Technical Problem: How City of Dallas v. Dallas Morning News, LP Exposed a Major Loophole in the Texas Public Information Act Comment.

The Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) grants everyone a statutory right to access records of a governmental body unless disclosure would violate the law. Generally, TPIA is construed broadly to favor disclosure, but the rise of modern technology like email and text messaging reveals how dated TPIA truly is. According to the recent City of Dallas v. Dallas Morning News, LP, a governmental body is not required to release any business-related electronic communications sent via personal devices. This means governmental employees can conduct official business via personal email or cell phone without being subject to disclosure provisions, unless the requester establishes the governmental body’s right to the information. Under TPIA, records are classified as “public” based on physical properties as well as their content. This definition creates problems when a person conducts business via private email or personal cell phone. Dallas Morning News held TPIA required the requesting party to establish the rights of the governmental body to the information, yet this burden contradicts the TPIA’s stated policy in favor of disclosure. Dallas Morning News proved the TPIA, in its current state, can no longer effectively serve the public policy of providing Texans the opportunity to properly inform themselves about government affairs. The Act’s amorphous definition of public information may have once been enough but fails to meet the needs of modern society. The decision whether the TPIA requires disclosure should not be based solely on where information is stored and whether the governmental body has access to the information. Minor alterations to the Act could explain when governmental bodies have a right to personal communications and when those communications must be disclosed. If requestors cannot have access to media where records are stored, then the idea of open government becomes meaningless

Technical Problem: How City of Dallas v. Dallas Morning News, LP Exposed a Major Loophole in the Texas Public Information Act Comment.

The Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) grants everyone a statutory right to access records of a governmental body unless disclosure would violate the law. Generally, TPIA is construed broadly to favor disclosure, but the rise of modern technology like email and text messaging reveals how dated TPIA truly is. According to the recent City of Dallas v. Dallas Morning News, LP, a governmental body is not required to release any business-related electronic communications sent via personal devices. This means governmental employees can conduct official business via personal email or cell phone without being subject to disclosure provisions, unless the requester establishes the governmental body’s right to the information. Under TPIA, records are classified as “public” based on physical properties as well as their content. This definition creates problems when a person conducts business via private email or personal cell phone. Dallas Morning News held TPIA required the requesting party to establish the rights of the governmental body to the information, yet this burden contradicts the TPIA’s stated policy in favor of disclosure. Dallas Morning News proved the TPIA, in its current state, can no longer effectively serve the public policy of providing Texans the opportunity to properly inform themselves about government affairs. The Act’s amorphous definition of public information may have once been enough but fails to meet the needs of modern society. The decision whether the TPIA requires disclosure should not be based solely on where information is stored and whether the governmental body has access to the information. Minor alterations to the Act could explain when governmental bodies have a right to personal communications and when those communications must be disclosed. If requestors cannot have access to media where records are stored, then the idea of open government becomes meaningless

Large-amplitude driving of a superconducting artificial atom: Interferometry, cooling, and amplitude spectroscopy

Superconducting persistent-current qubits are quantum-coherent artificial atoms with multiple, tunable energy levels. In the presence of large-amplitude harmonic excitation, the qubit state can be driven through one or more of the constituent energy-level avoided crossings. The resulting Landau-Zener-Stueckelberg (LZS) transitions mediate a rich array of quantum-coherent phenomena. We review here three experimental works based on LZS transitions: Mach-Zehnder-type interferometry between repeated LZS transitions, microwave-induced cooling, and amplitude spectroscopy. These experiments exhibit a remarkable agreement with theory, and are extensible to other solid-state and atomic qubit modalities. We anticipate they will find application to qubit state-preparation and control methods for quantum information science and technology.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The role of networks to overcome large-scale challenges in tomography : the non-clinical tomography users research network

Our ability to visualize and quantify the internal structures of objects via computed tomography (CT) has fundamentally transformed science. As tomographic tools have become more broadly accessible, researchers across diverse disciplines have embraced the ability to investigate the 3D structure-function relationships of an enormous array of items. Whether studying organismal biology, animal models for human health, iterative manufacturing techniques, experimental medical devices, engineering structures, geological and planetary samples, prehistoric artifacts, or fossilized organisms, computed tomography has led to extensive methodological and basic sciences advances and is now a core element in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research and outreach toolkits. Tomorrow's scientific progress is built upon today's innovations. In our data-rich world, this requires access not only to publications but also to supporting data. Reliance on proprietary technologies, combined with the varied objectives of diverse research groups, has resulted in a fragmented tomography-imaging landscape, one that is functional at the individual lab level yet lacks the standardization needed to support efficient and equitable exchange and reuse of data. Developing standards and pipelines for the creation of new and future data, which can also be applied to existing datasets is a challenge that becomes increasingly difficult as the amount and diversity of legacy data grows. Global networks of CT users have proved an effective approach to addressing this kind of multifaceted challenge across a range of fields. Here we describe ongoing efforts to address barriers to recently proposed FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reuse) and open science principles by assembling interested parties from research and education communities, industry, publishers, and data repositories to approach these issues jointly in a focused, efficient, and practical way. By outlining the benefits of networks, generally, and drawing on examples from efforts by the Non-Clinical Tomography Users Research Network (NoCTURN), specifically, we illustrate how standardization of data and metadata for reuse can foster interdisciplinary collaborations and create new opportunities for future-looking, large-scale data initiatives

Using Existing Cascade Tray Aeration Infrastructure To Strip Total Trihalomethanes

To assess the efficacy of using falling-cascade tray aeration to reduce total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) from potable water, a pilot aerator was constructed and operated in a recirculated mode. In addition, a full-scale water treatment plant and distribution system serving less than 10,000 people were monitored for eight months while operating a falling-cascade tray aerator with and without recirculation. Pilot results showed that 56.5 μg/L of TTHMs could be reduced to below the detection limit after five passes through the tray aerator. Full-scale results showed an approximate 40 μg/L TTHM reduction at several monitoring locations. Although pilot and full-scale results confirmed that recirculation will not significantly impact THM re-formation postaeration, both pilot and full-scale monitoring results indicated that recirculated cascade tray aerators could reduce TTHM content to concentrations below regulated levels. The average increase in operating cost, resulting from an increase in electrical power when recirculating water on site, approximated $850/month