Matrix of Federal Statutes and Federal and State Court Decisions Reflecting the Core Concepts of Disability Policy

This article sets out the 18 core concepts of policy affecting families who have children with disabilities. It defines each concept, provides a reference to the constitutional principle(s) that undergird the core concept, cites the federal statutes that reflect the core concept, and references the decisions of the United States Supreme Court and other courts interpreting or defining the core concept

Common carotid intima media thickness and ankle-brachial pressure index correlate with local but not global atheroma burden:a cross sectional study using whole body magnetic resonance angiography

Common carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) and ankle brachial pressure index (ABPI) are used as surrogate marker of atherosclerosis, and have been shown to correlate with arterial stiffness, however their correlation with global atherosclerotic burden has not been previously assessed. We compare CIMT and ABPI with atheroma burden as measured by whole body magnetic resonance angiography (WB-MRA).50 patients with symptomatic peripheral arterial disease were recruited. CIMT was measured using ultrasound while rest and exercise ABPI were performed. WB-MRA was performed in a 1.5T MRI scanner using 4 volume acquisitions with a divided dose of intravenous gadolinium gadoterate meglumine (Dotarem, Guerbet, FR). The WB-MRA data was divided into 31 anatomical arterial segments with each scored according to degree of luminal narrowing: 0 = normal, 1 = <50%, 2 = 50-70%, 3 = 70-99%, 4 = vessel occlusion. The segment scores were summed and from this a standardized atheroma score was calculated.The atherosclerotic burden was high with a standardised atheroma score of 39.5±11. Common CIMT showed a positive correlation with the whole body atheroma score (β 0.32, p = 0.045), however this was due to its strong correlation with the neck and thoracic segments (β 0.42 p = 0.01) with no correlation with the rest of the body. ABPI correlated with the whole body atheroma score (β -0.39, p = 0.012), which was due to a strong correlation with the ilio-femoral vessels with no correlation with the thoracic or neck vessels. On multiple linear regression, no correlation between CIMT and global atheroma burden was present (β 0.13 p = 0.45), while the correlation between ABPI and atheroma burden persisted (β -0.45 p = 0.005).ABPI but not CIMT correlates with global atheroma burden as measured by whole body contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography in a population with symptomatic peripheral arterial disease. However this is primarily due to a strong correlation with ilio-femoral atheroma burden

The Physical Activity and Redesigned Community Spaces (PARCS) Study: Protocol of a Natural Experiment to Investigate The Impact of Citywide Park Redesign and Renovation

Background: The built environment plays a critical role in promoting physical activity and health. The association between parks, as a key attribute of the built environment, and physical activity, however, remains inconclusive. This project leverages a natural experiment opportunity to assess the impact of the Community Parks Initiative (CPI), a citywide park redesign and renovation effort in New York City, on physical activity, park usage, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing. Methods: The project will use a longitudinal design with matched controls. Thirty intervention park neighborhoods are socio-demographically matched to 20 control park neighborhoods. The study will investigate whether improvements in physical activity, park usage, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing are observed from baseline to 3 years post-renovation among residents in intervention vs. control neighborhoods. Discussion: This study represents a rare opportunity to provide robust evidence to further our understanding of the complex relationship between parks and health. Findings will inform future investments in health-oriented urban design policies and offer evidence for addressing health disparities through built environment strategies

The plight of the sense-making ape

This is a selective review of the published literature on object-choice tasks, where participants use directional cues to find hidden objects. This literature comprises the efforts of researchers to make sense of the sense-making capacities of our nearest living relatives. This chapter is written to highlight some nonsensical conclusions that frequently emerge from this research. The data suggest that when apes are given approximately the same sense-making opportunities as we provide our children, then they will easily make sense of our social signals. The ubiquity of nonsensical contemporary scientific claims to the effect that humans are essentially--or inherently--more capable than other great apes in the understanding of simple directional cues is, itself, a testament to the power of preconceived ideas on human perception

Evolution of opinions on social networks in the presence of competing committed groups

Public opinion is often affected by the presence of committed groups of individuals dedicated to competing points of view. Using a model of pairwise social influence, we study how the presence of such groups within social networks affects the outcome and the speed of evolution of the overall opinion on the network. Earlier work indicated that a single committed group within a dense social network can cause the entire network to quickly adopt the group's opinion (in times scaling logarithmically with the network size), so long as the committed group constitutes more than about 10% of the population (with the findings being qualitatively similar for sparse networks as well). Here we study the more general case of opinion evolution when two groups committed to distinct, competing opinions $A$ and $B$, and constituting fractions $p_A$ and $p_B$ of the total population respectively, are present in the network. We show for stylized social networks (including Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graphs and Barab\'asi-Albert scale-free networks) that the phase diagram of this system in parameter space $(p_A,p_B)$ consists of two regions, one where two stable steady-states coexist, and the remaining where only a single stable steady-state exists. These two regions are separated by two fold-bifurcation (spinodal) lines which meet tangentially and terminate at a cusp (critical point). We provide further insights to the phase diagram and to the nature of the underlying phase transitions by investigating the model on infinite (mean-field limit), finite complete graphs and finite sparse networks. For the latter case, we also derive the scaling exponent associated with the exponential growth of switching times as a function of the distance from the critical point.Comment: 23 pages: 15 pages + 7 figures (main text), 8 pages + 1 figure + 1 table (supplementary info

Paralogs and off-target sequences improve phylogenetic resolution in a densely-sampled study of the breadfruit genus (Artocarpus, Moraceae)

We present a 517-gene phylogenetic framework for the breadfruit genus Artocarpus (ca. 70 spp., Moraceae), making use of silica-dried leaves from recent fieldwork and herbarium specimens (some up to 106 years old) to achieve 96% taxon sampling. We explore issues relating to assembly, paralogous loci, partitions, and analysis method to reconstruct a phylogeny that is robust to variation in data and available tools. Although codon partitioning did not result in any substantial topological differences, the inclusion of flanking noncoding sequence in analyses significantly increased the resolution of gene trees. We also found that increasing the size of data sets increased convergence between analysis methods but did not reduce gene-tree conflict. We optimized the HybPiper targeted-enrichment sequence assembly pipeline for short sequences derived from degraded DNA extracted from museum specimens. Although the subgenera of Artocarpus were monophyletic, revision is required at finer scales, particularly with respect to widespread species. We expect our results to provide a basis for further studies in Artocarpus and provide guidelines for future analyses of data sets based on target enrichment data, particularly those using sequences from both fresh and museum material, counseling careful attention to the potential of off-target sequences to improve resolution. [Artocarpus; Moraceae; noncoding sequences; phylogenomics; target enrichment.

Circadian oscillations of cytosolic free calcium regulate the Arabidopsis circadian clock

In the last decade, the view of circadian oscillators has expanded from transcriptional feedback to incorporate post-transcriptional, post-translational, metabolic processes and ionic signalling. In plants and animals, there are circadian oscillations in the concentration of cytosolic-free Ca2+ ([Ca2+]cyt), though their purpose has not been fully characterised. We investigated whether circadian oscillations of [Ca2+] cyt regulate the circadian oscillator of Arabidopsis thaliana. We report that in Arabidopsis, [Ca2+]cyt circadian oscillations can regulate circadian clock function through the Ca2+-dependent action of CALMODULIN-LIKE24 (CML24). Genetic analyses demonstrate a linkage between CML24 and the circadian oscillator, through pathways involving the circadian oscillator gene TIMING OF CAB2 EXPRESSION1 (TOC1).Supported by BBSRC UK research grants BBSRC BB/D010381/1 (A.N.D.), BB/D017904/1 (F.R.) BB/M00113X/1 (H.J.H.) awarded to (A.A.R.W.), Research Studentship (K.H.) and BBSRC Industrial Case (T.H.). A Swiss Science Foundation Award (PBZHP3-123289) and the Isaac Newton Trust Cambridge (M.C.M.R. and S.A.), 678 the National Science Foundation under Grant No. MCB 0817976 (Y-C.T. and J.B.), a Royal Society Grant RG081257 and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Junior Research Fellowship (M.J.G.), a Cordenadoria de Apoio ao Ensino Superior Brazil 25681 studentship (C.T.H.), IEF Marrie Curie (Project No. 272186) (M.C.M.R.), a Broodbank Fellowship (M.C.M.R.), a Malaysian Government Studentship (N.I.M-H.)

An intranasal vaccine durably protects against SARS-CoV-2 variants in mice

SARS-CoV-2 variants that attenuate antibody neutralization could jeopardize vaccine efficacy. We recently reported the protective activity of an intranasally administered spike protein-based chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in animals, which has advanced to human trials. Here, we assessed its durability, dose response, and cross-protective activity in mice. A single intranasal dose of ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S induced durably high neutralizing and Fc effector antibody responses in serum and S-specific IgG and IgA secreting long-lived plasma cells in the bone marrow. Protection against a historical SARS-CoV-2 strain was observed across a 100-fold vaccine dose range and over a 200-day period. At 6 weeks or 9 months after vaccination, serum antibodies neutralized SARS-CoV-2 strains with B.1.351, B.1.1.28, and B.1.617.1 spike proteins and conferred almost complete protection in the upper and lower respiratory tracts after challenge with variant viruses. Thus, in mice, intranasal immunization with ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S provides durable protection against historical and emerging SARS-CoV-2 strains

Quantifying geocode location error using GIS methods

BACKGROUND: The Metropolitan Atlanta Congenital Defects Program (MACDP) collects maternal address information at the time of delivery for infants and fetuses with birth defects. These addresses have been geocoded by two independent agencies: (1) the Georgia Division of Public Health Office of Health Information and Policy (OHIP) and (2) a commercial vendor. Geographic information system (GIS) methods were used to quantify uncertainty in the two sets of geocodes using orthoimagery and tax parcel datasets. METHODS: We sampled 599 infants and fetuses with birth defects delivered during 1994–2002 with maternal residence in either Fulton or Gwinnett County. Tax parcel datasets were obtained from the tax assessor's offices of Fulton and Gwinnett County. High-resolution orthoimagery for these counties was acquired from the U.S. Geological Survey. For each of the 599 addresses we attempted to locate the tax parcel corresponding to the maternal address. If the tax parcel was identified the distance and the angle between the geocode and the residence were calculated. We used simulated data to characterize the impact of geocode location error. In each county 5,000 geocodes were generated and assigned their corresponding Census 2000 tract. Each geocode was then displaced at a random angle by a random distance drawn from the distribution of observed geocode location errors. The census tract of the displaced geocode was determined. We repeated this process 5,000 times and report the percentage of geocodes that resolved into incorrect census tracts. RESULTS: Median location error was less than 100 meters for both OHIP and commercial vendor geocodes; the distribution of angles appeared uniform. Median location error was approximately 35% larger in Gwinnett (a suburban county) relative to Fulton (a county with urban and suburban areas). Location error occasionally caused the simulated geocodes to be displaced into incorrect census tracts; the median percentage of geocodes resolving into incorrect census tracts ranged between 4.5% and 5.3%, depending upon the county and geocoding agency. CONCLUSION: Geocode location uncertainty can be estimated using tax parcel databases in a GIS. This approach is a viable alternative to global positioning system field validation of geocodes