8,100 research outputs found
The Relationship between Gun Control Strictness and Mass Murder in the United States: A National Study 2009-2015
This paper aimed to determine if there is association between the strictness of gun control in a given state and the number of mass murder incidents per state in the United States. Controlling for population, gun control strictness was a weak, negative predictor of mass murder incidents and number of victims when a gun was used as a primary weapon. To understand the phenomenon of mass murder fully, mental health practitioners, law enforcement, and policymakers must make a joint effort so as to facilitate prevention
Analogs of Schur functions for rank two Weyl groups obtained from grid-like posets
In prior work, the authors, along with M. McClard, R. A. Proctor, and N. J.
Wildberger, studied certain distributive lattice models for the "Weyl
bialternants" (aka "Weyl characters") associated with the rank two root
systems/Weyl groups. These distributive lattices were uniformly described as
lattices of order ideals taken from certain grid-like posets, although the
arguments connecting the lattices to Weyl bialternants were case-by-case
depending on the type of the rank two root system. Using this connection with
Weyl bialternants, these lattices were shown to be rank symmetric and rank
unimodal, and their rank generating functions were shown to have beautiful
quotient-of-products expressions. Here, these results are re-derived from
scratch using completely uniform and elementary combinatorial reasoning in
conjunction with some new combinatorial methodology developed elsewhere by the
second listed author.Comment: 15 page
Heating of galactic gas by dark matter annihilation in ultracompact minihalos
The existence of substructure in halos of annihilating dark matter would be
expected to substantially boost the rate at which annihilation occurs.
Ultracompact minihalos of dark matter (UCMHs) are one of the more extreme
examples of this. The boosted annihilation can inject significant amounts of
energy into the gas of a galaxy over its lifetime. Here we determine the impact
of the boost factor from UCMH substructure on the heating of galactic gas in a
Milky Way-type galaxy, by means of N-body simulation. If of the dark
matter exists as UCMHs, the corresponding boost factor can be of order .
For reasonable values of the relevant parameters (annihilation cross section
, dark matter mass 100 GeV,
10% heating efficiency), we show that the presence of UCMHs at the 0.1% level
would inject enough energy to eject significant amounts of gas from the halo,
potentially preventing star formation within 1 kpc of the halo centre.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
DOE Ocean Energy Program - An Overview
This paper summarizes the background, current status and future plans, for the U. S. Department of Energy\u27s Ocean Energy Program, which is directed toward making a significant contribution to National goals of energy independence. The paper will concentrate primarily upon Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), and will also address alternate technologies including wave and current energy and salinity gradients. Principal issues to be addressed include the status of technical development, critical technical issues, resource potentials, economic perspectives and legal/institutional issues affecting the commercialization of Ocean Energy. The DOE Ocean Engineering Plan will be summarized, with emphasis on the 1 MW test platform to be deployed in June 1980 and the Pilot Plant program to be initiated in 1980
Policy Point-Counterpoint: The Good and The Bad of the Social Media Revolution
In this policy point-counterpoint, sociology students Jesse Goranson and Lawrence Kastriba discuss whether social media operates as a positive social force or as a negative one. Jesse Goranson argues that social media can act to promote democratization among otherwise disadvantaged groups. By connecting individuals from disadvantaged groups, the scalability of social media increases the social capital of the group members, thus giving the group a greater voice in society and allows them greater participation in the political process
Immune activation and suppression by group B streptococcus in a murine model of urinary tract infection
Group B streptococcus (GBS) is a common commensal of the gastrointestinal and vaginal mucosa and a leading cause of serious infections in newborns, the elderly, and immunocompromised populations. GBS also causes infections of the urinary tract. However, little is known about host responses to GBS urinary tract infection (UTI) or GBS virulence factors that participate in UTI. Here we describe a novel murine model of GBS UTI that may explain some features of GBS urinary tract association in the human host. We observed high titers and heightened histological signs of inflammation and leukocyte recruitment in the GBS-infected kidney. However, extensive inflammation and leukocyte recruitment were not observed in the bladder, suggesting that GBS may suppress bladder inflammation during cystitis. Acute GBS infection induced the localized expression of proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1α (IL-1α), macrophage inflammatory protein-1α (MIP-1α), MIP-1β, and IL-9, as well as IL-10, more commonly considered an anti-inflammatory cytokine. Using isogenic GBS strains with different capsule structures, we show that capsular sialic acid residues contribute to GBS urinary tract pathogenesis, while high levels of sialic acid O-acetylation attenuate GBS pathogenesis in the setting of UTI, particularly in direct competition experiments. In vitro studies demonstrated that GBS sialic acids participate in the suppression of murine polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) bactericidal activities, in addition to reducing levels of IL-1α, tumor necrosis factor alpha, IL-1β, MIP-1α, and KC produced by PMNs. These studies define several basic molecular and cellular events characterizing GBS UTI in an animal model, showing that GBS participates simultaneously in the activation and suppression of host immune responses in the urinary tract
Rapid Health and Equality Impact Assessment (HEqIA)of Mersey Care NHS Trust’s Outline Business Case for Mental Health and Learning Disability Services
The aim of this assessment is to look at the health and equality impacts of Mersey Care's Outline Business Case which aims to: Establish home treatment as the norm; Refocusing in-patient services around patients who are acutely ill with shorter lengths of stay; Developing a local Psychiatric intensive Care in-patient Unit (PICU); Strengthen community and primary care services. The results of this Health and Equality Impact Assessment will be used to feed the Outline Business Cas
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