Situational prevention and public transport crime in El Salvador

By any standard, there is a serious problem of crime on the public transport system in El Salvador. Guided by crime opportunity theory, this study undertook a rapid assessment of the problem consisting of a systematic observation of public transport in El Salvador and focus group discussions with passengers, bus operators, police and bus company owners/managers. The purposes were (1) to describe the main forms of crime and disorder afflicting the system, (2) to identify features of the system that contribute to the high levels of crime and disorder, and (3) to identify preventive measures, consistent with international experience. A program of situational crime prevention measures was identified which consisted of two main kinds: (1) measures relating to the operations of the bus system as a whole, intended to help to create a more orderly and secure transport environment and, (2) more specific measures designed to reduce opportunities for crimes occurring on buses or at bus stops, such as homicides, robberies, and sexual assaults on women. Future research and implementation of the preventive measures are discussed

Twenty years on, the Methadone Treatment Protocol in Ireland: Reflections on General Practice

Background: Opioid dependence, characterised by socio economic disadvantage and significant morbidity and mortality, remains a major public health problem in Ireland. Through the methadone treatment protocol (MTP), Irish general practice has been a leader in the introduction and expansion of Irish harm reduction services, including opioid substitution treatment (OST), needle and syringe programs (NSP) and naloxone provision. These services have been effective in engaging opiate users in treatment, reducing human deficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission and reducing drug related morbidities. Challenges remain in relation to choice of substitution treatments, timely access to OST services, adequate coverage of NSP, naloxone provision and increasing drug related deaths.Methods: A narrative review was conducted and designed to present a broad perspective on the Irish MTP, and to describe its history and development in terms of clinical care, stakeholder views and changing trends.Results: Three themes emerged from the analysis; The History of the Methadone Treatment Protocol, Service User and Provider Views, and Challenges and Developments. Despite initial concern about methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in Ireland, increased participation by Irish GPs in the treatment of opioid dependence is observed over the last two decades. There are now over 10,000 people on methadone treatment in Ireland, with 40% treated in general practice. The MTP provides structure, remuneration and guidance to GPs and is underpinned by; training, ongoing education and a system of quality assurance provided by the Irish College of General Practice (ICGP). Challenges include the negative views of patients around how methadone services are delivered, the stigma associated with methadone treatment, the lack of choice around substitution medication, waiting lists for treatment in certain areas and rates of fatal overdose.Conclusion: Twenty years of the MTP has been the mainstay of harm reduction services in Ireland. It has provided a network of specially trained GPs who provide methadone to over 10,000 patients across Ireland within a structured framework of training, quality assurance and remuneration. With the ongoing commitment of Irish specialists in the field of addiction medicine, further improvements to support and treat patients can be made

The global abundance of tree palms

Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change. Location: Tropical and subtropical moist forests. Time period: Current. Major taxa studied: Palms (Arecaceae). Methods: We assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co‐occurring non‐palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure. Results: On average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long‐term climate stability. Life‐form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non‐tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above‐ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work. Conclusions: Tree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests

Rapid assessment of “eve teasing” (sexual harassment) of young women during the commute to college In India

Many countries have taken action in recent times to address harassment in the work place and violence in the home, but little attention has been paid to sexual harassment in public places, specifically during women’s journey to work and school. In developing countries, many more women are seeking education and employment than previously, which has increased the opportunity for sexual harassment in public places. In India, the study location, this harassment is known as “eve teasing”. Eve teasing includes cat calling, lewd remarks, and inappropriate sexual contact such as rubbing and fondling. Tolerance of such incidents could lead to more severe forms of abuse and encourage more individuals to participate. Necessary as laws are, they cannot bring about immediate changes in widespread public behaviors, particularly those, such as eve teasing, that are deeply rooted in the culture of a country. To date there is no systematic research on sexual harassment in public places to assist public authorities and town planners with the development of security measures, especially for college-going women in cities and towns in India. Rapid assessment methodology has been used increasingly, especially in the field of public health, to assist decision-making about appropriate interventions for social problems by examining issues within social and cultural contexts in space and time. This paper provides a case study of rapid assessment of so-called “eve teasing” of female college students in Chennai, India. Three methods were employed in this rapid assessment of the problem— focus group discussions with college students, interviews with police officers from stations nearby the campuses and safety audits of the campus surroundings. This small exploratory study of eve teasing in India succeeded in promoting understanding of the problem and in providing many suggestions for reducing it. These latter included an extensive inventory of precautions for students, particularly female students to take in order to protect themselves from eve teasing, and a list of preventive suggestions for other stakeholders—the police, local municipalities, transport agencies and the colleges themselves. The study has wider implications for the study of routine precautions, for crime in public space and for the use of rapid assessment techniques in Crime Science

Mixture models for capture-recapture count data

The contribution investigates the problem of estimating the size of a population, also known as the missing cases problem. Suppose a registration system is targeting to identify all cases having a certain characteristic such as a specific disease (cancer, heart disease, ...), disease related condition (HIV, heroin use, ...) or a specific behavior (driving a car without license). Every case in such a registration system has a certain notification history in that it might have been identified several times (at least once) which can be understood as a particular capture-recapture situation. Typically, cases are left out which have never been listed at any occasion, and it is this frequency one wants to estimate. In this paper modelling is concentrating on the counting distribution, e.g. the distribution of the variable that counts how often a given case has been identified by the registration system. Besides very simple models like the binomial or Poisson distribution, finite (nonparametric) mixtures of these are considered providing rather flexible modelling tools. Estimation is done using maximum likelihood by means of the EM algorithm. A case study on heroin users in Bangkok in the year 2001 is completing the contribution

Dynamic Expression of Qa-2 during Acute Graft Rejection

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G exhibits immunotolerogenicity and is related to allograft acceptance. Qa-2 is the murine homolog of HLA-G; it has structure and functions similar to those of HLA-G. We investigated the dynamic expression of Qa-2 in skin allografts by immunohistochemistry and on peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets by flow cytometry during the entire process of acute graft rejection (AGR) with a murine skin transplantation model to determine its relationship with the pathological changes of allografts and the influence of immunosuppressive therapy. In grafts without immunosuppressive treatment, Qa-2 did not exhibit obvious changes in syngeneic and allogeneic recipients. In contrast, with immunosuppressant-treated grafts, positive expression of Qa-2 was observed. It remained at high levels in the immunosuppressant-treated syngeneic group; however, it became weakly positive and even negative in infiltrating inflammatory cells as AGR advanced, but it remained strongly positive in other skin tissues throughout the AGR process. Qa-2 expression on CD4+ and CD8+ peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets remained stable at a normal level in the non–immunosuppressant-treated syngeneic group. Immunosuppressive treatment can also significantly upregulate Qa-2. In the allogeneic groups, decreased expression was observed when AGR was at histological grades 1 to 2 (well before gross rejection was observed). Qa-2 was upregulated again after the graft was rejected completely. The results suggest that the increase in Qa-2 may be attributed to the use of immunosuppressive treatments. Moreover, Qa-2 expression decreased significantly with AGR progression, suggesting that it may be a potential marker for predicting AGR, especially in the presence of immunosuppressive agents