Torremoro v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 138 Nev. Adv. Op. 54 (July 07, 2022)

The Supreme Court of Nevada addressed the standard for substituting an expert witness after the close of discovery and considered whether the district court abused its discretion in modifying the scheduling order, reopening discovery, and granting the motion to substitute. Torremoro requested a writ of mandamus requesting this Court to instruct the district court to reverse its order allowing substitution of an expert witness. The Court found that NRCP 16(b)(4)’s “good cause” test, in combination with any relevant local rules, provides the standard governing when a district court may modify a scheduling order. 2 The Court also concluded that the district court properly granted the motion to substitute the expert witness. The Court denied the petition for a writ of mandamus

In re B.J.W.-A., 139 Nev. Adv. Op. 1 (Jan. 12, 2023)

The Supreme Court of Nevada addressed the exception to the category A felony designation for lewdness with a child under NRS 201.230, and considered whether the juvenile court abused its discretion in certifying the appellant to stand trial as an adult. B.J. appealed the juvenile court decision to not accept jurisdiction and to certify B.J. as an adult for criminal proceedings. The Court found that the Legislature did not create a mandatory rule in NRS 201.230(5) requiring that all minors charged with lewdness with a child be adjudicated only in juvenile court. The Court also concluded that the juvenile court has jurisdiction over B.J. under 201.230(1), but under NRS 62B.390(1)(a), the juvenile court had discretion to certify B.J. for criminal proceedings as an adult because he was charged with offenses that would have been a felony had he been an adult. The Court affirmed the juvenile court’s decision

The Auditory Comprehension of Unaccusative Verbs in Aphasia

Some persons with aphasia, particularly those diagnosed with a Broca’s aphasia, exhibit a delayed time course of lexical activation in canonically ordered S-V-O sentences (Ferrill et al., 2012) and delayed re-activation of displaced arguments in sentences that contain syntactic dependencies (Love et al., 2008). These patterns support the Delayed Lexical Activation (DLA) hypothesis: Lexical activation is delayed relative to the normal case, and thus lexical activation and syntactic operations are de-synchronized; that is, lexical access is too slow for normally fast-acting syntactic operations. This delay in lexical access leads to what appear to be syntactic comprehension deficits in aphasia. In the current study we further examined lexical activation during sentence comprehension in persons with aphasia by using unaccusative verbs. Unaccusative verbs are a type of intransitive verb with a single argument that is base generated in object position and displaced to the surface subject position, leaving behind a copy or trace (‘gap’) of the movement (see, for example, Burzio, 1986), as in: 1. The girl vanished Thus there is a syntactic dependency between the two positions. When encountering sentences that contain syntactic dependencies (e.g., object relatives, Wh-questions) neurologically unimpaired individuals immediately reactivate the displaced argument at the gap (Shapiro et al., 1999; Love et al., 2008). In contrast to this immediate reactivation, prior findings indicate that neurologically unimpaired individuals do not reactivate the displaced argument in similar sentences with unaccusative verbs until 750ms downstream from the gap (Friedmann et al., 2008). This built-in delay observed with unaccusative verbs in neurologically healthy participants provides a unique opportunity to further examine lexical delays in individuals with Broca’s aphasia. Importantly, individuals with Broca’s aphasia may have unaccusative verb deficits. Previous research has found that persons with aphasia have difficulty producing unaccusative verbs. Offline truth-value judgment tasks with intransitive sentences containing unaccusative verbs do not reveal comprehension deficits (Lee & Thompson, 2004). However, in a sentence-picture matching task, McAllister et al. (2009) found lower accuracy for intransitive sentences that contained unaccusative verbs than transitive sentences. We entertain the following hypothesis: The delayed lexical access routines better synchronize with the delay of reactivating the argument of unaccusatives, suggesting that individuals with Broca’s aphasia should evince a pattern like that of unimpaired individuals. Alternatively, participants with Broca’s aphasia might show activation even further downstream from the gap, given that in other sentence constructions containing syntactic dependencies they exhibit a delayed pattern of reactivation compared to neurologically unimpaired individuals

Leibniz algebroids, twistings and exceptional generalized geometry

We investigate a class of Leibniz algebroids which are invariant under diffeomorphisms and symmetries involving collections of closed forms. Under appropriate assumptions we arrive at a classification which in particular gives a construction starting from graded Lie algebras. In this case the Leibniz bracket is a derived bracket and there are higher derived brackets resulting in an $L_\infty$-structure. The algebroids can be twisted by a non-abelian cohomology class and we prove that the twisting class is described by a Maurer-Cartan equation. For compact manifolds we construct a Kuranishi moduli space of this equation which is shown to be affine algebraic. We explain how these results are related to exceptional generalized geometry.Comment: 58 page

Quality of life lost due to non-fatal road traffic injuries

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the e§ect of a non-fatal road crash on the health-related quality of life of injured people. A new approach based on the cardinalization of categorical Self-Assessed Health valuations, is suggested. Health losses have been estimated by using di§erent Time Trade-o§ and Visual Analogue Scale tari§s, in order to assess the robustness of the results. The methodology is based on the existing literature about treatment e§ects. Our main contribution focuses on evaluating the loss of health up to one year after the non-fatal accident, for those who are non-institutionalized, which aids the appropriate estimation of the aggregated health losses in quality-of-life terms

Can programme theory be used as a 'translational tool’ to optimise health service delivery in a national early years’ initiative in Scotland: a case study

Background Theory-based evaluation (TBE) approaches are heralded as supporting formative evaluation by facilitating increased use of evaluative findings to guide programme improvement. It is essential that learning from programme implementation is better used to improve delivery and to inform other initiatives, if interventions are to be as effective as they have the potential to be. Nonetheless, few studies describe formative feedback methods, or report direct instrumental use of findings resulting from TBE. This paper uses the case of Scotland’s, National Health Service, early years’, oral health improvement initiative (Childsmile) to describe the use of TBE as a framework for providing feedback on delivery to programme staff and to assess its impact on programmatic action.<p></p> Methods In-depth, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders explored perceived deviations between the Childsmile programme 'as delivered’ and its Programme Theory (PT). The data was thematically analysed using constant comparative methods. Findings were shared with key programme stakeholders and discussions around likely impact and necessary actions were facilitated by the authors. Documentary review and ongoing observations of programme meetings were undertaken to assess the extent to which learning was acted upon.<p></p> Results On the whole, the activities documented in Childsmile’s PT were implemented as intended. This paper purposefully focuses on those activities where variation in delivery was evident. Differences resulted from the stage of roll-out reached and the flexibility given to individual NHS boards to tailor local implementation. Some adaptations were thought to have diverged from the central features of Childsmile’s PT, to the extent that there was a risk to achieving outcomes. The methods employed prompted national service improvement action, and proposals for local action by individual NHS boards to address this.<p></p> Conclusions The TBE approach provided a platform, to direct attention to areas of risk within a national health initiative, and to agree which intervention components were 'core’ to its hypothesised success. The study demonstrates that PT can be used as a 'translational tool’ to facilitate instrumental use of evaluative findings to optimise implementation within a complex health improvement programme.<p></p&gt

Better living with non-memory led dementia: Protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial of a web-based caregiver educational programme

Background Non-memory-led dementias such as posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) are low prevalent and often affect individuals under the age of 65. Tailored educational and support resources for caregivers of people living with these dementia phenotypes are scarce and unevenly distributed geographically. Web-based educational programmes are emerging as promising alternatives to improve caregiver self-efficacy and well-being. Here, we present the protocol of a study aiming to assess the feasibility of a co-produced online educational programme for caregivers of people living PCA, PPA and bvFTD: the Better Living with Non-memory-led Dementia programme. Methods A randomised controlled feasibility trial will be conducted on a sample of 30 caregivers of people living with PCA, PPA and bvFTD. Participants will be recruited among members of the support organisation Rare Dementia Support (based at UCL in the UK). The intervention group will be given access to an 8-week co-produced web-based educational programme consisting of 6 modules addressing education about PCA, PPA and bvFTD and support strategies for the person with dementia and for the caregiver. The control group will receive treatment as usual (TAU). Feasibility will be measured through feasibility of recruitment, clinical measurement tools and acceptability. Clinical measures will be used to assess preliminary efficacy and data on completion rates, missing data and variability used to decide on measures to be included in a full-scale trial. Allocation ratio will be 2:1 (intervention:control) stratified by diagnosis. Feasibility of recruitment and acceptability will be assessed. Clinical measures will be administered at baseline and 8-week and 3-month post-randomisation. The control group will be offered access to the intervention at the completion of data collection. Participants will be unblinded, and all measures will be self-reported online. Discussion Online-delivered educational programmes show potential for improving care competency of caregivers and may contribute to overcoming geographical inequalities in local provision of support services. This pilot study will inform a fully powered international trial to determine the effectiveness of Better Living with Non-memory-led Dementia. Trial registration This trial has been registered prospectively on the Clinical Trials Registry on 1st September 2022, registration number NCT05525377

Summary: Working Group on QCD and Strong Interactions

In this summary of the considerations of the QCD working group at Snowmass 2001, the roles of quantum chromodynamics in the Standard Model and in the search for new physics are reviewed, with empahsis on frontier areas in the field. We discuss the importance of, and prospects for, precision QCD in perturbative and lattice calculations. We describe new ideas in the analysis of parton distribution functions and jet structure, and review progress in small-$x$ and in polarization.Comment: Snowmass 2001. Revtex4, 34 pages, 4 figures, revised to include additional references on jets and lattice QC