In re Guardianship of B.A.A.R., 136 Nev. Adv. Op. 57 (Sept. 3, 2020)

A party requesting predicate factual findings under NRS 3.2203 must only show that such findings are warranted by a preponderance of the evidence. Further, when district courts consider abuse and neglect when evaluating the practical workability of a parent-child reunification, the courts should consider the entire history of the relationship between the parent and child

State v. Fourth Judicial Dist. Court (Martinez), 137 Nev. Adv. Op. 4 (Feb. 25, 2021)

Applying the rule of lenity, the Nevada Supreme Court found that a convicted felon in possession of more than one firearm at one time and place may only be charged with a single violation of the NRS 202.360(1)(b)

Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Estimates Derived from SSMI Microwave Remote Sensing and NLDN

Lightning observations are collected using ground-based and satellite-based sensors. The National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) in the United States uses multiple ground sensors to triangulate the electromagnetic signals created when lightning strikes the Earth's surface. Satellite-based lightning observations have been made from 1998 to present using the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, and from 1995 to 2000 using the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on the Microlab-1 satellite. Both LIS and OTD are staring imagers that detect lightning as momentary changes in an optical scene. Passive microwave remote sensing (85 and 37 GHz brightness temperatures) from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) has also been used to quantify characteristics of thunderstorms related to lightning. Each lightning detection system has fundamental limitations. TRMM satellite coverage is limited to the tropics and subtropics between 38 deg N and 38 deg S, so lightning at the higher latitudes of the northern and southern hemispheres is not observed. The detection efficiency of NLDN sensors exceeds 95%, but the sensors are only located in the USA. Even if data from other ground-based lightning sensors (World Wide Lightning Location Network, the European Cooperation for Lightning Detection, and Canadian Lightning Detection Network) were combined with TRMM and NLDN, there would be enormous spatial gaps in present-day coverage of lightning. In addition, a globally-complete time history of observed lightning activity is currently not available either, with network coverage and detection efficiencies varying through the years. Previous research using the TRMM LIS and Microwave Imager (TMI) showed that there is a statistically significant correlation between lightning flash rates and passive microwave brightness temperatures. The physical basis for this correlation emerges because lightning in a thunderstorm occurs where ice is first present in the cloud and electric charge separation occurs. These ice particles efficiently scatter the microwave radiation at the 85 and 37 GHz frequencies, thus leading to large brightness temperature depressions. Lightning flash rate is related to the total amount of ice passing through the convective updraft regions of thunderstorms. Confirmation of this relationship using TRMM LIS and TMI data, however, remains constrained to TRMM observational limits of the tropics and subtropics. Satellites from the Defense Meteorology Satellite Program (DMSP) have global coverage and are equipped with passive microwave imagers that, like TMI, observe brightness temperatures at 85 and 37 GHz. Unlike the TRMM satellite, however, DMSP satellites do not have a lightning sensor, and the DMSP microwave data has never been used to derive global lightning. In this presentation, a relationship between DMSP Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI) data and ground-based cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning data from NLDN is investigated to derive a spatially complete time history of CG lightning for the USA study area. This relationship is analogous to the established using TRMM LIS and TMI data. NLDN has the most spatially and temporally complete CG lightning data for the USA, and therefore provides the best opportunity to find geospatially coincident observations with SSMI sensors. The strongest thunderstorms generally have minimum 85 GHz Polarized Corrected brightness Temperatures (PCT) less than 150 K. Archived radar data was used to resolve the spatial extent of the individual storms. NLDN data for that storm spatial extent defined by radar data was used to calculate the CG flash rate for the storm. Similar to results using TRMM sensors, a linear model best explained the relationship between storm-specific CG flash rates and minimum 85 GHz PCT. However, the results in this study apply only to CG lightning. To extend the results to weaker storms, the probability of CG lightning (instead of the flash rate) was calculated for storms having 85 GHz PCT greater than 150 K. NLDN data was used to determine if a CG strike occurred for a storm. This probability of CG lightning was plotted as a function of minimum 85 GHz PCT and minimum 37 GHz PCT. These probabilities were used in conjunction with the linear model to estimate the CG flash rate for weaker storms with minimum 85 GHz PCTs greater than 150 K. Results from the investigation of CG lightning and passive microwave radiation signals agree with the previous research investigating total lightning and brightness temperature. Future work will take the established relationships and apply them to the decades of available DMSP data for the USA to derive a map of CG lightning flash rates. Validation of this method and uncertainty analysis will be done by comparing the derived maps of CG lightning flash rates against existing NLDN maps of CG lightning flash rates

Web application development with Yii 2 and PHP

This book is for professional PHP developers who wish to master the powerful Yii 2 application framework. It is assumed that you have knowledge of object-oriented programming. The previous version of the Yii framework is only briefly mentioned, but it''ll be even easier to grasp Yii 2 with the knowledge of Yii 1.1.x

A Case Study of FinTech in Banking; A Comparison of the Developing and Developed World

With advances in financial technology (FinTech), startup firms search for ways to revolutionize all aspects of financial industries especially in the banking sector. New firms attempt to provide more affordable credit or more customized services to steal market share from traditional banks. Researchers have analyzed collaboration between FinTech firms and banks and have also examined the demographics and locations targeted by FinTech firms. This study analyzes the performance of the stock of two FinTech companies in both the developed (LendingClub) and developing worlds (Safaricom). Furthermore, it looks at the business environment risks faced by both companies. After using financial metrics to evaluate stock performance, Safaricom outperformed both the traditional bank proxy as well as LendingClub. Based on risks in the business environment, it was determined that both companies face a major risk due to regulation. Traditional banks, already operating in a heavily regulated environment, do not face the same threat

Glycosaminoglycan binding of strain-specific polymorphisms in the chikungunya virus E2 glycoprotein

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arthritogenic alphavirus that displays broad cell tropism, interacting with a variety of cell-surface molecules to enter cells and mediate infection. Like many pathogenic viruses, CHIKV uses negatively-charged glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) as attachment factors to enhance binding to cells. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that CHIKV depends on GAGs for efficient infection of mammalian cells and displays strain-specific differences in GAG binding. However, the specific polymorphisms that dictate strain-specific differences in GAG binding have not been identified. We engineered SINV-CHIKV chimeric viruses to contain five basic amino acid polymorphisms at residues in the E2 viral attachment protein that either have putative roles in GAG binding or are present in strains displaying phenotypic differences (K140R, K149R, K221R, K234N, and K252Q). ELISA assays were conducted to determine whether the E2 polymorphic mutants were altered in direct binding to GAGs while cell-binding assays were conducted using human muscle cells (RH30) to determine whether these mutants depend on GAGs for efficient cell attachment. In addition, mutant viruses were also tested in infectivity assays to investigate their dependence on GAGs for infection of biologically-relevant cell lines (RH30, pHDF, tel-HFF) and dependence on GAGs for efficient infection in the presence and absence of a CHIKV entry receptor (Mxra8). Collectively, these studies provide a foundational understanding of the functional consequences of CHIKV E2 basic amino acid polymorphisms in binding to GAGs and cell attachment