Familicide: Risk Factors, Characteristics of the Offender, Characteristics of the Crime of Familicide, and the Prevalence of Suicide Following Familicide

This study will be examining the risk factors to familicide, the characteristics of the offenders of familicide, the characteristics of the crime, and the prevalence of suicide following familicide. Of the literature reviewed it has been found that there are risk factors to familicide, there are known characteristics of the crime of familicide, and suicide is prevalent following familicide (Wilson et at., 1995; Brewer & Paulsen, 1999; Harper &Voigt, 2007). Findings are expected to suggest that there will be a higher proportion of cases in which the offender felt as though they were under immense stress due to the stresses and expectations of society, there will be a higher proportion of male offenders that commit suicide following familicide, that a larger proportion of familicide cases occurred in homes in which stepchildren did reside, and that indicate pre-existing drug and alcohol use is prevalent in the offenders of familicide

Shopping Behaviors of College Students

This research examines the shopping behaviors of college student, encompassing their use of credit cards, where they shop, and how their income affects shopping. Respondents completed a self administered 36 question survey, in which they chose the most appropriate answer. Results show statistical evidence that income and age affect college students’ shopping behaviors, use of credit cards, and amount of credit card debt. It was found that most respondents use credit cards but report little to no debt; however it was shown that the older the respondent the more debt they perceived they have. It was also found that students with lower monthly incomes shop for sale items and/or shop in discount stores to save money. These results suggest that income does have an effect on the shopping behaviors of college students

Anomalies in the System: Is a New Educational Paradigm Upon Us?

In this article, we describe the palpable changes of a paradigm shift in higher education. Although this shift has been described and/or predicted elsewhere, we affirm the transition from over 30 years of collective teaching and administrative experience at a predominantly undergraduate institution (PUI) with historical roots as a state normal school. In many respects, the anomalies that Thomas Kuhn predicted in such a transition are all the more evident given our institution’s history. These anomalies include (but are not limited to) 1) the state of knowledge “ownership” (as mediated by the internet), 2) student-centered (vs. faculty-centered) educational practices, 3) the transition in student approaches to learning (primarily to technology), 4) organizational changes (including administrative ones) and 5) the change in public funding patterns for universities. We conclude that research-intensive and teaching-intensive universities are converging on a more process-oriented approach to education with less emphasis on prescriptive outputs while assuming a greater role in developing their own funding autonomy in response to the dwindling number of dollars taken in by public universities today. We recommend to readers a more rapid and explicit recognition of this paradigm shift, before we lose our existing educational missions to the consequences of this transition between paradigms

Immunhistochemische Visualisierung von Cathepsin D und Glycodelin A am Mammakarzinom

121 breast cancer tumours were stained immunohistochemically with Cath D mouse antibody and Gd A monoclonal mouse and polyklonal rabbit antibody. For Cath D tumours with positive lymph nodes showed significant higher expression as well as ductal carcinomas compared to lobal carcinomas. For Gd A the monoclonal antibody showed a positive correlation of staining with positive steroid receptors (Estrogen and Progesteron). There was no association with grading. The results fit into the concept of breakdown of extracellular matrix by Cath D and its role in tumour progression and metastasis as well as immunosuression an d the rolr in tumourogenesis of Gd

Bumble Bee Niche Overlap Along an Elevation Gradient: How Traits Can Inform Novel Competitive Pressures Under Climate Change

Climate change-induced range shifts can disrupt interactions among species by moving them in and out of ecological communities. These disruptions can include impacts on competition for shared resources. Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators shifting their range upwards in elevation in response to climate change. These shifts could lead to altered competition among species and threaten co-existence. These impacts are particularly worrying at the tops of mountains where bumble bees are &ldquo;trapped&rdquo; and can no longer move up to higher elevations to track climate change. To better understand this issue, we investigated changes in diet niche overlap among bumble bee species along a 2296m elevation gradient in the southern Rocky Mountains. Additionally, we investigated how morphological and phenological traits impact diet composition (flower species visited) among bumble bee species and explored how the continued upward movement of bumble bee species under climate change into the mountaintop may affect trait overlap of newly co-occurring species. We found that diet niche overlap among bumble bee species increased with elevation. We also found that differences in morphological and phenological traits (body size, tongue length, date of activity) were correlated with differences in diet composition among bumble bee species. Finally, we described how the movement of bumble bee species from lower elevations into the mountain top would lead to increased trait overlap and likely more species sharing similar flowers. These shifts could have implications for future competition for resident high-elevation species on mountaintops and exacerbate the effects of climate change on high-elevation bumble bees.</p

Peculiarities of temperature fields formation in vapor channels of thermosyphons with heat carriers boiling at low temperatures

We conducted experiments on specially developed setup consisting of evaporation, transport and condensation parts. Heat was supplied to the evaporation part by the heating element which was supplied with voltage and alternating current from a single-phase transformer. Temperatures in the characteristic sections of each part were recorded by thermocouples. Junctions of thermocouples were mounted on the axis of symmetry in the liquid layer, at the lower boundary, in the middle part, and at the upper boundary of the vapor channel. To minimize the influence of the random factors (ambient air movement, operation of ventilation system, room temperature, etc.), we placed thermosyphon in a glass box. We used N-pentane as a heat carrier, and the filling ratio of the thermosyphon is equal to 4%

Toward Vocabulary Control for Chief Complaint

The chief complaint (CC) is the data element that documents the patient’s reason for visiting the emergency department (ED). The need for a CC vocabulary has been acknowledged at national meetings and in multiple publications, but to our knowledge no groups have specifically focused on the requirements and development plans for a CC vocabulary. The national consensus meeting ‘‘Towards Vocabulary Control for Chief Complaint’’ was convened to identify the potential uses for ED CC and to develop the framework for CC vocabulary control. The 10-point consensus recommendations for action were 1) begin to develop a controlled vocabulary for CC, 2) obtain funding, 3) establish an infrastructure, 4) work with standards organizations, 5) address CC vocabulary characteristics for all user communities, 6) create a collection of CC for research, 7) identify the best candidate vocabulary for ED CCs, 8) conduct vocabulary validation studies, 9) establish beta test sites, and 10) plan publicity and marketing for the vocabulary

Acute exposure to sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides increases heat tolerance in honey bees

The European honey bee, Apis mellifera L., is the single most valuable managed pollinator in the world. Poor colony health or unusually high colony losses of managed honey bees result from a myriad of stressors, which are more harmful in combination. Climate change is expected to accentuate the effects of these stressors, but the physiological and behavioral responses of honey bees to elevated temperatures while under simultaneous influence of one or more stressors remain largely unknown. Here we test the hypothesis that exposure to acute, sublethal doses of neonicotinoid insecticides reduce thermal tolerance in honey bees. We administered to bees oral doses of imidacloprid and acetamiprid at 1/5, 1/20, and 1/100 of LD50 and measured their heat tolerance 4 h post-feeding, using both dynamic and static protocols. Contrary to our expectations, acute exposure to sublethal doses of both insecticides resulted in higher thermal tolerance and greater survival rates of bees. Bees that ingested the higher doses of insecticides displayed a critical thermal maximum from 2 ˚C to 5 ˚C greater than that of the control group, and 67%–87% reduction in mortality. Our study suggests a resilience of honey bees to high temperatures when other stressors are present, which is consistent with studies in other insects. We discuss the implications of these results and hypothesize that this compensatory effect is likely due to induction of heat shock proteins by the insecticides, which provides temporary protection from elevated temperatures

Pan traps and bee body size in unmanaged urban habitats

Pan traps are among the most popular methods employed to survey bees and changes in some functional traits, such as body size, are increasingly used to understand how bee communities and species respond to landscape changes. Herein we assess body size differences between bees captured at ground-level and elevated (70 cm) pan traps in unmanaged urban habitats in northwestern Turkey. We compare body size at the community level as well as for the sweat bee Lasioglossum malachurum (Kirby) (Halictidae: Halictini), the most abundant species. We also compare the diversity, richness and abundance of bees sampled at both heights. A total of 31 species (13 genera of three families) were captured. We did not find significant differences in the abundance nor in the species richness between heights, and Simpson's indices were similar. At the community level, average intertegular distance was significantly greater in bees collected at the elevated traps than on the ground. Intertegular distances in L. malachurum did not differ between elevated and ground-level pan traps. Our results show an effect of pan trap height on bee body size in the urban habitat surveyed, thus suggesting that assessing bee body size from samples collected with either ground-level or elevated pan traps alone might result in biased estimates of this functional trait.National Science Foundation's REU program - DBI 126332

Time series modeling for syndromic surveillance

BACKGROUND: Emergency department (ED) based syndromic surveillance systems identify abnormally high visit rates that may be an early signal of a bioterrorist attack. For example, an anthrax outbreak might first be detectable as an unusual increase in the number of patients reporting to the ED with respiratory symptoms. Reliably identifying these abnormal visit patterns requires a good understanding of the normal patterns of healthcare usage. Unfortunately, systematic methods for determining the expected number of (ED) visits on a particular day have not yet been well established. We present here a generalized methodology for developing models of expected ED visit rates. METHODS: Using time-series methods, we developed robust models of ED utilization for the purpose of defining expected visit rates. The models were based on nearly a decade of historical data at a major metropolitan academic, tertiary care pediatric emergency department. The historical data were fit using trimmed-mean seasonal models, and additional models were fit with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) residuals to account for recent trends in the data. The detection capabilities of the model were tested with simulated outbreaks. RESULTS: Models were built both for overall visits and for respiratory-related visits, classified according to the chief complaint recorded at the beginning of each visit. The mean absolute percentage error of the ARIMA models was 9.37% for overall visits and 27.54% for respiratory visits. A simple detection system based on the ARIMA model of overall visits was able to detect 7-day-long simulated outbreaks of 30 visits per day with 100% sensitivity and 97% specificity. Sensitivity decreased with outbreak size, dropping to 94% for outbreaks of 20 visits per day, and 57% for 10 visits per day, all while maintaining a 97% benchmark specificity. CONCLUSIONS: Time series methods applied to historical ED utilization data are an important tool for syndromic surveillance. Accurate forecasting of emergency department total utilization as well as the rates of particular syndromes is possible. The multiple models in the system account for both long-term and recent trends, and an integrated alarms strategy combining these two perspectives may provide a more complete picture to public health authorities. The systematic methodology described here can be generalized to other healthcare settings to develop automated surveillance systems capable of detecting anomalies in disease patterns and healthcare utilization