Mature Minor Doctrine

This brief will explore the legal topic of the mature minor doctrine, and developmental differences in decision making between adolescents and adults. In the state of Connecticut minor children under the age of 18 are unable to make their own medical decisions, such as consenting to lifesaving treatment or preventative care. In the case of the Supreme court of Connecticut versus 17-year-old Cassandra C., Cassandra was found medically incompetent to decide on her cancer treatment plan. To better inform the court, this brief will cover several research articles discussing the maturity and competence of adolescents in the medical decision-making process. The current literature suggests that adolescents have less developed decision-making processes compared to adults. Many states require parental consent for the medical treatment of mature minors, including Connecticut. While the mature minor doctrine is a legal agreement accepted by other U.S. states, stating matured unemancipated minors may make their own medical decisions without the consent of their parents. The current literature does support that there is a decision-making difference between adults and adolescents, yet through medical competency testing, a mature minor can come to a reasonable decision on his or her own treatment plan. In the case of Connecticut versus Cassandra C., a medical competency test could be used to determine her ability to decide upon her own treatment

A survey of real-time operating systems and virtualization solutions for space systems

The Department of Defense and the intelligence community rely on space systems for a broad spectrum of services. These systems operate in highly constrained environments (in terms of space, weight and power), making virtualization and resource sharing a desirable approach. Agencies are actively exploring new architectures, such as those employing virtualization, to support their growing space mission. In this thesis, we review how virtualization architectures claim to support the real-time requirements of their guests. We survey real-time systems and virtualization architectures proposed for use in space systems. Further, we investigate the behaviors of virtualized operating systems using a method of remote network-based fingerprinting with TCP timestamps. Our work provides insights into how guests, both general purpose and real-time, behave in virtualized environments. Our survey work and experimental analysis aim to further understanding of how virtualization can be securely incorporated into space systems.http://archive.org/details/asurveyofrealtim1094545256Civilian, Department of DefenseApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited