Racial profiling and the police: utilizing the Census Transportation Planning Package to benchmark traffic stops made by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol

Racial profiling, or the practice of using race, ethnicity, or other racially based characteristics to decide when to stop, cite, or search drivers, has been studied and analyzed by researchers for decades. Attempts have been made to gain an understanding of why officers commit acts of racial profiling and to identify different evaluation methods that allow for accurate analysis of racial profiling data. This study attempts to create a new method of evaluation by utilizing the Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) as a benchmark for racial profiling data. Variables from the CTPP are used to create estimates of the transient travel population, or driving population. Using traffic stop data from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP), analyses are conducted to evaluate whether the CTPP can be utilized to accurately benchmark traffic stop data. An assessment is also conducted to determine whether there is any evidence of racial profiling by the NCSHP. The results of this research show not only that the CTPP can be utilized to efficiently and accurately benchmark traffic stop data, but also that the prior method of utilizing basic Census statistics severely underestimates racial profiling. Evidence is also produced to show that several counties in North Carolina were subject to racial profiling by the NCSHP

Structural risk assessment and aircraft fleet maintenance

In the present analysis, deterministic flaw growth analysis is used to project the failure distributions from inspection data. Inspection data is reported for each critical point in the aircraft. The data will indicate either a crack of a specific size or no crack. The crack length may be either less than, equal to, or greater than critical size for that location. Non-critical length cracks are projected to failure using the crack growth characteristics for that location to find the life when it will be at critical length. Greater-than-critical length cracks are projected back to determine the life at failure, that is, when it was at critical length. The same process is used as in the case of a non-critical crack except that the projection goes the other direction. These points, along with the critical length cracks are used to determine the failure distribution. To be able to use data from different aircraft to build a common failure distribution, a consistent life variable must be used. Aircraft life varies with the severity of the usage; therefore the number of flight hours for a particular aircraft must be modified by its usage factor to obtain a normalized life which can be compared with that from other aircraft

An exploratory study: Focusing on advocacy services for low-income older adults in Oregon

Financially vulnerable older adults, especially those at or below the federal poverty line, face issues of food insecurity, problems finding adequate but affordable housing, the costs and accessibility of caregivers and medical care, and more. These realities have repercussions on health and quality of life for lower income older adults. Existing programs are in place to provide services but are these services addressing critical needs for this population? This qualitative study investigated the current challenges to addressing basic needs and areas where advocacy work could be applied for older adults with limited economic resources. Interviews were completed with 5 professionals. Results suggest the seriousness of basic needs in the lives of older adults and significant barriers to services that are being addressed by service providers

Positive, limited and negative responders: The variability in physical fitness adaptation to basic military training

Objectives: To investigate the heterogeneity of physical adaptation in Australian Army recruits completing a 12-week basic military training regimen. Design: A prospective research design. Methods: Volunteer recruits (n = 195) completed 12-weeks of basic military training. Recruit physical fitness was assessed at week 1, weeks 6–8 and week 12. Recruits in the upper (75th) and lower (25th) quartiles for each assessment were then analysed using a repeated measures two-way ANOVA. The relative magnitude of recruit adaptions were classified as positive response (Rpositive, ≥5%), limited response (Rlimited, \u3e−5% to \u3c5%) and negative response (Rnegative, ≤−5%); Chi-square analysis determined the proportional differences in the distribution of each quartile. Results: An interaction (p \u3c 0.001) was observed in the lower and upper recruit quartiles for all assessments of physical fitness at each time point. After 12 weeks of military training the mean difference of the highest quartile was; 20-m multi-stage fitness test 7.4 mL·kg−1·min−1, (CI:5.8:9.1), 2-min push-ups 20.1 reps, (CI:16.2:23.9), 1RM box lift 5.6 kg, (CI:2.6:5.8) and load carriage 222.1 s, (CI:174.7:269.4) compared to the lowest recruit quartile. The highest quartile demonstrated no improvement in 1RM box lift (−4%, −1%) and push-ups (2%, 0%) performance at weeks 6–8 and week 12 respectively. In contrast, adaptations in the lowest quartile for 1RM box lift (16%, 21%) and push-ups (46%, 46%) over the same time periods were observed. Conclusions: A significant proportion of recruits may complete basic military training with a decline in physical performance. Higher relative-intensity cardiorespiratory and resistance exercise should be considered to facilitate physical adaptation in all recruits

Asymptotics and local constancy of characters of p-adic groups

In this paper we study quantitative aspects of trace characters $\Theta_\pi$ of reductive $p$-adic groups when the representation $\pi$ varies. Our approach is based on the local constancy of characters and we survey some other related results. We formulate a conjecture on the behavior of $\Theta_\pi$ relative to the formal degree of $\pi$, which we are able to prove in the case where $\pi$ is a tame supercuspidal. The proof builds on J.-K.~Yu's construction and the structure of Moy-Prasad subgroups.Comment: Proceedings of Simons symposium on the trace formul

Past 900 ka climate variability at the SE Tibetan Plateau – a lacustrine record

Abstract HKT-ISTP 2013 B

Stationary phase expression of the arginine biosynthetic operon argCBH in Escherichia coli

BACKGROUND: Arginine biosynthesis in Escherichia coli is elevated in response to nutrient limitation, stress or arginine restriction. Though control of the pathway in response to arginine limitation is largely modulated by the ArgR repressor, other factors may be involved in increased stationary phase and stress expression. RESULTS: In this study, we report that expression of the argCBH operon is induced in stationary phase cultures and is reduced in strains possessing a mutation in rpoS, which encodes an alternative sigma factor. Using strains carrying defined argR, and rpoS mutations, we evaluated the relative contributions of these two regulators to the expression of argH using operon-lacZ fusions. While ArgR was the main factor responsible for modulating expression of argCBH, RpoS was also required for full expression of this biosynthetic operon at low arginine concentrations (below 60 μM L-arginine), a level at which growth of an arginine auxotroph was limited by arginine. When the argCBH operon was fully de-repressed (arginine limited), levels of expression were only one third of those observed in ΔargR mutants, indicating that the argCBH operon is partially repressed by ArgR even in the absence of arginine. In addition, argCBH expression was 30-fold higher in ΔargR mutants relative to levels found in wild type, fully-repressed strains, and this expression was independent of RpoS. CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that both derepression and positive control by RpoS are required for full control of arginine biosynthesis in stationary phase cultures of E. coli