Background: A clear understanding of the neuropathological causes of RPD is needed to inform the diagnosis and treatment of patients with rapidly progressive dementia (RPD). Methods: Patients with <4.0 years from symptom onset to death were identified within the Mayo Clinic Neurodegenerative Brain Bank (1998-2020). Relevant clinical details were extracted from available records. Neuropathological diagnoses were assigned following standard protocols. Results: 310/8586 (3.6%) cases met RPD criteria. Relative to typically progressive cases, prion disease most commonly presented as RPD (74%, 32/43), followed by progressive supranuclear palsy/corticobasal degeneration (PSP/CBD: 7.5%, 142/1894), other frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD: 5.7%, 32/561), Lewy body disease (LBD: 4.1%, 49/1202), and Alzheimer disease (AD: 1.8%, 48/2687). Average age-at-symptom onset was 69.5±10.4 years. Average disease duration was 2.9±1.0 years. Prion diseases had the most rapid disease course (1.6±1.3 years). Comorbid cerebrovascular disease (25.5%), and clinically symptomatic depression (41.3%), psychoses (37.1%), and sleep disturbances (39.4%) were common across groups. Only psychosis was associated with shorter disease duration (β=-0.31 years, CI95% -0.53, -0.082, controlling for age-at-symptomatic onset). Conclusions: Although prion disease commonly presented as RPD, atypical presentations of more prevalent neurodegenerative diseases accounted for most cases of RPD. Rapidly progressive variants of typical neurodegenerative diseases warrant consideration in clinical practice.

The neo-Lockean justification of the highly unequal distribution of income in capitalist societies is based upon two key premises: that people are the rightful owners of their labor and talents, and that the external world was, in the state of nature, unowned, and therefore up for grabs by people, who could rightfully appropriate parts of it subject to a ‘Lockean proviso.’ The argument is presented by Nozick. Counter-proposals to Nozick’s, for the most part, have either denied the premise that people should morally be viewed as the owners of their talents, or have challenged Nozick’s Lockean proviso.

Rawls, and to a more limited extent Ronald Dworkin, deny self-ownership. As Rawls writes: ‘…the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset … The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.’ Behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, those who deliberate about justice are deprived of knowledge about characteristics whose distribution is morally arbitrary. In Dworkin’s proposal for resource egalitarianism, agents calculate the insurance policy they would hypothetically ask for, were they denied knowledge of what talents they will draw in the birth lottery. Compensation for unequal talents is, according to Dworkin, properly made by taxing and transferring income according to the way it would have been distributed as a consequence of such insurance. Dworkin’s veil of ignorance is thin, because agents in the appropriate posture for deliberating about income distribution know their preferences and attitudes toward risk, but not their talents. For both Rawls and Dworkin, the self-ownership premise is challenged by constructing a veil of ignorance in which people are deprived of knowledge of certain personal characteristics, knowledge of which would bias their opinions, from a moral viewpoint.

We study how rich shareholders use their political influence to deregulate firms that they own, thus skewing the income distribution towards themselves. Individuals differ in productivity and choose how much labor to supply. High productivity individuals also own shares in the productive sector and thus earn capital income. All individuals vote over a linear tax rate on (labor and capital) income whose proceeds are redistributed lump sum. Shareholders also lobby in order to ease the price cap imposed on the private firm. We first solve analytically for the Kantian equilibrium of this lobbying game together with the majority voting equilibrium over the tax rate. We then proceed to a comparative statics analysis of the model with the help of numerical simulations. We obtain that, as the capital income distribution becomes more concentrated among the top productivity individuals, increased lobbying effort generates efficiency as well as equity costs, with lower labor supply and lower average utility levels in society.

The formal theory of equality of opportunity emerged as a response – a friendly amendment – to Ronald Dworkin's (1981) characterization of resource egalitarianism, as defined by the allocation that would emerge from insurance contracts arrived at behind a thin veil of ignorance. This article compares several of the prominent versions of this response, put forth in the period 1993–2008. I argue that a generalization of Roemer's (1998) proposal is the most satisfactory approach. Inherent in that generalization is an indeterminism, which reflects a philosophical problem: that we do not know what comprise the ethically correct rewards to effort. The indeterminism should be resolved, I propose, by an ancillary theory which limits the degree of inequality which is acceptable.

As earlier, the main activity of the Commission was performed by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT), effectively directed by Dan Green. These three years were a difficult period for the Bureau and thus for the Commission because the Bureau unexpectedly had to move from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, its home since 1965, to the Harvard University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. This move caused many serious administrative and logistical problems, effectively solved by the CBAT Director, Dan Green, and CBAT Director Emeritus, Brian Marsden. A great shock, not only for our commission but for the whole astronomical community, was Brian's death on November 18, 2010.

The President verbally reported that the only scientific matter that he dealt with during the triennium as an appeal over the withholding of a supernova designation from an object observed only in the infra-red with no supporting spectrum.

If one is an egalitarian, what should one want to equalize? Opportunities or outcomes? Resources or welfare? These positions are usually conceived to be very different. I argue in this paper that the distinction is misconceived: the only coherent conception of resource equality implies welfare equality, in an appropriately abstract description of the problem. In this section, I motivate the program which the rest of the paper carries out.

Radical and liberal theories of egalitarianism are distinguished, in large part, by the differing degrees to which they hold people responsible for their own well-being. The most liberal or individualistic theory calls for equality of opportunity. Once such “starting gate equality,” as Dworkin (1981a) calls it, is guaranteed, then any final outcome is justified, provided certain rules, such as voluntary trading, are observed. At the other pole, the most radical egalitarianism calls for equality of welfare (assuming that interpersonal welfare comparisons can be made, so that such equality makes sense). In between these two extremes are egalitarian proposals that equalize more than conventional opportunities, yet less than full welfare. Sen (1980) speaks of equality of basic capabilities as a goal; implementing that requires more than starting gate equality, because some will require more resources than others to attain the same capabilities. Meeting basic needs is another objective. Equality of needs fulfillment is perhaps less radical than equality of basic capabilities and more radical than equality of opportunity. Rawls (1971) takes equality of primary goods as a benchmark; he distinguishes primary goods from welfare, but includes among them goods that are more complicated than conventional resources and opportunities, all of which are supposed inputs into any conception of welfare. One could imagine proposing an egalitarianism that equalized some quite measurable outcome across populations, such as infant mortality. That would be an outcome-equalizing theory where the rate of infant mortality is a proxy, presumably, for some more complicated maximand, such as the degree of wellbeing of a population.

From Director Dan Green's report, following this report, it is obvious that the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) continues its excellent work. The Electronic Telegrams (CBETs), established in the previous triennium, have become the regular means for fast communication, with the Circulars providing the official and archival record of discoveries and designations. It is regretted that subscriptions to the printed Circulars continue to decline, but inevitable in this age of electronic communication.

The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by appending information permitting objective comparisons among persons. In order to do so, we introduce the concept of objective empathy. We show that the veil-of-ignorance conception of John Harsanyi, so completed, and Ronald Dworkin's, when modelled formally, recommend wealth allocations in conflict with the prominently espoused view that priority should be given to the less able in wealth allocation. We finally argue that the veil of ignorance should be rejected as a tool for discovering what justice requires.