Wilberforce’s Work is Not Done: Ending Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery

Since slavery has been made illegal in nearly all countries in the world, and as modern advances allow more ttention to be focused on other social improvements to make the lives of people better, there is a dark and hidden underbelly around the world that most people do not want to hear about. The fact is, that while the battle over the legal status of slavery has been won, as have many of the cultural battles regarding the wrongfulness of enslaving another human being, more slaves exist in the world at this moment than were trafficked in over 350 years of trans-Atlantic slavery combined—by almost a 2-to-1 margin. The author seeks to refocus the 21st century reader on what Wilberforce called the ―wickedness‖ that is the slave trade by examining the historical challenges and successes in abolition and then discussing the modern manifestation of slavery and the forms in which it emerges. The author then discusses modern legal attempts to attack the underground markets on both the supply and demand side, both of which extend throughout the globe, complicating this issue immensely. The author tells several true stories of trafficking victims‘ experiences to give a human face to the injustices that are perpetrated and to give the reader a sense of the diversity of victim types, methods of enslavement, and motivations of slaveholders. The author concludes that given the modern complexities and the already illegal nature of slavery and trafficking in persons a multi-faceted response is needed at the international, national, NGO, and personal levels to detect slavery, rescue the weak from injustice and oppression, prosecute offenders, and rehabilitate and provide stability for victims

Enhanced Accessibility for People with Disabilities Living in Urban Areas

[Excerpt] People with disabilities constitute a significant proportion of the poor in developing countries. If internationally agreed targets on reducing poverty are to be reached, it is critical that specific measures be taken to reduce the societal discrimination and isolation that people with disabilities continue to face. Transport is an important enabler of strategies to fight poverty through enhancing access to education, employment, and social services. This project aims to further the understanding of the mobility and access issues experienced by people with disabilities in developing countries, and to identify specific steps that can be taken to start addressing problems. A major objective of the project is to compile a compendium of guidelines that can be used by government authorities, advocacy groups, and donor/loan agencies to improve the access of people with disabilities to transport and other services in urban areas

Fuzzy cellular model for on-line traffic simulation

This paper introduces a fuzzy cellular model of road traffic that was intended for on-line applications in traffic control. The presented model uses fuzzy sets theory to deal with uncertainty of both input data and simulation results. Vehicles are modelled individually, thus various classes of them can be taken into consideration. In the proposed approach, all parameters of vehicles are described by means of fuzzy numbers. The model was implemented in a simulation of vehicles queue discharge process. Changes of the queue length were analysed in this experiment and compared to the results of NaSch cellular automata model.Comment: The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Onco-miR-155 targets SHIP1 to promote TNFalpha-dependent growth of B cell lymphomas.

Non-coding microRNAs (miRs) are a vital component of post-transcriptional modulation of protein expression and, like coding mRNAs harbour oncogenic properties. However, the mechanisms governing miR expression and the identity of the affected transcripts remain poorly understood. Here we identify the inositol phosphatase SHIP1 as a bonafide target of the oncogenic miR-155. We demonstrate that in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) elevated levels of miR-155, and consequent diminished SHIP1 expression are the result of autocrine stimulation by the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor a (TNFalpha). Anti-TNFalpha regimen such as eternacept or infliximab were sufficient to reduce miR-155 levels and restored SHIP1 expression in DLBCL cells with an accompanying reduction in cell proliferation. Furthermore, we observed a substantial decrease in tumour burden in DLBCL xenografts in response to eternacept. These findings strongly support the concept that cytokine-regulated miRs can function as a crucial link between inflammation and cancer, and illustrate the feasibility of anti-TNFalpha therapy as a novel and immediately accessible (co)treatment for DLBCL

A Simplified Cellular Automaton Model for City Traffic

We systematically investigate the effect of blockage sites in a cellular automaton model for traffic flow. Different scheduling schemes for the blockage sites are considered. None of them returns a linear relationship between the fraction of ``green'' time and the throughput. We use this information for a fast implementation of traffic in Dallas.Comment: 12 pages, 18 figures. submitted to Phys Rev

Uncharted Territory: How the United States Patent and Trademark Office Should Rule on the Federal Dilution Statute

Published in The Federal Circuit Bar Journal 11.4 (2001): 953-1005

Perspectives of family medicine physicians on the importance of adolescent preventive care: a multivariate analysis

BACKGROUND: The study objective was to identify commonalities amongst family medicine physicians who endorse annual adolescent visits. METHODS: A nationally weighted representative on-line survey was used to explore pediatrician (N = 204) and family medicine physicians (N = 221) beliefs and behaviors surrounding adolescent wellness. Our primary outcome was endorsement that adolescents should receive annual preventive care visits. RESULTS: Pediatricians were significantly more likely (p < .01) to endorse annual well visits. Among family medicine physicians, bivariate comparisons were conducted between those who endorsed an annual visit (N = 164) compared to those who did not (N = 57) with significant predictors combined into two multivariate logistic regression models. Model 1 controlled for: patient race, proportion of 13-17 year olds in provider's practice, discussion beliefs scale and discussion behaviors with parents scale. Model 2 controlled for the same first three variables as well as discussion behaviors with adolescents scale. Model 1 showed for each discussion beliefs scale topic selected, family medicine physicians had 1.14 increased odds of endorsing annual visits (p < .001) and had 1.11 greater odds of endorsing annual visits with each one-point increase in discussion behaviors with parents scale (p = .51). Model 2 showed for each discussion beliefs scale topic selected, family medicine physicians had 1.15 increased odds of also endorsing the importance of annual visits (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Family medicine physicians that endorse annual visits are significantly more likely to affirm they hold strong beliefs about topics that should be discussed during the annual exam. They also act on these beliefs by talking to parents of teens about these topics. This group appears to focus on quality of care in thought and deed

Human behavior as origin of traffic phases

It is shown that the desire for smooth and comfortable driving is directly responsible for the occurrence of complex spatio-temporal structures (``synchronized traffic'') in highway traffic. This desire goes beyond the avoidance of accidents which so far has been the main focus of microscopic modeling and which is mainly responsible for the other two phases observed empirically, free flow and wide moving jams. These features have been incorporated into a microscopic model based on stochastic cellular automata and the results of computer simulations are compared with empirical data. The simple structure of the model allows for very fast implementations of realistic networks. The level of agreement with the empirical findings opens new perspectives for reliable traffic forecasts.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, colour figures with reduced resolutio