The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Child Maltreatment: An Introduction

Child Maltreatment, Third Edition, by Cindy Miller-Perrin and Robin Perrin, is a thoroughly updated new edition of the first textbook for undergraduate students and beginning graduate students in this field. The text is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to child maltreatment by disseminating current knowledge about the various types of violence against children. By helping students understand more fully the etiology, prevalence, treatment, policy issues, and prevention of child maltreatment, the authors hope to further our understanding of how to treat child maltreatment victims and how to prevent future child maltreatment.https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/facultybooks/1050/thumbnail.jp

Child Maltreatment: An Introduction

The text is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to child maltreatment by disseminating current knowledge about the various types of violence against children. By helping students understand more fully the etiology, prevalence, treatment, policy issues, and prevention of child maltreatment, the authors hope to further our understanding of how to treat child maltreatment victims and how to prevent future child maltreatment.https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/alumni_books/1072/thumbnail.jp

Family Violence Across the Lifespan: An Introduction

Streamlined and updated throughout with state-of-the-art information, this Third Edition of the authors′ bestselling book gives readers an accessible introduction to the methodology, etiology, prevalence, treatment, and prevention of family violence. Research from experts in the fields of psychology, sociology, criminology, and social welfare informs the book′s broad coverage of current viewpoints and debates within the field. Organized chronologically, chapters cover child physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; abused and abusive adolescents; courtship violence and date rape; spouse abuse, battered women, and batterers; and elder abuse.https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/facultybooks/1033/thumbnail.jp

Violence and Maltreatment in Intimate Relationships

Violence and Maltreatment in Intimate Relationships provides current and complete coverage of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse that occurs within intimate relationships. Authors Cindy L. Miller-Perrin and Robin D. Perrin, co-authors of SAGE’s best-selling Family Violence Across the Life, Third Edition, have created a streamlined organizational framework in Violence and Maltreatment in Intimate Relationships which presents information to students in an accessible manner. In this new book, Miller-Perrin and Perrin have teamed up with renowned researcher Claire M. Renzetti, who draws on her extensive work on violence against women. The book offers both a sociological and psychological focus, examining traditional areas of interpersonal violence as well as forms of intimate abuse outside the family, and concludes with a call for appropriate social, legal, policy, and personal responses to address the problem of abuse in intimate relationships.https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/facultybooks/1008/thumbnail.jp

No Longer Up for Debate: Physical Punishment Causes Negative Outcomes for Children

A large body of research consistently links parents’ use of physical punishment, including spanking, to harm to their children. This finding holds up across populations, settings, and cohorts. But because it is unethical to conduct randomized controlled trials to study the effects of physical punishment, some critics still debate whether there is a causal link between physical punishment and harm to children. In this brief, the authors, led by PRC faculty research associate Liz Gershoff, find that the research on physical punishment meets five standard criteria for drawing causal conclusions. The message to policymakers, psychologists, and parents is clear: it is time to implement multiple strategies to end this outdated parenting practice.Population Research Cente

The strength of the causal evidence against physical punishment of children and its implications for parents, psychologists, and policymakers

The question of whether physical punishment is helpful or harmful to the development of children has been subject to hundreds of research studies over the past several decades. Yet whether causal conclusions can be drawn from this largely nonexperimental research and whether the conclusions generalize across contexts are issues that remain unresolved. In this article, the authors summarize the extent to which the empirical research on physical punishment meets accepted criteria for causal inference. They then review research demonstrating that physical punishment is linked with the same harms to children as is physical abuse and summarize the extant research that finds links between physical punishment and detrimental outcomes for children are consistent across cultural, family, and neighborhood contexts. The strength and consistency of the links between physical punishment and detrimental child outcomes lead the authors to recommend that parents should avoid physical punishment, psychologists should advise and advocate against it, and policymakers should develop means of educating the public about the harms of and alternatives to physical punishment

The Strength of the Causal Evidence Against Physical Punishment of Children and Its Implications for Parents, Psychologists, and Policymakers

The question of whether physical punishment is helpful or harmful to the development of children has been subject to hundreds of research studies over the past several decades. Yet whether causal conclusions can be drawn from this largely nonexperimental research and whether the conclusions generalize across contexts are issues that remain unresolved. In this article, the authors summarize the extent to which the empirical research on physical punishment meets accepted criteria for causal inference. They then review research demonstrating that physical punishment is linked with the same harms to children as is physical abuse and summarize the extant research that finds links between physical punishment and detrimental outcomes for children are consistent across cultural, family, and neighborhood contexts. The strength and consistency of the links between physical punishment and detrimental child outcomes lead the authors to recommend that parents should avoid physical punishment, psychologists should advise and advocate against it, and policymakers should develop means of educating the public about the harms of and alternatives to physical punishment. (PsycINFO Database Recor