Joseph Fishkin

This essay argues that we ought to think differently about unequal opportunity. Instead of focusing only on overall prospects in life, we ought to train our attention on the particular moments of decision and the particular developmental processes that shape, in different respects, the trajectories of people’s lives. A new wave of research in the social sciences makes possible this shift in focus, which will have profound implications for our understanding of both the concept of equal opportunity itself and its applications in public policy and law

We describe an approach that combines clinical ultrasound and photon migration techniques to enhance the sensitivity and information content of diffuse optical tomography. Measurements were performed on a postmenopausal woman with a single 1.8×0.9 cm malignant ductal carcinoma in situ approximately 7.4 mm beneath the skin surface. The ultrasound-derived information about tumor geometry enabled us to segment the breast tissue into tumor and background regions. Optical data was obtained with a multifrequency, multiwavelength hand-held frequency-domain photon migration backscattering probe. The optical properties of the tumor and background were then computed using the ultrasound-derived geometrical constraints. An iterative perturbative approach, using parallel processing, provided quantitative information about scattering and absorption simultaneously with the ability to incorporate and resolve complex boundary conditions and geometries. A three to four fold increase in the tumor absorption coefficient and nearly 50% reduction in scattering coefficient relative to background was observed. Calculations of the mean physiological parameters reveal fourfold greater tumor total hemoglobin concentration [Hbtot] than normal breast and tumor hemoglobin oxygen saturation values of 63%. Comparison of semi-infinite to heterogeneous models shows superior tumor/background contrast for the latter in both absorption and scattering. Sensitivity studies assessing the impact of tumor size and refractive index assumptions, as well as scan direction, demonstrate modest effects on recovered properties.