10,198 research outputs found
Targeting Poverty in the Courts: Improving the Measurement of Ability to Pay
Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and case-level data to evaluate and discuss the experiences of six courts that recently adopted an online ability-to-pay assessment tool that streamlines and standardizes ability-to-pay determinations. Our findings suggest that the online tool improves accuracy and therefore the effectiveness of fines as punishments, and so it may make the use of fines as sanctions more socially attractive
A Successful Broad-band Survey for Giant Lya Nebulae I: Survey Design and Candidate Selection
Giant Lya nebulae (or Lya "blobs") are likely sites of ongoing massive galaxy
formation, but the rarity of these powerful sources has made it difficult to
form a coherent picture of their properties, ionization mechanisms, and space
density. Systematic narrow-band Lya nebula surveys are ongoing, but the small
redshift range covered and the observational expense limit the comoving volume
that can be probed by even the largest of these surveys and pose a significant
problem when searching for such rare sources. We have developed a systematic
search technique designed to find large Lya nebulae at 2<z<3 within deep
broad-band imaging and have carried out a survey of the 9.4 square degree NOAO
Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS) Bootes field. With a total survey comoving
volume of ~10^8 h^-3_70 Mpc^3, this is the largest volume survey for Lya
nebulae ever undertaken. In this first paper in the series, we present the
details of the survey design and a systematically-selected sample of 79
candidates, which includes one previously discovered Lya nebula.Comment: Accepted to ApJ after minor revision; 25 pages in emulateapj format;
18 figures, 3 table
The effects of spacecraft environments on some hydrolytic enzyme patterns in bacteria
The effects of space flight on the production and characteristics of proteolytic enzymes are studied for a number of bacterial species isolated from crew members and spacecraft. Enzymatic make-up and cultural characteristics of bacteria isolated from spacecraft crew members are determined. The organism Aeromonas proteolytica and the proteolytic enzymes which it produces are used as models for future spacecraft experiments
Education in Pediatrics in US Colleges and Schools of Pharmacy
Objective. To determine the extent to which pediatrics is taught at US doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) programs and to characterize what is being taught and how. Methods. A 40-question online survey instrument was sent to accredited and candidate-status US PharmD programs. Results. Of 86 participating programs (67.2% response rate), 81 (94.2%) indicated that pediatric topics were included in their required classroom curricula (mean, 21.9 contact hours). A pediatric elective course was offered by 61.0% of programs (mean, 25.9 contact hours). Advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) in pediatrics were offered by 97.4% of programs, with an average of 27 students per program completing this practice experience annually. Conclusions. Almost all responding programs incorporated pediatrics in their required curricula. Pediatric elective courses provided an adequate mean number of contact hours, but 39.0% of programs did not offer an elective course. One-fifth of students completed a pediatric APPE prior to graduation. Continued expansion of pediatric-focused classroom and experiential curricula across US PharmD programs is recommended
On the Automated and Objective Detection of Emission Lines in Faint-Object Spectroscopy
Modern spectroscopic surveys produce large spectroscopic databases, generally
with sizes well beyond the scope of manual investigation. The need arises,
therefore, for an automated line detection method with objective indicators for
detection significance. In this paper, we present an automated and objective
method for emission line detection in spectroscopic surveys and apply this
technique to 1574 spectra, obtained with the Hectospec spectrograph on the MMT
Observatory (MMTO), to detect Lyman alpha emitters near z ~ 2.7. The basic idea
is to generate on-source (signal plus noise) and off-source (noise only) mock
observations using Monte Carlo simulations, and calculate completeness and
reliability values, (C, R), for each simulated signal. By comparing the
detections from real data with the Monte Carlo results, we assign the
completeness and reliability values to each real detection. From 1574 spectra,
we obtain 881 raw detections and, by removing low reliability detections, we
finalize 649 detections from an automated pipeline. Most of high completeness
and reliability detections, (C, R) ~ (1.0, 1.0), are robust detections when
visually inspected; the low C and R detections are also marginal on visual
inspection. This method at detecting faint sources is dependent on the accuracy
of the sky subtraction.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, submitted to MNRA
Learning the Structure of Deep Sparse Graphical Models
Deep belief networks are a powerful way to model complex probability
distributions. However, learning the structure of a belief network,
particularly one with hidden units, is difficult. The Indian buffet process has
been used as a nonparametric Bayesian prior on the directed structure of a
belief network with a single infinitely wide hidden layer. In this paper, we
introduce the cascading Indian buffet process (CIBP), which provides a
nonparametric prior on the structure of a layered, directed belief network that
is unbounded in both depth and width, yet allows tractable inference. We use
the CIBP prior with the nonlinear Gaussian belief network so each unit can
additionally vary its behavior between discrete and continuous representations.
We provide Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for inference in these belief
networks and explore the structures learned on several image data sets.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, AISTATS 2010, Revise
Spatially Resolved Gas Kinematics within a Ly Nebula: Evidence for Large-scale Rotation
We use spatially extended measurements of Ly as well as less
optically thick emission lines from an 80 kpc Ly nebula at
to assess the role of resonant scattering and to disentangle
kinematic signatures from Ly radiative transfer effects. We find that
the Ly, CIV, HeII, and CIII] emission lines all tell a similar story in
this system, and that the kinematics are broadly consistent with large-scale
rotation. First, the observed surface brightness profiles are similar in extent
in all four lines, strongly favoring a picture in which the Ly photons
are produced in situ instead of being resonantly scattered from a central
source. Second, we see low kinematic offsets between Ly and the less
optically thick HeII line (100-200 km s), providing further
support for the argument that the Ly and other emission lines are all
being produced within the spatially extended gas. Finally, the full velocity
field of the system shows coherent velocity shear in all emission lines:
500 km s over the central 50 kpc of the nebula. The
kinematic profiles are broadly consistent with large-scale rotation in a gas
disk that is at least partially stable against collapse. These observations
suggest that the Ly nebula represents accreting material that is
illuminated by an offset, hidden AGN or distributed star formation, and that is
undergoing rotation in a clumpy and turbulent gas disk. With an implied mass of
M(<R=20 kpc) , this system may represent the
early formation of a large Milky Way mass galaxy or galaxy group.Comment: Accepted to ApJ; 25 pages in emulateapj format; 15 figures, 4 table
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