-19 deaths in Columbiana County, making it one of the deadliest places a person can live in the current pandemic. According to one source, 32 prisoners have been hospitalized, including 16 requiring ventilators. Meanwhile, Respondents “have yet to come up with a good, sound criteria of how they are going to actually start the testing” of prisoners, much less a plan for social distancing, release, or transfer. Two weeks after the Attorney General exhorted Respondents to “immediately review” all prisoners with COVID-19 risk factors and “immediately transfer them” after quarantine, a mere six of the 2,400 prisoners at Elkton, or 0.25%, have been approved. Elkton has become an epicenter of COVID-19, and continued confinement will mean a sentence of death, permanently damaged organs, or unnecessary suffering for more residents. Respondents’ lack of effective action constitutes deliberate indifference to serious medical need. This Court is empowered to provide a process for the necessary releases—the only means by which prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights can be vindicated. The nature of that authority, under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 or alternatively 28 U.S.C. § 1331, is explained further in Section III below

Deep dives and aortic temperatures of emperor penguins: new directions for bio-logging at the isolated dive hole

In order to document deep (>100 m) dives and aortic temperature responses of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) at an isolated dive hole, and also to evaluate a new catheterization technique, three birds were equipped with time depth recorders, temperature data loggers, and percutaneously-inserted aortic thermistors. After recovery from anesthesia, they were provided access for one day to the dive hole. The birds tolerated the experiment without complication. Mean diving duration (+ SE) of 83 dives was 5.9 + 3.1 min; 55% of dives were > 5.6 min, the previously determined aerobic dive limit; 36% were > 100 m in depth. Mean aortic temperatures during 3-h rest periods ranged from 37.3 + 0.2oC to 38.0 + 0.1oC. Mean dive temperature did not correlate with dive duration, and the grand mean of mean dive temperatures in each bird ranged from 38.3 + 0.2oC to 39.0 + 0.2oC; there was no evidence of core hypothermia during dives. Reliable, safe catheterizations, and the large percentage of deep/long dives of these birds should provide the basis both for future studies of pressure adaptation and hypoxemic tolerance in diving emperor penguins, and for investigation of deep-dive foraging behavior

A System for Performing High Throughput Assays of Synaptic Function

Unbiased, high-throughput screening has proven invaluable for dissecting complex biological processes. Application of this general approach to synaptic function would have a major impact on neuroscience research and drug discovery. However, existing techniques for studying synaptic physiology are labor intensive and low-throughput. Here, we describe a new high-throughput technology for performing assays of synaptic function in primary neurons cultured in microtiter plates. We show that this system can perform 96 synaptic vesicle cycling assays in parallel with high sensitivity, precision, uniformity, and reproducibility and can detect modulators of presynaptic function. By screening libraries of pharmacologically defined compounds on rat forebrain cultures, we have used this system to identify novel effects of compounds on specific aspects of presynaptic function. As a system for unbiased compound as well as genomic screening, this technology has significant applications for basic neuroscience research and for the discovery of novel, mechanism-based treatments for central nervous system disorders

AEGIS: Demographics of X-ray and Optically Selected AGNs

We develop a new diagnostic method to classify galaxies into AGN hosts, star-forming galaxies, and absorption-dominated galaxies by combining the [O III]/Hbeta ratio with rest-frame U-B color. This can be used to robustly select AGNs in galaxy samples at intermediate redshifts (z<1). We compare the result of this optical AGN selection with X-ray selection using a sample of 3150 galaxies with 0.3<z<0.8 and I_AB<22, selected from the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey and the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS). Among the 146 X-ray sources in this sample, 58% are classified optically as emission-line AGNs, the rest as star-forming galaxies or absorption-dominated galaxies. The latter are also known as "X-ray bright, optically normal galaxies" (XBONGs). Analysis of the relationship between optical emission lines and X-ray properties shows that the completeness of optical AGN selection suffers from dependence on the star formation rate and the quality of observed spectra. It also shows that XBONGs do not appear to be a physically distinct population from other X-ray detected, emission-line AGNs. On the other hand, X-ray AGN selection also has strong bias. About 2/3 of all emission-line AGNs at L_bol>10^44 erg/s in our sample are not detected in our 200 ks Chandra images, most likely due to moderate or heavy absorption by gas near the AGN. The 2--7 keV detection rate of Seyfert 2s at z~0.6 suggests that their column density distribution and Compton-thick fraction are similar to that of local Seyferts. Multiple sample selection techniques are needed to obtain as complete a sample as possible.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, submitted to ApJ. Version 2 matches the ApJ accepted version. Sec 3 was reorganized and partly rewritten with one additional figure (Fig.3

AGN feedback in the Local Universe: multiphase outflow of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5506

We present new optical GTC/MEGARA seeing-limited (0.9") integral-field observations of NGC 5506, together with ALMA observations of the CO(3-2) transition at a 0.2" (25 pc) resolution. NGC 5506 is a luminous (bolometric luminosity of $\sim 10^{44}$ erg/s) nearby (26 Mpc) Seyfert galaxy, part of the Galaxy Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS). We modelled the CO(3-2) kinematics with 3D-Barolo, revealing a rotating and outflowing cold gas ring within the central 1.2 kpc. We derived an integrated cold molecular gas mass outflow rate for the ring of 8 M$_{\odot}$/yr. We fitted the optical emission lines with a maximum of two Gaussian components to separate rotation from non-circular motions. We detected high [OIII]$\lambda$5007 projected velocities (up to 1000 km/s) at the active galactic nucleus (AGN) position, decreasing with radius to an average 330 km/s around 350 pc. We also modelled the [OIII] gas kinematics with a non-parametric method, estimating the ionisation parameter and electron density in every spaxel, from which we derived an ionised mass outflow rate of 0.076 M$_{\odot}$/yr within the central 1.2 kpc. Regions of high CO(3-2) velocity dispersion, extending to projected distances of 350 pc from the AGN, appear to be the result from the interaction of the AGN wind with molecular gas in the galaxy's disc. Additionally, we find the ionised outflow to spatially correlate with radio and soft X-ray emission in the central kiloparsec. We conclude that the effects of AGN feedback in NGC 5506 manifest as a large-scale ionised wind interacting with the molecular disc, resulting in outflows extending to radial distances of 610 pcComment: 24 pages, 30 figures, accepted for publication by Astronomy & Astrophysic