Neuroimaging and Responsibility Assessments

Could neuroimaging evidence help us to assess the degree of a person’s responsibility for a crime which we know that they committed? This essay defends an affirmative answer to this question. A range of standard objections to this high-tech approach to assessing people’s responsibility is considered and then set aside, but I also bring to light and then reject a novel objection—an objection which is only encountered when functional (rather than structural) neuroimaging is used to assess people’s responsibility

Masculinities, affect and the (re)place(ment) of stardom in Formula One fan leisure practices

Writing from an autoethnographic perspective, this article explores male leisure practices via the mediated relationships fans enter into with stars. More specifically, my own fandom for Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve is the locus of study, revealing how this affective investment shapes and furnishes my corresponding leisure practices. Notions of gendered 'performativity' come to the fore, with my own displays evoking, enacting and revealing oscillating performances of masculinity. Moreover, there are interesting gendered dynamics that such fan leisure practices flag in terms of the intersection of female/male relationships and the potential 'fantasy' and/or narcissistic readings that a male fan identifying with and performing as another male sport star afford. Finally, my research reveals paradoxes for contemporary masculinities, with fans reliant upon mediation and commodification to facilitate and sustain their performative roles. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Optical Light Curves of Supernovae

Photometry is the most easily acquired information about supernovae. The light curves constructed from regular imaging provide signatures not only for the energy input, the radiation escape, the local environment and the progenitor stars, but also for the intervening dust. They are the main tool for the use of supernovae as distance indicators through the determination of the luminosity. The light curve of SN 1987A still is the richest and longest observed example for a core-collapse supernova. Despite the peculiar nature of this object, as explosion of a blue supergiant, it displayed all the characteristics of Type II supernovae. The light curves of Type Ib/c supernovae are more homogeneous, but still display the signatures of explosions in massive stars, among them early interaction with their circumstellar material. Wrinkles in the near-uniform appearance of thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae have emerged during the past decade. Subtle differences have been observed especially at near-infrared wavelengths. Interestingly, the light curve shapes appear to correlate with a variety of other characteristics of these supernovae. The construction of bolometric light curves provides the most direct link to theoretical predictions and can yield sorely needed constraints for the models. First steps in this direction have been already made.Comment: To be published in:"Supernovae and Gamma Ray Bursters", Lecture Notes in Physics (http://link.springer.de/series/lnpp

Information management in creative engineering design and capabilities of database transactions

This paper examines the information management requirements and sets forth the general criteria for collaboration and concurrency control in creative engineering design. Our work attempts to recognize the full range of concurrency, collaboration and complex transactions structure now practiced in manual and semi-automated design and the range of capabilities needed as the demands for enhanced but flexible electronic information management unfolds.  The objective of this paper is to identify new issues that may advance the use of databases to support creative engineering design. We start with a generalized description of the structure of design tasks and how information management in design is dealt with today. After this review, we identify extensions to current information management capabilities that have been realized and/or proposed to support/augment what designers can do now.  Given this capability-based starting point, we review existing database and information management capabilities, as presented in the literature. In the review, we identify the gaps between current concurrency and collaboration technology and what is needed or would be desirable. Our objective is to assess current research and to identify new issues that may advance the use of databases to support creative engineering design.

Effect of a multipayer patient-centered medical home on health care utilization and quality: the rhode island chronic care sustainability initiative pilot program

Item does not contain fulltextIMPORTANCE The patient-centered medical home is advocated to reduce health care costs and improve the quality of care. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of the pilot program of a multipayer patient-centered medical home on health care utilization and quality. DESIGN An interrupted time series design with propensity score-matched comparison practices, including multipayer claims data from 2 years before (October 1, 2006-September 30, 2008) and 2 years after (October 1, 2008-September 30, 2010) the launch of the pilot program. Uptake of the intervention was measured with audit data from the National Committee for Quality Assurance patient-centered medical home recognition process. SETTING Five independent primary care practices and 3 private insurers in the Rhode Island Chronic Care Sustainability Initiative. PARTICIPANTS Patients in 5 pilot and 34 comparison practices. INTERVENTIONS Financial support, care managers, and technical assistance for quality improvement and practice transformation. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Hospital admissions, emergency department visits, and 6 process measures of quality of care (3 for diabetes mellitus and 3 for colon, breast, and cervical cancer screening). RESULTS The mean National Committee for Quality Assurance recognition scores of the pilot practices increased from 42 to 90 points of a possible 100 points. The pilot and comparison practices had statistically indistinguishable baseline patient characteristics and practice patterns, except for higher numbers of attributed member months per year in the pilot practices (31 130 per practice vs 14 779, P = .01) and lower rates of cervical cancer screening in the comparison practices. Although estimates of the emergency department visits and inpatient admissions of patients in the pilot practices trended toward lower utilization, the only significant difference was a lower rate of ambulatory care sensitive emergency department visits in the pilot practices. The Chronic Care Sustainability Initiative pilot program was associated with a reduction in ambulatory care-sensitive emergency department visits of approximately 0.8 per 1000 member months or approximately 11.6% compared with the baseline rate of 6.9 for emergency department visits per 1000 member months (P = .002). No significant improvements were found in any of the quality measures. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE After 2 years, a pilot program of a patient-centered medical home was associated with substantial improvements in medical home recognition scores and a significant reduction in ambulatory care sensitive emergency department visits. Although not achieving significance, there were downward trends in emergency department visits and inpatient admissions