A Killing tensor for higher dimensional Kerr-AdS black holes with NUT charge

In this paper, we study the recently discovered family of higher dimensional Kerr-AdS black holes with an extra NUT-like parameter. We show that the inverse metric is additively separable after multiplication by a simple function. This allows us to separate the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, showing that geodesic motion is integrable on this background. The separation of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is intimately linked to the existence of an irreducible Killing tensor, which provides an extra constant of motion. We also demonstrate that the Klein-Gordon equation for this background is separable.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages. v2: Typo corrected and equation added. v3: Reference added, introduction expanded, published versio

A Racial Impact Analysis of SB 30: Medicaid Expansion

Virginia is the second worst state in providing Medicaid to its citizens. The focus of this report is to provide a racial equity impact analysis of Senate Bill (SB) 30, the Senate legislative vehicle for the appropriations of the budget submitted by the Governor of Virginia for fiscal years 2015 and 2016. SB 30 included a provision called “Marketplace Virginia” as an alternative to traditional Medicaid expansion in Virginia. This compromise bill would have covered an estimated 430,000 Virginians who fall in the Medicaid coverage gap by assisting them in purchasing private insurance. This report provides a racial equity impact analysis of the failure of the Virginia General Assembly to pass SB 30. The racial and ethnic impact of this proposed, but failed, legislation is important because minorities in Virginia disproportionately face disparities in health care access and quality. This racial impact analysis captures and reports the potential impact of this legislation by race in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The primary recommendation includesraising eligibility requirements to a minimum of 100 percent of the federal poverty level. Virginia’s current eligibility requirements are so strict that although it is ranked 7th in per capita personal income, Virginia ranked 43rd in Medicaid enrollment as a proportion of the state’s population and 47th in per capita Medicaid spending

First-Episode Incarceration: Creating a Recovery-Informed Framework for Integrated Mental Health and Criminal Justice Responses

The number of people diagnosed with serious mental illness in the U.S. criminal justice system has reached unprecedented levels. Increasingly, people recognize that the justice system is no substitute for a well-functioning community mental health system. Although a range of targeted interventions have emerged over the past two decades, existing approaches have done little to reduce the overall number of incarcerated people with serious mental illness. This report, modeled on promising approaches in the mental health field to people experiencing a first episode of psychosis, outlines a new integrated framework that encourages the mental health and criminal justice fields to collaborate on developing programs based on early intervention, an understanding of the social determinants that underlie ill health and criminal justice involvement, and recovery-oriented treatment. The analysis, observations, and recommendations in this report are based on an extensive review of the literature in both the mental health and criminal justice fields, as well as on interviews with 11 national and local practitioners, policymakers, academics, and others involved in responses to people with mental illness who are at risk of running afoul of the criminal justice system.a The authors examined peer-reviewed journals, white papers, and reports from government, professional organizations, and nonprofits. After compiling information on national practices, they interviewed 11 stakeholders chosen for their leadership capacity at a variety of organizations that serve people with behavioral health needs affected by the justice system. Although the interviewees' specialties differed, they all answered questions about:emerging practices or programs that merit more evaluation and attention;opportunities for applying mental health service models to clients in criminal justice settings;promising programs using peer counseling;the potential application of mental health recovery frameworks to people in the criminal justice system; andthe promise of interventions attuned to environment-based and place-based frameworks

Scatter of Journals and Literature Obsolescence Reflected in Document Delivery Requests

In this paper we investigate the scattering of journals and literature obsolescence reflected in more than 137,000 document delivery requests submitted to a national document delivery service. W e first summarize the major findings of the study with regards to the performance of the service.We then identify the “core” journals from which article requests were satisfied and address the following research questions: (a) Does the distribution of core) journals conform to the Bradford’s Law of Scattering? (b) Is there a relationship between usage of journals and impact factors, journals with high impact factors being used more often than the rest? (c) Is there a relationship between usage of journals and total citation counts, journals with high total citation counts being used more often than the rest?(d) What is the median age of use (half-life) of requested articles in general? (e) Do requested articles that appear in core journals get obsolete more slowly? (f) Is there a relationship between obsolescence and journal impact factors, journals with high impact factors being obsolete more slowly? (g) Is there a relationship between obsolescence and total citation counts, journals with high total citation counts being obsolete more slowly? Based on the analysis of findings, we found that the distribution of highly and moderately used journal titles conform to Bradford’s Law.The median age of use was 8 years for all requested articles. Ninety percent of the articles requested were 21 years of age or younger.Articles that appeared in 168 core journal titles seem to get obsolete slightly more slowly than those of all titles.W e observed no statistically significant correlations between the frequency of journal use and ISI journal impact factors, and between the frequency of journal use and ISI-Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, PA) cited half-lives for the most heavily used 168 core journal titles.There was a weak correlation between usage of journals and ISI-reported total citation counts.No statistically significant relationship was found between median age of use and journal impact factors and between median age of use and total citation counts.There was a weak negative correlation between ISI journal impact factors and cited half-lives of 168 core journals, and a weak correlation between ISI citation halflives and use half-lives of core journals.No correlation was found between cited half-lives of 168 core journals and their corresponding total citation counts as reported by ISI.Findings of the current study are discussed along with those of other studies

Uncertainty in 2-point correlation function estimators and BAO detection in SDSS DR7

We study the uncertainty in different two-point correlation function (2PCF) estimators in currently available galaxy surveys. This is motivated by the active subject of using the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) feature in the correlation function as a tool to constrain cosmological parameters, which requires a fine analysis of the statistical significance. We discuss how estimators are affected by both the uncertainty in the mean density $\bar{n}$ and the integral constraint $\frac{1}{V^2}\int_{V^2} \hat{\xi} (r) d^3r =0$ which necessarily causes a bias. We quantify both effects for currently available galaxy samples using simulated mock catalogues of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) following a lognormal model, with a Lambda-Cold Dark Matter ($\Lambda\text{CDM}$) correlation function and similar properties as the samples (number density, mean redshift for the $\Lambda\text{CDM}$ correlation function, survey geometry, mass-luminosity bias). Because we need extensive simulations to quantify small statistical effects, we cannot use realistic N-body simulations and some physical effects are neglected. Our simulations still enable a comparison of the different estimators by looking at their biases and variances. We also test the reliability of the BAO detection in the SDSS samples and study the compatibility of the data results with our $\Lambda\text{CDM}$ simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Multiscale Modeling and Simulation of Organic Solar Cells

In this article, we continue our mathematical study of organic solar cells (OSCs) and propose a two-scale (micro- and macro-scale) model of heterojunction OSCs with interface geometries characterized by an arbitrarily complex morphology. The microscale model consists of a system of partial and ordinary differential equations in an heterogeneous domain, that provides a full description of excitation/transport phenomena occurring in the bulk regions and dissociation/recombination processes occurring in a thin material slab across the interface. The macroscale model is obtained by a micro-to-macro scale transition that consists of averaging the mass balance equations in the normal direction across the interface thickness, giving rise to nonlinear transmission conditions that are parametrized by the interfacial width. These conditions account in a lumped manner for the volumetric dissociation/recombination phenomena occurring in the thin slab and depend locally on the electric field magnitude and orientation. Using the macroscale model in two spatial dimensions, device structures with complex interface morphologies, for which existing data are available, are numerically investigated showing that, if the electric field orientation relative to the interface is taken into due account, the device performance is determined not only by the total interface length but also by its shape

How They Get Away with Murder: The Intersection of Capital Punishment, Prosecutor Misconduct, and Systemic Injustice

Black defendants are executed at a disproportionately high rate, an injustice quietly persisting in the shadow of America’s dark history of slavery and Jim Crow. While a variety of intersectional factors have perpetuated this injustice, the role of prosecutors who commit misconduct to secure a conviction is significant. Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but when the prosecutors who carry the burden of proving that guilt choose not to play by the rules, they wantonly and recklessly embrace the risk of convicting—even killing—an innocent person. This Comment focuses on two primary forms of prosecutor misconduct: Batson violations that occur during jury selection when a prosecutor uses his or her peremptory strikes in a racially discriminatory manner, and Brady violations that occur when the prosecution suppresses materially exculpatory evidence from the defense. While the Supreme Court has established Fourteenth Amendment safeguards to protect criminal defendants from these forms of misconduct, this Comment argues that those safeguards are incomplete. Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence fails adequately both to deter prosecutorial misconduct and to guarantee that criminal defendants receive a fair trial. These failures are only amplified for Black capital defendants, who experience disproportionally higher rates of prosecutor misconduct and capital sentencing. Seeking to better deter incidents of prosecutor misconduct and better ensure Black capital defendants receive due process of law, this Comment proposes a four-part Model Act. Inspired by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, this Act (1) creates a state commission for prosecutor misconduct, (2) charges the commission with the role of drafting advisory guidelines for classifying prosecutor misconduct, (3) mandates that the commission consider the guidelines prior to imposing sanctions on prosecutors found to have committed misconduct, and (4) mandates that state judges consider the guidelines prior to imposing remedies for cases affected by misconduct

Focus, Vol. 1 No. 1

A literary magazine of student writing published by the Department of English of Stephen F. Austin State College.https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/focus/1000/thumbnail.jp

Infrared Excess Sources: Compton Thick QSOs, low luminosity Seyferts or starbursts?

We explore the nature of Infrared Excess sources (IRX), which are proposed as candidates for luminous L_X(2-10keV)>1e43erg/s Compton Thick (N_H>2e24cm^{-2}$) QSOs at z~2. Lower redshift, z~1, analogues of the distant IRX population are identified by firstly redshifting to z=2 the SEDs of all sources with secure spectroscopic redshifts in the AEGIS (6488) and the GOODS-North (1784) surveys and then selecting those that qualify as IRX sources at that redshift. A total of 19 galaxies are selected. The mean redshift of the sample is$z\approx1$. We do not find strong evidence for Compton Thick QSOs in the sample. For 9 sources with X-ray counterparts, the X-ray spectra are consistent with Compton Thin AGN. Only 3 of them show tentative evidence for Compton Thick obscuration. The SEDs of the X-ray undetected population are consistent with starburst activity. There is no evidence for a hot dust component at the mid-infrared associated with AGN heated dust. If the X-ray undetected sources host AGN, an upper limit of L_X(2-10keV) =1e43erg/s is estimated for their intrinsic luminosity. We propose that a large fraction of the$z\approx2$ IRX population are not Compton Thick QSOs but low luminosity [L_X(2-10keV)<1e43erg/s], possibly Compton Thin, AGN or dusty starbursts. It is shown that the decomposition of the AGN and starburst contribution to the mid-IR is essential for interpreting the nature of this population, as star-formation may dominate this wavelength regime.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Exploring Engagement Characteristics and Behaviours of Environmental Volunteers

Environmental volunteering and environmental citizen science projects both have a pivotal role in civic participation. However, one of the common challenges is recruiting and retaining an adequate level of participant engagement to ensure the sustainability of these projects. Thus, understanding patterns of participation is fundamental to both types of projects. This study uses and builds on existing quantitative approaches used to characterise the nature of volunteer engagement in online citizen science projects, to see whether similar participatory patterns exist in offline environmental volunteering projects. The study uses activity records of environmental volunteers from a UK environmental charity “The Conservation Volunteers,” and focuses on three characteristics linked to engagement: longevity, frequency, and distance travelled. Findings show differences in engagement patterns and contributor activity between the three UK regions of Greater London, Greater Manchester, and Yorkshire. Cluster analysis revealed three main types of volunteer engagement profiles which are similar in scale across all regions, namely participants can be grouped into “One-Session,” “Short-Term,” and “Long-Term” volunteer. Of these, the “One-Session” volunteer accounted for the largest group of volunteers