In the Dark: State v. Alaska Legislative Council and Public-School Funding in the Face of the Dedicated Funds Clause

In the past several years, Alaska has faced many challenges in its public education system. These challenges gave rise to an intense political debate, significant new legislation, and a protracted battle over the future of funding for public education. Governor Mike Dunleavy and the state legislature publicly clashed over the implementation of H.B. 287, a 2018 state law designed to provide financial stability to ailing schools and curtail teacher layoffs. In 2022, the Supreme Court of Alaska resolved the dispute in favor of the governor and found a contentious piece of state legislation unconstitutional under the states Dedicated Funds Clause. This Note examines the Court\u27s decision in State v. Alaska Legislative Council, considers the underlying constitutional issues in the case, and explores the implications of the ruling. In particular, this Note argues that the Court incorrectly decided the case on multiple grounds—misinterpreting the plain text of the relevant constitutional provisions, the framers\u27 intent, and the court\u27s own precedent in a decision that will exacerbate existing troubles with public education in the state. The proper interpretation of the Dedicated Funds Clause matters for legislators, government agencies, teachers, parents, and children in Alaska going forward

Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip Medical Trainer

Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH) refers to an abnormal hip condition that occurs in infants, which can lead to loss of or limited function of the hip joint as well as arthritis later in life. The effectiveness of treatment is dependent on how early DDH is detected. This research aims to develop a realistic medical trainer utilizing the geometry of the hip joint. The use of infant geometry will create effective trainers and will allow medical students to be more prepared to test for DDH on infants and produce more accurate tests. This research will culminate in the development of a multi-material, 3-D printed prototype. Silicon molding will be used to encase the prototype, and provide the necessary tension to retain the femoral head in the acetabulum. This prototype will be tested for realism against the current DDH Medical Trainer, the Hippy Baby, by pediatric resident students. Fatigue testing will also be implemented to ensure a durable prototype. Additional prototypes representing various stages of the pathology may be developed in the future

Estimation under group actions: recovering orbits from invariants

Motivated by geometric problems in signal processing, computer vision, and structural biology, we study a class of orbit recovery problems where we observe very noisy copies of an unknown signal, each acted upon by a random element of some group (such as Z/p or SO(3)). The goal is to recover the orbit of the signal under the group action in the high-noise regime. This generalizes problems of interest such as multi-reference alignment (MRA) and the reconstruction problem in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). We obtain matching lower and upper bounds on the sample complexity of these problems in high generality, showing that the statistical difficulty is intricately determined by the invariant theory of the underlying symmetry group. In particular, we determine that for cryo-EM with noise variance $\sigma^2$ and uniform viewing directions, the number of samples required scales as $\sigma^6$. We match this bound with a novel algorithm for ab initio reconstruction in cryo-EM, based on invariant features of degree at most 3. We further discuss how to recover multiple molecular structures from heterogeneous cryo-EM samples.Comment: 54 pages. This version contains a number of new result

Can Emergency Physicians Perform Carotid Artery Point-of-Care Ultrasound to Detect Stenosis in Patients with TIA and Stroke? A Pilot Study

Introduction: Patients with severe, symptomatic carotid stenosis can have their subsequent stroke risk reduced by surgical intervention if performed soon after a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke. Patients presenting to an emergency department (ED) without computed tomography angiography (CTA) with TIA/stroke, may require transfer to another hospital for imaging to rule out carotid artery stenosis. The objective of this study was to determine the test characteristics of carotid artery point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in detecting greater than 50% stenosis in patients presenting with TIA/stroke.Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study on a convenience sample of adult patients presenting to a comprehensive stroke centre with TIA or stroke between June–October 2017. Carotid POCUS was performed. Primary outcome measure, stenosis ≥ 50%, was determined by the final radiology report of CTA. A blinded POCUS expert separately reviewed the archived carotid POCUS scans. We calculated sensitivity and specificity for stenosis ≥ 50%.Results: We conducted POCUS on 75 patients, of which 70 were included in our analyses. Of those 70, 14.3% were diagnosed with greater than 50% stenosis. Carotid POCUS performed as follows: sensitivity 70.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 34.8%-93.3%); specificity 86.7% (95% CI, 75.4%-94.1%); positive likelihood ratio (LR +) 5.3 (95% CI, 1.2-9.3); negative likelihood ratio (LR -) 0.4 (95% CI, 0.0-0.7). The inter-rater reliability between POCUS performer interpretation and expert interpretation had moderate agreement (k = 0.68). Scans took a mean 6.2 ± 2.2 minutes to complete.Conclusion: Carotid POCUS has low to moderate association with CTA for detection of carotid artery stenosis ≥ 50%. Further research and investigation is needed prior to widespread use of carotid POCUS in patients with acute cerebral ischemia. Additionally, external validity is likely affected by availability of training, maintenance of competency, and experience in more rural centres

Using physical barriers to prevent carrot fly (Psila rosae (Fabricius)) damage in domestic production

A field experiment was used to assess the effectiveness of different barriers in protecting garden‐scale carrot production from carrot fly (Psila rosae (Fabricius)) damage. Some of the vertical barriers tested were found to provide a useful method of protecting early season carrots from carrot fly in terms of the percentage of carrots free from damage but, under cumulative pest pressure of several generations of carrot fly, such barriers were found to provide insufficient protection. Gardeners should therefore completely cover their carrot crop to attain an acceptable level of control, and this was found to be especially important for carrots harvested later in the season. There were positive effects of some barrier types on yield which may be due, at least in part, to the protection given by the barriers to carrot seedlings

Measures for simulator evaluation of a helicopter obstacle avoidance system

The U.S. Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (AFDD) has developed a high-fidelity, full-mission simulation facility for the demonstration and evaluation of advanced helicopter mission equipment. The Crew Station Research and Development Facility (CSRDF) provides the capability to conduct one- or two-crew full-mission simulations in a state-of-the-art helicopter simulator. The CSRDF provides a realistic, full field-of-regard visual environment with simulation of state-of-the-art weapons, sensors, and flight control systems. We are using the CSRDF to evaluate the ability of an obstacle avoidance system (OASYS) to support low altitude flight in cluttered terrain using night vision goggles (NVG). The OASYS uses a laser radar to locate obstacles to safe flight in the aircraft's flight path. A major concern is the detection of wires, which can be difficult to see with NVG, but other obstacles--such as trees, poles or the ground--are also a concern. The OASYS symbology is presented to the pilot on a head-up display mounted on the NVG (NVG-HUD). The NVG-HUD presents head-stabilized symbology to the pilot while allowing him to view the image intensified, out-the-window scene through the HUD. Since interference with viewing through the display is a major concern, OASYS symbology must be designed to present usable obstacle clearance information with a minimum of clutter

Prospectus, February 28, 1980

CENSUS WILL DETERMINE REVENUE, POPULATION, ETC.; Scholarship fund started; SNOWBOUND; Week in Review: World, Nation, State, Local; Letters to the Editor: Guerilla activity, On drinking--, Questioner gets answered--, Starvation--, Equal Rights--; S.T.O. to meet; Sculpture awarded; Exam anxiety; Program sponsors workshop; Preparing a resume that suits your needs; Board approves new salaries, schedule; Parkland to host annual math contest; Mighty Joe Young got his mojo workin\u27; Dates to live by; Zippert draws her way into heart of PC; Marianne remains faithful to rock and roll; Between the Tracks: Hacker abandons turntable for a look between the dials; Marshall Tucker brings the south; Classifieds; Cox highlights; Cagers should be ready; Cagers finish on high note; Bench Warmer: Out-of-district recruiting needed to improve; Cobras to host Regionals; Intramural Basketball Standingshttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1980/1036/thumbnail.jp