University of New Hampshire Students\u27 Perceptions of the University of New Hampshire Police Department

This project involves discovering the positive and negative perceptions that the UNH student body has on the UNH police department. Classes of varying sizes were given surveys that contained demographic questions, as well as questions on participants’ perceptions of the local police force. Using survey analyses from the students attending the University of New Hampshire, conclusions were made about the perceptions and several characteristics that were found to be important. Important results were that UNH student class standing is unimportant in the perceptions of UNH police; males are more negative in their perceptions of the police than females; when misconduct does occur, negative perceptions do increase and that UNH students overall have positive perceptions of the UNH police

Leavitt RR-algebras over countable graphs embed into L2,RL_{2,R}

For a commutative ring $R$ with unit we show that the Leavitt path algebra $L_R(E)$ of a graph $E$ embeds into $L_{2,R}$ precisely when $E$ is countable. Before proving this result we prove a generalised Cuntz-Krieger Uniqueness Theorem for Leavitt path algebras over $R$.Comment: 17 pages. At the request of a referee the previous version of this paper has been split into two papers. This version is the first of these papers. The second will also be uploaded to the arXi

L2,Z⊗L2,ZL_{2,\mathbb{Z}} \otimes L_{2,\mathbb{Z}} does not embed in L2,ZL_{2,\mathbb{Z}}

For a commutative ring $R$ with unit we investigate the embedding of tensor product algebras into the Leavitt algebra $L_{2,R}$. We show that the tensor product $L_{2,\mathbb{Z}}\otimes L_{2,\mathbb{Z}}$ does not embed in $L_{2,\mathbb{Z}}$ (as a unital $*$-algebra). We also prove a partial non-embedding result for the more general $L_{2,R} \otimes L_{2,R}$. Our techniques rely on realising Thompson's group $V$ as a subgroup of the unitary group of $L_{2,R}$.Comment: 16 pages. At the request of a referee the paper arXiv:1503.08705v2 was split into two papers. This is the second of those paper

Impact of in-house specialty pharmacy on access to novel androgen axis inhibitors in men with advanced prostate cancer

Introduction: Novel androgen axis inhibitors are standard of care treatments in advanced prostate cancer. The billed amounts for these medications are often very high, which may create significant financial toxicity for patients and lead to delays in treatment. Our institution implemented an in-house specialty pharmacy in 2014, that provides these medications and evaluates copay assistance options for all patients. We evaluated the program’s impact on out of pocket cost (OOP) and turnaround time (TAT). Methods: We reviewed available internal specialty pharmacy records to identify prescriptions for abiraterone or enzalutamide filled between 1/1/17 and 12/31/18. Payments were stratified by primary payment (amount reimbursed by the patient’s prescription plan based on the benefit’s design) and copayment assistance. Turnaround times (TAT) in business days were stratified by prescriptions requiring intervention (prior authorization, copayment assistance, or insufficient inventory) and clean prescriptions (those requiring no intervention). Results: One thousand four hundred seventeen prescriptions for 175 unique patients requiring abiraterone (n=869, 61.3%) or enzalutamide (n=548, 38.7%) were filled through the institution’s specialty pharmacy. The average amount paid by primary payer was $9,492.96 for a 30 day supply (range:$3,382.48-$12,939.84). Average quoted copay was$577.53 (range $3.08-$10,560.39). 64% of patients received copayment assistance. Average OOP cost per prescription after co-pay assistance was $100.83 (range$0-$8556.64). Three patients declined treatment due to cost (1.7% of overall). Average TAT was 2.98 days for clean prescriptions and 3.36 days for prescriptions needing intervention (p=0.055). Discussion: OOP cost varied significantly based on plan design and copayment assistance eligibility. The majority of patients received copayment assistance, which markedly reduced OOP cost. Cost rarely precluded access to treatment. TAT was not significantly prolonged for prescriptions requiring intervention. Further studies to determine impact of pharmacy type on access to specialty medications are indicated

Graph Oracle Models, Lower Bounds, and Gaps for Parallel Stochastic Optimization

We suggest a general oracle-based framework that captures different parallel stochastic optimization settings described by a dependency graph, and derive generic lower bounds in terms of this graph. We then use the framework and derive lower bounds for several specific parallel optimization settings, including delayed updates and parallel processing with intermittent communication. We highlight gaps between lower and upper bounds on the oracle complexity, and cases where the "natural" algorithms are not known to be optimal

Anomalies, Conformal Manifolds, and Spheres

The two-point function of exactly marginal operators leads to a universal contribution to the trace anomaly in even dimensions. We study aspects of this trace anomaly, emphasizing its interpretation as a sigma model, whose target space M is the space of conformal field theories (a.k.a. the conformal manifold). When the underlying quantum field theory is supersymmetric, this sigma model has to be appropriately supersymmetrized. As examples, we consider in some detail N=(2,2) and N=(0,2) supersymmetric theories in d=2 and N=2 supersymmetric theories in d=4. This reasoning leads to new information about the conformal manifolds of these theories, for example, we show that the manifold is Kahler-Hodge and we further argue that it has vanishing Kahler class. For N=(2,2) theories in d=2 and N=2 theories in d=4 we also show that the relation between the sphere partition function and the Kahler potential of M follows immediately from the appropriate sigma models that we construct. Along the way we find several examples of potential trace anomalies that obey the Wess-Zumino consistency conditions, but can be ruled out by a more detailed analysis.Comment: harvmac, 38 pages; references added and small clarification

Organizational Design for Spill Containment in Deepwater Drilling Operations in the Gulf of Mexico: Assessment of the Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC)

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 led to the deaths of 11 workers, a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and nearly three months of massive engineering and logistics efforts to stop the spill. The series of failures before the well was finally capped and the spill contained revealed an inability to deal effectively with a well in deepwater and ultradeepwater. Ensuring that containment capabilities are adequate for drilling operations at these depths is therefore a salient challenge for government and industry. In this paper we assess the Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC), a consortium aimed at designing and building a system capable of containing future deepwater spills in the Gulf. We also consider alternatives for long-term readiness for deepwater spill containment. We focus on the roles of liability and regulation as determinants of readiness and the adequacy of incentives for technological innovation in oil spill containment technology to keep pace with advances in deepwater drilling capability. Liability and regulation can significantly influence the strength of these incentives. In addition, we discuss appropriate governance structure as a major determinant of the effectiveness of MWCC.oil spill, containment, industry R&D, liability, regulation, governance, innovation

Development and Verification of the Charring, Ablating Thermal Protection Implicit System Simulator

The development and verification of the Charring Ablating Thermal Protection Implicit System Solver (CATPISS) is presented. This work concentrates on the derivation and verification of the stationary grid terms in the equations that govern three-dimensional heat and mass transfer for charring thermal protection systems including pyrolysis gas flow through the porous char layer. The governing equations are discretized according to the Galerkin finite element method (FEM) with first and second order fully implicit time integrators. The governing equations are fully coupled and are solved in parallel via Newton s method, while the linear system is solved via the Generalized Minimum Residual method (GMRES). Verification results from exact solutions and Method of Manufactured Solutions (MMS) are presented to show spatial and temporal orders of accuracy as well as nonlinear convergence rates