A Liberal Dilemma: Respecting Autonomy While Also Protecting Inchoate Children from Prenatal Substance Abuse.

Substance abuse is a significant social problem in America. It is estimated that some eighteen million Americans have an alcohol abuse problem and that almost five million have a drug abuse problem. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, substance abuse costs some $700 billion per year Substance abuse is a major contributor to child maltreatment. It is estimated that between one- and two-thirds of cases in which children enter foster care are linked to parental substance abuse. Unfortunately, this may be an underestimate as recent research suggests that many cases, particularly cases in which children have been exposed to alcohol in utero, are missed or improperly diagnosed. Of particular concern is substance abuse by pregnant women. Each instance of substance abuse increases the risk of inflicting serious and lasting harm on the future child! Three parties\u27 interests are at issue when determining how to address substance use or abuse by pregnant women: the pregnant woman\u27s interest, the inchoate child\u27s interest, and the State\u27s interest. Before the intersection of these interests can be properly explored, however, a few definitions must be established

The Landscape Similarity Toolbox: New Tools for Optimizing the Location of Control Sites in Experimental Studies

Large‐scale manipulative experiments are critically important for linking ecological theory with land management at a relevant spatial scale. Statistically powerful inferential approaches such as the before‐after‐control‐impact design involve pairing a small number of treatment sites with control sites of analogous ecological structure and landscape context. Pairing treatment and control sites that are as analogous as possible is an important step to ensuring that differences are due to a treatment effect. The Landscape Similarity Toolbox provides tools for optimizing the location of potential control sites based upon the spatial characteristics of the treatment site

Phase Structure of Compact Star in Modified Quark-Meson Coupling Model

The K$^-$ condensation and quark deconfinement phase transitions are investigated in the modified quark-meson coupling model. It is shown that K$^-$ condensation is suppressed because of the quark deconfinement when $B^{1/4}<$202.2MeV, where $B$ is the bag constant for unpaired quark matter. With the equation of state (EOS) solved self-consistently, we discuss the properties of compact stars. We find that the EOS of pure hadron matter with condensed K$^-$ phase should be ruled out by the redshift for star EXO0748-676, while EOS containing unpaired quark matter phase with $B^{1/4}$ being about 180MeV could be consistent with this observation and the best measured mass of star PSR 1913+16. We then probe into the change of the phase structures in possible compact stars with deconfinment phase as the central densities increase. But if the recent inferred massive star among Terzan 5 with M$>$1.68M$_{\odot}$ is confirmed, all the present EOSes with condensed phase and deconfined phase would be ruled out and therefore these exotic phases are unlikely to appear within neutron stars.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

"Antiscepticism and Easy Justification" - Ch 5 of Seemings and Epistemic Justification

In this chapter I investigate epistemological consequences of the fact that seeming-based justification is elusive, in the sense that the subject can lose this justification simply by reflecting on her seemings. I argue that since seeming-based justification is elusive, the antisceptical bite of phenomenal conservatism is importantly limited. I also contend that since seeming-based justification has this feature, phenomenal conservatism isn’t actually afflicted by easy justification problems

Adipocyte-derived endotrophin promotes malignant tumor progression

Adipocytes represent a major cell type in the mammary tumor microenvironment and are important for tumor growth. Collagen VI (COL6) is highly expressed in adipose tissue, upregulated in the obese state, and enriched in breast cancer lesions and is a stimulator of mammary tumor growth. Here, we have described a cleavage product of the COL6??3 chain, endotrophin (ETP), which serves as the major mediator of the COL6-mediated tumor effects. ETP augmented fibrosis, angiogenesis, and inflammation through recruitment of macrophages and endothelial cells. Moreover, ETP expression was associated with aggressive mammary tumor growth and high metastatic growth. These effects were partially mediated through enhanced TGF-?? signaling, which contributes to tissue fibrosis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of tumor cells. Our results highlight the crucial role of ETP as an obesity-associated factor that promotes tumor growth in the context of adipocyte interactions with tumor and stromal cells.open302

Does tiny-scale atomic structure exist in the interstellar medium ?

We report on preliminary results from the recent multi-epoch neutral hydrogen absorption measurements toward three pulsars, B0823+26, B1133+16 and B2016+28, using the Arecibo telescope. We do not find significant variations in optical depth profiles over periods of 0.3 and 9--10 yr, or on spatial scales of 10--20 and 70--85 AU. The large number of non detections of the tiny scale atomic structure suggests that the AU-sized structure is not ubiquitous in the interstellar medium and could be quite a rare phenomenon.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letters, 5 pages, 2 figure

Detection of OH absorption against PSR B1849+00

We have searched for OH absorption against seven pulsars using the Arecibo telescope. In both OH mainlines (at 1665 and 1667 MHz), deep and narrow absorption features were detected toward PSR B1849+00. In addition, we have detected several absorption and emission features against B33.6+0.1, a nearby supernova remnant (SNR). The most interesting result of this study is that a pencil-sharp absorption sample against the PSR differs greatly from the large-angle absorption sample observed against the SNR. If both the PSR and the SNR probe the same molecular cloud then this finding has important implications for absorption studies of the molecular medium, as it shows that the statistics of absorbing OH depends on the size of the background source. We also show that the OH absorption against the PSR most likely originates from a small (<30 arcsec) and dense (>10^5 cm^-3) molecular clump.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap