Sexual Assault on College Campuses: Seeking the Appropriate Balance Between Due Process and Victim Protection

Peer sexual assault is a significant problem on American college and university campuses. On April 4, 2011, the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education sought to address this problem by issuing a new Dear Colleague Letter that provided enhanced guidance on how educational institutions should adjudicate such incidents. The letter has the perverse effect of complicating matters further by blurring the already fine line between victim protection and due process for the accused, and it exposes a potential liability trap for educational institutions. This Note explains why the law surrounding victim protection and due process is difficult for institutions to apply and argues that the Department of Education should produce a model judicial policy so that institutions, victims, and accused students will have more certainty in this complicated arena. In furtherance of such a policy, this Note offers specific due-process protections f or accused students that should be embraced by educational institutions and the Department of Education alike

Dynamic contrast-enhanced CT in the investigation of tumour angiogenesis and haemodynamics

This manuscript presents an investigation and application of the medical radiographic technique of Dynamic Contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography with an emphasis on its application to the measurement of tissue perfusion using the techniques of CT Perfusion. CT Perfusion was used in association with Fluoro- Deoxy Glucose Positron Emission Tomography (FDG PET) to investigate altered blood flow due to the angiogenic effects of tumour in the clinical setting of medical imaging for cancer diagnosis and staging. CT perfusion, CT enhancement and Doppler ultrasound studies were compared in a series of patient studies performed for the assessment of metastatic liver disease. There was good correlation between all techniques for the arterial phase but not between Doppler measurements of the portal phase and any CT measurement. A new method was developed for quantifying CT perfusion and enhancement values, the Standardised Perfusion Value (SPV) and the Standardised Enhancement Value (SEV). The SPV was shown to correlate with FDG uptake in a series of 16 patient studies of lung nodules, an unexpected and potentially important finding that if confirmed in a larger study may provide an additional diagnostic role for CT in the assessment of lung nodules. Investigation of a commercially available package for the determination of CT Perfusion, CT Perfusion GE Medical Systems, was undertaken in a small series of brain studies for assessment of acute stroke. This data set showed the technique to positively identify patients with non-hemorrhagic stroke in the presence of a normal conventional CT, to select those cases where thrombolysis is appropriate, and to provide an indication for prognosis. An investigation of the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of FDG PET in solitary pulmonary nodules using Australian data was carried out. FDG PET was found to be accurate, cost saving and cost effective for the characterisation of indeterminate solitary pulmonary nodules in Australia. This work was expanded to include the impact of quantitative contrast enhancement CT (QECT) on the cost-effectiveness of FDG PET. The addition of QECT is a cost effective approach, however whether QECT is used alone or in combination with FDG PET will depend on local availability of PET, the cost of PET with respect to surgery and the prior probability of malignancy. A published review of CT perfusion, clinical applications and techniques, is included in the body of the work. Dynamic contrast-enhanced CT and FDG PET were used to investigate blood flow, expressed as SPV, and metabolic relationships in non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) of varying size and stage. A significant correlation between SPV and FDG uptake was only found for tumours smaller than 4.5 cm2. Blood flow-metabolic relationships are not consistent in NSCLC but depend on tumour size and stage. Dynamic contrast-enhanced CT as an adjunct to an FDG study undertaken using integrated PET-CT offers an efficient way to augment the assessment of tumour biology with possible future application as part of clinical care. In summary the work has developed a method for standardizing the results of dynamic contrast-enhanced CT and investigated its potential when applied with FDG PET to improve the diagnosis and staging of cancers

The devil is in the definitions

Lk 10:25-37

Stellar and brown dwarf properties from numerical simulations

We review the statistical properties of stars and brown dwarfs obtained from the first hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation to produce more than a thousand stars and brown dwarfs while simultaneously resolving the lowest mass brown dwarfs (those with masses set by the opacity limit for fragmentation), binaries with separations down to 1 AU, and discs with radii greater than 10 AU. In particular, we present the eccentricity distribution of the calculation's very-low-mass and brown dwarf binaries which has not been previously published.Comment: To be published in Highlights of Astronomy, Vol 15 (CUP) from Special Session 7 of IAU XXVII. 2 pages, 1 table, 1 figure