Ethics and the Use of Coercion in the Treatment of Psychiatric Patients

Involuntary psychiatric treatment occurs under such conditions as the medicating or placing in treatment facilities of patients without their consent. Such involuntary treatment has been litigated in the Supreme Court; however, the Court’s rulings have been applied to incarcerated persons, with the notable exception of the 1975 ruling in O’Connor v. Donaldson, a case argued as a civil rights violation. Using O’Connor v. Donaldson as a framework, this paper argues that forcing non- violent psychiatric patients to take medication, or be otherwise treated against their will, is an unethical practice and must be discontinued. This practice of forcible treatment violates the due process rights of patients, and is a violation of accepted medical ethics

Guilty By Reason of Insanity: Unforeseen Consequences of California\u27s Deinstitutionalization Policy

Beginning with the passage of the Lanterman-Petris- Short Act in 1969, deinstitutionalization in California has had a devastating effect on the mentally ill. Instead of affording the mentally ill with more rights and protections, the process of shutting down state psychiatric hospitals and impeding psychiatric care for those in need caused a cascade effect leading to an increase of homelessness and incarceration. Over the past four decades, prisons and jails in California have become the de facto state mental hospitals, with severely mentally ill individuals having nearly a four-to-one chance of ending up in jail or prison over a psychiatric facility of some variety. This restructuring of mental health services has contributed to the ever-increasing problem of mass incarceration – a problem that has reached epidemic levels in recent years. To that end, solutions to this problem include: community-based mental health services, reopening some state psychiatric hospitals with greater oversight, funding medical research into improved treatment options, and community education aimed at fostering a greater understanding of mental health issues

Using Project Management Techniques to Design a PMP Mathematics Study App for the Windows Universal Platform

Background As a late comer to the smartphone market, Microsoft has fallen behind the Apple and Google app ecosystems in the quantity and quality of apps offered. To attract developer talent, Microsoft released the Universal Windows Platform which enables apps to run across Windows devices with few additional modifications. Although the Windows app ecosystem has realized an increased number of available apps, few apps related to project management are currently available. About the project This project will design a PMP Certification Mathematics Study App for the Universal Windows Platform which will serve as a reference and study aid for the PMP certification exam. The app will be available to mobile and PC users who are utilizing the Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 8 operating systems. Features of the app will include project management formula lookup, formula flashcards, and practice problems. At the completion of the project, the app will be submitted to the Windows Store for review and publishing to the Windows 10 application ecosystem. Approach The project scope will include the design of the app from requirements gathering to completion. Project deliverables will be aligned with Windows store applications evaluation criteria for responsiveness, reliability, and style. This project will conclude with submission of a completed application design to the project sponsor.Title Page / Table of Contents / List of Exhibits / Abstract / Background / About the project / Approach / Keywords / Introduction / Project Purpose / Project Approach / Research and Analysis / Research Approach / Research Analysis / Application Design Rating Verification / Research Objective 1: Investigate the preferred learning style of potential users / Research Objective 1: Design Conclusions and Implications / Flashcards Module / Formula Builder Module / Formula Reference Module / Research Objective 2: Investigate the most important aspect of user satisfaction / Research Objective 2: Design Conclusions and Implications / Research Conclusions / Requirements Gathering / User Interface Design / Project Deliverable Design / ViTech CORE / Input Application Requirements / Identify Application Components / Identify Component Functions / Identify Use Cases and Test Activities / Project Deliverables / Application Design Documents / Application Hierarchy / Conclusions and Recommendations / ViTech CORE Software Con/ lusions / Graphing Capabilities / Diagnostics Capabilities / Requirements Mapping and Verification / Final Project Deliverables / Recommendations for Further Research and Development / Application Publishing / Further Development and Product Updates / User Feedback Collection / Application Update Opportunities / Application Expansion Opportunitie

Native bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) and berry polycultures: Studying farmers’ motivations for diversification and the impact of mass floral resources on pollinator communities

Floral resource continuity is an important component in pollinator conservation. Mass blooms early in the season may bolster pollinator communities on sequentially flowering crops by creating a resource pulse in an agricultural landscape. This study seeks to understand if mass flowering crops in polycultural systems can be used to simultaneously conserve pollinators and benefit farmers. To understand if these systems can be used to inform conservation policy, we are also interested in learning why farmers establish polycultures to begin with. A mixed-methods approach was used to address the following research questions: 1) do farmer’s motivations for diversification align with the principles of diversity described by agroecological theory? And 2) do early flowering crops (Vaccinium corymbosum) affect the abundance and diversity of native pollinators (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) visiting later season crops (raspberry, Rubus cv.)? A sample of nine Vermont berry farmers were interviewed about the crops they grow, why they chose polycultural systems, and their potential benefits. Ecological data was collected from 14 Vermont berry farms, 8 of which grew blueberry and raspberry crops, and 6 of which only grew raspberry. We found that farmers most commonly reported reasons for diversification that aligned with agroecological principles of diversity. Additionally, we found no significant relationship between pollinator abundance and diversity on sequentially flowering crops between the two farm treatments. We conclude that follow-up studies are necessary to determine if mass flowering crops can be used as a sustainable pollination management practice and whether or not farmers would be interested in adopting this practice

Calculations of Zero-norm States and Reduction of Stringy Scattering Amplitudes

We give a simplified method to generate two types of zero-norm states in the old covariant first quantized (OCFQ) spectrum of open bosonic string. Zero-norm states up to the fourth massive level and general formulas of some zero-norm tensor states at an arbitrary mass level are calculated. On-shell Ward identities generated by zero-norm states and the factorization property of stringy vertex operators can then be used to argue that the string-tree scattering amplitudes of the degenerate lower spin propagating states are fixed by those of higher spin propagating states at each fixed mass level. This decoupling phenomenon is, in contrast to Gross's high-energy symmetries, valid to all energy. As examples, we explicitly demonstrate this stringy phenomenon up to the fourth massive level (spin-five), which justifies the calculation of two other previous approaches based on the massive worldsheet sigma-model and Witten's string field theory (WSFT).Comment: v6:revised sec. I; many typos in sec. III: refs adde

Partonic substructure of nucleons and nuclei with dimuon production

Dimuon production has been studied in a series of fixed-target experiments at Fermilab during the last two decades. Highlights from these experiments, together with recent results from the Fermilab E866 experiment, are presented. Future prospects for studying the parton distributions in the nucleons and nuclei using dimuon production are also discussed.Comment: 6 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of "Achievements and New Directions in subatomic Physics: Workshop in Honour of Tony Thomas' 60th Birthday," Adelaide, South Australia, February 15-19, 2010