Stolen Wages in the Nation's Capital: Fixing DC's Broken Wage Theft Claims Process

Today in the District of Columbia ("the District" or "DC"), low wage workers are being shortchanged. Policies currently in place make it very difficult, to nearly impossible, for victims of wage theft to hold employers accountable for failing to pay wages owed. The Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2014, co-introduced on February 4, 2014 by Councilmembers Vincent Orange, Jim Graham, and Mary Cheh, would provide needed accountability and stronger protections to ensure that those working an honest day receive honest pay for their labor. This document provides an introduction to the current barriers affecting workers in the District, and presents an overview of the ways in which the Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2014 would ameliorate these problems; thereby making the District a better place for workers and responsible businesses

Case Presentation for Pigmented Villonodular Synovitis (PVNS)

CASE HISTORY: The patient is a 21 years old male collegiate baseball player who suffered an acute pain in his right knee during practice. The athlete began to experience pain while decelerating following running to first base. Immediately after the occurrence, the athlete’s knee was “locked” and the athlete was unable to perform active knee flexion or extension. Passively, he was unable to flex or extend due to pain. Following the event, there was an immediate swelling of the knee. The athlete had not complained of pain in his knee prior to this date, but mentioned his knee would occasionally lock. Previous medical history showed right knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery from two years ago. PHYSICAL EXAM: Examination of the right knee did not demonstrate any palpable deformity or crepitus. The knee was stuck in a 15° flexion and was observed with edema. Range of motion could not be assed due to pain and inability to self-initiate movement. The athlete classified the pain as sharp, and a 6 on a 1-10 scale. Neurologically the athlete was within normal limits. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: Meniscus strain; Compromised graft from previous ACL surgery; Synovial chondromatosis; Inflammatory synovitis. TESTS & RESULTS: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed the anterior cruciate ligament graft to be intact and revealed a 2 cm nodular region of scar tissue, anteriorly at the intercondylar notch anterior to the graft. The MRI also revealed a 4-5 cm ill-defined region of nodular synovitis, anterior to the ACL graft. A much smaller finding with a similar appearance was observed laterally in the suprapatellar pouch. Acute synovitis in the joint behind the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) was also observed. A clear joint effusion was present. All other surrounding tendons were intact. Lateral and medial meniscus were also intact. The possibility of pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS) was considered and confirmed. FINAL DIAGNOSIS: Pigmented villonodular synovitis. DISCUSSION: Inflammation of the knee can indicate acute or chronic conditions. Clinical manifestations of PVNS includes pain, swelling, locking, and instability of the affected joint. In most cases, PVNS affects the knee joint, but may also affect the hip, ankle, shoulder, and elbow joints. This condition causes the synovium, which lines the joints and tendons to thicken. This thickening leads to swelling of the joint and pain when flexing or extending the joint. As the condition progresses, the affected joint is exposed to bone damage and arthritis. This is a rare condition that can affect people of any age, but has been typically present in adults between 30-40 years of age. According to the National Institute of Health, PVNS may occur in about 5-6 people out of 10,000 people. The cause of PVNS is currently unknown. Clinical presentation includes inflammation of the joint and pain when attempting to perform movement. OUTCOME OF THE CASE: This case is unique because PVNS is usually present in older individuals, whereas this patient is only 21 years of age and had reported no previous pain. PVNS is rarely a suspected condition or final diagnosis. The athlete underwent an arthroscopic debridement surgery. He then went through 28 days of rehabilitation and had no complications during rehabilitation. The athlete began rehabilitation with quadriceps isometrics which involved taking his knee through a passive range of motion. He was further progressed into gait training and resistance exercises through a full range of motion. After full range of motion was achieved, the athlete finalized rehabilitation with functional exercises. RETURN TO ACTIVITY AND FURTHER FOLLOW-UP: The athlete was cleared to return to full activity by day 28 of rehabilitation. Further follow-up was not needed as the athlete has not complained of pain and has full range of motion

Role of deposit-feeding sea cucumbers in integrated multitrophic aquaculture: progress, problems, potential and future challenges

There is significant commercial and research interest in the application of sea cucumbers as nutrient recyclers and processors of particulate waste in polyculture or integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems. The following article reviews examples of existing IMTA systems operating with sea cucumbers, and details the role and effect of several sea cucumber species in experimental and pilot IMTA systems worldwide. Historical observations and quantification of impacts of sea cucumber deposit-feeding and locomotion are examined, as is the development and testing of concepts for the application of sea cucumbers in sediment remediation and site recovery. The extension of applied IMTA systems is reported, from basic piloting through to economically viable farming systems operating at commercial scales. The near-global recognition of the ecological and economic value of deposit-feeding sea cucumbers in IMTA applications within existing and developing aquaculture industries is discussed. Predictions and recommendations are offered for optimal development of sea cucumber IMTA globally. Future directions within the industry are indicated, and key areas of ecological, biological and commercial concern are highlighted to be kept in mind and addressed in a precautionary manner as the industry develops

Filters in C*-Algebras

In this paper we analyze states on C*-algebras and their relationship to filter-like structures of projections and positive elements in the unit ball. After developing the basic theory we use this to investigate the Kadison-Singer conjecture, proving its equivalence to an apparently quite weak paving conjecture and the existence of unique maximal centred extensions of projections coming from ultrafilters on the natural numbers. We then prove that Reid's positive answer to this for q-points in fact also holds for rapid p-points, and that maximal centred filters are obtained in this case. We then show that consistently such maximal centred filters do not exist at all meaning that, for every pure state on the Calkin algebra, there exist projections p and q on which the state is 1, even though it is bounded strictly below 1 for projections below both p and q. Lastly we investigate towers, using cardinal invariant equalities to construct towers on the natural numbers that do and do not remain towers when canonically embedded into the Calkin algebra. Finally we show that consistently all towers on the natural numbers remain towers under this embedding

Ethyl 6-methyl-4-[2-(4,4,5,5-tetra­methyl-1,3,2-dioxaborolan-2-yl)thio­phen-3-yl]-2-thioxo-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­pyrimidine-5-carboxyl­ate

A new Biginelli compound, C18H25BN2O4S2, containing a boronate ester group was synthesized from a lithium bromide-catalysed reaction. The compound crystallizes with two independent mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit that differ mainly in the conformation of the ester functionality. The crystal structure is stabilized by inter­molecular N—H⋯O and N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds involving the 3,4-dihydro­pyrimidine-2(1H)-thione NH groups as donors and the carbonyl O and thio­phene S atoms as acceptors

the SDSS-III APOGEE Spectral Line List for H-Band Spectroscopy

We present the H-band spectral line lists adopted by the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). The APOGEE line lists comprise astrophysical, theoretical, and laboratory sources from the literature, as well as newly evaluated astrophysical oscillator strengths and damping parameters. We discuss the construction of the APOGEE line list, which is one of the critical inputs for the APOGEE Stellar Parameters and Chemical Abundances Pipeline, and present three different versions that have been used at various stages of the project. The methodology for the newly calculated astrophysical line lists is reviewed. The largest of these three line lists contains 134,457 molecular and atomic transitions. In addition to the format adopted to store the data, the line lists are available in MOOG, Synspec, and Turbospectrum formats. The limitations of the line lists along with guidance for its use on different spectral types are discussed. We also present a list of H-band spectral features that are either poorly represented or completely missing in our line list. This list is based on the average of a large number of spectral fit residuals for APOGEE observations spanning a wide range of stellar parameters.Alfred P. Sloan FoundationNational Science FoundationU.S. Department of Energy Office of ScienceJanos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of SciencesSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness AYA-2011-27754, AYA-2014-58082-PRSF 14-50-00043McDonald Observator

A photometric study of globular clusters observed by the APOGEE survey

In this paper we describe the photometric and spectroscopic properties of multiple populations in seven northern globular clusters. In this study we employ precise ground based photometry from the private collection of Stetson, space photometry from the Hubble Space Telescope, literature abundances of Na and O, and APOGEE survey abundances for Mg, Al, C, and N. Multiple populations are identified by their position in the CU,B,I -V pseudo-CMD and confirmed with their chemical composition determined using abundances. We confirm the expectation from previous studies that the RGB in all seven clusters are split and the different branches have different chemical compositions. The Mg-Al anti-correlations were well explored by the APOGEE and Gaia-ESO surveys for most globular clusters, some clusters showing bimodal distributions, while others continuous distributions. Even though the structure (i.e., bimodal vs. continuous) of Mg-Al can greatly vary, the Al-rich and Al-poor populations do not seem to have very different photometric properties, agreeing with theoretical calculations. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the Mg-Al anticorrelation shape (bimodal vs. continuous) and the structure of the RGB seen in the HST pseudo-CMDs, with the HST photometric information usually implying more complex formation/evolution histories than the spectroscopic ones. We report on finding two second generation HB stars in M5, and five second generation AGB stars in M92, which is the most metal-poor cluster to date in which second generation AGB stars have been observed.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 13 pages, 7 figures, 5 table

Chemical abundance gradients from open clusters in the Milky Way disk: results from the APOGEE survey

Metallicity gradients provide strong constraints for understanding the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. We report on radial abundance gradients of Fe, Ni, Ca, Si, and Mg obtained from a sample of 304 red-giant members of 29 disk open clusters, mostly concentrated at galactocentric distances between ~8 - 15 kpc, but including two open clusters in the outer disk. The observations are from the APOGEE survey. The chemical abundances were derived automatically by the ASPCAP pipeline and these are part of the SDSS III Data Release 12. The gradients, obtained from least squares fits to the data, are relatively flat, with slopes ranging from -0.026 to -0.033 dex/kpc for the alpha-elements [O/H], [Ca/H], [Si/H] and [Mg/H] and -0.035 dex/kpc and -0.040 dex/kpc for [Fe/H] and [Ni/H], respectively. Our results are not at odds with the possibility that metallicity ([Fe/H]) gradients are steeper in the inner disk (R_GC ~7 - 12 kpc) and flatter towards the outer disk. The open cluster sample studied spans a significant range in age. When breaking the sample into age bins, there is some indication that the younger open cluster population in our sample (log age < 8.7) has a flatter metallicity gradient when compared with the gradients obtained from older open clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, To appear in Astronomische Nachrichten, special issue "Reconstruction the Milky Way's History: Spectroscopic surveys, Asteroseismology and Chemo-dynamical models", Guest Editors C. Chiappini, J. Montalb\'an, and M. Steffen, AN 2016 (in press)