Lay Judgments about Child Custody after Divorce

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, Arizona. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today’s court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem

Lay Judgments about Child Custody after Divorce

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, Arizona. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today’s court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem

Lay Judgments about Child Custody after Divorce

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, Arizona. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today’s court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem

Lay Judgments about Child Custody after Divorce

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people’s judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, Arizona. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers’ groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today’s court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem

Recording, analysis, and interpretation of spreading depolarizations in neurointensive care: Review and recommendations of the COSBID research group.

Spreading depolarizations (SD) are waves of abrupt, near-complete breakdown of neuronal transmembrane ion gradients, are the largest possible pathophysiologic disruption of viable cerebral gray matter, and are a crucial mechanism of lesion development. Spreading depolarizations are increasingly recorded during multimodal neuromonitoring in neurocritical care as a causal biomarker providing a diagnostic summary measure of metabolic failure and excitotoxic injury. Focal ischemia causes spreading depolarization within minutes. Further spreading depolarizations arise for hours to days due to energy supply-demand mismatch in viable tissue. Spreading depolarizations exacerbate neuronal injury through prolonged ionic breakdown and spreading depolarization-related hypoperfusion (spreading ischemia). Local duration of the depolarization indicates local tissue energy status and risk of injury. Regional electrocorticographic monitoring affords even remote detection of injury because spreading depolarizations propagate widely from ischemic or metabolically stressed zones; characteristic patterns, including temporal clusters of spreading depolarizations and persistent depression of spontaneous cortical activity, can be recognized and quantified. Here, we describe the experimental basis for interpreting these patterns and illustrate their translation to human disease. We further provide consensus recommendations for electrocorticographic methods to record, classify, and score spreading depolarizations and associated spreading depressions. These methods offer distinct advantages over other neuromonitoring modalities and allow for future refinement through less invasive and more automated approaches

Blood flow restriction training in South Africa – a panel discussion

Background: Blood flow restriction (BFR) training uses a cuff to partially occlude venous blood flow and improve musculoskeletal training outcomes. Over the past 25 years, numerous studies have demonstrated its relative safety and efficacy. Objectives: Blood flow restriction training is under review by the Health Professions Council of South Africa due to safety and ethical concerns. The objective of this roundtable discussion is to gain better insight into the current use and perception of blood flow restriction training in South Africa. Formation of panel: The expert panel had experience with the use of BFR training and included one representative from each of the following professions, namely, sports medicine, physiotherapy and biokinetics. Discussion: The panellists provided their unique perspectives on BFR training, whilst reaching a relative consensus on its safety, screening, efficacy, and appropriate use. Agreement on appropriate loading and occlusion pressure protocols during different phases of rehabilitation was less clear. Conclusion: Although BFR is a safe and effective modality, the development of evidence-based protocols among different health professionals in South Africa is required to ensure good clinical practice

Genomic Profiling of Two Histologically Distinct Rare Urothelial Cancers in a Clinical Setting to Identify Potential Therapeutic Options for Treatment and Management of Disease.

Molecular profiling of urothelial cancers for therapeutic and prognostic potential has been very limited due to the absence of cancer-specific targeted therapies. We describe here 2 clinical cases with a histological diagnosis of an invasive sarcomatoid and a poorly differentiated carcinoma favoring urothelial with some neuroendocrine differentiation, two of the rarer types of urothelial cancers, which were evaluated for mutations in 212 genes for single-nucleotide variants and copy-number variants and 53 genes for fusions associated with solid tumors. In both cases, we identified variants in 2 genes, Case Rep Oncol 2018 Mar 27; 11(1):196-205

What Should a Clinician Do When Spreading Depolarizations are Observed in a Patient?

Abstract: The International Conference on Spreading Depolarizations (iCSD) held in Boca Raton, Florida, in the September of 2018 devoted a section to address the question, “What should a clinician do when spreading depolarizations are observed in a patient?” Discussants represented a wide range of expertise, including neurologists, neurointensivists, neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, and pre-clinical neuroscientists, to provide both clinical and basic pathophysiology perspectives. A draft summary of viewpoints offered was then written by a multidisciplinary writing group of iCSD members, based on a transcript of the session. Feedback of all discussants was formally collated, reviewed, and incorporated into the final document which was subsequently approved by all authors

Absorption Troughs of Lyα Emitters in HETDEX

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is designed to detect and measure the redshifts of more than 1 million Lyα emitting galaxies (LAEs) 1.88 < z < 3.52. In addition to its cosmological measurements, these data enable studies of Lyα spectral profiles and the underlying radiative transfer. Using the roughly half a million LAEs in the HETDEX Data Release 3, we stack various subsets to obtain the typical Lyα profile for the z ∼ 2-3 epoch and to understand their physical properties. We find clear absorption wings around Lyα emission, which extend ∼2000 km s−1 both redward and blueward of the central line. Using far-UV spectra of nearby (0.002 < z < 0.182) LAEs in the COS Legacy Archive Spectroscopic Survey treasury and optical/near-IR spectra of 2.8 < z < 6.7 LAEs in the Multi Unit Spectroscopic-Wide survey, we observe absorption profiles in both redshift regimes. Dividing the sample by volume density shows that the troughs increase in higher-density regions. This trend suggests that the depth of the absorption is dependent on the local density of objects near the LAE, a geometry that is similar to damped Lyα systems. Simple simulations of Lyα radiative transfer can produce similar troughs due to absorption of light from background sources by H i gas surrounding the LAEs

HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1 -- Stacking 50K Lyman Alpha Emitters

We describe the ensemble properties of the $1.9 < z < 3.5$ Lyman Alpha Emitters (LAEs) found in the HETDEX survey's first public data release, HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1 (Mentuch Cooper et al. 2023). Stacking the low-resolution ($R \sim$ 800) spectra greatly increases the signal-to-noise ratio, revealing spectral features otherwise hidden by noise, and we show that the stacked spectrum is representative of an average member of the set. The flux limited, Ly$\alpha$ signal-to-noise ratio restricted stack of 50K HETDEX LAEs shows the ensemble biweight ``average" $z \sim 2.6$ LAE to be a blue (UV continuum slope $\sim -2.4$ and E(B-V) $< 0.1$), moderately bright (M$_{\text{UV}} \sim -19.7$) star forming galaxy with strong Ly$\alpha$ emission (log $L_{Ly\alpha}$ $\sim$ 42.8 and $W_{\lambda}$(Ly$\alpha$) $\sim$ 114\AA), and potentially significant leakage of ionizing radiation. The restframe UV light is dominated by a young, metal poor stellar population with an average age 5-15 Myr and metallicity of 0.2-0.3 Z$_{\odot}$.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 2 data files (ApJ Accepted