Culture, Tradition and Alternative Justice: An Evaluation of Restorative Justice Developments in New Zealand and Northern Ireland

This thesis is a piece of comparative research assessing the extent to which restorative justice may be said to resonate particularly with certain cultures. It focuses on two jurisdictions within which restorative justice features strongly, particularly in the youth justice context: New Zealand and Northern Ireland. The thesis will discuss the ways in which restorative justice has evolved over the years, from its earliest roots of community-based dispute resolution through to current practices of youth conferencing. It examines how effectively contemporary restorative justice practices have been integrated into the respective justice systems of these nations, and the factors which may have influenced this level of success. The cultural heritage of New Zealand and the unique social and political features within Northern Ireland are suggested as possible dynamics affecting the successful integration of restorative justice

Applying Cloze Procedure to Children\u27s Book Selections

This study was designed to determine at what level, as measured by the doze procedure, sixth grade children selected trade books when a wide selection of books was available

The Pretrial Process in Baltimore City: An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Predicting Flight Risk

This study examines and provides a preliminary update to Baltimore City's Bail- Risk Assessment Scales. It is based on a sample of 757 recent arrestees in Baltimore City, and specifically examines factors relating to current charge severity, prior record, substance use, and community stability and their impact on Failure to Appear (FTA) in court in conjunction with guidelines set forth by the National Association of Pretrial Services Agency (NAPSA) and the American Bar Association (ABA). Results suggest that Baltimore City's Bail- Risk Assessments can be condensed into one scale and be made more simple and effective. Additionally, the results suggest that Baltimore City uses and applies reasonable risk factors, but the measures are inappropriate. Finally, the results suggest that future risk assessments must be tailored to the population for which they are applied

Independent Cloze Activities for Increasing Sight Vocabulary

This article is concerned with modifying the cloze procedure into letter cloze independent activities to aid children in learning difficult sight words

Cloning, sequencing and functional analysis of the chicken tyrosine gene promoter

The differentiation of melanocytes from multipotential neural crest cells is an ideal system for studying the processes underlying lineage determination in development. Tyrosinase is a key enzyme in melanin biosynthesis and the activation of the tyrosinase gene is characteristic of differentiated melanocytes. In order to study the mechanisms underlying activation of melanocyte-specific genes during differentiation in chick embryos, a chicken genomic DNA library was screened for tyrosinase-encoding sequences using a mouse tyrosinase cDNA probe. Two identical hybridising clones were identified. Restriction mapping and sequencing revealed that both clones contained a 4.3 kb genomic DNA fragment, CTYR4.3, that included 2125 nt of the 5' flanking region, the first exon and part of the first intron of the chicken tyrosinase gene. The 5' flanking sequence of CTYR4.3, which is the most extensive to be reported for a lower vertebrate tyrosinase gene to date, was analysed further using computer-aided homology searches and primer extension. Alignment of the promoter sequences of CTYR4.3 with those of the human, mouse, quail and turtle tyrosinase genes revealed two evolutionary conserved regions. These regions may be functionally significant as they contain regulatory elements previously reported to play a role in melanocyte-specific expression of the tyrosinase gene in mammals. These include an initiator region and an associated SP1-binding site, the M-box and an upstream enhancer element, TDE. In addition, other potential transcription factor binding motifs were identified, including an AP-1-binding site, a UV-responsive element and glucocorticoid-responsive elements. Although several TATA box motifs were identified, they were situated more than 200 bp upstream of the transcription start sites mapped by primer extension analysis and therefore are unlikely to function as TFIID-binding sites. Transcription initiation appears to occur at heterogeneous start sites, and given the absence of a functional TATA box, may be mediated via the conserved initiator region and SP1-binding site. To test the ability of the 5' flanking sequence of CTYR4.3 to drive transcription and to begin to assess the functional significance of the various conserved elements, transient transfection assays were carried out. Constructs were generated in which 2.1 kb, 1.1 kb, 0.5 kb and 0.2 kb fragments of the 5' flanking sequence were linked to a luciferase reporter gene. These constructs were introduced into cultures of chicken retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPE), immortalised quail neural crest cells (MQTNC), and human liver cells (Hep G2) by calcium phosphate-mediated transfection. Transfections with all constructs resulted in luciferase activities significantly greater than those that were observed with the promoterless luciferase construct, thus confirming that the 5' flanking sequence of CTYR4.3 does possess promoter activity. However, the level of expression from the various constructs differed markedly in the different cell types. In the tyrosinase-negative Hep G2 cells, low levels of expression were observed with all constructs. In the tyrosinase-positive RPE cells, a high level of luciferase activity was obtained specifically with the smallest (0.2 kb) promoter construct. Since the 0.2 kb promoter fragment does not include the conserved initiator region, SP1-binding site, or M-box, the role of these elements in tissue-specific transcription initiation of the chicken tyrosinase gene is now questionable. These results suggest the existence of transcription regulatory mechanisms that are unique to avians and possibly other lower vertebrates. In contrast to the results obtained for RPE cells, the highest luciferase activity was obtained with the full length 2.1 kb promoter construct in the immortalised quail neural crest-derived cells. These results may have developmental significance since they suggest that the chicken tyrosinase gene promoter is regulated differently in RPE cells and neural crest-derived cells

P-R-E-V Teaching Predictions and Concepts Simultaneously

A question of concern among content area teachers is-Will making predictions prior to text reading increase a student\u27s comprehension of material read