White Plains Research Articles

The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment: how to make it operational and effective

In the last year, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted, and New York State's Constitution Bill of Rights has been amended to include, a right to a healthy environment. This continues a trend of adoption of a constitutional or statutory right to a healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment is constitutionally recognised in 110 countries. The article explores what a right to a healthy environment entails and how it can be made operational and effective. It is presented in three parts: first, what the right to a healthy environment involves; second, the correlative duties to uphold and protect the right; and third, the systematic and structural change to law and governance needed to uphold the right and discharge the duties.

Effects of a 12-week, seated, virtual, home-based tele-exercise programme compared with a prerecorded video-based exercise programme in people with chronic neurological impairments: protocol for a randomised controlled trial

IntroductionExercise is vital to staying well and preventing secondary complications in people with chronic neurological impairments (CNI). Appropriate exercise is often inaccessible to this population. The purpose of the study...

War Comes to Westchester: The Killing of William Lounsbury

War Comes to WestchesterThe Killing of William Lounsbury Dillon Streifeneder (bio) On the morning of August 29, 1776, Pvt. Samuel Miller awoke to marching orders. An informant had come in during the night, and Miller learned that a group of Tories were enlisting men for the "royal cause" near the village of Mamaroneck. By the summer of 1776, Miller was used to such reports, but this one had added gravity. Eight days prior, nearly twenty-thousand soldiers of William Howe's invasion force had come ashore in neighboring King's County. While Miller might not have known it when he awoke on that morning, Howe's army had defeated George Washington's forces on Long Island, and the American Army was in retreat. The war had come to New York.1 After having volunteered in the winter of 1775 in Capt. Micah Townsend's company of "rangers," Miller had, since the end of June 1776, been working closely with the Westchester County Committee of Safety at White Plains, "taking up and disbanding the Tories and disaffected who were Engaged in collecting together and concerting measures to destroy the said Committee and opposing the cause of Revolution."2 While similar to previous intelligence gained from informants, the Committee responded to this report with particular urgency. With the British advancing on Long Island and having already called out the militia in response to British warships menacing the shoreline, the possibility of internal enemies acting in concert with an external invasion force threatened the entire revolutionary movement.3 The Committee was determined to suppress the threat immediately and called on its quick reaction force—Townsend's company of rangers—to apprehend the Loyalists. Before daylight, Townsend, together with Miller and about twenty others, headed southeast from [End Page 339] White Plains, following the informant toward an area of dense woods and rocks known as the Great Lots, just north of Mamaroneck.4 Finding the Loyalist hiding place, Capt. Townsend's men encircled the encampment. Aroused, Loyalist leader William Lounsbury fired his musket at the approaching militia.5 In the smoke and confusion that ensued, Lounsbury escaped and fled to a nearby cave; he then collapsed, wounded. Refusing to surrender to the pursuing militia, he tried to fend them off, wielding his musket as a club. In this turmoil, a handful of Patriots closed in and finished him off with a bayonet.6 As a local resident recalled nearly seventy years later, "Lounsberry was the first person killed in Westchester county" during the American Revolution.7 He was also, in a sense, the last casualty of the battle of Long Island. His death marked the coming of war to Westchester; it also marked a key moment of transition for the engine of the Revolution, the local committee system.8 While scholars have noted the importance of the Revolutionary committees, there are few studies that closely examine the evolution of committee activity at the local level outside of New England.9 This is problematic for two reasons. First, it has led to two starkly [End Page 340] different portrayals of the committees. One group of historians views the committees primarily as "schools of revolution," that "seldom allowed the policing of popular ideology to get out of hand."10 A second group of historians has asserted that committees were at their core "an apparatus of oppression and terror."11 The second concern is one of time and change. While not exclusively tied to the peaceable portrayal of the committees, most of these works examining the role of committees conclude their studies prior to 1776. The committees that have been studied acted as a political network, playing their role from the Stamp Act crisis until 1775, after which they lost their relevance as American Revolution transitioned into Revolutionary War. Another [End Page 341] body of work on committees has a similar problem. This second group of studies either begins their look at committees amid full-scale war after the British military invasion in 1776 or does not acknowledge that any change occurred in how people and institutions acted when war came to the neighborhood. Both interpretations are tied to a larger problem of historians not engaging...

Geographical Variation in Health Spending Across the US Among Privately Insured Individuals and Enrollees in Medicaid and Medicare

Little is known about small-area variations in health care spending and utilization across the 3 major funders of health care in the US: Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. To measure regional health spending and utilization across Medicare, Medicaid, and the privately insured; to observe whether there are regions that are simultaneously low spending for all 3 payers; and to determine what factors are correlated with regional spending and utilization by payer. Observational cross-sectional analysis of the US health system in 2016 and 2017 for 241 of 306 hospital referral regions (HRRs) and 2 states. Participants include individuals with employer-sponsored coverage from Aetna, Humana, or UnitedHealth; individuals with Medicaid fee-for-service coverage in 2016 and 2017; and individuals with Medicare coverage. The analysis was carried out from January 2020 to May 2022. Spending per beneficiary and inpatient days per beneficiary by payer and overall. The data include 25 381 167 individuals with employer-sponsored coverage, 69 891 299 with Medicaid coverage in 2016 and 2017, and 26 711 426 individuals with Medicare fee-for-service coverage. The percentage of enrollees who identified as female was 54.1% in the Medicaid program, 56.2% in the Medicare program, and 50.4% in private insurance. The mean (SD) age was 26.9 (21.8) years for Medicaid and 75.0 (7.9) years for Medicare enrollees; for private insurance enrollees, just age brackets were reported: 18 to 24 years (15.9%), 25 to 34 years (24.2%), 35 to 44 years (21.3%), 45 to 54 years (20.8%), and 55 to 64 years (17.8%). In 2017, the mean (SD) HRR-level spending per beneficiary was $4441 ($710) for private insurance, $10 281 ($1294) for Medicare, and $6127 ($1428) for Medicaid. Across HRRs, the correlation coefficients and 95% CIs were 0.020 (-0.106 to 0.146; P = .76) for private insurance and Medicare spending, 0.213 (0.090 to 0.330; P < .001) for private insurance and Medicaid, and 0.162 (0.037 to 0.282; P < .01) for Medicare and Medicaid. Just 3 HRRs (Boulder, Colorado; Bloomington, Illinois; and Olympia, Washington) were in the lowest spending quintile for all 3 insurance programs; 4 HRRs were in the highest (The Bronx, New York; Manhattan, New York; White Plains, New York; and Dallas, Texas). By contrast, the correlation coefficients and 95% CIs for utilization, measured in hospital days, were 0.465 (0.361 to 0.559; P < .001) for private insurance and Medicare, 0.527 (0.429 to 0.612; P < .001) for private insurance and Medicaid, and 0.278 (0.157 to 0.390; P < .001) for Medicare and Medicaid. These findings suggest that payer-specific factors are correlated with health spending variation among Medicare beneficiaries, Medicaid beneficiaries, and the commercially insured and that payer-specific policies will be necessary to improve efficiency in the US health sector.

On His Deafness.

On His Deafness Robert Panara, B.A. My ears are deaf, and yet I seem tohear Sweet Nature's music and thesongs of man, For I have learned fromFancy's artisan How written wordsmay thrill the inner ear Just as theymove the heart, and so for me Theyalso seem to sing out loud and free. In silent study, I have learned tospell Each secret shade of meaningand to hear A magic harmony, atonce sincere,Which somehow notes the tinkle of abell, The cooing of a dove, the swishof leaves, The raindrop's pitter-patteron the eaves, The lover's sigh, andthrumming of guitar, And, if Ichoose, the rustle of a star. [End Page 386] Robert Panara New York School for the Deaf White Plains, N. Y. Copyright © 2022 Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf

Development of a Nurse Residency "Carousel" Program at White Plains Hospital.

Development of a Nurse Residency "Carousel" Program at White Plains Hospital.

Margaret Sanger, “The Unrecorded Battle” (1912)

Margaret Sanger, “The Unrecorded Battle” (1912)

Class Rooms

Class Rooms

Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project: story of a major collaborative project

The Volta River Authority is starting this year the construction of the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project (PMDP) on the White Volta River across the Upper East and Northern regions of Ghana with the aim to foster economic development in several ways: (i) developing the irrigation potential of the White Volta plains, (ii) mitigating the flood impacts downstream of the dam, (iii) improving Ghana’s power system and (iv) generating secondary benefits through related activities such as fishery and domestic water supply. This project, studied by Tractebel since the early 1990s, was always governed by the principle to balance the benefits between antagonistic objectives. Dedicated operation rules have been defined to improve the overall benefits. Limitation of the extent of the reservoir and its related environmental and social impacts have also been taken into account to define the final design. This paper aims to present how all these benefits have been estimated and compared to lead to the final design under implementation.

Predictors for inpatient mortality during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: A retrospective analysis.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic overwhelmed healthcare systems, highlighting the need to better understand predictors of mortality and the impact of medical interventions. This retrospective cohort study examined data from every patient who tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to White Plains Hospital between March 9, 2020, and June 3, 2020. We used binomial logistic regression to analyze data for all patients, and propensity score matching for those treated with hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma (CP). The primary outcome of interest was inpatient mortality. 1,108 admitted patients with COVID-19 were available for analysis, of which 124 (11.2%) were excluded due to incomplete data. Of the 984 patients included, 225 (22.9%) died. Risk for death decreased for each day later a patient was admitted [OR 0.970, CI 0.955 to 0.985; p < 0.001]. Elevated initial C-reactive protein (CRP) value was associated with a higher risk for death at 96 hours [OR 1.007, 1.002 to 1.012; p = 0.006]. Hydroxychloroquine and CP administration were each associated with increased mortality [OR 3.4, CI 1.614 to 7.396; p = 0.002, OR 2.8560, CI 1.361 to 6.160; p = 0.006 respectively]. Elevated CRP carried significant odds of early death. Hydroxychloroquine and CP were each associated with higher risk for death, although CP was without titers and was administered at a median of five days from admission. Randomized or controlled studies will better describe the impact of CP. Mortality decreased as the pandemic progressed, suggesting that institutional capacity for dynamic evaluation of process and outcome measures may benefit COVID-19 survival.

Unlawful Entry into Residence

In Chamberlain v. City of White Plains , 960 F.3d 100 (2d Cir. 2020), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit considered whether there was a plausible claim for unlawful entry and whether the officers involved were entitled to qualified immunity. The Estate of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.,

Closing the Gap: Increasing Community Mental Health Services in Rural Indiana.

Due to the significant need for mental health services in rural Martin County, IN and lack of providers, this study examined the current strengths of the community as well as the barriers preventing mental health service delivery. The goal of the study was to propose community-specific solutions to overcoming the barriers. Using a strengths-based approach (Saleeby in The strengths perspective in social work practice, Longman, White Plains, NY, 1992), the authors first sought to understand Martin County residents’ current experiences with mental health services. Second, the authors sought to understand Martin County residents’ opinions about church/mental health partnerships. As a result of this analysis, the authors comprised a list of feasible and sustainable recommendations for Martin County and similar rural areas that incorporate the strengths in the community, address their identified challenges, and thus created a model for mental health service provision that can be replicated in other rural communities with similar strengths as well as similar challenges.

A Delivery

A Delivery Nicole Cuffy (bio) THE CALL His face now is rough, his forehead lined, and there is an indigo ring around his deep brown irises; his fingers have curled like the roots of an oak tree, his moustache and the minute stubble on his chin have dulled to silver. When she looks at him now, she sees two men: the warm, familiar face from childhood, jovial and fresh, and the new face, no less warm, but, at times, only just recognizable. Like looking at an archetype, the type of wizened black man photographers love to capture in close-up, black-and-white portraits. The other day, he called her, and she got the sense that he had nothing and everything to say. That he had called her to see if he could, if she would answer, expecting nothing, because it was him, her father. She'd been sitting at the window that looked out into the sad, shared patio, with the broken flagstones dyed, by rain and time, some shade between brown and green and gray, and the wrought iron gate with the bent spike that made it somehow piteous, like a knight with a soft silver sword. When you were sad, looking out there made you sadder, but in a way that was strangely beautiful, the way that your own blood could have a slightly satisfying taste when you sucked it from a fresh wound. Hearing his voice, she'd begun to think about her own mortality, and his. How time passed beneath your notice, even though your entire life was about time. And she missed him, though they weren't very far away from each other. That wasn't it, wasn't how she missed him. She missed the version of him who'd wake her up in the middle of the night, peeking into her room in his white underwear, checking. And she'd pretend to be asleep but keep one eye slightly open because his dark presence in the darkness of her doorway blocked out the darkness that she feared. That was it, really. He stood between her and fear. And now that they were so much older, she was more aware than ever that time had been passing all along and was closer than ever to taking him, and she didn't know what she was going to do without him. For a brief moment during that call she wished that they were the type to say I love you. They never had been, though they found other ways of saying it that weren't words, weren't speaking. He asked her to drive out with him to deliver the secretary desk—her mother never liked to go to these things. He didn't need her there, of course; these deliveries were routine for him. What he didn't say was that he wanted her there. A little drive, like those late-night [End Page 178] drives they used to take when she was a colicky baby. He wouldn't say he just missed her. It wasn't their way. When she said yes, she hoped it was enough, that he understood that it was yes, and thank you, and all the other things. ROAD TRIP It took her a train, two buses, and nearly two hours to get from her ivy-choked Greenwich Village apartment to her parents' White Plains colonial, with its canary yellow dining room and mismatched linoleum tiles in the kitchen. Now they are driving with the windows open and the air conditioning on. She knows he hates this—he is viscerally opposed to waste in any form—but she also knows he is tolerating it because she can't stand the harshness of air conditioning alone. She has one hand out the window, and the wind that smacks her palm is damp, assertively hot. It is record-breakingly warm, and she is trying not to mention global warming because if she does, her father will accuse her of "getting all worked up." And it's not that he doesn't believe in global warming, but that he's more afraid of her anxiety about it than he is of...

Ellen Holly (Performer)

Agnes Nixon created Carla Benari/Clara Gray and her famous storyline on One Life to Live, but Ellen Holly (1931–) brought the character and her actions to life. As a light-skinned Black woman, Holly struggled to find work as an actress, particularly in television. She’d enjoyed more success in theater, making her 1956 Broadway debut as Stephanie in Robert Yale Libott’s Too Late the Phalarope—a role for which she darkened her complexion. (Her father, a chemist, created the makeup she wore because the products she purchased at Gray’s Drug Store in New York “did not work” for her.) Then in 1968, television came calling and she was hired on One Life to Live, becoming the first Black actress to play a central role on a U.S. daytime soap opera. Adrienne Faillace conducted the interview on May 29, 2018 in White Plains, New York.

Skeletal Muscle Cells Derived From Old Donors Show Mitochondrial Fragmentation And Decreased Oxygen Consumption Rates

With age, skeletal muscles lose their oxidative capacity and have a reduced mitochondrial fusion leading to fragmentation. These phenomena can lead to a reduction in oxygen consumption, atrophy, and an increased risk of developing age-related diseases such as sarcopenia. Skeletal muscle cells derived from humans can be used to investigate these physiological capacities in primary culture. PURPOSE: Investigate mitochondrial morphology and maximal oxygen consumption rates (OCR) of skeletal muscle cells derived from healthy young and old men. METHODS: Primary skeletal muscle cells derived from the Rectus abdominis muscle of healthy active eighteen and sixty-nine year old men (SKM18M and SKM69M, respectively) were obtained from Cook MyoSite Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA). Cells were stained with MitoTracker Red (Cell Signaling; Danvers, MA) and mitochondria morphology was observed using a Zeiss LSM 710 AxioObserver confocal scanning microscope (Carl Zeiss; White Plains, NY). The mitochondrial network was analyzed using the Mitochondrial Network Analysis tool in ImageJ (MiNA, FIJI) to estimate mitochondrial footprint from a binarized image. Oxygen consumption rates were measured in intact cells using Seahorse Cell Mito Stress Tests on a XFp extracellular flux analyzer (Agilent Technologies; Santa Clara, CA). RESULTS: Primary cells derived from the young donor (SKM18M) had a larger mitochondrial footprint, longer branch length, and a greater number of network branches compared to SKM69M (Footprint: 34.65 ± 25.30 vs. 11.64 ± 9.53 μm2; Branch Length: 20.59 ± 7.23 vs. 12.10 ± 6.84 μm; Network: 17.25 ± 0.16 vs. 7.67 ± 4.97 counts). SKM18M also showed higher Basal and Maximal OCR compared to SKM69M (Basal: 38.78 ± 8.34 vs. 12.82 ± 2.07; Maximal: 60.09 ±10.84 vs. 20.52 ± 2.36 pmol/min/protein). CONCLUSIONS: We observed differences morphologically and metabolically between the primary skeletal muscle cells derived from young and old donors. These preliminary results give us an insight into human skeletal muscle-derived cellular physiological capacity. Technology to observe human muscle mitochondrial fragmentation in vitro will help us elucidate the effects of aging on skeletal muscle mitochondrial fragmentation and loss of metabolic flexibility in aging.

FRI0617-HPR GRADED MOTOR IMAGERY IN POSTTRAUMATIC STIFFNESS OF THE ELBOW: A PILOT STUDY

Background:Elbow fracture is treated either conservatively or surgically followed by a period of immobilization with casting or splinting. A splint used to immobilize upper limbs for many weeks results in changes in both the peripheral musculature and the central nervous system. It is well known that common complaints after upper limb fractures include weakness, pain, and stiffness; therefore, pain management is important in the early stages of the rehabilitation of upper limb fractures.Objectives:This pilot study aimed to investigate the efficacy of graded motor imaginary (GMI) on pain, range of motion (ROM), and function in patients with posttraumatic stiff elbow.Methods:Fourteen patients with posttraumatic stiff elbow (6 women, mean age: 45.42 ± 11.26 years, mean body mass index: 24.29 ± 3.38 kg\m2and mean duration of immobilization: 4.75 ± 1.03 weeks) were randomly allocated to either GMI or control groups. The GMI group received GMI treatment in addition to a structured exercise program, and the control group received a structured exercise program (two days per week for six weeks) (Figure 1). The assessments included pain at rest and during activity using the visual analog scale (VAS), elbow active ROM with a digital goniometer (Baseline Evaluation Instrument, Fabrication Enterprises, Inc., White Plains, NY), and upper extremity functional status using the Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire (DASH). The assessments were performed at baseline and after the 6-week intervention.Figure 1.Graded motor imagery performed with mirror boxResults:After the 6-week intervention, there was a significant increase in elbow flexion-extension ROM and supination-pronation ROM, and improvement in DASH score in both groups (p&lt;0.05). However, improvement in VAS-rest and VAS-activity was significantly higher in the GMI group than the control group (p=0.03 and p=0.01, respectively).Conclusion:A conservative treatment program consisting of GMI treatment in addition to a structured exercise program applied twice a week for 6 weeks, has been found more effective in decreasing pain in the posttraumatic stiff elbow. It could be concluded that GMI is an effective treatment method for elbow fracture in patients with predominant elbow pain.

Mitochondrial Fragmentation in Skeletal Muscle Derived Cells from an Old Male Donor May Relate to Decreased Oxygen Consumption Rates

With age, skeletal muscle mitochondria lose their ability to fuse and regenerate following stress and exercise leading to fragmentation. These phenomena can lead to reduced oxygen, muscle atrophy, reduced maximal O2 consumption, loss of metabolic flexibility and risk of developing age‐related diseases such as sarcopenia. Skeletal muscle cells derived from human donors can be used to investigate these physiological capacities in primary culture. Our objective is to investigate mitochondrial morphology and cellular maximal oxygen consumption rates (OCR) of skeletal muscle cells derived from healthy young and old male donors. Primary skeletal muscle cells derived from the Rectus abdominis muscle of healthy active eighteen and sixty‐nine year old men (SKM18M and SKM69M, respectively) were obtained from Cook MyoSite Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA). Cells were stained with MitoTracker Red (Cell Signaling; Danvers, MA) and mitochondrial morphology was observed using a Zeiss LSM 710 AxioObserver confocal inverted scanning microscope (Carl Zeiss; White Plains, NY). The mitochondrial network was analyzed using the Mitochondrial Network Analysis tool in ImageJ (MiNA, FIJI) to estimate mitochondrial footprint from a binarized image. Oxygen consumption rates were measured in intact cells using Seahorse Cell Mito Stress Tests on a XFp extracellular flux analyzer (Agilent Technologies; Santa Clara, CA). Primary cells derived from the young donor (SKM18M) had a larger mitochondrial footprint, longer branch length, and a greater number of network branches compared to the old donor (SKM69M) (Footprint: 34.65 ± 25.30 vs. 11.64 ± 9.53 μm2; Branch Length: 20.59 ± 7.23 vs. 12.10 ± 6.84 μm; Network: 17.25 ± 0.16 vs. 7.67 ± 4.97 counts). SKM18M also showed higher Basal and Maximal OCR compared to SKM69M (Basal: 38.78 ± 8.34 vs. 12.82 ± 2.07; Maximal: 60.09 ±10.84 vs. 20.52 ± 2.36 pmol/min/protein). We observed differences morphologically and metabolically between the primary skeletal muscle cells derived from young and old donors. These preliminary results give us an insight into human skeletal muscle‐derived cellular physiological capacity. Technology to observe human muscle mitochondrial fragmentation in vitro will help us elucidate the effects of aging, illness and injury on skeletal muscle mitochondrial fragmentation, dysfunction, and loss of metabolic flexibility.Support or Funding InformationFunded by the National Institute of Aging of the National Institute of Health; Grant Number R01‐AG059715.

Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise by James Steichen

Reviewed by: Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise by James Steichen Chantal Frankenbach Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise. James Steichen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 302. $35.00 (cloth). In 1915, less than twenty years before Russian choreographer George Balanchine arrived in the US, literary critic Van Wyck Brooks observed that antithetical "twin values" of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" still divided every aspect of American life. Between the two brows, Brooks concluded, there was "no genial middle ground."1 For ballet in early twentieth-century America, this seemed particularly true. Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and the touring offshoots of Sergei Diaghilev's Paris-based Ballets Russes had convinced many Americans that, in contrast to the popular dancing on American stages, classical dance came from afar and on high. Yet a growing number of dance scholars are revealing the crevices in this dichotomy.2 Musicologist and dance historian James Steichen joins them with a richly researched and gracefully written book on the tangled origins of the New York City Ballet (NYCB) and its associated School of American Ballet. Steichen illuminates the collision of aesthetic and economic concerns driving Balanchine and his sponsor–benefactor Lincoln Kirstein in the first seven years (1933–40) of their now-fabled quest to create an American ballet institution. This period of "missteps, overlooked achievements, and unsung heroes," Steichen argues, is no less important to understanding American theater dance than the mature Balanchine ballets it eventually spawned (Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise, 11). Steichen's account of these two remarkably persistent modernists stands to correct the received history that has "papered over" their endeavor's inauspicious origins (8). Scholars and students of American culture will find here a narrative that weaves dance history into theater, music, and film from a remarkable trove of materials, reminding us just how much positivist work still awaits historians of American dance. Titling Balanchine and Kirstein's project an "enterprise" fittingly acknowledges the crossed purposes in their effort to institutionalize ballet in America. An enterprise, after all, suggests something sleek, commercial, market-driven, and risky—something antithetical to any elite aesthetic sensibilities these self-proclaimed modernists might have coveted. Noting the absence of this foundational conflict in the legend and lore of the NYCB's founding, Steichen rejects the temptation of "triumphant teleology" and "retrospective coherence" in exchange for a more warts-and-all look at the initial American Ballet's first staggers and stumbles (11, 7). Drawing extensively from the popular press and numerous archives, Steichen makes good storytelling of Kirstein's colorful diaries and correspondence. A thorough literature review in the introduction; images of rehearsals, programs, and promotional materials; and meticulously sourced notes all add up to a volume of scholarly precision that deliberately avoids any deep dive into cultural analysis.3 The pragmatic year-by-year chapter titles are perhaps a sign of missed opportunities to weave more thematic reflections into the tale. Beginning and ending with thoughts on Serenade's place in the development of the symphonic ballet (unquestionably a signature achievement of Balanchine's), chapter three, for instance, might have developed this topic just enough to warrant a title more pledged to its purpose than "1934–1935." Yet the chronological arc and orderly delivery of Steichen's material has clear merits. Chapter one weaves the early biographies of Balanchine and Kirstein into the network of associates (Romola Nijinsky, Virgil Thomson, Chick Austin, Edward Warburg) who helped to bring Balanchine first to Hartford and then to New York City, where their "exhilarating and haphazard journey" of failures and contradictions began (4). As we see in Kirstein's diaries and correspondence—like the newsy October 1933 letter to his mother reporting that his "ballet people" were about to arrive in New York—his machinations with well-to-do Americans set the stage for the enterprise's [End Page 620] start (18). Chapter two traces the first two performances of the American Ballet: one ill-fated exhibition at the White Plains estate of patron Edward Warburg, and a more successful showing at the Avery Memorial Theater in Hartford. The ballets produced for these debuts (Mozartiana, Errante, Dreams, Transcendence, Serenade, and the football-themed Alma Mater) reveal the...

Stable Matching with Proportionality Constraints

School choice programs seek to give students the option to choose their school but also close an opportunity gap. To be fair in the assignment of students, it is usually argued that the assignment of students to schools should be stable. This second concern is usually expressed in terms of proportions. As an example, in 1989, the city of White Plains, New York, required each school to have the same proportions of Blacks, Hispanics, and “others,” a term that includes Whites and Asians. Satisfying both these concerns at the same time is difficult. Prior work replaces the proportions by numbers related to the capacity of school, but this assumes each school is operating at full capacity, which is often not the case. In this paper, we treat such proportionality constraints as soft but provide ex post guarantees on how well the constraints are satisfied while preserving stability.

Report on the Bronx 120 Mass 'Gang' Prosecution

In recent years, takedowns of gangs and crews in New York City have led to mass prosecutions of multiple defendants for conspiracy and RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization Act) conspiracy charges. While the takedowns are generally accompanied by intensive media coverage, information about the charges, process, and allegations against individuals caught up in these takedowns is not readily accessible. This report looks into the court records of the largest of the mass gang prosecutions — the takedown of the Bronx 120 in April of 2016. In the pre-dawn hours of April 27, 2016, nearly 700 officers in riot gear descended upon Eastchester Gardens and the adjoining neighborhood along White Plains Road. The officers were from the NYPD, ATF, DEA, and Homeland Security. Helicopters hovered overhead as armed SWAT teams used battering rams to execute no-knock warrants. They were arresting defendants charged in twin conspiracy indictments. The defendants and the raid have come to be known as the Bronx 120 for the 120 defendants named in the indictments. Preet Bharara, then-United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that the raid was believed to be the “largest gang takedown in New York City history.” The report concludes that nearly half of the 120 individuals targeted in these “gang” indictments were not alleged to be gang members by the prosecution, two-thirds of the defendants were not convicted based on violent conduct (including 35 for who were convicted based on marijuana sales), and two-thirds of defendants had no prior felony record, and nearly half were re-prosecuted for conduct previously adjudicated in state courts. Although many of the defendants were not violent gang members, the vast majority (101 of the 120) were held without the possibility of bail, and 15 of the 19 who were released were subject to house arrest. Further, these mass indictments fail to safeguard the public’s interest in transparency and speedy trial.