Arbitrariness and Discrimination in the Administration of the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis of the Nebraska Experience (1973–1999)

PART A ... I. Introduction ... II. Review of the Literature ... III. Law and Practice in the Nebraska Death Penalty System ... A. Judicial Sentencing ... B. Death Eligibility, Fact Finding, and the Weighing of Aggravation and Mitigation ... C. Comparative Proportionality Review ... 1. Proportionality Review in Penalty Trials ... a. Pre-1978 ... b. Post-1978 ... 2. Proportionality Review in the Nebraska Supreme Court ... a. Pre-1978 ... b. Post-1978 ... D. Prosecutorial Charging Practices ... E. The Implications of Ring v. Arizona for Capital Sentencing in Nebraska ... F. Conclusion PART B ... IV. Methodology, Research Design, and Measures ... A . Introduction ... B. Measures of Defendant Culpability ... 1. The Number of Statutory Aggravating Circumstances Found or Present in the Cases ... 2. Number of Statutory Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances Found or Present in the Cases ... 3. The Salient Factors Measure ... 4. Logistic Regression-Based Measures ... C. A Measure of Geographic Disparity ... D. A Note on Unadjusted and Adjusted Disparities ... E. Convergent Validity and Triangulation of Empirical Findings ... F. Omitted Variables ... V. The Disposition of Homicide Cases: 1973–1999 ... A. Capital and Non-Capital Cases ... B. The Disposition of Capital Cases ... VI. Evidence of the Impact of Defendant Culpability on Prosecutorial and Judicial Decisionmaking ... A. The Impact of Individual Statutory Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances ... B. The Number of Statutory Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in the Cases ... 1. The Number of Aggravating Circumstances ... 2. The Number of Statutory Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances ... C. Salient Factors of the Cases ... D. Regression-Based Measures and Scales PART C ... VII. Evidence of Disparate Treatment in Charging and Sentencing Outcomes Based on the Race of the Defendant and Victim ... A. Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Legal Theories ... B. Evidence of Disparate Treatment Based on the Race of the Defendant ... 1. Unadjusted Statewide Minority-Defendant Disparities in Charging and Sentencing Outcomes ... 2. Statewide Minority-Defendant Disparities in Charging and Sentencing Decisions Controlling for Offender Culpability ... 3. Race-of-Defendant Disparities in the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion After Adjustment for the Place of Prosecution (in Major Urban Counties v. the Counties of Greater Nebraska) ... C. Evidence of Disparate Treatment Based on the Race of the Victim ... D. Evidence of Minority-Defendant/White-Victim Disparate Treatment ... VIII. Evidence of the Disparate Impact of State Law and Policy on Minority Defendants ... A. Evidence of a Statewide Disparate Impact on Minority Defendants in the Rates that Death-Eligible Cases Advance to Penalty Trial ... B. Evidence of an Adverse Impact on Minority Defendants in the Execution of Death-Sentenced Offenders PART D ... IX. Evidence of Disparate Treatment in Charging and Sentencing Outcomes Based on the Socioeconomic Status (SES) of the Defendant and Victim ... A. Defendant SES ... B. Victim SES ... 1. Statewide Disparities ... 2. Disparities in the Major Urban Counties and Greater Nebraska ... X. Evidence of Geographic Disparities in Charging and Sentencing Outcomes ... A. Unadjusted and Adjusted Geographic Disparities ... B. Geographic Disparities Over Time ... C. Alternative Explanations for Geographic Disparities in the Rates that Cases Advance to a Penalty Trial ... 1. Disparities in Financial Resources ... 2. The Experience of Prosecutors in Capital Litigation ... 3. Judicial Sentencing Practices as a Proxy for Judicial Attitudes ... 4. The Imminence of Prosecutorial Elections ... 5. Differences in the Frequency of Problems of Proof that Compel Plea Bargains PART E ... XI. Evidence of Consistency and Selectivity in Charging and Sentencing Outcomes ... A . Introduction ... 1. Consistency ... 2. Selectivity ... B. Evidence of Inconsistency and Comparative Excessiveness ... 1. The Nebraska Data ... a. Quantitative Analysis ... b. Qualitative Analysis ... c. A Note on Proportionality Review in the Nebraska Supreme Court ... 2. Testing the Proffitt Hypothesis with a Comparative Assessment ... a. Death-Sentenced Cases in Which 70% or More of the Defendant\u27s Near Neighbors Receive a Death Sentence ... b. Death-Sentenced Cases in Which Fewer than 50% of the Defendant\u27s Near Neighbors Receive a Death Sentence ... c. Death-Sentenced Cases in Which the Death-Sentencing Rate Among the Defendant\u27s Near Neighbors is Less than the Overall Average Rate ... C. Evidence of Selectivity in the Imposition of Death Sentences ... 1. Quantitative Analysis ... 2. Qualitative Analysis PART F ... XII. Summary of Principal Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations ... A. Principal Findings and Conclusions ... 1. Race-of-Defendant and Race-of-Victim Disparate Treatment ... 2. Adverse Disparate Impact on Minority Defendants ... 3. Minority-Defendant Adverse Impact among Death Row Prisoners Executed ... 4. Disparate Treatment Based on the Socioeconomic Status (SES) of the Defendant and Victim ... 5. A Trend of Declining Death-Sentencing Rates ... 6. Geographic Disparities in the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion ... 7. Consistency and Selectivity of Charging and Sentencing Outcomes ... 8. Legislative Ambiguity Concerning Prosecutorial Charging and Judicial Sentencing Discretion ... B. Policy Recommendations ... 1. Legislative Amendments to Satisfy the Requirements of Ring v. Arizona ... 2. Legislation to Clarify the Scope of Prosecutorial and Judicial Discretion Under Section 29-2521, Which Defines the Procedure for a First-Degree Murder Sentencing Hearing ... 3. Legislation to Limit the Power of the Court to Impose a Death Sentence to Cases in Which It Believes That the Facts of the Case Clearly Justify the Imposition of a Death Sentence and That as a Matter of Law the Statutory Aggravating Circumstances Substantially [or Clearly] Outweigh the Statutory Mitigating Circumstances ... 4. Legislation to Limit the Power of Prosecutors to Seek a Death Sentence to Cases in Which the Prosecutor Believes That the Facts of the Case Justify or Clearly Justify the Imposition of a Death Sentence ... 5. Legislation to Limit Death Sentencing to Cases in Which the Defendant Had a Substantial Level of Mental Culpability (Mens Rea) ... 6. Legislation to Limit Death Sentencing to Cases in Which the Defendant\u27s Level of Criminal Culpability is Comparable to That Historically Found in Cases with Two or More Statutory Aggravating Circumstances ... 7. Legislation (a) to Require the Development of Statewide Standards for the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion in Capital Cases, and (b) to Require Prosecutorial Consultation with a Prosecutorial Advisory Committee as a Condition for the Court\u27s Convening of a Penalty Trial ... 8. Legislative Adoption of a Fairness in Death Sentencing Act ... 9. Legislation to Require the Nebraska Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Commission to Maintain a Database of All Death-Eligible Cases for Use by Courts, the State, Defense Counsel, and Scholars in the Fiel

Cancer-Associated noncoding mutations affect RNA G-quadruplex-mediated regulation of gene expression

© 2017 The Author(s). Cancer is a multifactorial disease driven by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Many cancer driver mutations have been characterised in protein-coding regions of the genome. However, mutations in noncoding regions associated with cancer have been less investigated. G-quadruplex (G4) nucleic acids are four-stranded secondary structures formed in guanine-rich sequences and prevalent in the regulatory regions. In this study, we used published whole cancer genome sequence data to find mutations in cancer patients that overlap potential RNA G4-forming sequences in 5ⲠUTRs. Using RNAfold, we assessed the effect of these mutations on the thermodynamic stability of predicted RNA G4s in the context of full-length 5ⲠUTRs. Of the 217 identified mutations, we found that 33 are predicted to destabilise and 21 predicted to stabilise potential RNA G4s. We experimentally validated the effect of destabilising mutations in the 5ⲠUTRs of BCL2 and CXCL14 and one stabilising mutation in the 5ⲠUTR of TAOK2. These mutations resulted in an increase or a decrease in translation of these mRNAs, respectively. These findings suggest that mutations that modulate the G4 stability in the noncoding regions could act as cancer driver mutations, which present an opportunity for early cancer diagnosis using individual sequencing information.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Many Labs 5:Testing pre-data collection peer review as an intervention to increase replicability

Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data-collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) for which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection; only one of these studies had yielded a statistically significant effect (p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate the original effects. We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replication studies. We administered the RP:P and revised protocols in multiple laboratories (median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5, range = 3?9; median total sample = 1,279.5, range = 276?3,512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, following the preregistered analysis plan, we found that the revised protocols produced effect sizes similar to those of the RP:P protocols (?r = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for the revised protocols (r = .05) was similar to that of the RP:P protocols (r = .04) and the original RP:P replications (r = .11), and smaller than that of the original studies (r = .37). Analysis of the cumulative evidence across the original studies and the corresponding three replication attempts provided very precise estimates of the 10 tested effects and indicated that their effect sizes (median r = .07, range = .00?.15) were 78% smaller, on average, than the original effect sizes (median r = .37, range = .19?.50)

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake

A General Framework for the Analysis of Animal Resource Selection from Telemetry Data

We propose a general framework for the analysis of animal telemetry data through the use of weighted distributions. It is shown that several interpretations of resource selection functions arise when constructed from the ratio of a use and availability distribution. Through the proposed general framework, several popular resource selection models are shown to be special cases of the general model by making assumptions about animal movement and behavior. The weighted distribution framework is shown to be easily extended to readily account for telemetry data that are highly auto-correlated; as is typical with use of new technology such as global positioning systems animal relocations. An analysis of simulated data using several models constructed within the proposed framework is also presented to illustrate the possible gains from the flexible modeling framework. The proposed model is applied to a brown bear data set from southeast Alaska

Correction: A Unimodal Model for Double Observer Distance Sampling Surveys

<p>Correction: A Unimodal Model for Double Observer Distance Sampling Surveys</p

The effect of transect type on average covariate detection of black bears in the Skwetna study area of South-Central Alaska.

<p>The effect of transect type on average covariate detection of black bears in the Skwetna study area of South-Central Alaska.</p