Unchartered Territory for the Bluegrass State : Lessons to be learned from over a Quarter-century of State Charter School Legislation

Charter school success or failure is not simply a matter of chance. Both the existence and aggregate quality of charter schools in a state depend on the provisions of state charter school laws. These laws address a wide range of issues and vary from state to state. But the experiences of states with significant charter sectors, as well as those with innovative charter policies, provide important lessons for the charter school movement as a whole

Charge Pattern Matching as a "Fuzzy" Mode of Molecular Recognition for the Functional Phase Separations of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins

Biologically functional liquid-liquid phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is driven by interactions encoded by their amino acid sequences. Little is currently known about the molecular recognition mechanisms for distributing different IDP sequences into various cellular membraneless compartments. Pertinent physics was addressed recently by applying random-phase-approximation (RPA) polymer theory to electrostatics, which is a major energetic component governing IDP phase properties. RPA accounts for charge patterns and thus has advantages over Flory-Huggins and Overbeek-Voorn mean-field theories. To make progress toward deciphering the phase behaviors of multiple IDP sequences, the RPA formulation for one IDP species plus solvent is hereby extended to treat polyampholyte solutions containing two IDP species. The new formulation generally allows for binary coexistence of two phases, each containing a different set of volume fractions $(\phi_1,\phi_2)$ for the two different IDP sequences. The asymmetry between the two predicted coexisting phases with regard to their $\phi_1/\phi_2$ ratios for the two sequences increases with increasing mismatch between their charge patterns. This finding points to a multivalent, stochastic, "fuzzy" mode of molecular recognition that helps populate various IDP sequences differentially into separate phase compartments. An intuitive illustration of this trend is provided by Flory-Huggins models, whereby a hypothetical case of ternary coexistence is also explored. Augmentations of the present RPA theory with a relative permittivity $\epsilon_{\rm r}(\phi)$ that depends on IDP volume fraction $\phi=\phi_1+\phi_2$ lead to higher propensities to phase separate, in line with the case with one IDP species we studied previously. ...Comment: Accepted for publication in New Journal of Physics (IOP) for the "Focus On Phase Transitions in Cells" Special Issue; 37 pages, 11 figure

Stability of degenerate Cauchy horizons in black hole spacetimes

In the multihorizon black hole spacetimes, it is possible that there are degenerate Cauchy horizons with vanishing surface gravities. We investigate the stability of the degenerate Cauchy horizon in black hole spacetimes. Despite the asymptotic behavior of spacetimes (flat, anti-de Sitter, or de Sitter), we find that the Cauchy horizon is stable against the classical perturbations, but unstable quantum mechanically.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, no figures, references adde

Caring for continence in stroke care settings: a qualitative study of patients’ and staff perspectives on the implementation of a new continence care intervention

Objectives: Investigate the perspectives of patients and nursing staff on the implementation of an augmented continence care intervention after stroke. Design: Qualitative data were elicited during semi-structured interviews with patients (n = 15) and staff (14 nurses; nine nursing assistants) and analysed using thematic analysis. Setting: Mixed acute and rehabilitation stroke ward. Participants: Stroke patients and nursing staff that experienced an enhanced continence care intervention. Results: Four themes emerged from patients’ interviews describing: (a) challenges communicating about continence (initiating conversations and information exchange); (b) mixed perceptions of continence care; (c) ambiguity of focus between mobility and continence issues; and (d) inconsistent involvement in continence care decision making. Patients’ perceptions reflected the severity of their urinary incontinence. Staff described changes in: (i) knowledge as a consequence of specialist training; (ii) continence interventions (including the development of nurse-led initiatives to reduce the incidence of unnecessary catheterisation among patients admitted to their ward); (iii) changes in attitude towards continence from containment approaches to continence rehabilitation; and (iv) the challenges of providing continence care within a stroke care context including limitations in access to continence care equipment or products, and institutional attitudes towards continence. Conclusion: Patients (particularly those with severe urinary incontinence) described challenges communicating about and involvement in continence care decisions. In contrast, nurses described improved continence knowledge, attitudes and confidence alongside a shift from containment to rehabilitative approaches. Contextual components including care from point of hospital admission, equipment accessibility and interdisciplinary approaches were perceived as important factors to enhancing continence care

Challenges of ultra large scale integration of biomedical computing systems

The NCRI Informatics Initiative is overseeing the implementation of an informatics framework for the UK cancer research community. The framework advocates an integrated multidisciplinary method of working between scientific and medical communities. Key to this process is community adoption of high quality acquisition, storage, sharing and integration of diverse data elements to improve knowledge of the causes, prevention and treatment of cancer. The integration of the complex data and meta-data used by these multiple communities is a significant challenge and there are technical, resource-based and sociological issues to be addressed. In this paper we review progress aimed at establishing the framework and outline key challenges in ultra large scale integration of biomedical computing systems

Self-Similar Collapse of Conformally Coupled Scalar Fields

A massless scalar field minimally coupled to the gravitational field in a simplified spherical symmetry is discussed. It is shown that, in this case, the solution found by Roberts, describing a scalar field collapse, is in fact the most general one. Taking that solution as departure point, a study of the gravitational collapse for the self-similar conformal case is presented.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication, Classical and Quantum Gravity. Available at http://dft.if.uerj.br/preprint/e-17.tex or at ftp://dft.if.uerj.br/preprint/e-17.tex . Figures can be obtained on request at [email protected]

Data analysis of gravitational-wave signals from spinning neutron stars. IV. An all-sky search

We develop a set of data analysis tools for a realistic all-sky search for continuous gravitational-wave signals. The methods that we present apply to data from both the resonant bar detectors that are currently in operation and the laser interferometric detectors that are in the final stages of construction and commissioning. We show that with our techniques we shall be able to perform an all-sky 2-day long coherent search of the narrow-band data from the resonant bar EXPLORER with no loss of signals with the dimensionless amplitude greater than $2.8\times10^{-23}$.Comment: REVTeX, 26 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.

An Application of a Second Order Upwinding Scheme for an Implicit LES CFD Solver

The flow past a right square cylinder in a duct at a Reynolds number of 22 x 103 has been employed to validate the use of second order upwinding, instead of a subgrid model in a largeeddy simulation. In this extensively studied problem, all the numerical work has been based on a simplifying assumption that the square cylinder is infinite, which resulted in all previous workers using cyclic boundary conditions so as to reduce the required domain size. It is not clear how the size of the domain had been established and, therefore, whether it was sufficiently large to adequately represent the experimental flow in a duct. The integral quantities of the drag and lift coefficient and the Strouhal number, converged towards the experimental values as the grid resolution is increased. However, the cyclic boundary condition assumption leads to a flow width that provides too small a region of uncorrelated flow. A model of the full duct case, identical to experimental domain, was used to contrast the cyclic domain results. Surprisingly the second order upwind model generates power spectra that appear to correctly capture the energy cascade down to the inertial and viscous ranges

Self-Similar Collapse of Scalar Field in Higher Dimensions

This paper constructs continuously self-similar solution of a spherically symmetric gravitational collapse of a scalar field in n dimensions. The qualitative behavior of these solutions is explained, and closed-form answers are provided where possible. Equivalence of scalar field couplings is used to show a way to generalize minimally coupled scalar field solutions to the model with general coupling.Comment: RevTex 3.1, 15 pages, 3 figures; references adde

The Loudest Event Statistic: General Formulation, Properties and Applications

The use of the loudest observed event to generate statistical statements about rate and strength has become standard in searches for gravitational waves from compact binaries and pulsars. The Bayesian formulation of the method is generalized in this paper to allow for uncertainties both in the background estimate and in the properties of the population being constrained. The method is also extended to allow rate interval construction. Finally, it is shown how to combine the results from multiple experiments and a comparison is drawn between the upper limit obtained in a single search and the upper limit obtained by combining the results of two experiments each of half the original duration. To illustrate this, we look at an example case, motivated by the search for gravitational waves from binary inspiral.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure