An Evaluation of Laminated Offset Jawed Traps for Reducing Injuries to Coyotes

Increasing public concern about injuries caused by foothold traps has resulted in a considerable amount of research for more humane traps. Much of this research effort has focused on evaluating the Victor No. 3 Soft-Catch trap manufactured by Woodstream Corporation, Lititz, Pennsylvania (Linhart and Dasch 1992). Research has concentrated on two major areas: (1) efficiency and selectivity of different trap types and modifications used for capturing coyotes (Canis latrans) and (2) reducing animal injuries associated with trapping (Phillips and Mullis 1991). The Soft-Catch trap has been shown to reduce foot injury sustained by most captured furbearers (Tullar 1984, Olsen et al. 1986, Linhart et al. 1988, Olsen et al. 1988, Onderka et al. 1990)

The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey IV: Data Reduction Procedures for Surface Brightness Fluctuation Measurements with the Advanced Camera for Surveys

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Virgo Cluster Survey is a large program to image 100 early-type Virgo galaxies using the F475W and F850LP bandpasses of the Wide Field Channel of the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The scientific goals of this survey include an exploration of the three-dimensional structure of the Virgo Cluster and a critical examination of the usefulness of the globular cluster luminosity function as a distance indicator. Both of these issues require accurate distances for the full sample of 100 program galaxies. In this paper, we describe our data reduction procedures and examine the feasibility of accurate distance measurements using the method of surface brightness fluctuations (SBF) applied to the ACS Virgo Cluster Survey F850LP imaging. The ACS exhibits significant geometrical distortions due to its off-axis location in the HST focal plane; correcting for these distortions by resampling the pixel values onto an undistorted frame results in pixel correlations that depend on the nature of the interpolation kernel used for the resampling. This poses a major challenge for the SBF technique, which normally assumes a flat power spectrum for the noise. We investigate a number of different interpolation kernels and show through an analysis of simulated galaxy images having realistic noise properties that it is possible, depending on the kernel, to measure SBF distances using distortion-corrected ACS images without introducing significant additional error from the resampling. We conclude by showing examples of real image power spectra from our survey.Comment: ApJS, in press, complete version of the paper at the link: http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~pcote/acs/publications.htm

Statement of Fred W. Garmone

This is a transcript of statements by Attorney, Fred W. Garmone (Counsel for Sam Sheppard) regarding a short in-chambers conference pre-trial with the Honorable Judge Blythin. Mr. Garmone stated to Judge Blythin, because of the fact that his son (Ed Blythin) at the time of trial was a member of the Homicide Unit, and was actively engaged in the investigation of this death of Marilyn Sheppard, that it was his feeling that he should withdraw or disqualify himself as the Judge to hear the case. Along with Mr. Garmone\u27s statement is a brief question/answer exchange between members of the Prosecution and the Sheppard Counsel present; conversation exchange inquires of pre-trial defense attorney dissension or discord and whether there was a formal affidavit of prejudice against Judge Blythin for his personal connection to the criminal investigation. These inquiries prompted negative responses from Mr. Garmone

Forecasting Knife Homicide Risk from Prior Knife Assaults in 4835 Local Areas of London, 2016–2018

Abstract Research Question How accurately can all recorded locations of 97 knife homicides in one year be forecast across all 4,835 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) of London, based only upon all 3,506 known locations of non-fatal knife-injury assaults in the preceding year? Data All recorded “knife crimes” in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) area of London in financial year 2016/17 (Year 1) were manually reviewed to identify all 3506 reported locations of knife-enabled (KE) but non-fatal injuries, as distinct from other events digitally coded as “knife crimes,” such as displaying, threatening with, or carrying knives. All KE homicides in 2017–/18 (Year 2) were then added to the data base. Methods Each KE injury-assault in Year 1 was classified for occurrence in one of London’s 4,835 LSOAs. The total N of such crimes within each LSOA was summed across all records to divide all LSOAs into seven categories of frequency of KE injury-assaults in 2016–17: zero, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6-or-more. We then divided the N of LSOAs in each category in 2016–17 (Year 1) into the total N of knife homicides in 2017–18 (Year 2). False positives, false negatives and percentage of homicides targeted were calculated for six different targeting plans. Findings Over two thirds (69%) of KE homicides in 2017–18 (Year 2) occurred in just 67 (1.4%) of all 4,835 LSOAs, comprising 3.3% of the 2048 LSOAs that had had one or more of the 3,506 KE injury-assaults mapped in 2016–17 (Year 1). The prevalence of one or more KE homicides in Year 2 was higher where there were higher numbers of KE injury-assaults per LSOA in Year 1. Among LSOAs with zero assaults in Year 1, only 1% had a KE homicide in Year 2. Among LSOAs with 6 or more KE injury-assaults in Year 1, 15% had a KE homicide in Year 2. While the risk of homicide was 1,400% higher in the hottest spots of knife assaults than in the coolest, the absolute number of Year 2 KE homicides in those hottest areas was only 6% of the total. All LSOAs with one or more Year 1 KE assaults had three times as much KE homicide risk than LSOAs with no Year 1 KE assaults. Targeting all 2,048 areas that had one or more Year 1 KE assaults would have yielded a true positive rate of over 3%, and covered 69% of actual homicide locations. The true negative rate for 2,781 areas that would not have been targeted based on having no Year 1 KE injuries would have been 99%. Conclusions Predicting which local areas are most likely to suffer knife-enabled homicides, based only on recent non-fatal knife injuries, can pinpoint risks of homicide in local areas that are up to 1,400% higher than in most local areas, offering a range of strategies for resource allocation.Metropolitan Police Service Cambridge Centre for Evidence-Based Policing Ltd

Synergistic Monitoring – Addressing the Threats and Identifying Opportunities

For many years, land managers and scientists have been applying a variety of land treatments to improve or protect rangeland ecosystems. Collectively, we have studied the response of these treatments and wildfire events to identify opportunities for maintaining or improving Nevada sagebrush ecosystem health and functionality. In partnership with collaborators, we initiated a State-wide effort to capture, consolidate, and summarize implementation, monitoring, and research information for these events. We are conducting field studies to identify and fill information gaps. We seek a new and expanded information base that is available to Nevada land managers, scientists, and others interested in healthy and resilient sagebrush sites. We plan to identify the consequences of passive and active management; develop predictive tools for adaptive management; identify research needs; and increase accessibility to location, implementation and monitoring information for these events. Through the collaborative integration of our field study results with historic and current research and monitoring information, we seek to increase knowledge of landscape-level and site-specific ecological processes. This will further develop our ability to manage and predict rangeland health, integrity, resilience (after disturbance), and resistance (to undesired change under significant disturbance regimes) in the context of multiple-use management