Innovations in Opioid Law and Policy Interventions Workshop: Summary of Proceedings

In 2017, Indiana University, in cooperation with Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and community partners, launched the Grand Challenge: Responding to the Addictions Crisis initiative, a university-wide effort to advance interdisciplinary research and interventions in response to the substance abuse crisis affecting Indiana and the nation. The “Legal and Policy Best Practices in Response to the Substance Abuse Crisis” project is one of sixteen funded under Phase 1 of the Grand Challenge. In July 2018, and as part of this project, the research team convened a group of national experts to discuss legal and policy innovations to respond to the opioid use disorder (OUD) crisis. This report summarizes the proceedings of this workshop and updates some of the recommendations made by the team in their March 2018 Preliminary Report. During the workshop, experts answered targeted questions relating to the challenges in implementing law and policy recommendations to respond to the addiction crisis, as well as identified gaps in the current research. Participants provided examples of innovative interventions to respond to this crisis across four primary topic categories: (1) Criminalization; (2) Public Health; (3) Treatment; and (4) Effectuating Change

Single-stage, low-noise, advanced technology fan. Volume 4: Fan aerodynamics. Section 1: Results and analysis

Test results at design speed show fan total pressure ratio, weight flow, and adiabatic efficiency to be 2.2, 2.9, and 1.8% lower than design goal values. The hybrid acoustic inlet (which utilizes a high throat Mach number and acoustic wall treatment for noise suppression) demonstrated total pressure recoveries of 98.9% and 98.2% at takeoff and approach. Exhaust duct pressure losses differed between the hardwall duct and treated duct with splitter by about 0.6% to 2.0% in terms of fan exit average total pressure (depending on operating condition). When the measured results were used to estimate pressure losses, a cruise sfc penalty of 0.68%, due to the acoustically treated duct, was projected

No More Kidding Around: Restructuring Non-Medical Childhood Immunization Exemptions to Ensure Public Health Protection

Professor Silverman\u27s article examines the complex challenges faced by U.S. policymakers attempting to balance the public health protections of mandatory childhood immunization programs with the legal, religious, philosophical, and practical concerns raised by permitting non-medical exemptions under the programs. The article begins with a discussion of the history of childhood immunization programs, and continues by describing the inconsistency of enforcement of state immunization laws and exemptions. The author analyzes recent cases from New York, Wyoming, and Arkansas, and discusses how these decisions both pose threats to these programs\u27 public health protections, while also offering insight into potential problems for other state vaccination programs. Professor Silverman concludes by advocating that states adopt an informed refusal approach to vaccination exemption as a way of improving immunity protections, while respecting the autonomy rights of those who wish to opt out of the program

Star formation in galaxies hosting Active Galactic Nuclei up to z~1

We review recent evidence for a clear association between accretion onto supermassive black holes and star formation up to z~1 in the zCOSMOS survey. Star formation rates (SFRs) are determined from the [OII] emission-line strength and a correction for the AGN contribution. We find that SFRs of X-ray selected AGN span a distribution of 1-100 solar masses per year and evolve in a manner that is indistinguishable from that of massive, star-forming galaxies. The close relationship between AGN activity and star formation is further supported by an increase in the AGN fraction with bluer rest-frame colors (U-V); we further illustrate how the location of AGNs in a color-magnitude diagram can be misleading in luminosity-limited samples due to the dependence of AGN activity on the stellar mass and the low mass-to-light ratios of blue cloud galaxies. To conclude, our results support a co-evolutionary scenario up to z~1 based on the constancy with redshift of the ratio between mass accretion rate and SFR.Comment: Invited talk, to appear in the Proceedings of "AGN Feedback in Galaxy Formation", V.Antonuccio-Delogu and J. Silk, eds., in pres

Litigation, Regulation, and Education — Protecting the Public’s Health through Childhood Immunization

Published versio

X-ray Emission from the Radio Jet in 3C 120

We report the discovery of X-ray emission from a radio knot at a projected distance of 25" from the nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy, 3C 120. The data were obtained with the ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI). Optical upper limits for the knot preclude a simple power law extension of the radio spectrum and we calculate some of the physical parameters for thermal bremsstrahlung and synchrotron self-Compton models. We conclude that no simple model is consistent with the data but if the knot contains small regions with flat spectra, these could produce the observed X-rays (via synchrotron emission) without being detected at other wavebands.Comment: 6 pages latex plus 3 ps/eps figures. Uses 10pt.sty and emulateapj.sty. Accepted for publication in the ApJ (6 Jan 99

A Highly Consistent Framework for the Evolution of the Star-Forming "Main Sequence" from z~0-6

Using a compilation of 25 studies from the literature, we investigate the evolution of the star-forming galaxy (SFG) Main Sequence (MS) in stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) out to $z \sim 6$. After converting all observations to a common set of calibrations, we find a remarkable consensus among MS observations ($\sim 0.1$ dex 1$\sigma$ interpublication scatter). By fitting for time evolution of the MS in bins of constant mass, we deconvolve the observed scatter about the MS within each observed redshift bins. After accounting for observed scatter between different SFR indicators, we find the width of the MS distribution is $\sim 0.2$ dex and remains constant over cosmic time. Our best fits indicate the slope of the MS is likely time-dependent, with our best fit $\log\textrm{SFR}(M_*,t) = \left(0.84 \pm 0.02 - 0.026 \pm 0.003 \times t\right) \log M_* - \left(6.51 \pm 0.24 - 0.11 \pm 0.03 \times t\right)$, with $t$ the age of the Universe in Gyr. We use our fits to create empirical evolutionary tracks in order to constrain MS galaxy star formation histories (SFHs), finding that (1) the most accurate representations of MS SFHs are given by delayed-$\tau$ models, (2) the decline in fractional stellar mass growth for a "typical" MS galaxy today is approximately linear for most of its lifetime, and (3) scatter about the MS can be generated by galaxies evolving along identical evolutionary tracks assuming an initial $1\sigma$ spread in formation times of $\sim 1.4$ Gyr.Comment: 59 pages, 10 tables, 12 figures, accepted to ApJS; v2, slight changes to text, added new figure and fit