Concealed Carry of Firearms: Facts vs. Fiction

arrying a concealed handgun in public has the potential to enable would-be victims of violent crime to thwart attempted acts of violence, but also poses potential threats to public safety. Because of these potential threats, states have historically regulated the carrying of concealed firearms. These regulations have included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon and basing the issuance of these permits on whether applicants met training, safety, and even personal character requirements. Additionally, states have limited the places in which the permit holder could carry a concealed firearm

Assessing the Effect of Firearms Regulations Using Partial Identification Methods: A Case Study of the Impact of Stand Your Ground Laws on Violent Crime

To understand renal functions and disease, it is important to define the molecular constituents of the various compartments of the kidney. Here, we used comparative transcriptomic analysis of all major organs and tissues in the human body, in combination with kidney tissue micro array based immunohistochemistry, to generate a comprehensive description of the kidney-specific transcriptome and proteome. A special emphasis was placed on the identification of genes and proteins that were elevated in specific kidney subcompartments. Our analysis identified close to 400 genes that had elevated expression in the kidney, as compared to the other analysed tissues, and these were further subdivided, depending on expression levels, into tissue enriched, group enriched or tissue enhanced. Immunohistochemistry allowed us to identify proteins with distinct localisation to the glomeruli (n=11), proximal tubules (n=120), distal tubules (n=9) or collecting ducts (n=8). Among the identified kidney elevated transcripts, we found several proteins not previously characterised or identified as elevated in kidney. This description of the kidney specific transcriptome and proteome provides a resource for basic and clinical research to facilitate studies to understand kidney biology and disease

James Crow Jr., Esquire and Voter Suppression

This thesis lays out Voter ID laws and the effects they have on minorities. A new era of Jim Crow legislation in the 21st century as referred to by the well-respected, civil activist, Al Sharpton, as James Crow Jr., Esquire, creating laws that negatively impact voting. “Fait accompli,” a term used to describe the plight and pressure put upon the minority who are already at a disadvantage because the laws are established to discriminate against them. How can a silenced group change legislation when they cannot access the ballot? I will explore Supreme Court cases such as Yick Wo v. Hopkins and Dred Scott v. Sanford that present a pattern and establish a precedent to allow Voter ID laws. The Shelby v. Holder decision gave the states the power to require voter ID cards, allowing discrimination to continue legally. The preclearance law within the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prevented states with a history of discrimination from controlling the voting process. However, since the Voter ID laws were passed, that section no longer exists. I will interview a citizen who has lived through and witnessed the struggle to vote, but who persisted in exercising their right. The fight continues today as the mindsets of the elected officials and majority party affiliations continue to promote segregation and separation between the powerful and the powerless through ways such as voter ID laws. The position I will take in my thesis is that the Voter ID laws continue to be a form of discrimination preventing the oppressed population from influencing laws that will benefit and empower themselves

In vitro evaluatinon of oral hygiene commercial products for antimicrobial susceptibility and in combination with the extracts from four spices

The evolution of microbes, including the development of resistant strains and adaptation, depend on diverse members of the microbial population that can thrive in new condition. Therefore, microbes present remarkable abilities to evolve faster than their hosts do. Dental caries considered as one of the most commonly infectious diseases affecting mankind today, the dissolution of tooth structure by acid produced as a result of the fermentation of dietary carbohydrates by oral bacteria. The antimicrobial susceptibility of medicinal plants including black pepper, black cumin, cinnamon, cardamom on toothpaste and mouthwash against oral isolates for healthcare improvement was studied. Different oral isolates from 50 selected individuals aged 3 to 60 years were obtained from both gender, and a total of 59 bacterial and yeast isolates were collected, purified, and tested against four different commercial medicinal plants extracts for antimicrobial susceptibility profile. A total of 20 different commercial toothpastes and 10 mouthwashes were purchased, and the combined action of the medicinal plants with toothpaste/ mouthwash were studied against oral isolates. We found a higher bacterial population was in the age group of 3–40 years than other two groups, with approximately 44%. Antibiotic susceptibility test against the isolates showed that chloramphenicol had the highest susceptibility effect with 83.2%. In addition, Hemolysin had the highest ability to produce virulence factors (72.88%). The combined action of acetone plant extracts (alone) against oral isolates showed a synergistic effect profile up to 61.02% when combination A (Ci/N) was added. Also, we found the combined action of plant extracts with toothpaste improved the antimicrobial susceptibility up to 90% in case of combination B. While, the combined action of medicinal plants with mouthwash was improved 100% with combination C. The antimicrobial susceptibility of combination toothpaste + mouthwash with plant extracts combination B (TMB) (3 in 1) was higher than combination group at concentration of 10-2 with 95% confidence interval, the effectiveness of toothpaste and mouthwash are not related to the price and age group. The major constituent compounds of plant extracts were identified using GC-MS and demonstrated by TLC analysis which was stearic and palmitic acids exhibited high antimicrobial susceptibility against oral isolates under study. We conclude that the acetonic extract of the combination B (P/N/Ca) with toothpaste showed high susceptibility against oral isolates. Moreover, the combination C (P/N/Ca/Ci) with mouthwash showed high susceptibility, therefore, TMB was the best antimicrobial agent candidate against oral isolates

INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS ON POVERTY REDUCTION PROGRAM IN THE SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT OF INDEPENDENT URBAN (PNPM-MP) IN SEMARANG, INDONESIA

Institutional PNPM-MP in Semarang put poverty alleviation as the main priority of the empowerment-based development policy. The strategy developed is to synergize government agencies with community institutions built by PNPM-MP program at the village and base level, that is, Community Institutional Agency (BKM) and the Community Self-Reliance Group (KSM). The problem studied in this research is: How does PNPM-MP institutional in society involve in poverty reduction, with the aim of describing and analyzing institutional programs in the community. The research approach used phenomenological qualitative, by conducting interviews, observation, focus group discussion to obtain data from informants (BKM / KSM). Informants include two BKM and ten KSM which is purposively selected (deliberately) from two villages in two districts. The analysis was performed interactively, that is, analysis techniques which are integral cycle among data collection, data reduction, data performance and conclusion withdrawal. Research conclusion: PNPM-MP institutional at the village and base level (BKM / KSM) has not been able to be a driving force in poverty reduction and is still seen by the community as a program requirement, not institutionalized on both horizontal and vertical level. Recommendation for the research result is that it needed awareness that poverty reduction requires a synergy between government agencies and community agencies embodied in the development planning of one village one planning

Too little, too late -- a dynamical systems model for gun-related violence and intervention

In the United States the laws regulating the carrying of firearms in public vary state-to-state. In a highly publicized event, the Governor of New Mexico recently issued an emergency order temporarily banning the carrying of firearms in some areas -- and thus rescinding the right-to-carry law in New Mexico -- after a spate of gun violence, citing a statistical threshold of general societal violence under which right-to-carry laws should be superseded. In this paper we frame this policy intervention as a dynamical systems model that measures the incidence of gun violence as a function of gun prevalence. We show that the Governor's emergency order -- fittingly issued as an emergency health order -- is effectively like trying to stop an epidemic after it has become viral in that with this kind of instantaneous stopping condition, under simple assumptions, such a regulation is too little, too late. On the other hand, a graduated response that scales with increasing violence can drive equilibrium gun prevalence to zero. This is a new mathematical model relating gun violence with gun prevalence which we hope continues to spur attention from the modeling community to bring its tools and techniques to bear on this important and challenging social problem. More importantly, our model, despite its simplicity, exhibits complex dynamics and has substantial research and educational value in promoting the application of mathematics in the social sciences, extending beyond gun control issues

Empirical Analysis and the Fate of Capital Punishment

In his dissenting opinion in Glossip v. Gross, Justice Breyer attempted to give content to the Supreme Court’s prior command in Atkins v. Virginia that unless the imposition of the death penalty “measurably contributes to one or both of [the legitimate penological goals of deterrence and retribution], it ‘is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering,’ and hence an unconstitutional punishment.” Justice Breyer’s opinion illuminates the central role that empirical studies have played in death penalty litigation since Furman v. Georgia on issues ranging from the lack of deterrence associated with the death penalty; to racial and ethnic bias in its administration; to the extensive delays, cost, errors, and arbitrary implementation; and to the failure to limit capital punishment to the worst of the worst offenders. Two months after Glossip, the battle over the empirical evaluation of capital punishment played out in the contentious 4-3 decision in State v. Santiago, in which the Connecticut Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional in the wake of the state legislature’s prior prospective abolition. The bitter judicial contention in both Glossip and Santiago over the evaluation of evidence of racial and ethnic bias and an array of other empirical issues highlights both the critical importance of empirical analysis to the fate of the death penalty and the difficulty that many judges have in properly evaluating statistical evidence. The statistically unsupportable attempts by the State’s expert to undermine the overwhelming evidence of racial disparity in capital charging in Connecticut underscores that highly flawed statistical evidence will often be pressed upon (or seized upon by) judges who may be ideologically inclined to accept work that true experts would readily reject. If the Supreme Court is able to effectively appraise the best empirical work in applying the Atkins standard, it is difficult to see how the death penalty could be sustained as a constitutional punishment. Unless the imposition of the death penalty “measurably contributes to one or both of these goals [deterrence and retribution], it ‘is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering,’ and hence an unconstitutional punishment.” – Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 318–19 (2002) (emphasis added)