Training for the Bar - Educational (R)evolution

On 25th June 2013, the Legal Education and Training Review published its report on the legal education landscape and made 26 recommendations for change. Over the past 5 years the legal regulators have considered these recommendations and developed and consulted on new education and training pathways and assessment strategies. This article focusses on the Bar Standards Board’s Future Bar Training Programme and provides commentary, explanation and a rationale for training for the Bar from 2020

Report of the direct infrared sensors panel

The direct infrared sensors panel considered a wide range of options for technologies relevant to the science goals of the Astrotech 21 mission set. Among the technologies assessed are: large format arrays; photon counting detectors; higher temperature 1 to 10 micro-m arrays; impurity band conduction (IBC) or blocked impurity band (BIB) detectors; readout electronics; and adapting the Space Infrared Telescope Facility and Hubble Space Telescope. Detailed development plans were presented for each of these technology areas

The response of Black Rapids Glacier, Alaska, to the Denali earthquake rock avalanches

We describe the impact of three simultaneous earthquake-triggered rock avalanches on the dynamics of Black Rapids Glacier, Alaska, by using spaceborne radar imagery and numerical modeling. We determined the velocities of the glacier before and after landslide deposition in 2002 by using a combination of ERS-1/ERS-2 tandem, RADARSAT-1, and ALOS PALSAR synthetic aperture radar data. Ice velocity above the debris-covered area of the glacier increased up to 14% after the earthquake but then decreased 20% by 2005. Within the area of the debris sheets, mean glacier surface velocity increased 44% within 2 years of the landslides. At the downglacier end of the lowest landslide, where strong differential ablation produced a steep ice cliff, velocities increased by 109% over the same period. By 2007, ice velocity throughout the debris area had become more uniform, consistent with a constant ice flux resulting from drastically reduced ablation at the base of the debris. Without further analysis, we cannot prove that these changes resulted from the landslides, because Black Rapids Glacier displays large seasonal and interannual variations in velocity. However, a full Stokes numerical ice flow model of a simplified glacier geometry produced a reversal of the velocity gradient from compressional to extensional flow after 5 years, which supports our interpretation that the recent changes in the velocity field of the glacier are related to landslide-induced mass balance changes

Weekly patterns of aerosol in the United States

Data from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network of aerosol samplers and NOAA monitoring sites are examined for weekly cycles. At remote and rural sites, fine particle elemental carbon, crustal elements, and coarse particle mass had pronounced (up to 20%) weekly cycles with minima on Sunday or Monday. Fine particle organic carbon and mass had smaller amplitude cycles, also with Sunday or Monday minima. There was no statistically significant weekly cycle in fine particle sulfate despite a 5 to 15% weekly cycle in power plant SO<sub>2</sub> emissions. Although results for nitrate may be more susceptible to sampling artifacts, nitrate also showed a pronounced weekly cycle with an amplitude similar to elemental carbon. The only species found with a weekend maximum was Pb, probably from general aviation on weekends. Aerosol optical properties at NOAA monitoring sites were consistent with the IMPROVE chemical data, with significant weekly cycles in aerosol light absorption but not light scattering. These results support a large role of diesel emissions in elemental carbon aerosol over the entire United States and suggest that a large fraction of the airborne soil dust is anthropogenic. They also suggest that studies of weekly cycles in temperature, cloudiness, precipitation, or other meteorological variables should look for causes more in light-absorbing particles and possible ice nucleation by dust rather than sulfate or total aerosol. There are also implications for personal exposure and epidemiological studies of aerosol health effects

Valuing Transgenic Cotton Technologies Using a Risk/Return Framework

Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) is used to rank transgenic cotton technology groups and place an upper and lower bound on their value. Yield and production data from replicated plot experiments are used to build cumulative distribution functions of returns for nontransgenic, Roundup Ready, Bollgard, and stacked gene cotton cultivars. Analysis of Arkansas data indicated that the stacked gene and Roundup Ready technologies would be preferred by a large number of risk neutral and risk averse producers as long as the costs of the technology and seed are below the lower bounds calculated in this manuscript.cotton, financial risk, market value, SERF, transgenic, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty, Q12, Q16,

Effects of disorder in location and size of fence barriers on molecular motion in cell membranes

The effect of disorder in the energetic heights and in the physical locations of fence barriers encountered by transmembrane molecules such as proteins and lipids in their motion in cell membranes is studied theoretically. The investigation takes as its starting point a recent analysis of a periodic system with constant distances between barriers and constant values of barrier heights, and employs effective medium theory to treat the disorder. The calculations make possible, in principle, the extraction of confinement parameters such as mean compartment sizes and mean intercompartmental transition rates from experimentally reported published observations. The analysis should be helpful both as an unusual application of effective medium theory and as an investigation of observed molecular movements in cell membranes.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

COVID-19-Associated Bifacial Weakness with Paresthesia Subtype of Guillain-Barré Syndrome

We report a case of bifacial weakness with paresthesia, a recognized Guillain-Barré syndrome subtype characterized by rapidly progressive facial weakness and paresthesia without ataxia or other cranial neuropathies, which was temporally associated with antecedent coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). This case highlights a potentially novel but critically important neurologic association of the COVID-19 disease process. Herein, we detail the clinicoradiologic work-up and diagnosis, clinical course, and multidisciplinary medical management of this patient with COVID-19. This case is illustrative of the increasingly recognized but potentially underreported neurologic manifestations of COVID-19, which must be considered and further investigated in this pandemic disease

Coronary heart disease mortality in treated familial hypercholesterolaemia: Update of the UK Simon Broome FH register

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Patients with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) have an elevated risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Here we compare changes in CHD mortality in patients with heterozygous (FH) pre 1992, before lipid-lowering therapy with statins was used routinely, and in the periods 1992–2008 and 2008–2016. METHODS: 1903 Definite (DFH) and 1650 Possible (PFH) patients (51% women) aged 20–79 years, recruited from 21 lipid clinics in the United Kingdom and followed prospectively between 1980 and 2016 for 67,060 person-years. The CHD standardised mortality ratio (SMR) compared to the population in England and Wales was calculated (with 95% Confidence intervals). RESULTS: There were 585 deaths, including 252 from CHD. Overall, the observed 2.4-fold excess coronary mortality for treated DFH post-1991 was significantly higher than the 1.78 excess for PFH (35% 95% CI 3%–76%). In patients with DFH and established coronary disease, there was a significant excess coronary mortality in all time periods, but in men it was reduced from a 4.83-fold excess (2.32–8.89) pre-1992 to 4.66 (3.46–6.14) in 1992–2008 and 2.51 (1.01–5.17) post-2008, while in women the corresponding values were 7.23 (2.65–15.73), 4.42 (2.70–6.82) and 6.34 (2.06–14.81). Primary prevention in men with DFH resulted in a progressive reduction in coronary mortality over the three time-periods, with no excess mortality evident post-2008 (0.89 (0.29–2.08)), although in women the excess persisted (post-2008 3.65 (1.75–6.72)). CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm the benefit of statin treatment in reducing CHD mortality, but suggest that FH patients with pre-existing CHD and women with FH may not be treated adequately

Astroparticle Physics with a Customized Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector

The MAJORANA Collaboration is building the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a 60 kg array of high purity germanium detectors housed in an ultra-low background shield at the Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, SD. The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76Ge while demonstrating the feasibility of a tonne-scale experiment. It may also carry out a dark matter search in the 1-10 GeV/c^2 mass range. We have found that customized Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe) detectors produced by Canberra have several desirable features for a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment, including low electronic noise, excellent pulse shape analysis capabilities, and simple fabrication. We have deployed a customized BEGe, the MAJORANA Low-Background BEGe at Kimballton (MALBEK), in a low-background cryostat and shield at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility in Virginia. This paper will focus on the detector characteristics and measurements that can be performed with such a radiation detector in a low-background environment.Comment: Submitted to NIMA Proceedings, SORMA XII. 9 pages, 4 figure